Simon Sinek: Opens Up About His Struggle with Loneliness, Love, Dating!

What is the greatest way that you can spend your time on earth? Or in other words, what is your ‘why’? For too many of us we answer that question by saying all the things that we hope we will gain and achieve, rather than the ways that we help others and make their life better. As Simon Sinek says there are entire sections of book shops dedicated to self-help but none dedicated to helping others, and we aren’t taught in school how to listen or the value of being a good friend. In fact it seems one of the radical acts you can do in the modern world is to live a life of service. In this conversation with Simon at his most vulnerable he discusses everything from love and relationships, quarter life crises and why you should never cry alone. As with every discussion with Simon, this will have you rethinking everything you previously thought you knew. Simon: Website: https://bit.ly/3yIDBy8 Twitter: https://bit.ly/3ZRYKSo Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Simon Sinek?

  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." I live my life by that code.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Leadership and communication expert. Author, TED speaker. His unconventional views have made him one of the most sought after speakers on the planet. There's no one quite like him.

• 0:27Steven Bartlett?

  Simon, how are you doing?

• 0:29Simon Sinek?

  I'm actually feeling quite lonely. I'm struggling to communicate or present myself in a way that people will get who I am. I feel like nobody can help you. And the first thing that a lot of us should do is reach out to a friend and say, "I'm struggling. You should never cry alone." We live in a world where most people are ill-equipped on how to be there for a friend who's struggling. And the first mistake people make is they try and fix. "Don't need them to fix me. I just need them to sit in the mud with me so I don't feel alone when I'm sitting in the mud." The fact that there'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. But the way I manage it, which is different than most, is I, "You know, I wish I had these skills 10 years ago."

• 1:11Steven Bartlett?

  Is the design of the modern world making it more difficult for us to find love and to keep it?

• 1:16Simon Sinek?

  The problem with it is, is it's, grass is always greener because it's so easy to just go swiping. Something's out of balance. And as I'm going to say this over and over and over again, which is successful relationships are...

• 1:36Steven Bartlett?

  Simon, congratulations. You are the diary overseer record holder. You've been invited back more than any other guest. And it's not for, it's for a very, very good reason, which is that your episodes are always the most adored that we have on this podcast. They are, the two episodes, the conversations we've had are both in the top 10 of all time on the show. And I always feel after our conversations end that they could have gone on longer. So here we are.

• 2:00Simon Sinek?

  Well, thanks for having me back. I enjoy coming.

• 2:03Steven Bartlett?

  My first question for you today is, and you know, this question's often asked quite flippantly, but I want to, I'd really like the real answer, which is, how are you doing?

• 2:14Simon Sinek?

  You know, I think when somebody says, "Fine," they're lying.

• 2:22Simon Sinek?

  And so my instinct is to say, "I'm fine."

• 2:26Simon Sinek?

  I am going through, uh, I'm going through some ups and downs. I'm in a period of flux, which doesn't, which is fine. That genuinely is good. I like a little bit of chaos in my life. It's where creativity comes from. And if I look back at my career, you know, I would take a job. I'd have a fast-moving career. It'd get to a great point. It would plateau and then I'd quit. And I'm sort of at that point. You know, I love a steep learning curve. I love a difficult situation and I like trying something new and building something. And so there's, I'm shifting away from in-person public speaking,

• 3:10Simon Sinek?

  which I think surprises a lot of people. But recognize that I never considered myself a public speaker in the first place. It's just something I did to advance my cause. It was never my chosen career. So not doing it as much as I enjoy it and I know is not that difficult. So what next is a little bit of an unknown. I have some ideas and I'm testing some things out, but I don't actually know where I'm gonna go.

• 3:37Steven Bartlett?

  Why are you shifting away from public speaking? Give me the context as why this is a sort of a pivotal moment.

• 3:43Simon Sinek?

  There are multiple reasons. You know, I, I consider myself a preacher. And when I set out on my journey many years ago, I was espousing a vision of what business could look like and what the world could look like, what our careers could look like. That was different than the world that we lived in. You know, talking about purpose at work. With some hippie dippy stuff, you know? And now it's a completely normal conversation. And I'm really proud to have been a part of that movement. And so when I would stand on a stage, I was preaching to people who had never heard of my, my work, who had never heard of these concepts, at least not explained the way I explain them.

• 4:26Simon Sinek?

  And, and I was converting audiences, you know, that was. And the good news is the movement is, is, has its own momentum. And I don't know how many, I'm converting vastly fewer people now. When I walk into the room, now they're looking for tools. Now they're looking for, you know, which is great. And so I want to now pivot myself so that I can start having significant impact again. So that I can start affecting greater change, not, not just maintenance, not just reinforcing, not just affirming. Change, impact is what I'm looking at. So that's a huge part. Covid, in some respects, was a gift. It created a marketplace for online.

• 5:07Simon Sinek?

  And so, you know, I can do things that I could never do before, which is I can be in Chicago in the morning and Kuala Lumpur in the evening. That was impossible before. I have the energy to give to more people. So I'm doing that, which is great. And at the end of the day, I, I'm, I want to learn. I want to be in a situation where I'm actually not familiar, where I'm not very comfortable. You know, I'm good on the stage now. I've, I've honed my craft and I want to be uncomfortable again.

• 5:41Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 5:42Simon Sinek?

  The personal side is different. You know, I know that mental health is the, is a, is a big and important topic right now. And I had a conversation with somebody recently and I've realized I actually don't like the term mental health. You know, it sounds like a fixed destination. It sounds like, you know, if you, 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, right? And that's not true. And I think it's an unfair standard to call it mental health. And I think, because at the end of the day, like think about your body when you go to the gym, right? We call that fitness.

• 6:25Simon Sinek?

  And some days you have good days at the gym and some days you have bad at the gym, bad days at the gym. Some days your body feels amazing, you can lift huge weight. And some day, for whatever reason, you got enough sleep, you ate, you're eating well, you're hydrated, you just. 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, ah, bad day today. And you move on. And you allow that to happen. But we don't treat our, our mental fitness the same way. You know, being a human, you are a hundred percent mentally fit. If you have sadness and if you have joy and if you have doubt and uncertainty and insecurity, that, that's what it is to be human. Like your body sometimes has pain. There's nothing wrong with your body. And so I, I like to call it mental fitness rather than mental health. Right?

• 7:09Simon Sinek?

  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, uh, 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 shit. Right? And so prior, I would have been embarrassed by saying I'm feeling lonely. I would have, um, hidden it, suppressed it. Don't like negative feelings. Um, whereas now I'm just sitting in it, not worried about it. Um, I'm allowing it to go through me like I'm allowing myself to have a bad day at the gym.

• 7:54Simon Sinek?

  And weirdly, even though it's not necessarily fun, um, weirdly appreciative of it. Um, because it's, makes me human. It just reminds me of a story. Earlier on in my career, I was invited to speak at an event, which is the Association of Meeting Planners. So there's an American Meeting Planners Association, whatever it is. Literally, everybody who hires speakers from every big company and association has their own association and they come and have their own event. So to get hired, to get invited to speak at this event is like, if you nail it, your career is set for the rest of your life. And if you blow it, your career is over. Right?

• 8:37Simon Sinek?

  Because like literally everybody who hires all the speakers for all the big events is in this room. And I got invited. Huge honor. Right? And I'm this back in the Start With Why days and I'm good at Start With Why. Like I've done this thing probably thousands of times. I know my stuff. So I get up there, I'm doing Start With Why and I lose my train of thought. It's okay. I'm a professional. I know how to deal with losing your train of thought. You go quiet, you relax, you get your thoughts back and you pick up where you left off. It's happened before. No problem. So I do what I know how to do. I go quiet and nothing comes in. And now the panic starts. Now the heart starts pounding. Now my life is flashing

• 9:22Simon Sinek?

  before my eyes. Now I'm recognizing, oh my God, my career is over, you know? And I look at my pad and I look at the audience. I cannot, I cannot remember what I was saying. I don't know what to say next. I don't have a joke. I've got nothing. I've just got panic. So I turn to the audience and I say, "Do you ever have that feeling? That sinking feeling when you lose your train of thought, where your heart starts pounding and your hands get clammy and your life flashes before your eyes?" I said, "I'm having that right now." And I'll tell you, I am so grateful for that feeling right now because it makes me feel alive. And the audience exploded with applause. I said, "Right. Now if somebody

• 10:06Simon Sinek?

  could please just tell me what I was saying so I could pick up where I left off?" And somebody screamed something out and went, "Thank you." And I picked up and I finished. The point was, I could have, I could have suppressed the panic, but I was open about the way I was feeling. And what I learned was everybody was there to support me because I acknowledged that I'm human and 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, because it makes me feel, it makes me feel, quite frankly, normal. It makes me feel human. And it's part of mental fitness, you know? And, and if I didn't have off days or off weeks, then

• 10:50Simon Sinek?

  how would I know what to work on, you know? 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, I'm, I'm weirdly grateful for what I'm going through right now.

• 11:05Simon Sinek?

  Very long answer to your very simple question.

• 11:07Steven Bartlett?

  Absolutely perfect. Obviously, we always do long answers here, as you know, but I am. The context is incredibly important and the subject matter is even more important. I know this because I've done a few talks over the last couple of years or whatever. And when I talk about the subject matter of loneliness, what will happen afterwards is I will have a young man, he will come up to me, you know, when people are asking questions afterwards, when you're taking pictures or whatever, and he'll get very, very close because he's scared of anybody hearing him on his right and his left. And I remember I had this visual in my head of it happening recently and he'll whisper to me, A, a message of thanks for talking about my own loneliness in my life.

