Simon Sinek । 50 Minutes for the NEXT 50 Years of Your LIFE

The first is to go after the things that you want. Let me tell you a story. So a friend of mine and I, we went for a run in Central Park. The Road Runners organization, on the weekends, they host races. And it's very common at the end of the race, they'll have a sponsor who will give away something. Apples or bagels or something. And on this particular day, when we got to the end of the run, there were some free bagels. And they had picnic tables set up. And on one side was a group of volunteers. On the table were boxes of bagels. And on the other side was a long line of runners waiting to get their free bagel. So I said to my friend, let's get a bagel. And he looked at me and said, ah, the line's too long. And I said, free bagel. And he said, I don't want to wait in line. And I was like, free bagel. And he says, nah, it's too long. And that's when I realized that there's two ways to see the world. Some people see the thing that they want. And some people see the thing that prevents them from getting the thing that they want. I could only see the bagels. He could only see the line. And so I walked up to the line. I leaned in between two people. Put my hand in the box and pulled out two bagels. And no one got mad at me. Because the rule is, you can go after whatever you want. You just cannot deny anyone else to go after whatever they want. Now, I had to sacrifice choice. I didn't get to choose which bagel I got. I got whatever I pulled out. But I didn't have to wait in line. So the point is, you don't have to wait in line. You don't have to do it the way everybody else has done it. You can do it your way. You can break the rules. You just can't get in the way of somebody else getting what they want. That's rule number one. Rule number two. I like this one. In the 18th century, there was something that spread across Europe and eventually made its way to America called Puerple Fever. Also known as the Black Death of Childbed. Basically what was happening is women were giving birth. And they would die within 48 hours after giving birth. This Black Death of Childbirth was the ravage of Europe. And it got worse and worse and worse over the course of over a century. In some hospitals, it was as high as 70% of women who gave birth who would die as a result of giving birth. But this was the Renaissance. This was the time of empirical data and science. And we had thrown away things like tradition and mysticism. These were men of science. These were doctors. And these doctors and men of science wanted to study and try and find the reason for this Black Death of Childbed. And so they got to work studying. And they would study the corpses of the women who had died. And in the morning, they would conduct autopsies. And then in the afternoon, they would go and deliver babies and finish their rounds. And it wasn't until somewhere in the mid-1800s that Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, father of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, realized that all of these doctors who were conducting autopsies in the morning weren't washing their hands before they delivered babies in the afternoon. And he pointed it out and said, And they ignored him and called him crazy for 30 years. Until finally, somebody realized that if they simply washed their hands, it would go away. And that's exactly what happened. When they started sterilizing their instruments and washing their hands, the Black Death of Childbed disappeared. The lesson here is, sometimes you're the problem. And my point is, take accountability for your actions. You can take all the credit in the world for the things that you do right, as long as you also take responsibility for the things you do wrong. It must be a balanced equation. You don't get it one way and not the other. You get to take credit when you also take accountability. That's lesson two. Lesson three, take care of each other. The United States Navy SEALs are perhaps the most elite warriors in the world. And one of the SEALs was asked, Who makes it through the selection process? Who is able to become a SEAL? And his answer was, I can't tell you the kind of person that becomes a SEAL. I can't tell you the kind of person that makes it through buds. But I can tell you the kind of people who don't become SEALs. He says the guys that show up with huge bulging muscles, covered in tattoos, who want to prove to the world how tough they are, none of them make it through. He said the preening leaders who like to delegate all their responsibility and never do anything themselves, none of them make it through. He said the star college athletes who've never really been tested to the core of their being. None of them make it through. He says some of the guys that make it through are skinny and scrawny. He said some of the guys that make it through, you will see them shivering out of fear. He says, however, all the guys that make it through, when they find themselves physically spent, emotionally spent, when they have nothing left to give physically or emotionally, somehow, someway, they are able to find the energy to dig down deep inside themselves, to find the energy to help the guy next to them. They become SEALs, he said. You want to be an elite warrior, it's not about how tough you are, it's not about how smart you are, it's not about how fast you are. If you want to be an elite warrior, you better get really, really good at helping the person to the left of you and helping the person to the right of you. Because that's how people advance in the world. The world is too dangerous and the world is too difficult for you to think that you can do these things alone. If you find your spark, I commend you. Now, who are you going to ask for help and when are you going to accept help when it's offered? Learn that skill. Learn by practicing helping each other. It will be the single most valuable thing you ever learn in your entire life. To accept help when it's offered and to ask for it when you know that you can't do it. The amazing thing is when you learn to ask for help, you'll discover that there are people all around you who've always wanted to help you, they just didn't think you needed it because you kept pretending that you had everything under control. And the minute you say, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm stuck, I'm scared, I don't think I can do this. You will find that lots of people who love you will rush in and take care of you. But that will only happen if you learn to take care of them first. Lesson four. Nelson Mandela is a particularly special case study in the leadership world because he is universally regarded as a great leader. You can take other personalities and depending on the nation you go to, we have different