• 11:43Simon Sinek?

  Yep.

• 11:43Steven Bartlett?

  But also asking for some kind of path through the jungle of loneliness, some kind of solution. And then when I look at the statistics around loneliness in the UK and in the US, it's absolutely incredible. I've often cited that Theresa May was the first prime minister in our country to appoint a loneliness czar for the country. I think the statistic which I've often quoted is that the medium American used to say they had three people they could turn to in a time of crisis and now the answer is zero. And we're, and we're heading in that direction at a very sort of global, often Western world level. So I think the subject matter of loneliness is incredibly important. And my first question on that, on that topic then is

• 12:23Steven Bartlett?

  what is the symptom of loneliness? How does one know if they are lonely? And because it's so easy to confuse it with another feeling.

• 12:29Simon Sinek?

  Yep.

• 12:30Steven Bartlett?

  What's you, what's your sort of symptoms?

• 12:33Simon Sinek?

  So when I, when I say I feel lonely, and I think 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, or worse, I'm struggling to communicate or present myself in a way that people will get who I am. You've heard me say this, you know, there's an entire section in the bookshop called self-help and there's no section in the bookshop called help others.

• 13:11Simon Sinek?

  And what we're desperately needing more than anything is, is, is a help others industry. Like we do not teach people how to help each other. We. We do podcasts and write books about how you can find love and how you can build your business and how you can become a millionaire and how you can find the job that you love. It's all about me, me, me, me, me. And there's not enough about how can you help somebody else find love? How can you help somebody else find commercial success? Or we don't do that and we don't teach it. And those are the skills that are desperately needed for each of us to find mental fitness. Because we can't do it alone. You know, when you find darkness, whatever, however you want to define your darkness,

• 13:56Simon Sinek?

  you know, you feel alone, you feel like nobody can help you, you feel like you have no agency, you feel like you're 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. And that person, do your friends, do your colleagues, do your teachers, have the skills to know how to hold space? 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. But then do you know how to listen? Do you know how to hold space?

• 14:37Simon Sinek?

  And I think one of the reasons more of us are struggling with mental fitness is because we ourselves lack the skills to help our friends who are struggling with mental fitness. And the more that we as a society are equipped to help each other, the more that there are other people there to help us. So, you know, 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 have you, 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.

• 15:22Simon Sinek?

  Because if you're at the point of absolute frustration, exhaustion, whatever it is that you, 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, 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, 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 to 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.

• 16:06Simon Sinek?

  And it's, 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 not, is of course, in part because we've just come through this crazy ass thing called COVID and lockdowns and exaggerated politics and, you know, and divisions in our countries and et cetera, et cetera. Social media, sure, you can pile that on if you want. But I think really what it is, the fact that there's such a loud conversation about

• 16:51Simon Sinek?

  mental health is a spotlight on the fact that we are, 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 we're, we're, 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 half-assed.

• 17:18Steven Bartlett?

  I was really surprised when you gave the answer regarding that when I said the symptoms that that have indicated to you that you are feeling lonely. I think even in my head, I was expecting it to sound more like an absence of other humans around you. And that's the whole distinction between being alone and being lonely. Your answer was about how you you feel like you're not understood. By who? Is this friends or is this the world or is it?

• 17:48Simon Sinek?

  The.

• 17:54Simon Sinek?

  I'm a middle aged man who hasn't been married, not that I care about marriage, but I haven't even had like a 10 year relationship. And I'm realizing some of it is self inflicted. You know, I chose a career path that made me pretty undateable. You know, I was on the road so much, it was difficult to have a relationship. But some of it is also managing the effects or the the symptoms of ADHD, which wasn't a thing when I was a kid. So I couldn't be diagnosed, which I'm glad for, quite frankly, because I had to learn to manage certain things myself, which became strengths as adult, as strengths as an adult. So not not not bitter about that. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 32.

• 18:35Simon Sinek?

  So pretty much in life, you know, like, and one of the things that I've and I've learned how to manage it really well professionally, like I know how to manage my ADHD in a professional context really well. I'm only now learning some of the symptoms, how it affects personal relationships and how I show up in relationships that I didn't even realize. So my whole life I'd be in relationships and and women would tell me, you're so hard to read. And I was like, I'm an open book. What do you mean I'm so hard to read? I'll tell you anything you want to know, you know, like, and and what I've learned is people with ADHD, not all of them, but some of them do something called stonewalling, which is an accident. It's not something conscious where you're telling me something about your day, whatever it is, or about our relationship.

• 19:18Simon Sinek?

  And I have I'm I have nothing to add. And so what my face you see, nothing. And I've acknowledged it, but go, this is fantastic and wonderful. This is great, but I have nothing substantive to add, so I just add nothing. And so the accidental effect is, did I say something wrong? Did I offend him? Does he not agree? And so I know that about myself now, so I can say to somebody, if you're not getting the reaction that you need, if you need any reaction, just ask me for a reaction. How does that make you feel? Is that okay? They're like, oh, my God, that's fantastic. Right? And I'll, I'll give it to you. Or I'm really blunt and forward with questions. For example, I have a friend, she's an entrepreneur, she's a solopreneur, she offers services to

• 20:01Simon Sinek?

  people, and I think she's priced too low. And I was having this conversation with her and she, I said, what, what do you charge? She told me the price and I said, why do you charge that? That's how I asked the question. Why do you charge that? And she was telling me about this just a few, about a week ago, it was really funny. And in, in my mind, I, that's perfectly legitimate question. In her mind, it was such an aggressive affront. Like, what do you mean, why do I charge that? And I'm like, you're worth more, why do you charge that? You know? I said, well, how should I have asked that question? And I guess normal people would have said, oh, my God, you're worth so much more than that, why do you charge that? You know? But I don't, I'm just like this.

• 20:43Simon Sinek?

  So I recognize that in a professional context, it's one thing, people can deal with questions like that, delivered like that in a meeting. But in a relationship, not so much. And so like, sitting in this space, I'm like going through all of these mistakes or things that I've done over the course of years. And I'm a little annoyed by myself. You know? Now, I know, don't want to live life in a rearview mirror, but I mean, I can still take account. And I'm annoyed, you know? I wish I had these skills 10 years ago. You know? So I'm just sitting in a period of my life where I just, you know, I would have liked to have had some of the experiences that I haven't had yet. And, you know, my, my friends who are in fix-it mode, they're like, but think of it as

• 21:27Simon Sinek?

  an opportunity, now you have these skills and you. Thank you, I know that. But allow me to mourn the past. That's my loneliness. I'm just mourning.

• 21:36Steven Bartlett?

  Where's the longing?

• 21:38Simon Sinek?

  I can mourn loss, can't I? Like, if I lose a friend or a loved one, you know, allow me to just mourn and then I'll move forwards. Like, I'm OK. I will move forwards, but allow me to mourn loss. And that's all I'm doing, is just allow me to mourn the loss, and I'll be fine. Just hold space for me. Come and sit in the mud with me. Ask me how I'm feeling. Ask me how I'm doing. Just let me vent. Just sit in the mud with me. And, you know, again, I think to your point, I think we just live in a world where most people are ill-equipped on how to be there for a friend who's struggling.

• 22:19Steven Bartlett?

  Can you give, I learnt this term the other day, which I love. I learnt it from Lex Friedman. Can you give the steel man argument for your friends that are telling you to, trying to offer advice in your mourning process, and trying to get you to be more future-oriented? As in, the steel man argument, I mean, is can you give the argument for why they're doing that? And why it's a good thing?

• 22:42Simon Sinek?

  Emotions are good. It means you're human. Like I said, I believe in mental fitness, not mental health. You know, that it's like your body, you have to work out, you have to eat well, you have to sleep all the time. It's not something you do and then you're done. You know, we've used that analogy before, you and I, which is what the infinite game is, which is it's like, it's like, I want to be healthy. OK, well, you're going to have to do it for the rest of your life. It's not an event. And our mental health, our mental fitness is exactly the same, which is it's constant, and it's ups and downs. And it's only a challenge, or you need to start involving professionals if you get stuck. You know, like if you get stuck in sadness and you cannot get out of it.

• 23:26Simon Sinek?

  That's a different, that's a different conversation. If you get stuck in depression and you cannot get out of it. If you get stuck in loneliness and you cannot get out of it. And by the way, the thing that I love about human beings is we can have multiple conflicting feelings simultaneously. I am lonely and optimistic simultaneously. My optimism, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I pride myself on my optimism. My optimism has not diminished in the least. Optimism doesn't mean I can't sit in a dark tunnel. Optimism means that I believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel, even if that light is far away. I'm, I have an undying belief that the future is bright. This, this too will pass, right? That doesn't mean I enjoy it. It doesn't mean I want to be here. And I can be excited and I can hang out with my friends and I can have an amazing time with my friends.

• 24:10Simon Sinek?

  And then go home and still feel lonely. Like you can have simultaneous and conflicting feelings. That's allowed. In fact, it's, it's, it's normal. But I, I, I cannot stress. I think that the way that I manage this differently than most. I don't usually talk about it on podcasts, but whatever.

• 24:29Simon Sinek?