opinions about other personalities. But Nelson Mandela across the world is universally regarded as a great leader. He was actually the son of a tribal chief. And he was asked one day, how did you learn to be a great leader? And he responded that he would go with his father to tribal meetings. And he remembers two things when his father would meet with other elders. One, they would always sit in a circle. And two, his father was always the last to speak. You will be told your whole life that you need to learn to listen. I would say that you need to learn to be the last to speak. I see it in boardrooms every day of the week. Even people who consider themselves good leaders, who may actually be decent leaders, will walk into a room and say, here's the problem, here's what I think, but I'm interested in your opinion, let's go around the room. It's too late. The skill to hold your opinions to yourself until everyone has spoken does two things. One, it gives everybody else the feeling that they have been heard. It gives everyone else the ability to feel that they have contributed. And two, you get the benefit of hearing what everybody else has to think before you render your opinion. The skill is really to keep your opinions to yourself. If you agree with somebody, don't nod yes. If you disagree with somebody, don't nod no. Simply sit there, take it all in, and the only thing you're allowed to do is ask questions so that you can understand what they mean and why they have the opinion that they have. You must understand from where they are speaking, why they have the opinion they have, not just what they are saying. And at the end, you will get your turn. It sounds easy, it's not. Practice being the last to speak. That's what Nelson Mandela did. Number five, my favorite one of all. True story. There was a former Undersecretary of Defense who was invited to give a speech at a large conference, about 1,000 people. And he was standing on the stage with his cup of coffee and a Styrofoam cup, giving his prepared remarks with his PowerPoint behind him. And he took a sip of his coffee, and he smiled, and he looked down at the coffee. And then he went off script, and he said, you know, last year, I spoke at this exact same conference. Last year, I was still the Undersecretary. And when I spoke here last year, they flew me here business class. And when I arrived at the airport, there was somebody waiting for me to take me to my hotel. And they took me to my hotel, and they had already checked me in, and they just took me up to my room. And the next morning, I came downstairs, and there was someone waiting in the lobby to greet me, and they drove me to this here same venue. They took me through the back entrance and took me into the green room and handed me a cup of coffee in a beautiful ceramic cup. He says, I'm no longer the Undersecretary. I flew here coach. I took a taxi to my hotel, and I checked myself in. When I came down the lobby this morning, I took another taxi to this venue. I came in the front door and found my way backstage. And when I asked someone, do you have any coffee, he pointed to the coffee machine in the corner, and I poured myself a cup of coffee into this here styrofoam cup. He says, the lesson is, the ceramic cup was never meant for me. It was meant for the position I held. I deserve a styrofoam cup. Remember this. As you gain fame, as you gain fortune, as you gain position and seniority, people will treat you better. They will hold doors open for you. They will get you a cup of tea and coffee without you even asking. They will call you sir and ma'am, and they will give you stuff. None of that stuff is meant for you. That stuff is meant for the position you hold. It is meant for the level that you have achieved of leader or success or whatever you want to call it. But you will always deserve a styrofoam cup. Remember that. Remember that lesson of humility and gratitude. You can accept all the free stuff. You can accept all the perks. Absolutely, you can enjoy them. But just be grateful for them and know that they're not for you. That none of us deserve the perks that we get. We all deserve a styrofoam cup. I reached a point in my career where I had fallen out of love with my work. And I didn't want to wake up and do it anymore. I just, I was done. Everyone will go through stress. Everyone will go through trauma. Mental health is a big and important topic right now. You know, I think when somebody says fine, they're lying. There's nothing more dangerous in a modern society than a lonely man. I need somebody to sit in the mud with me. I don't need them to fix me or clean me off or give me a towel. I just need them to sit in the mud with me so I don't feel alone when I'm sitting in the mud. When my friends are struggling, I don't say take your time. When my friends are struggling, I say go on. When my friends are crying, I say go on. The underlying message is, and I am here sitting in the mud with you. It is the greatest honor of my life. I live my life by that code. I reached a point in my career where I had fallen out of love with my work. Superficially, my life was good. I owned my own business. We had amazing clients. We did amazing work. I didn't want to wake up and do it anymore. I was done. I was deeply embarrassed, feeling bad because I shouldn't. Look what I'm doing. Look at the things I'm getting to do. I shouldn't be depressed or not want to go to work. I kept all those negative feelings to myself, which really is stupid. The feelings got darker and darker and darker. They feed on themselves. That's the problem with keeping negative feelings to yourself. They fester and grow. It got to the point where I was in really a dark place. All of my energy went into pretending that I was happier, more in control, and more successful than I really felt. Nobody knew. It wasn't until a very dear friend of mine came to me and said, There's something wrong. There's something different. I don't know what it is, but something's off. For whatever reason, I opened up and came clean. It was cathartic. It was a weight lifted off my shoulders. All of that energy that went into lying, hiding, and faking every day, I now had new energy, renewed energy, to actually find a solution. I think it's really hard when your friends say to you, There's something wrong. You go, No, everything's fine. Then they let it go. Or they're not even willing to say something's off. It's too uncomfortable. We don't like discomfort. We certainly don't like causing discomfort. We certainly don't want to create tension or a fight. We just leave it. I think the courageous friends, the friends who truly, truly, truly love you, are the ones who will lean into that tension and go, I don't care what you say, and I know you're lying to me. I love you to death, and