  But the way I manage it, which is different than most is I, I, I, I don't wait for the phone to ring. I call a friend and say, do you have a minute? Can I, can I talk? And if a friend is ill-equipped, they start fixing. I'll interrupt the conversation and say, listen, I love you. This is not what I need right now. I love you, I love you. I'm going to get off the phone right now, okay? Because when they go into fix-it mode, it actually makes me feel worse sometimes. The friends that are some of the best-equipped people are folks in the military. You know, they know how to manage shit better than almost anybody I know. I've cried with more people in uniform than I've ever cried with people in suits. And the way that we talk to each other, like I have a friend who's a general.

• 25:14Simon Sinek?

  I've known him for a million years, so it's fun, been fun to watch his career. He's now a general. And when we say goodbye to each other, we say, I love you. And when we get on the phone with each other, if it's been a long gap, he'll say to me, hey, man. First of all, he calls me brother. Hey, brother, right? Which means something. Hey, brother, I really miss you. And he says things that a lot of guys don't say to each other. You know? He talks to me like sometimes I talk to my female friends. There's, it's full of emotion, it's full of honesty, and there's no machismo whatsoever. And yet, he's a warrior. He's a combat veteran, you know? And he'll say, hey, man, I miss you. It's been a while. I go, yeah, I miss you too. And then we'll get off the phone. He'll say, hey, I love you. I mean, I love you too. I'll talk to you soon.

• 25:57Simon Sinek?

  And though he will, I would, I mean, he and there's a small group like him. You know, I would call him in my most, in my darkest times, and I know he would call me. I have another friend, and he's going through some shit. And I'm honored that when I called him up and said, hey, haven't talked in a while, what you been going through? You know, I just realized I haven't talked to him in a while. And I went, hey, what you been going through? And he just let it all out. And I could hear the frustration, I could hear the pain. And I didn't try and fix it. I just encouraged him to keep talking. What else? Go on, tell me more. What else? Oh, my God, that must, that's really, go on. Yeah, what else? And just sat in the mud with him.

• 26:42Simon Sinek?

  And it was, it was an honor. I'll tell you, it was an honor that he felt comfortable enough to do that. Because I guarantee it, he, like so many, are really good at hiding it, faking it, suppressing it. He's a pro. In fact, I'm sure he is where he is, partially because he's a pro. And, you know, if you have the skill set to hold space for someone, you will have an amazing sense of gratitude that your friends trusted you and loved you enough that they would go there in front of you. And I think that's a standard that we should strive for.

• 27:22Simon Sinek?

  And like I said, we're also preoccupied with ourselves, you know? There's no greater honor. There's no greater honor than being able to serve a friend in need.

• 27:42Steven Bartlett?

  When I see, you know, a friend sees you sat in the mud, a friend sees me sat in the mud. Their ill-informed love reaction is to try and get me out of the mud.

• 27:52Simon Sinek?

  Of course, well-intentioned. I don't knock it. I know it's well-intentioned.

• 27:55Steven Bartlett?

  How do I get out the mud? The reason I ask that question is because I know there's someone listening to this right now who is sat in the mud. In many respects in my life, I'm sat in the mud.

• 28:06Steven Bartlett?

  The thing we're all looking for is we want empathy in the fact that we're sat in the mud, of course, but we're desperate for a way out of the mud, right? That's understandable.

• 28:17Steven Bartlett?

  Where does the plan come from? Where does, how do we get out of the mud?

• 28:21Simon Sinek?

  So I, if it were a prescription, you and I wouldn't have to work anymore.

• 28:29Steven Bartlett?

  On the subject matter of loneliness, because it's easier to focus on.

• 28:32Simon Sinek?

  Right. So I, I, I think in large part, like any cooperative effort, like any relationship, and a friendship is a relationship, right?

• 28:45Simon Sinek?

  Having colleagues is a relationship. In some part, it's, it's, it's, it's co-created, right? You know, you want to show up in any kind of relationship, professional or personal, and make it a co-creation. And, you know, I think when somebody first calls you, I don't think they're looking for solutions. They're looking for companionship and catharsis. They're just looking not to feel like overwhelmed. And at some point,

• 29:21Simon Sinek?

  you can either ask, can I offer some pointers? You're not ready for that yet.

• 29:26Simon Sinek?

  No, I'm not ready for that yet. Versus, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Or the person will ask themselves, you know, what do you think? What do you think? How do I, like, what do I do? You know? Or I'll know what to do, but I don't want to do it. Like, I know what to do. I just need to do this. And the person can just say, I'll do it with you. And just offer, again, companionship. Most of us, believe it or not, have more. Knowledge about how to get out of it than we think. Because we've dispensed the advice in the past. Probably, you know, I think most of us have a sense like.

• 30:07Simon Sinek?

  It's again, I think part of part of it is is allowing ourselves to feel the feels. You know, I think if I suppress the feelings, they would last longer. But allowing myself to feel the feels, I know is part of the solution. You know, it's like if you try and suppress feelings. It makes it just, it's not good. You know what I mean?

• 30:28Steven Bartlett?

  They're signals, right?

• 30:28Simon Sinek?

  They're signals. They're just, that's all they are. And and maybe they're telling you other things like maybe maybe all of my loneliness is telling me is like, Simon, you idiot, just get some sleep. Maybe that's all it's telling me. Maybe I'm feeling lonely is because I'm just fricking exhausted. Turns out I've been sleeping better and turns out I feel better. You know, maybe I've been eating crap. You know, maybe I'm full of frigging sugar and fat.

• 30:51Steven Bartlett?

  Do social expectations play a role? I am this age and I should be this by now.

• 30:56Simon Sinek?

  Oh, um.

• 31:00Simon Sinek?

  I think I think that I think we we have to say yes, right? And like, the midlife crisis is a known thing. And you sort of expect, you know, you hit middle life and you're like, all right, you're gonna start evaluating everything. You know, you're receding hairline, you're sagging body. You know, you're in a new comedians joke about it, we joke about it. But I I think the new thing is the quarter life crisis. You know, the number of friends that I have that are in their mid twenties or or like barely pushing thirty. And they are suffering all the things that somebody in their midlife would suffer. And their evaluation is different. It's not like, oh, my God, I'm closer to the day I'm gonna die than the day I was born. It's not that.

• 31:43Simon Sinek?

  It's more like, oh, my God, I'm at this age and I haven't achieved. All the things I said I was gonna achieve or I'm just getting started or I'm and and they and I and I think now. The quarter life crisis is like a real thing. And unfortunately, older generations scoff at it. You know, but I think it's based, that is very much societal expectation. Like, I'm supposed to be here, like, the number of young people I know who I say. Your entry level, don't worry if you're running the place yet, just even if this is a bad job, if it's toxic, get out, but there's very few jobs that are super toxic, you know? If you just have a bad boss, like stick with this and learn, like the learning you're gonna get from a bad, like my first boss was a bad boss and I was there for a year and a

• 32:28Simon Sinek?

  half and it was one of the best educations I got. And by the way, the camaraderie that I built in my team, because we all shared the same bad boss is amazing, right? So I learned teamwork, I learned having each other's back, I learned people taking care of each other, we learned how to manage and how not to do things.

• 32:44Simon Sinek?

  I didn't just abandon it because my boss was bad. My point is, is when I say stuff like that to young people, they immediately interpret that as the worst advice ever because I'm wasting time. Or take a gap year, I can't, I'm wasting time. Like wasting time from what? Like what race are you, who are you comparing yourself to? What standard, like, you know, I won't achieve the thing by, by, by what? Like what imaginary scale are we working on here? You know, but there is this very clear imaginary scale by which younger people, young people are pegging their life against. And the only thing I can offer is my own, is my own experience. And I know it's the worst thing to do because, you know,

• 33:29Simon Sinek?

  when you're in it, you're in it and you, nobody can think that far ahead. But I, and it's fun to think about, right? Because I remember when I was young in my career and things were just starting to move, there was this one guy I used to go to for advice, who was very, much more successful than me, really buttoned up, really sort of, you know, operations oriented. And he would constantly give me advice that either, he was basically either telling me I was an idiot or made me feel like an idiot by all the things I wasn't doing, or wasn't doing right, or should be doing, or could be doing. But it never felt right to me. And he would say stupid things to me, like I won't get out of bed for, you know, X amount of thousands of dollars. I'm like, I do stuff for free all the time, you know? And, and-

• 34:16Simon Sinek?

  If I didn't have my sense of purpose and cause, if I didn't have my North Star, my why, my vision to guide me, I would have listened to him and it would have been to my detriment.

• 34:30Simon Sinek?

  Because he was very finite minded and it was very sort of like, hit this target, hit this target. And thank goodness I ignored all the advice. And flash forward, my career has completely eclipsed his. It just took longer.

• 34:44Simon Sinek?

  And that's the point is, the point is, is that the reason people don't follow my, my ideas, the people, the reason people reject my books is because they want my, my advice, or they want my perspective to work this year.

• 35:02Simon Sinek?

  And, and I, and you've, and I, you'll hear, I've used this analogy all the time. Like, I will tell you how to get into shape. I will tell, you have to exercise 20 minutes a day, every day. You have to eat healthy and you can have, you can only have sugar on days that start with S. You know, I, I like what Mark Hyman says, which is, you know, treat sugar like a recreational drug. You know?

• 35:24Simon Sinek?

  And if you do these things 100%, you will be in shape and you will be healthy. 100%.

• 35:28Steven Bartlett?

  Nobody wants that book.

• 35:29Simon Sinek?

  Right? But the problem is you have to do it. And there will, somebody will say, well, when will I be in shape? And the answer is, I don't know. 100% it works. I don't know when. And when I discovered the why, and I first articulated the why, and, this is also important, it wasn't just the why, I also discovered Emmett Rogers' work on the law of diffusion of innovations, which I did write about also in Start With Why. That combination of starting with why and following the law of diffusion, I realized that 100% it was gonna work. By starting with why, I was gonna attract early adopters and early adopters would make the tipping point. I didn't know when, I just knew it would work and I just stuck with it.

• 36:13Simon Sinek?

  And I, and I disconnected myself from any arbitrary time-based achievement, which freaks people out, especially if you're on a quarterly or annual. Financial schedule. But I disconnected, I knew it would work and I just stuck with it. Turns out it worked. Some of it worked quicker than I expected. Some of it worked slower than I expected. But it worked. And young people, myself included, when I was their age, I'm not saying I had some like, I was a hundred percent the same. It had to be a discovery for me. And that discovery didn't come to my early thirties. So my twenties were me being that person going, you're an idiot. I can't waste time.

• 36:55Simon Sinek?

  But there's something magical about being on the path and just sticking, just sticking, just being disciplined and just sticking to. And a funny thing is, as we're talking about this, I don't even, I don't think of myself as a disciplined person. I'm actually very undisciplined. Like I don't have an exercise regime. Like, like I go in and out. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And I'm just not a very disciplined person. And I have so much, I have so much respect for people who are super disciplined. When they commit themselves to something, they do it and they're just really good at sticking to the plan. I'm useless at sticking to the plan. Right? And, but I'm realizing now, the only discipline I had was I trusted in these two theories, starting with why and the law of diffusion.

• 37:40Steven Bartlett?

  So apply that to the topic of someone who is, let's say, thirty five years old.

• 37:47Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:48Steven Bartlett?

  Thirty six years old, thirty seven years old.

• 37:49Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Steven Bartlett?

  And they are, they're lonely.

• 37:52Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:53Steven Bartlett?

  I can't tell you how many friends I've got and how many conversations I have, to the point that I was considering writing a book and going on the process of research, who are saying to me right now that they are single, they are lonely, their biological clock is ticking. And they, and the pressure of them trying to find someone is so intense that it's causing them to maybe become less capable of finding someone.

• 38:17Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 38:18Steven Bartlett?

  So I'm trying to figure out what, what those people that are listening need to help them get out of that.

• 38:23Simon Sinek?

  Look, there are people who are better equipped to answer these questions than me.

• 38:26Steven Bartlett?

  We can breathe.

• 38:27Simon Sinek?

  But, you know, I can wax philosophical. Like so many things, you know, and I'll use another military analogy, right? Which is.

• 38:39Simon Sinek?

  These wonderful human beings who volunteer to wear that uniform are willing, many of them are willing to risk their lives to save the life of someone they don't even like, but they love, right? Or they trust. And what people neglect or forget is that that deep, intense trust that they have for each other does not show up when they arrive on the battlefield. They've been building it and the organizations for whom they work know how to build that trust, that the trust exists by the time they get into combat. And this is when I talk about command and control.

• 39:22Simon Sinek?

  You know, like I talk about asking people and getting feedback and all these things, but the reality is, is command and control also is a real thing. So, you know, if you're a Marine and you show up in combat, they talk about that as managing chaos. They refer to combat as managing chaos. Sounds a lot like an entrepreneurial venture. That is managing chaos, right? And there are times where you have to be command and control. But the problem is, is you can't be command and control before you've earned somebody's trust. So when you're back at home, you're building trust, building trust, building trust, building trust, building trust, so that when we are in chaos and I yell an order at you, I don't have time to ask you your feelings. I don't want your feedback. I don't need your ideas. I need you to do as I'm telling you right now. And you have to trust that I'm making the best decision that I can.

• 40:06Simon Sinek?

  I'm not going to put your life recklessly at risk. And I even may make a mistake and people will die because of my mistakes, my mistakes, and that's still okay. But you can't do command and control all the time. It's episodic and it's earned. And so when COVID struck and we first went into lockdown, I went into command and control. I even made an announcement to my team like, hey, listen, I know we have a culture where there's a lot of feedback and if you're not, if those feelings hurt, like we have that mechanism and I want to hear all that stuff, but I can't hear it for another two weeks. Save it up. If I'm a bit of a, if I'm a bit blunt in a meeting, tell me in two weeks. I just, I don't have the bandwidth right now because what we're doing is survival. And it worked fine. That command and control, because I built up the trust, it worked fine.

• 40:51Simon Sinek?

  The problem is leaders who believe they can be in command and control all the time, right? So what, so the reason I'm telling you this is you're asking two different questions, one which is more difficult, which is we need to build these skills when we're healthy. And in a good state of mind, so that when we're in the mud, we ourselves have some equipment and some tools, and our friends that we're gonna call have some equipment and some tools, right? You're asking, with no equipment and no tools and I'm sitting in mud, how do I get out? That is an entirely different conversation that I'm probably the least equipped to answer. There are professionals who are much better equipped to answer that. And what I'm saying is, is, is, um, uh,

• 41:35Simon Sinek?

  for, so that we don't find ourselves in that situation. Right now, with big smiles on our face, how's your day? Great, I'm great, things are great.

• 41:47Simon Sinek?

  When are you taking that listening class? When are you gonna practice mindfulness and meditation? And have you, have you tried meditation?

• 41:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, my girlfriend, yeah. My girlfriend's like a yoga meditation.

• 42:01Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so you're forced to do it.

• 42:03Steven Bartlett?

  Yes, exactly.

• 42:04Simon Sinek?

  Got it.

• 42:05Steven Bartlett?

  I've taken away from it.

• 42:06Simon Sinek?

  Right, okay, so if, if anyone has ever practiced meditation, you sit still and you focus on one thing. When they say clear your mind, that's not true. You don't clear your mind, that's impossible. But you do focus on one thing. Could be your breath, it could be your mantra, it could be a dot on the wall, it could be a sound, it doesn't matter. The point is you focus on one thing. And when you get distracted or you have another thought, like, ooh, did I leave the oven on? What you do is you label that a thought, and you push it out of your mind and you say, I'll deal with that later. And you go back to focusing on the one thing. And there are tremendous benefits to the self of, uh, of, of being present and, and calm

• 42:50Simon Sinek?

  and clear-headed by practicing meditation. But that is not the sole purpose of meditation, just so you can be present. In fact, I believe that you are not present until someone else says you are. Right? So the reason you practice meditation is so that when you're sitting with a friend and they're telling you about their good day or their bad day, you are focused on one thing and one thing only, what they're telling you, as opposed to waiting for your turn to speak. And you may have thoughts and you say, that's a thought. I'm going to label that and deal with that later. And you remain so focused and there's a bang in the background, but your eyes don't leave your friend because you're so present. At the end of the conversation, they will say to you, thank you for listening.

• 43:34Simon Sinek?

  They will say, thank you for being present. They'll say, thank you, I feel heard. Congratulations, you were present. Congratulations, all that meditation was worth it now. The practice of meditation, though it has benefits to yourself, the reason to practice meditation is as a service to others.

• 43:50Steven Bartlett?

  The ADHD point that you raised, and you've talked a lot about exactly that, which is being able to sit and listen and hear.

• 44:01Steven Bartlett?

  How did you, because it almost sounded like you self diagnosed that as being a, playing a part in your historic relationship challenges. How'd you, how'd you know? Because you know what I mean? Because if you, if you make that sort of self diagnosis and then you build a plan around that and it's the wrong self diagnosis, you know, you end up in another

• 44:24Steven Bartlett?

  unfortunate place, if that makes sense. So if I'd, if I'd self diagnosed myself based on that experience with my parents, I could have been aiming at the wrong target. So it's about, this question's about self awareness. How does, how does one develop the self awareness? Is it feedback?

• 44:38Simon Sinek?

  I think there's a difference between introspection and awareness with accountability versus victimization versus victimhood. Right? By the sound of it, you didn't say, my parents did this to me.

• 44:55Steven Bartlett?

  No.

• 44:56Simon Sinek?

  Right?

• 44:56Steven Bartlett?

  Not useful.

• 44:58Simon Sinek?

  But that's victimization. It's the same, it's the same thing.

• 45:00Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 45:01Simon Sinek?

  I can't have a relationship because my parents fucked me.

• 45:03Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 45:04Simon Sinek?

  Because they didn't give me an effective model and they didn't love me enough and they didn't hug me enough. And so the reason I can't have relationships is because of my parents.

• 45:11Steven Bartlett?

  Disempowering.

• 45:11Simon Sinek?

  It's disempowering, it's also victimhood, right? Whereas, okay, well, the cards that I was dealt, I got a lot of good cards for some things and in some places, meh. Maybe I gotta work a little harder on this one. So the cards that I was dealt from family, I hold no grudge. I'm not angry at them. They didn't have the tools. It's okay. And I don't, I don't curse them for it. They didn't have the tools. But I'm gonna have to learn the tools. You know, other people learn it from their parents. I'm gonna have to learn it from other sources. And I could say the same thing about listening skills. You know, some parents are really good at holding space for their kids. And those kids will learn how to hold space with their friends because it was modeled by their parents.

• 45:57Simon Sinek?

  And some parents don't have the tools to hold space for their kids. Or maybe they work in really, really horrible jobs and so they come home and they're short tempered. And so, you know, there's a chain of causation there. And, and the kids aren't learning those skills. They're gonna have to learn it from somewhere else. That's why I say we have to teach it at work. We have to teach these skills at work. Because we, or in universities, because we cannot take for granted that people are learning these skills at home or with their friends.