I know something's wrong. I'm going to keep asking you until you tell me. More importantly, whatever it is, I got you. I love you. You're safe. I don't know what it is, and I don't care what it is. Just know that I'm your partner, and you are never alone. She said to me, You're not alone here. So I think she had the courage to get me to open up, and then I just stepped into the safe space. Mental health is a big and important topic right now. I had a conversation with somebody recently, and I realized I actually don't like the term mental health. It sounds like a fixed destination. It sounds like if you don't have health, like if you're not perfect, there's something wrong with you. So any kind of divergence or sadness means you're imperfect. That's not true, and I think it's an unfair standard to call it mental health. Because at the end of the day, think about your body when you go to the gym. We call that fitness. And some days you have good days at the gym, and some days you have bad days at the gym. Some days your body feels amazing, you can lift huge weights. And some day, for whatever reason, you got enough sleep, you're eating well, you're hydrated, your body's just not working that day. And we're all familiar with that, and it doesn't really bother us. You're like, uh, bad day today. And you move on, and you allow that to happen. But we don't treat our mental fitness the same way. You know, being a human, you are 100% mentally fit if you have sadness, and if you have joy, and if you have doubt and uncertainty and insecurity. That's what it is to be human. Like, your body sometimes has pain. There's nothing wrong with your body. And so I like to call it mental fitness rather than mental health. I'm always working on my mental fitness. And I allow for periods of darkness. So right now, when you said, how are you, the space that I'm sitting in is I'm actually feeling quite lonely. And I learned about how to manage mental fitness during COVID more than I ever had prior, because we had to deal with so much ----, right? And so prior, I would have been embarrassed by saying I'm feeling lonely. I would have hid it, suppressed it, don't like negative feelings. Whereas now, I'm just sitting in it, not worried about it. I'm allowing it to go through me, like I'm allowing myself to have a bad day at the gym. And weirdly, even though it's not necessarily fun, I'm weirdly appreciative of it, because it makes me human. I acknowledge that I'm human. It's relatable. And so that's how I feel right now. I'm more open about being in a darker space, in the shadows right now, because it makes me feel, quite frankly, normal. It makes me feel human. And it's part of mental fitness, you know? And if I didn't have off days or off weeks, then how would I know what to work on? How would I know what good good looks like? How would I know how to appreciate the happy days if I didn't have some days that were down? So I'm weirdly grateful for what I'm going through right now. You know, human beings are, despite our own self-opinions, we're not that strong and we're not that smart. But in teams and groups, we're amazing. And so trying to solve your own life problems by yourself, because I've got some really bad news, you can't. Which is why addiction exists, because I can't solve these problems myself. I can't overcome the stress myself, so I'm going to drink, you know? Or I'm going to do something else that's harmful to myself, my family, and my relationships. As all addictions are. Whether you're addicted to your cell phone, addicted to alcohol, addicted to drugs, you're going to destroy your relationships, you're going to destroy yourself. And there is tremendous value for somebody who loves you to say, I got you, I'm here, let's do this together. Or for you to call a friend and say, I think I'm struggling and I think I can't do this alone, can you help me? It's humiliating. But it is perhaps the single greatest lesson that any human being can learn, which is to say, I don't know and I need help. And I think being comfortable with asking for help and saying, I don't know, it turns out we're surrounded by people who want to take care of us and help us, but they don't because they didn't think we needed it, because we were too busy presenting ourselves as perfect and having all the answers. So they just didn't. But they would if we just asked. So when people say they feel lonely, I think what it is is that, you know, we're social animals who want to feel included, but also feel like people see, hear, and understand us. And I think my symptoms of loneliness are feeling misunderstood or like people don't get me, or worse, I'm struggling to communicate or present myself in a way that people will get who I am. We can't do it alone. You know, when you find darkness, whatever, however you want to define your darkness, you feel alone, you feel like nobody can help you, you feel like you have no agency, you feel like you have a lack of control, and the first thing that a lot of us should do is reach out to a friend and say, I'm struggling, or I need help, or I'm lonely, or I'm depressed, or I'm sad, whatever the feeling is. So the first mistake people make is they try and fix. Don't try and fix. It's not a fixing thing, you know? It's like I had a bad day at the gym. Nothing to fix, you know, nothing to fix. And I have a rule with my friends. My rule is no crying alone. My close friends all know this, and we all obey it. Like, I'll get a call from somebody who's a significant person in the world that people know who they are, and they'll call me and say, do you have a minute? And I'll be like, yeah, what's up? They're like, I just, I think I need to cry. I'm like, go. What's on your mind? And they'll tell me what's on their mind, and they will cry. And that's my rule. My rule with my friends is no crying alone. Because if you're at the point of absolute frustration, exhaustion, whatever it is that you can't hold it in, I'd rather you call me or one of us and you do it with somebody. You should never cry alone. And so I'm really good when I'm in a place like this of calling somebody and telling them. Because I don't want to go through this alone. And some of my friends do have the skills where they can say, how do you feel? Oh, this is how I feel. That must be really frustrating. Yeah, it's really hard. Tell me more about that. Well, I'm sort of going through this and that. And they know how to hold space. That's all I need. I need somebody to sit in the mud with me. Don't need them to fix me or clean me off or give me a towel. I just need them to sit in the mud with me so I don't feel alone when I'm sitting in the mud. And I think it's our responsibility to be able to have that skills, that skill set to do it for our friends and the people we love or our