• 46:26Steven Bartlett?

  What if I just smell though? Like, and I totally fucking miss the target and I just stink. Like, I just, like, I have really bad body odor. But I've thought, you know what, what it is, is I'm, I'm just too picky. So I'm trying to figure out how we become more self-aware as to what the real issue is. Now, you, it sounded like you'd spoken to some of your exes or something.

• 46:44Simon Sinek?

  I have great relationships with many of my exes. And there's one ex I have in particular where we broke up. We got back together. We broke up properly. And she hated me for a while. I probably blamed her for the breakup. I'm sure we blamed each other. Then at some point, we sort of like calmed down and we went out for dinner.

• 47:08Simon Sinek?

  And we sat at the bar. I even remember the restaurant. We sat at the bar and we literally dissected the relationship. And we didn't do it with accusation. What we did was, we didn't say, we didn't sit down and say, you did this, you did this, you did this. Which is how we were for the previous, you know, whatever, six months in our minds. We sat down and said, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I did this, I did this, and I did this. And sometimes the other person affirmed, yeah, you did that, you know? But we showed up with accountability rather than accusation. And at the end of dinner, we hugged each other with immense gratitude because it is so rare. That you get to sit down with an ex and not only take accountability for the things

• 47:49Simon Sinek?

  that you screwed up, but learn about other things you screwed up and learn about how you were received, even if you thought you were doing things right. And you know, in everything else, if you have a failed business venture, you sit down and you have a hot wash, you sit down and you sort of like go back and see what went wrong. So you don't make the same mistakes. You do that in almost every respect of our lives professionally, but very rarely do you ever get the opportunity personally, because usually the two people don't want to talk to each other anymore. Right. But we sat down, and by the way, there was no expectation that a friendship was going to come out of this. We just sort of like, I don't know why we showed up, but we both did. And we will both admit that it was one of the greatest things we could ever have done, because we got to find out how we were in the relationship, which usually you never find out where you are.

• 48:34Simon Sinek?

  So go back to your point. I think feedback is the thing, you know, you know, the only common factor in all our failed relationships is us, you know, you could, you know, it's their fault only lasts for a period. At some point, there's some accountability to be had. And if you don't know what it is, there's something to be said for picking up the phone and calling an ex. And I don't mean the one that just ended up like a week ago, but like give it a, give it some time, like calling an old ex and say, I know you're probably surprised to hear from me. And by the way, you know, it's been a long time, I know. And the reason I'm calling is because I'm really taking myself on. And first of all, I probably owe you a bunch of apologies for how I showed up in the relationship. But

• 49:18Simon Sinek?

  I really want to learn how I showed up. Are you willing to have a conversation and just tell, just give me some, some point of view that I don't have?

• 49:27Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know if I did that with my ex, right?

• 49:29Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 49:30Steven Bartlett?

  I, I don't believe there's anything that they would say that would surprise me. However, I do think they'd say things that I've never acknowledged. Does that make sense? At my core, I think I'd go, yeah.

• 49:44Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 49:45Steven Bartlett?

  You know what I mean?

• 49:46Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. So that's a real, so then it gives you a space. Look, you can't screw up that relationship. It's screwed up.

• 49:52Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 49:53Simon Sinek?

  So in that space, you can be like, yeah, I did that. And you're not risking anything. Even the most introspective people in the world.

• 50:02Simon Sinek?

  Don't have total objectivity on themselves and can't see all the angles. You don't have to agree with things. That's the thing, you know, which is just because somebody says something doesn't mean that it's true. The way, the way we, when we do 360 degree feedback sessions in our company, for example, the, the counsel we offer is, you know, you have to listen to what the person is saying. The only thing you're allowed to say in response is thank you, because they're giving you a gift by giving you this feedback that they would rather not give you, because it's easier for them not to give it to you. So just say thank you. Don't argue, don't give excuses, don't explain, just say thank you. And you don't have to agree with it. You can ignore it.

• 50:44Simon Sinek?

  However, we say, if you have an emotional response to it, like anger,

• 50:50Simon Sinek?

  it's probably true.

• 50:51Steven Bartlett?

  Did you have an emotional response?

• 50:52Simon Sinek?

  To some of it, sure, of course. And if you just, if you disagree, you just, you say, you listen to it and you go, no, that's not true. Right?

• 51:02Simon Sinek?

  But if you have an emotional response to something where you start getting agitated or angry or wanting to defend yourself, that nerve that they touched, hmm. Maybe there's a there there.

• 51:11Steven Bartlett?

  I wonder if you have a thought of an opinion on this. One of the conversations that's adjacent to this.

• 51:15Simon Sinek?

  I probably do.

• 51:15Steven Bartlett?

  You probably do, which is great.

• 51:19Steven Bartlett?

  One of the kind of adjacent conversations that I've often had with my friends when we're talking about love and dating, I think when we go for dinner, we often have this as well is, is it becoming harder because of the design and the nature of the modern world for us to find love and to keep it? Because, you know, once upon a time, my argument might assert that we lived in villages. There was 20 people that I told a story the other day to my team that I worked in this call center in Manchester, 20 of us in this call center many, many years ago. And first couple of days in, didn't, wasn't interested in anybody. I got six months in, fell in love with the girl next to me. And I, I almost equate that to like the village. We would have a very small context. So it was easier to find love. Is the design of the modern world making it more difficult, do you think, for us to find love?

• 52:03Simon Sinek?

  So I think, well, simple answer is it's definitely added a layer of complication. Because now, love is treated like shopping. You know, we shop for partners like we shop for shit on Amazon. You know, it's like you scroll through, you find one that looks good and you click like. Good reviews. And you, yeah, good reviews. Look, it's definitely convenient and it's definitely made life a lot easier. And you never have to deal with rejection because you don't know if they swiped left on you. You just assume that they never saw your picture, right? Like, it doesn't actually say, "Reject it," you know?

• 52:38Simon Sinek?

  And I think the problem with it is, is it's, grass is always greener because it's so easy, you know, to just go swiping. And, you know, sometimes you treat it like Instagram. You know, I've done this, where I've sat in my bed late at night because instead of looking at social media, I'm looking at a dating app. And I'm swiping right like I'm clicking like on a post. And then it says, "You're connected." I'm like, "Ah, damn it." Because I don't actually want to like go through the effort of like connecting. I was just, I was just liking the post, you know? Scott Galloway talks about this. I can't remember what the numbers are. I can't remember what the numbers are. But the part, the point is, is there's a massive disparity of men that just don't ever connect.

• 53:20Simon Sinek?

  And there's nothing more dangerous in a modern society than a lonely man, right? And if you look at terrorism and if you look at mass homicide and things like that, it's very often a lonely man, you know? And you add in sex and, and incels and, you know, you know, the Middle East, for example. You know, it's 25% during the height of terrorism, you know, a bunch of years ago. It was 25% unemployment in the region in a shame-based society. We have young men living at home and who aren't employed. And they've never had sex because there's no sex before marriage.

• 54:06Simon Sinek?

  And how are you ever going to meet a girl when you live at home and you don't have a job? And then all of a sudden, that stress comes out somewhere. And I think we don't talk about sex and sexuality as a part of... Our other behaviors, I mean, for some reason, because we think it's bad to connect, you know, sex life with how people show up in the world. But you take somebody who's sexually frustrated, a sexually frustrated man in their mid to late twenties.

• 54:31Simon Sinek?

  And all of that pressure and insecurity and, you know, now desperation, like it comes out in horrible ways. And the need to exert control comes out in horrible ways. Different conversation. Scott Galloway, I said, you know, has some fantastic numbers on this. So I think, you know, the dating apps.

• 54:50Simon Sinek?

  Aren't necessarily there. That's one thing, you know? It's not like everybody's gonna find somebody. But I do think that there's something wrong with shopping for people.

• 55:01Simon Sinek?

  And I, the thing that I lament about dating apps, that's really, and maybe this is just me. Cause I hate first dates.

• 55:10Simon Sinek?

  The worst, but the reason.

• 55:12Steven Bartlett?

  Why did you hate them?

• 55:12Simon Sinek?

  Pre, pre, pre, pre dating apps, or let's not pre dating apps, it's just when there's no dating app being used. The way that we traditionally would meet somebody is you meet them at a party, at a dinner party, you meet them at the pub. You, you know, you bump into them at a museum, you make small talk, or you eye them from across the room. And there's some attraction and then one of you musters up the courage to go up and start flirting and have a conversation. And at some point you say, can I get your number? I'd love to, I'd love to continue this. And they'll say yes or no. And the flirting and the initial trashing has already happened. And so the first date is actually the first date after the initial attraction and flirting.

• 55:52Simon Sinek?

  Now with dating apps, the flirting, the initial attraction, the attempt to court someone is all happening simultaneously on the first date. There's a lot, there's a lot of pressure for a first meeting where, you know, when you meet somebody in, in I R L, it's like, you know? It's happened. The initial attraction has already happened. There's no expectation that they're not gonna look like their picture. They're gonna look like exactly what they're gonna look like when you met them.

• 56:21Steven Bartlett?

  And it's dinner, so there could be three hours allocated, it could be expensive meal.

• 56:24Simon Sinek?

  Whatever it is.

• 56:27Simon Sinek?

  I don't, I think there's nothing quote unquote wrong with online dating. I just think we, we like everything. Like there's nothing wrong with online shopping.