colleagues. We don't teach listening. We don't teach difficult conversations. The fact that there's so much conversation about mental health right now is of course in part because we've just come through this crazy ass thing called COVID and lockdowns and social media. Sure, you can pile that on if you want. But I think really what it is, the fact that it's such a loud conversation about mental health is a spotlight on the fact that we do not know how to build deep, meaningful relationships. I think it is an indictment on our current state of affairs that not only do we not have the skills to be there for our friends, but the way we're reacting to it is by trying to seek resources to help me rather than teach me how to help my friends. I think we're going about it. And I always say leadership is about going first. That's why we call you leader. It doesn't mean you have the answers. It doesn't mean you're right. It just means you stepped first into the unknown, that we took the risk to go first. And so in a relationship, one of you can take the lead. One of you can go first to set the example of what it looks like and feels like to say I'm having a bad day today and I don't need you to fix it. I know what I'm going through. I want to tell you all of this stuff because I want you to be there with me and I want to be there with you because I don't want to feel this way alone. There are two things that I think that great leaders need to have. Empathy and perspective. And I think these things are very often forgotten. Leaders are so often so concerned about their status or their position in an organization, they actually forget their real job. And the real job of a leader is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in our charge. And I don't think people realize this and I don't think people train for this. When we're junior, our only responsibility is to be good at our jobs. That's all we really have to do. And some people actually go get advanced educations so that they can be really good at their jobs, accountants or whatever, right? And you show up and you work hard and the company will give us tons and tons of training how to do our jobs. They'll show us how to use the software. They'll send us away for a few days to get trained in whatever it is that we're doing for the company. And then they expect us to go be good at our jobs. And that's what we do. We work very hard. And if you're good at your job, they'll promote you. And at some point, you'll get promoted to a position where we're now responsible for the people who do the job we used to do, but nobody shows us how to do that. And that's why we get managers and not leaders. Because the reason our managers are micromanaging us is because they actually do know how to do the job better than us. That's what got them promoted. Really what we have to do is go through a transition. Some people make it quickly. Some people make it slowly. And unfortunately, some people will never make that transition at all. Which is we have to go through this transition of being responsible for the job and then turning it to somebody who's now responsible for the people who are responsible for the job. And as I said before, one of the great things that is lacking in most of our companies is that they are not teaching us how to lead. And leadership is a skill like any other. It is a practicable, learnable skill. And it is something that you work on. It's like a muscle. If you practice it all the days, you will get good at it and you will become a strong leader. If you stop practicing, you will become a weak leader. Like parenting, everyone has the capacity to be a parent. Doesn't mean everybody wants to be a parent and doesn't mean everybody should be a parent. Leadership is the same. We all have the capacity to be a leader. Doesn't mean everybody should be a leader. And it doesn't mean everybody wants to be a leader. And the reason is because it comes at great personal sacrifice. Remember, you're not in charge. You're responsible for those in your charge. That means things like when everything goes right, you have to give away all the credit. And when everything goes wrong, you have to take all the responsibility. That sucks, right? It's things like staying late to show somebody what to do. It's things like when something does actually break, when something goes wrong, instead of yelling and screaming and taking over, you say, try again. When the overwhelming pressures are not on them, the overwhelming pressures are on us. At the end of the day, great leaders are not responsible for the job. They're responsible for the people who are responsible for the job. They're not even responsible for the results. I love talking to CEOs and say, what's your priority? And they put their hands on their hips all proud and they say, my priority is my customer. I'm like, really? You haven't talked to a customer in 15 years. There's no CEO on the planet responsible for the customer. They're just not. They're responsible for the people who are responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer. I'll tell you a true story. A few months ago, I stayed at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas. It is a wonderful hotel. And the reason it's a wonderful hotel is not because of the fancy beds. Any hotel can go and buy a fancy bed. The reason it's a wonderful hotel is because of the people who work there. If you walk past somebody at the Four Seasons and they say hello to you, you get the feeling that they actually wanted to say hello to you. It's not that somebody told them that you have to say hello to all the customers, say hello to all the guests. You actually feel that they care. Now in their lobby, they have a coffee stand. And one afternoon, I went to buy a cup of coffee and there was a barista by the name of Noah who was serving me. Noah was fantastic. He was friendly and fun and he was engaging with me. And I had so much fun buying a cup of coffee, I actually think I gave 100% tip. Right? He was wonderful. So as is my nature, I asked Noah, do you like your job? And without skipping a beat, Noah says, I love my job. And so I followed up. I said, what is it that the Four Seasons is doing that would make you say to me, I love my job. And without skipping a beat, Noah said, throughout the day, managers will walk past me and ask me how I'm doing, if there's anything that I need to do my job better. He said, not just my manager, any manager. And then he said something magical. He says, I also work at Caesar's Palace. And at Caesar's Palace, the managers are trying to make sure we're doing everything right. They catch us when we do things wrong. He says, when I go to work there, I like to keep my head under the radar and just get through the day so I can get my paycheck. He says, here at the Four Seasons, I feel I can be myself. Same person, entirely different experience from the customer who will engage with Noah. So we in leadership are always criticizing the people. We're always saying, we've got to get the right people on the bus. I've got to fill my team. I've got to get the right people. But the reality is, it's not the people. It's the leadership. If we create the right environment, we will get people like Noah at the Four Seasons. If we create the wrong environment, we will get people like Noah at Caesar's Palace. It's not the people. And yet we're so quick to hire and fire, you can't hire and fire your children. If your kids are struggling, we don't say, you got to see at school, you're up for adoption. So why is it that when somebody has performance problems at work, why is it that our instinct is to say, you're out? We do not practice empathy. What does empathy look like? Here's the lack of empathy. This is normal in our business world. You walk into someone's office, someone walks into our office and says, your numbers have been down for the third quarter in a row. You have to pick up your numbers, otherwise I can't guarantee what the future will look like. How inspired do you think that person is to come to work the next day? Here's what empathy looks like. You walk into someone's office, someone walks into your office and says, your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row. Are you okay? I'm worried about you. What's going on? We all have performance issues. Maybe someone's kid is sick. Maybe they're having problems in their marriage. Maybe one of their parents is dying. We don't know what's going on in their lives. And of course it will affect performance at work. Empathy is being concerned about the human being, not just their output. We have, for some reason, our work world has changed over the past 20 and 30 years. We are suffering the side effects of business theories left over from the 80s and 90s. And they are bad for people and they are bad for business. Let me give you an example. The concept of shareholder supremacy was a theory proposed in the late 1970s. It was popularized in the 80s and 90s. It is now standard form today. You talk to any public company and you ask them their priority and they say, maximize shareholder value. Really? That's like a coach prioritizing the needs of the fans over the needs of the players. How are you going to build a winning team with that model? But that's normal today. We don't even perceive it as broken or damaged or wrong or outdated. Remember, the 80s and 90s were boom years with relative peace and a kinder, gentler Cold War. Nobody was practicing hiding under their desks in school anymore. We are no longer in those times. These are no longer boom years. These are no longer peaceful times and those models cannot work today. Here's another one. Mass layoffs. Using someone's livelihood to balance the books. It's so normal in America today that we don't even understand how broken and how damaging it is not only to human beings but to business. Companies talk about how they want to build trust and cooperation and they announce a round of layoffs. Do you know the quickest way to destroy trust and destroy cooperation in a business literally in one day? Lay people off and everyone gets scared. Can you imagine sending someone home to say, honey, I can no longer provide for our family because the company missed its arbitrary projections this year. And forget about the people who lost their job. Think about the people who kept their jobs because every single decision a company makes is a piece of communication and the company has just communicated to everybody else this is not a meritocracy. We don't care how hard you work or how long you've worked here. If we miss our numbers and you happen to fall on the wrong side of the spreadsheet, I'm sorry, we cannot guarantee employment. In other words, we come to work every day afraid. And we're asking our youngest generation to work in environments where how would any of us ever stand up and admit, I made a mistake. We're constantly being told you have to be vulnerable. Leaders are vulnerable. What does that even mean? It doesn't mean you walk around crying. I'm vulnerable, right? No, what vulnerability means is you create an environment in which someone feels safe enough to raise their hand and said, I don't know what I'm doing. You've given me a job and I haven't been trained to do it. I need help. I made a mistake. I screwed something up. I'm scared. I'm worried. All of these things no one would ever admit inside a company because it puts a target on your head in case there's another round. And so we keep it to ourselves. And how can a company ever do well if nobody's ever willing to admit they made a mistake that's scared or they don't know what they're doing. And so we've literally created cultures in which every single day everybody comes to work and lies, hides, and fakes. And we're asking our youngest generation to work and succeed and find themselves and build their confidence and overcome their addiction to technology and build strong relationships at work. We're asking them to do this and these are the environments we've created. We keep saying to them, you're the future leaders. We're the leaders now. We're in control. What are we doing? This is what empathy means. Few of us can debate, right, that there's an increase in depression, anxiety, and suicide amongst young people. I mean, the statistics are alarming. And so you have an entire generation that's growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations. The other problem to compound it is we're growing up in a Facebook, Instagram world. In other words, we're good at putting filters on things. We're good at showing people that life is amazing even though I'm depressed. All of our validation now comes from the number of likes and the number of followers we have. You have an addiction. And like all addiction, in time, it'll destroy relationships, it'll cost time, and it'll cost money, and it'll make your life worse. You know, the problem with addiction is addicts know that it's bad for them. There are plenty of alcoholics who know that what they're doing is unhealthy, but they're addicted, which is why they keep doing it. I think many of us can admit that what we do is unhealthy and that it is addictive and we may be addicted. The question we have to raise is, what are the costs of the benefits that we get from technology? Because there is always a cost to everything that we gain. Nothing is free. We know that engagement with social media and our cell phones releases a chemical called dopamine. That's why when you get a text, it feels good. Right? You know, we've all had it where you're feeling a little bit down or feeling a bit