• 56:40Simon Sinek?

  But there's the reason that bricks and mortar stores still exist and that Amazon is opening stores. It's because people like to go shopping. It's a hunter-gatherer thing. Like, there's entertainment in it. It's more than the purchase. It's more than the transaction. It's the browsing we enjoy. You know, it's in our DNA. You know? And I think that there's nothing wrong with online, but I think that making an effort to do, you know, in real-life things should be included, should be balanced. You know, it's like, like everything in the world, I'm a great believer in balance. I don't usually rail for or against something. I'm usually about talking about balances and imbalances.

• 57:22Simon Sinek?

  Even social media, like, so much has been said about, you know, what I've said about social media and millennials, et cetera. I'm not against it. I'm talking about balance. And it's out of balance. You know, even corporate culture, you know, I'm not against many of the modern things. I'm against the imbalance. You know, capitalism is unbalanced in its current form. So when we usually feel discomfort or anger or frustration, it's usually due to the imbalances. Isn't that what, where this conversation started? You know, that, you know, feelings of loneliness, something's out of balance. You know? And this is why I call it fitness rather than health, because fitness is the attempt to maintain equilibrium, maintain to find balance. Sometimes it tips one way and sometimes it tips the other way.

• 58:06Simon Sinek?

  And it's, you're constantly working to maintain balance. That's what all of this stuff is. Business is the same. You're an entrepreneur. It's feast or famine. Like, it's never the right amount. You know, and you're constantly working on balance. And I think that's why, that's the strongest argument for playing the long game, which is, it's always teetering. That means you have to constantly be alert and constantly be working, because if it tips too far, good. It's gonna tip the other way. Don't, don't rest on your laurels. Make, make sure you have got money in the bank. Like, stock markets just don't go straight up. It's not how it works. Right? At the same time, when it goes the other way, it's like, don't worry. This too shall pass. This also won't last. Start working on some skills that you maybe haven't worked on.

• 58:51Simon Sinek?

  Start reaching out to people. Start apologizing. You know, if you've been so self-involved with yourself and now you're in a lonely place. Sometimes being lonely, like is calling up a friend and saying, I've been an asshole. And I am sorry. And I'm looking, I'm in a really dark place right now. And I'm just looking back thinking, oh, my God, I've been so self-involved. That there's no one around me to be there for, and I am so, so sorry. You know, and again, it goes right back to everything we were talking about, which is it's accountable for my, it's accountable for me versus victim of me. You know, that, that I'm not a victim of the world around me, you know?

• 59:31Steven Bartlett?

  What impact has that had on your self-esteem? The, the realization, the awareness that you are, you are feeling lonely. Has it had any impact on your self-esteem at all? Does it? Especially some of those, confronting some of those tough truths from the past.

• 59:46Simon Sinek?

  It's a good question. You know, again, I'll go back to what I said before. I'll go back to what I said before, which is, you can have, we can have multiple feelings at the same time, even if those feelings are opposite. So I can be insecure and confident at the same time, right? But so much of it is situational, right? I'm not insecure every moment of every day. Of course not. Nobody is. But I'm not confident every moment of every day. Of course not. Nobody is. And if you're stuck in one of those things, then there's a problem of like, if you really are overly confident every moment of every day with no actual self-doubt in your mind, there's something wrong there. There's something, there's some neurodivergence going on there, right? We know this. We know that narcissists are actually filled of self-loathing.

• 1:00:31Simon Sinek?

  You know, for all their bluster and power, they hate themselves, right? We know this. And again, I think it's all situational. I think it's all, and so, and I've, I, I, I've talked about this, which is, which is, I don't believe in, you and I have talked about this, which is, I don't believe in strengths and weaknesses, or right or wrong. I believe everything is contextual. So, you know, people do these evaluations. What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? No. What are your characteristics and what are your attributes? And then, once you know those things, you have to know in what contexts, those characteristics or attributes are advantages, and in what contexts, those attributes are disadvantages. And work very hard to put yourself in context where you're going to be working to your strengths. So, if you have a natural capacity for maths, right?

• 1:01:16Simon Sinek?

  You're just really, you're just really good. Like, people say out numbers and you just add them up in your head immediately, and you don't have to pull out your fingers, right? You're just good at it, right? Put yourself in a situation where that's an advantage. If, if you are maths, like, incapable, don't become an accountant, no matter how many people tell you it's a good thing to become an accountant. Right? It's just not going to go well for you. So, you can go down the list of our personal attributes. And I have attributes where, for example, I think out loud. Is that a strength or a weakness?

• 1:01:52Steven Bartlett?

  Context dependent.

• 1:01:52Simon Sinek?

  Context dependent, right? Put me on a stage, ask me a question, let me wax and lasso, give me a podcast on a microphone, give me one question and four hours later, you know, I'm still talking, you know? Advantage, right? Sit me down on a team when I'm having a team meeting, and somebody says something, and I'm thinking out loud, I'm now dominating the meeting. Hmm, maybe I need to learn how to scale that back a little bit.

• 1:02:20Steven Bartlett?

  What are those layers that you've, you've peeled off recently? I, I can think of layers that I've peeled off in the last, you know, couple of months with, with people close to me that I was always scared to peel off before. But I've had to in order to-

• 1:02:32Simon Sinek?

  Like what?

• 1:02:33Steven Bartlett?

  So with my girlfriend, I, you know, I reflect and I go, I don't think I ever told her truly that I'd ever had like a bad day, or that I was like feeling bad about anything. I think I'd always just had this wall up, I thought. Because part of me stupidly thought that- If I tell her when I'm having a bad day or I'm feeling anxious or whatever, then she'll start talking about it and it'll make me more anxious and then I'll have to calm her down. So I just keep it to myself. And then in the last, you know, in the last three to six months, when I felt anxious.

• 1:02:59Simon Sinek?

  Yep.

• 1:03:00Steven Bartlett?

  I've told, I slowly ran the experiment of what happens if I just tell her about a little bit of it.

• 1:03:04Simon Sinek?

  Yep.

• 1:03:04Steven Bartlett?

  That experiment went well, so I told her about a little bit more. And to the point now where I've told her completely how I'm feeling.

• 1:03:10Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Steven Bartlett?

  Even on my best and worst days.

• 1:03:14Steven Bartlett?

  And I would never have done that before because it made me feel weak.

• 1:03:16Simon Sinek?

  Yep.

• 1:03:17Steven Bartlett?

  It made me feel like I was like not the tough masculine boyfriend that she would be attracted to. Obviously, and I have to say this surprisingly, it's caused deeper connection.

• 1:03:27Simon Sinek?

  Of course.

• 1:03:28Steven Bartlett?

  And deeper understanding, which is exactly what I needed. I needed understanding. I needed, and I also created a space where we could say, listen, when I'm feeling like this, this is how I'd love you to respond. Which often is just like.

• 1:03:40Simon Sinek?

  Just.

• 1:03:41Steven Bartlett?

  Just listen.

• 1:03:41Simon Sinek?

  Just sit in the mud with me, yeah.

• 1:03:42Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, exactly. And don't, don't, don't necessarily say anything. Don't try, you know, your point about fixing it. My girlfriend, she's so, through all of her love, and I'm the same with her. And I'm just the same with everybody. I will always try and fix.

• 1:03:53Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, it, it meant men are worse than women when it comes to fixing. I, I've been on the receiving end of that. I dated somebody who, if I asked her, how are you? Great, was the only answer she ever gave me.

• 1:04:05Steven Bartlett?

  That's all I've ever said to people.

• 1:04:06Simon Sinek?

  And, uh, and it actually made it very difficult for me to get close to her. Because I knew that she was having bad days. I could tell when she was frustrated and she. And so when somebody puts on that brave face and always wants to be great for their partner, it's the most selfish thing you can do because you're denying them that awesome joy of being able to be there for you. Remember, as social animals, we want to take care of the people we love. And how dare you, how dare you deny them the, the unbelievable honor of getting to sit in the mud with you?

• 1:04:42Simon Sinek?

  You know, it is, it is a joy that human beings get to experience. And one of the things, if you can, by the way, the biology proves it. That one of the things that releases oxytocin, which is that feeling of love and connection and trust, is shared struggle. Shared struggle releases oxytocin, which is why when families go through tragedy, they get closer. Which is why since when societies go through hurricanes, there's intense, you know, politics get put aside and we support each other, right? And it's the same in a relationship, which is if you allow someone to sit and struggle with you, it actually deepens the relationship biologically.

• 1:05:18Simon Sinek?

  So, but what we're talking about is risk. What we're talking about is being vulnerable, making, you know? And it requires more courage, as you've learned. It actually requires more strength to say, I'm anxious today than it does to lie and say, everything's great. That's the irony. Superficially, it's stronger, but in reality, it's cowardice. And by the way, that doesn't make it easy. The words are easy. And I've definitely been there and you've been there. But I, I think that if we like someone, and it only, and I always say, leadership is about going first. That's why we call you leader, right? Doesn't mean you're 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.

• 1:06:02Simon Sinek?

  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 you to, 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.

• 1:06:30Steven Bartlett?

  And that key second step, which I, I learned literally in the car this weekend with my partner was. You then need to work with them to educate them on, and vice versa, on how you would like to be held.

• 1:06:43Simon Sinek?

  Correct.

• 1:06:44Steven Bartlett?

  In that moment, which is actually a really difficult thing.

• 1:06:46Simon Sinek?

  Correct.