lonely, and so you send out 10 texts to 10 friends, you know, hi, hi, hi, hi, because it feels good when you get a response. Right? It's why we count the likes, it's why we go back 10 times to see if, and if it's going, if my Instagram is growing slower, did I do something wrong? Do they not like me anymore? Right? The trauma for young kids to be unfriended. Because we know when you get it, you get a hit of dopamine, which feels good. It's why we like it, it's why we keep going back. Dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes us feel good when we smoke, when we drink, and when we gamble. In other words, it's highly, highly addictive. We have age restrictions on smoking, gambling, and alcohol, and we have no age restrictions on social media and cell phones, which is the equivalent of opening up the liquor cabinet and saying to our teenagers, hey, by the way, this adolescence thing, if it gets you down, that's basically what happens. You have an entire generation that has access to an addictive, numbing chemical called dopamine through social media and cell phones as they're going through the high stress of adolescence. Why is this important? Almost every alcoholic discovered alcohol when they were teenagers. When we're very, very young, the only approval we need is the approval of our parents. And as we go through adolescence, we make this transition where we now need the approval of our peers. Very frustrating for our parents, very important for us that allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the broader tribe. Right? It's a highly, highly stressful and anxious period of our lives and we're supposed to learn to rely on our friends. Some people, quite by accident, discover alcohol and numbing effects of dopamine to help them cope with the stresses and anxieties of adolescence. Unfortunately, that becomes hardwired in their brains and for the rest of their lives, when they suffer significant stress, they will not turn to a person, they will turn to the bottle. Social stress, financial stress, career stress, that's pretty much the primary reasons why an alcoholic drinks. What's happening is because we're allowing unfettered access to these dopamine producing devices and media, basically it's becoming hardwired and what we're seeing is as they grow older, too many kids don't know how to form deep, meaningful relationships. Their words, not mine. They will admit that many of their friendships are superficial. They will admit that their friends, that they don't count on their friends, they don't rely on their friends, they have fun with their friends, but they also know that their friends will cancel on them if something better comes along. Deep, meaningful relationships are not there because they never practiced the skill set and worse, they don't have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress. So when significant stress starts to show up in their lives, they're not turning to a person, they're turning to a device, they're turning to social media, they're turning to these things which offer temporary relief. We know, the science is clear, we know that people who spend more time on Facebook suffer higher rates of depression than people who spend less time on Facebook. These things balance. Alcohol is not bad, too much alcohol is bad. Gambling is fun, too much gambling is dangerous. There's nothing wrong with social media and cell phones, it's the imbalance. If you're sitting at dinner with your friend and you're texting somebody who's not there, that's a problem, that's an addiction. If you're sitting in a meeting with people you're supposed to be listening to and speaking and you put your phone on the table, face up or face down, I don't care, that sends a subconscious message to the room that you're just not that important. That's what happens and the fact that you cannot put it away is because you are addicted. If you wake up and you check your phone before you say good morning to your girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse, you have an addiction and like all addiction, in time, it'll destroy relationships, it'll cost time and it'll cost money and it'll make your life worse. So you have a generation growing up with lower self-esteem that doesn't have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Now you add in the sense of impatience. They've grown up in a world of instant gratification. You want to buy something, you go on Amazon and it arrives the next day. You want to watch a movie? Log on and watch a movie. You don't check movie times. You want to watch a TV show? Binge. You don't even have to wait week to week to week. I know people who skip seasons just so they can binge at the end of the season. Instant gratification. Everything you want you can have instantaneously. Everything you want. Instant gratification. Except job satisfaction and strength of relationships. There ain't no app for that. They are slow, meandering, uncomfortable, messy process. And so what this young generation needs to learn is patience. That some things that really, really matter, like love or job fulfillment, joy, love of life, self-confidence, a skill set any of these things. All of these things take time. Sometimes you can expedite pieces of it. But the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult. And if you don't ask for help and learn that skill set you will fall off the mountain or you will the worst case scenario that we're already seeing. We're seeing an increase in this generation. We're seeing an increase in accidental deaths due to drug overdoses. We're seeing more and more kids drop out of school or take leaves of absence due to depression. Unheard of. This is really bad. Those are all bad cases. The best case scenario is you'll have an entire population growing up and going through life and just never really finding joy. They'll never really find deep, deep fulfillment in work or in life. They'll just, fine. How's your job? Fine. Same as yesterday. How's your relationship? It's fine. Like that's the best case scenario which leads me to the fourth point which is environment. Which is we're taking this amazing group of young, fantastic kids who have just dealt a bad hand. It's no fault of their own. And we've put them in corporate environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids. That aren't helping them overcome the challenges of a digital world and finding more balance. That isn't helping them overcome the need to have instant gratification and teach them the joys and impact and the fulfillment you get from working hard over on something for a long time that cannot be done in a month or even in a year. There should be no cell phones in conference rooms. None. Zero. And I don't mean the kind of like sitting outside waiting to text. I mean like