• 1:06:47Steven Bartlett?

  For example, I'll give you an example of me and my partner. When I'm going through those moments, I go really quiet.

• 1:06:52Simon Sinek?

  Yep.

• 1:06:53Steven Bartlett?

  I shut down, I'm glued to my phone. And so if she says something to me, I, my brain almost viewed it as like, why is she bothering me in my hard moment? So I might say something like, babe, I'm just dealing with something. And then it always seemed to me like she'd ask me more questions.

• 1:07:09Simon Sinek?

  Of course.

• 1:07:09Steven Bartlett?

  Hey babe, look at this, come look at this, look at this.

• 1:07:12Simon Sinek?

  She's trying.

• 1:07:13Steven Bartlett?

  I'm thinking, I just told her that.

• 1:07:15Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15Steven Bartlett?

  I'm dealing with something, she's making it worse, she's trying to give me more stuff to deal with.

• 1:07:19Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Steven Bartlett?

  So I had this conversation with her, I go, and I said to her, let's, let's just create a safe space here. This is how I feel, I feel like when I'm going through something and I'm dealing with something and I shut down and look at my phone, the amount of irrelevant questions you asked me then increased considerably. And then she gave me her perspective on that situation. Then we kind of formed a deal about in those moments, the first thing I'm doing wrong is I'm going, babe, I'm dealing with something. And I'm saying with, with a certain tone.

• 1:07:42Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 1:07:42Steven Bartlett?

  And a lack of love and empathy, that's immediately making her feel abandoned and rejected.

• 1:07:46Simon Sinek?

  Of course.

• 1:07:47Steven Bartlett?

  So I'm going, babe, I'm dealing with something. So she said to me, if you say it in this way, if you say, babe, I love you, but can I just have five minutes? Because something's, something's up, I just need to work through this. Her reaction would have been totally different.

• 1:07:58Simon Sinek?

  Of course.

• 1:07:59Steven Bartlett?

  And it, and having that second stage of like, let's find a solution together and understand each other was so difficult. But going back to my question.

• 1:08:05Simon Sinek?

  Well, it goes back to what we said before, which is business partnerships, real personal relationships, friendships are acts of co-creation.

• 1:08:12Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Simon Sinek?

  And so I have definitely been guilty of checklist-ing people professionally and personally. Oh, they have this, they have this, they don't have this.

• 1:08:22Simon Sinek?

  I guess I could do without that one, you know? And, and the problem with a checklist is people can feel it, you know? And I keep complaining, this, I said, I have a bad picker. It's because I would show up with my checklist early in my, in my, in my twenties. And, you know, if they were strong, which is the kind of person I want to date, they would be like, this idiot has his checklist. I can't meet everything on his checklist, he's not for me. Right? And so what I ended up was attracting is people who would mold and bend to fit my checklist. And then I'm like, but then I don't even know who you are. Bad picker, my fault, right? Take full accountability. But the point is, is like, I go to pain thing, I might have preferences. I have a couple of deal breakers, you know? I think everybody should know their deal breakers.

• 1:09:07Simon Sinek?

  But the amazing thing is, is we actually, I actually have fewer deal breakers than I thought I did.

• 1:09:12Steven Bartlett?

  What are your deal breakers?

• 1:09:13Simon Sinek?

  Not talking about them.

• 1:09:13Steven Bartlett?

  You set that up, sorry.

• 1:09:15Simon Sinek?

  No, that's my, that's for me.

• 1:09:16Steven Bartlett?

  Fair enough.

• 1:09:17Simon Sinek?

  That's for me. This is not a dating app.

• 1:09:18Steven Bartlett?

  I can tell you my deal breakers.

• 1:09:19Simon Sinek?

  Great, I'd love to hear them. So, uh, uh, I mean, look, there's some obvious ones, right? Some of my deal breakers, you know, I, somebody, I, I want somebody who, who, who's, who's, who's taking themselves on. They're in, they're in constant growth and constant improvement, right? Somebody who thinks they've got it all figured out, this is not going to work out, you know? Obviously, you know, integrity, somebody who lives a life of service is really matters to me. Like when somebody, like, all they're driven by is money, cash, fame, fortune, success. You know, like anybody who posts a picture of themselves on a private jet on a dating app is an immediate no. You know, it's like, blech, right?

• 1:10:02Simon Sinek?

  Like, of course, those are some basics, because those are my, my values. I'm, I'm service oriented and I, and I, I don't, I, and I need to, somewhat, I need to date somebody who's passionate about something. It doesn't matter if it's been commercially successful or not, that's not what I care about. But you have to have a love for something. A passion, something that like excites you and gets you out of bed, even if you don't get to do it all the time. I don't care if you're a painter, I don't care if you're trying to change the world. It can be big, it can be small, just have a love for something.

• 1:10:32Steven Bartlett?

  Shall I give you my three that I look for?

• 1:10:34Simon Sinek?

  Please.

• 1:10:35Steven Bartlett?

  So I, I was through my early twenties.

• 1:10:37Simon Sinek?

  I love that you wrote them down and you know them.

• 1:10:39Steven Bartlett?

  Because there's only three of them, they used to be 300. So it'd be like this color hair, this color height, this color this, this, I want it to be this shape and this size. And then I was like, how do I consolidate this down? So I came down to three things that are important. First one is quite surprising to some people, but sexual attraction.

• 1:10:53Simon Sinek?

  Of course.

• 1:10:53Steven Bartlett?

  Because I've had physical attraction without the sexual attraction. But I've never had it almost the other way around.

• 1:10:58Simon Sinek?

  Good distinction.

• 1:10:59Steven Bartlett?

  So I've had physical attraction where I've dated someone who's absolutely beautiful. And then there wasn't sexual chemistry there. So I prioritized sexual attraction, which I think is important. The next one is intellectually stimulating, intellectually, which is what you've described, where they have a passion. I might not even believe it's true or like it or care, but the fact that it stimulates me and we can have a conversation.

• 1:11:18Simon Sinek?

  And they can teach me.

• 1:11:19Steven Bartlett?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:11:19Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:20Steven Bartlett?

  Me and my girlfriend, she believes in all these things I don't believe in. But she'll sit there and tell me that, you know, something with crystals in this glass of water. I don't believe it. She doesn't have an expectation that I'll believe it. But I'm peering into a new world of breathwork and spirituality.

• 1:11:34Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 1:11:34Steven Bartlett?

  I do believe in breathwork. Anyway, and the third one is that we make each other better people. Really, I'm going to be honest, it was a bit more selfish. It was actually that she makes me a better person. But I'm willing to give that back, obviously, and I want to give that back. And what I mean by that is in my mission, in the work that I love to do, they support me. So those three things, I think if I can find someone that has all three.

• 1:11:54Simon Sinek?

  So I think you've summed up my three as well. I went way more specific, which is why I rejected the question. But if I take it up a few thousand feet.

• 1:12:02Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:12:03Simon Sinek?

  Sexual attraction, a hundred percent. And I think it's a great distinction between physical attraction and sexual attraction. So I agree with those three. Those are my three too. The way I used to describe, I still describe relationships, I think great relationships are based on what I call three plus one. Which is you have to have, and it's the same list. That's the funny thing. You have to have intellectual compatibility, which is you teach and learn. You have to have emotional compatibility, where you're showing up to grow together, right? You can find vulnerability and hold space for each other. You have to have sexual compatibility, which I consider part of creativity. So creative and sexual, which is not physical attraction. It's sexual attraction and like I said, creativity. And you can have a good relationship with one and a half or two of those.

• 1:12:47Simon Sinek?

  But you can have a great relationship without three.

• 1:12:49Steven Bartlett?

  Yes.

• 1:12:49Simon Sinek?

  Because they're not all on high at the same time. They sort of, they go up and down and they wax and wane. And so you need the others to hold the others up when one is down.

• 1:12:59Steven Bartlett?

  That's a good point. Yeah.

• 1:13:00Simon Sinek?

  That's why you need all three, because like I said, you can have a ton of fun with one or two of them.

• 1:13:04Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Simon Sinek?

  But great requires all three. And the plus one is circumstances.

• 1:13:09Steven Bartlett?

  Ah, like, timing, location.

• 1:13:11Simon Sinek?

  Timing, location. Like, I've met people who are threes, and they're married, and they're kids, and they're happily married, and we look at each other and go, "At a different time, it might have worked, but definitely not now." And we just smile and we go on. Or, I've met somebody who lives on the other side of the world, and I'm not moving, they're not moving, and you shrug and you go, "Ah, if circumstances were different." And, you know, it's like, and you just, it's not a, it's not a sad thing, it's just a, it's a smile. You know, it's like, I've met, I, you know, and, and by the way, I've dated one and a halfs and twos, and they're amazing people. But then, those three things.

• 1:13:49Steven Bartlett?

  It's so true. The reason I know that about...

• 1:13:51Simon Sinek?

  It's so funny that my three plus one

• 1:13:53Steven Bartlett?

  Is, yeah.

• 1:13:53Simon Sinek?

  Is your three.

• 1:13:54Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:55Simon Sinek?

  It's exactly the same list.

• 1:13:56Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I've, I've dated, the only reason I have those three is because I've dated someone who had two.

• 1:14:00Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 1:14:01Steven Bartlett?

  And I've had two, so I've dated...

• 1:14:02Simon Sinek?

  You've had all the permutations of two.

• 1:14:03Steven Bartlett?

  But there's always been one missing.

• 1:14:04Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:05Steven Bartlett?