when you're sitting and waiting for a meeting to start nobody goes this is what we all do we all sit here and wait for the meeting to start. Meeting's starting? Okay. We start the meeting. No. That's not how relationships are formed. Remember we talked about it's the little things? Relationships are formed this way. We're waiting for a meeting to start and we go how's your dad? I heard he was in the hospital. Oh he's really good. Thanks for asking. He's actually at home now. Oh I'm really glad. That was really amazing. I know it was really scary for him. That's how you form relationships. Hey did you ever get that report on oh my god no I didn't. I'll help you out. I totally can help you out with that. Really? That's how trust forms. Trust doesn't form at an event in a day. Even bad times don't form trust immediately. It's the slow steady consistency and we have to create mechanisms where we allow for those little innocuous interactions to happen. When you're out for dinner with your friends like I do this with my friends when we're going out for dinner and we're leaving together we'll leave our cell phones at home. Who are we calling? Maybe one of us will bring a phone in case we need to call an Uber. We'll take one phone and so it's like an alcoholic. The reason you take the alcohol out of the house is because we cannot trust our willpower. We're just not strong enough. But when you remove the temptation it actually makes it a lot easier. And so when you just say don't check your phone people literally will go like this. But if you don't have the phone you just kind of enjoy the world. And that's where ideas happen. The constant constant constant engagement is not where you have innovation and ideas. Ideas happen when our minds wander and we go and you see something and you go I bet they could do that. That's called innovation. Right? But we're taking away all those little moments. None of us should charge our phones by our beds. We should be charging our phones in the living room. Remove the temptation. You wake up in the middle of the night because you can't sleep and you won't check your phone which makes it worse. But if it's in the living room it's relaxed. It's fine. But it's my alarm clock. Buy an alarm clock. They cost $8. So I think we cannot ignore these factors of which one of them of course has to be the imbalance of social media and cell phones in our lives. I'm not against it. I'm against the amount of it. Right? That we can't go for dinner with a friend and put our phone in airplane mode for an hour and a half and just be present with our friends. And so how do we combat this imbalance? You do not get to say when you're being present. You are present when somebody else says you are. And the reason we meditate for example is because we learn things like calm and quiet and focus. And when you meditate you have a thought and you learn to label that thought and put it out of your head and deal with it later so that when you're with a friend and they're talking you're not thinking about your next thought. You put your thought aside and you listen entirely to what they're saying. You focus on one thing which is them. And you are not present until your friend at the end of the conversation says to you thank you for listening. I feel heard. Thank you for being present with me. We are who we are. Like I said, we're fully formed by the experiences we have when we're young. You know, at a pretty young age. And now the opportunity life presents us is to make decisions that either keeps us in balance with who we really are or not. And I think one of the reasons most of us feel discomfort or don't feel ourselves or don't know who we are is because we're making decisions that are inconsistent with that true cause, with that why. We look for ways to distance ourselves from the impact of our decisions. We say things like it's what you gotta do to get ahead. It's what my boss wants. Everyone's doing it. It's the system. I don't have a choice. Right? And there are ways we can disassociate our responsibility. So you raise the case of individual athletes who become champions and then suffer depression. It's a fairly common story. You hear this from Olympians. You know, Michael Phelps becomes the most meddled Olympian of all time and immediately suffers depression. Andre Agassi becomes the most storied tennis player of all time and immediately becomes depressed. And what I've learned from talking to some of these particularly athletes, but I think it happens in the business world as well, which is from a very young age, they set themselves a goal that, in my words, would be a very selfish goal. I want to be the best at X, the best tennis player, the best golfer, the best whatever. And, you know, the way Olympians put it, which I get a kick out of, is I want to win the Olympics. I'm like, well, no one wins the Olympics. You can be a winner in your sport. And their entire lives, from pretty young ages, every decision they're making is to help them advance this finite goal. And all of their relationships are, can you help me achieve my goal? And if you can no longer help me achieve my goal, I don't need you anymore as a coach or even a friend. And there's huge sacrifices, missing of birthdays, missing of Christmases, you know, missing of major life events, because I have to practice so I can achieve my goal. And when they get interviewed on the news, you know, or at the Olympics or whatever, you know, why do you do it? And they all say, well, I'm doing it to inspire the little kids, which is complete bullshit. You know, if you look at all of their vision boards from when they were younger, pictures of podiums and medals and money and Lamborghinis, not a single little child on there of the people you're doing it for. It's just a lucky strike extra. I mean, absolutely, you do inspire children, but that's not the reason you did it. You just got that, you know, like I said, it's sort of, it's a twofer. And then when they achieve or don't achieve this thing and then can no longer compete for it, they've set their entire path and all their relationships on this one, these finite selfish goals. And so when it's complete, they realize they don't really have a lot of friends around them. They don't really have a lot of close relationships. They don't really even have a sense of purpose because they've been spent the past 20 years or so with one purpose, which was this finite goal, which now has run out. And so they're very purposeless. And I see this in Broadway performers who set their whole life to be on the West End or be on Broadway. Every class, every tap dancing class, every singing class, they make it, they get there, and then depression or at least malaise or senior executives. Same thing. If I just make a million dollars, you know, if I just become a millionaire, then I'll feel. And the problem with all of those things is, as I said before, they are selfish. It is your goal for your reasons, which is not fulfilling for any social animal, for any human being. You know, our sense of joy and fulfillment and love and purpose comes from our ability to serve another human being. Have a child. Tell me how your life changes. Fall in love. Tell me how your life changes. You know, think about all the stupid things, irrational things we've done for love. We get on planes and travel around the world just to say, I love you. You know, we do ridiculous things and it all feels worth it. And the sacrifices we make for a child all feel worth it. But these are no longer for us and these things will live on beyond our own lives. They are not finite. They are infinite. And there's nothing wrong with personal achievement. There's nothing wrong with setting goals. But it has to be in the context of something even bigger. And to see one's life as a continuum rather than an event is much healthier. I'm not a huge fan of the term self-improvement, but I do like the idea of awareness. Self-awareness. You know, we all live with blind spots. We all live with missing gaps in pieces of information which will, by the way, last for the rest of our lives. And there are some people who choose to live a life where living with those gaps is acceptable and they never fill them in and we would say that they remain stagnant. And arguably, either mentally or physically unhealthy, you know, getting unhealthier as they get older. You know? For someone, for anyone who wants to be a better version of themselves, a more aware version of themselves, you, we, I seek out information. And that comes in all kinds of forms, right? It can be in a relationship. So, for example, I went and took a listening class. I was dating someone and she accused me of being a bad listener. And I was like, you do know what I do for a living, right? Like, I'm a really good listener so I don't know what you're talking about. You know? And then I took this listening class. It turns out I'm an absolutely brilliant listener with people who I'll never see again for the rest of my life but amongst my friends and family, appalling. So I had this basic skill set that I never applied with the people closest to me and gave myself an out because, quote unquote, I knew how to listen. And so I realized I was a terrible listener. This was a blind spot. This was a gap. And having somebody love me tell me that didn't work, didn't believe them until, you know, this objective outsider or at least I just took this class and came to this realization. That was brilliant. That awareness of the blind spot and the awareness of the skills that I need to be a better brother, son, boyfriend, friend, you know? I had to learn how to hold space for someone and then practice. That's awareness. And I think our health is awareness. Unfortunately, some people wait for the breakup to learn that they're bad listeners. Some people wait for the heart attack to realize they're eating poorly. That's awareness. You get awareness by getting a punch in the face. I think it's a responsibility for every human being should they want to have value in the lives of others to seek awareness in how they show up in the world and how the world impacts them. Their mental health, their physical health, their ability to maintain relationships and nurse relationships for those who want to show up better in the lives of others, which is I see being healthy as a service to others. But I think we've neglected for decades the socialness of our animal and social media and cell phones and the ubiquity of those technologies have complicated our ability to be human. And I started to realize we've confused things here, which is we don't get to decide when we're present. We get to practice being present. And so for anyone who's ever practiced meditation, there are absolutely benefits to us without a doubt. Those are important mental and physical health benefits of meditation and mindfulness and we should practice those for sure. But there's also that what I think is the primary reason, some would consider secondary reason, which is if you practice meditation, for example, you learn to focus on one thing. Your mantra, a sound, your breath, whatever it is. You learn to, you don't think of nothing. You think of one thing. Focus on one thing, right? And if something interrupts that thing, you have a thought. Can I leave the washing machine on? You label it a thought and you push it out of your head and you say, I'll deal with it later. And that's the whole idea. It's total focus and the ability to put your thoughts out of your head to stay focused on this one thing. Now think about when you're sitting listening with a friend who's going through a hard time. Are you listening or are you waiting for your turn to speak? The whole meditation practice that you've been doing is now valuable in this moment where you are focused entirely on what they're saying to you. Every distraction, every screech of a car tire outside, everybody who's talking around you, you don't hear any of it. You only hear what they're saying to you or entirely focused on what they're saying to you. And when you have your own thoughts of advice you'd like to give or things you want to tell them, oh my God, me too, that happened to me as well, right? You say, no, that's not important in this moment and you put it out of your head and deal with it later. And at the end of that conversation, your friend will say, thank you, I feel heard or thank you for being there for me or thank you for holding space for me or thank you for listening. And those are all indications that congratulations, you've been present for another. And I think what gives our lives purpose is not to wake up every morning to learn meditation so that we can be present for ourselves, though that is valuable. What gives our lives purpose is to do these things for another. There's nothing wrong with doing things and enjoying the benefit of those things yourself by all means. But the sense of, the deep feeling sense of purpose and meaning to one's life or to one's work only comes when those things are for another. And in my view, primarily for another, where our benefit is secondary. And that's where the joy and love of business, relationships, friendships, come from. There's a great irony in all of this, which is to sacrifice for another really is the most beautiful thing we can ever do. I mean, that's kind of what love is. It's sacrificing for another. And all of these things, learning to be a better communicator, learning mindfulness and meditation, being in shape, if you can translate those things in for another, all of those things start to have a higher purpose.