  And so I remember thinking, "In the woman that I thought I was going to marry that was missing this one thing, if she just had that one thing, then I genuinely believed I would have been happy." And I'm thinking about this particular person from many years ago, she's married, she's got a kid now and everything. I think I'm, I am lost out there, but I'm very, very more happy myself. But she just missed one of those things. And then I can think of my previous relationships, like, "Oh, if they just had that one thing." So, now I found someone who I genuinely

• 1:14:29Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:30Steven Bartlett?

  Whether she's listening or not, has all three. And I go, "That's me, let's go to the till." You know what I mean, like?

• 1:14:36Simon Sinek?

  The thing, the thing that I'm appreciating, there's two things I'm appreciating. One, she has all three, but you have to have all three for her.

• 1:14:43Steven Bartlett?

  I hope so.

• 1:14:44Simon Sinek?

  Right? Because, like, she has to find you sexually attractive, she has to find you intellectually stimulating, and she has to make, she has to find that you're emotionally available for her, which means, when you're having a bad day, you have to say, "I'm having a bad day," not be great all the time. Otherwise, you're only a two to her. If you're actively being strong all the time, then you're only a two to her, and you'll only ever be a two to her. So there you go. So, it's all finding good for you and I to have our, our three plus one, but we have to have the three for them too, and that's the work.

• 1:15:13Steven Bartlett?

  That fluctuation point is so important.

• 1:15:14Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:15Steven Bartlett?

  Because sometimes we just, we have two in our relationship.

• 1:15:17Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:17Steven Bartlett?

  Two of the three.

• 1:15:18Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Steven Bartlett?

  But the other two are very important to hold us

• 1:15:20Simon Sinek?

  Yep.

• 1:15:20Steven Bartlett?

  through that storm.

• 1:15:21Simon Sinek?

  And it's unpredictable as to when they go up and down, and sometimes... You're not sexually compatible and you're just snuggling and that's all you want to do. And you don't want to do anything more than that. But that's okay, because the vulnerability is so deep and intellectual is so high that it's okay. Like, the relationship is really very, very good. You're both very happy. Should we make this dating app or should we let someone else steal the idea? Because there's going to be someone out there that's going to go, the three plus one app. I think we should, I think we should make it. Okay. And we should call it Three Plus One. I love that. So I guess I do know my list and that's, that's the three. And if I look back at my, my failed relationships, and again, personal accountability included. You know, I think that in some cases, I definitely did not present myself in one of those things.

• 1:16:06Simon Sinek?

  Or, like I said, the act of co-creation is really, and this is to me is like, like the biggest insight that I've learned about myself in my own dating life, which is, which is, and I love what you said, which is, I'm not into her crystals and all of that stuff. And she knows it. You're not pretending that you are, right? And you're okay with the fact that, you know, she wants crystals to guide her life. And she's okay with the fact that you don't. And I think that's really important, which is the number of people I meet who say, well, I'm into crystals and he's into crystals, this is going to work. And I'm thinking, hmm, maybe. But, or worse, they go, he's not into crystals, I could never date him. Right?

• 1:16:51Simon Sinek?

  And it's not a question whether they're into it or not. It's a question whether they are open to learning from you. And they're not rolling their eyes when you start speaking, you know? Uh, or vice versa. You know, there's, I've forgotten his name, there's a famous relationship therapist who can tell in the first five minutes if a couple that's come to see him are going to survive or not. And the test is when one of them starts talking and the other one rolls their eyes, it's over. Professor Jim Gottman. Is that, yeah. I did a. You did a thing with him? I did a thing on him. So I've like. So good, right? Yeah, contempt. Yeah, it's contempt. And, and, and what it is, it's not just contempt, it's, it's intolerance. Right? Like, you idiot, or how can you be so stupid? Deep unaddressed resentment.

• 1:17:36Simon Sinek?

  Or, oh, God, you know? Yeah. And I think when somebody starts talking about their crystals and you start rolling your eyes, it's, it's over. If somebody talks about their crystals and you can say, it's not my thing, but. Tell me, I genuinely want to learn and I'm open to some of it. I want to learn things I know nothing about. I like my, my, my last girlfriend is so good at the things she's passionate about. She's so good at it and she'll send me pictures when she's working on something of something she's working on. And I just like, I'm so blown away about how good she is at the things she does. I get joy out of seeing her be so good at her thing, you know? It's, I love it.

• 1:18:19Steven Bartlett?

  Do you miss her?

• 1:18:20Simon Sinek?

  We're still very close friends.

• 1:18:22Steven Bartlett?

  Have you experienced heartbreak?

• 1:18:25Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:27Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. Yeah, I have.

• 1:18:34Simon Sinek?

  You mean like, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:35Steven Bartlett?

  Romantic heartbreak?

• 1:18:36Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, sure. I think I mean, like, I think I've had all the things.

• 1:18:42Steven Bartlett?

  I think I posted something the other day about just how it's the most incredible, incredible feeling. Not as in.

• 1:18:48Simon Sinek?

  It's awful.

• 1:18:48Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, but it's incredible because it's so deep and so prevailing. That I actually think it teaches you a lot about the nature of what it is to be a human.

• 1:18:58Simon Sinek?

  I think this is a perfect, we've got in a beautiful circle here, which is to experience heartbreak, though awful.

• 1:19:06Simon Sinek?

  Again, it goes back to balance, right? In all sadness, there is lesson and joy. In all happiness, there is, um, um, there's a cost, right? Always, there's a cost for everything good in our lives and there's lesson and opportunity in everything bad or negative, right? So, you know, all of the things that I've done that have brought me tremendous happiness, tremendous joy. I, I, I know some of those costs and it's only bad if the cost wasn't worth it. But in, in most cases, the cost was worth it and I did it with eyes wide open, right? And when there has been pain or loneliness, I'm learning about myself. I'm learning about my friends.

• 1:19:46Simon Sinek?

  Um, I'm learning about how I want and need somebody to show up for me, which means that in those good times, I can equip them. And I can be better equipped myself. I can say, hey, listen, if this ever happens, I know, I know what, I know how you can hold space for me. You just have to say these three things. I need you to do this and you'll be amazed how responsive I can be in that situation. To your point about learning how to communicate with your girlfriend, you know, about when you're feeling anxious and you need five minutes to yourself, right? And I'm going to say this over and over and over again, which is successful relationships are acts of co-creation. And to have a successful act of co-creation, you both have to be really equipped to listen

• 1:20:30Simon Sinek?

  and to volunteer information to help the other person. In other words, when we talk about what we need, we're giving somebody tools. And when we learn to listen, we're gaining tools. And the goal is to help them fill up their toolbox and to work very hard to fill up your own. So filling up your own is about listening and filling up theirs is about being an effective communicator. And now, when you both have tools, you can go build something together. Because if only one of you has tools, the thing you're going to build is going to be weak. And a business partnership, a creative partnership, a personal partnership, they're acts of co-creation. And that, that insight has come from failed relationships. And thank goodness, some very strong, smart, wonderful women who've told me,

• 1:21:14Simon Sinek?

  "Do you know what your problem is?" And I listened.

• 1:21:19Steven Bartlett?

  And I asked you 20 minutes ago what wall you'd pulled down. I said, you know, the layers of the onion you've peeled back. I shared mine.

• 1:21:25Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:26Steven Bartlett?

  I said, with my girlfriend, I've started to tell her when I'm really feeling.

• 1:21:28Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:29Steven Bartlett?

  I've never done that before. What are those walls that you've recently pulled down so that people can come inside?

• 1:21:34Simon Sinek?

  I've become much better at understanding how some of my symptoms of ADHD show up in relationships, which I just was unaware of. And so, instead of taking total accountability, which I do, I'll take accountability for showing up. I'm now able to explain them so somebody can look for them and point them out when they're happening, so I can take accountability. Because it's about, some of it's about awareness, right? And so, I literally can say very early in a relationship, "You may experience this with me." Dot, dot, dot. If it happens, I know that I do it. Please just point it out and I will know I have the tools. I'm just sometimes unaware that it's happening, right? And So I'm asking for co-creation. I'm saying, look, I'm in this. I'll take, I take all the accountability

• 1:22:19Simon Sinek?

  for my own behavior. Sometimes I just need you to tell me when I'm doing it. And so I'm, I'm asking for help, right?

• 1:22:27Simon Sinek?

  And like I said, leadership is about very often just going first. And if either person in the relationship goes first, it gives a safe space for the other person to say, well, let me tell you about me.

• 1:22:38Simon Sinek?

  And I think being open to feedback allows you to give feedback, too.

• 1:22:45Simon Sinek?

  But for me, the huge insight that I wish I'd known before, which is even though I may have said it, I didn't know how to do it, the act of co-creation, you know, I, I, whenever I, you hear a relationship, like really successful relationships, you always hear both the partners say, it's a lot of work.

• 1:23:00Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:00Simon Sinek?

  And like, I never really understood that. Like, if it's such a, like, I look at my great friendships. I mean, I wouldn't say there's a lot of work, you know, they flow. And, but I guess the difference with the, definite, the difference with a friendship is like, I don't have to see them every moment of every day. And, and I think the work is that act of co-creation.

• 1:23:19Steven Bartlett?

  I thought the work was sacrifice. When I heard great relationships going, oh, it's a lot of work. I thought, well, they're not sleeping at night.

• 1:23:25Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 1:23:25Steven Bartlett?

  He can't watch the football every time he wants to watch it. I didn't think it was active work. I thought it was the stuff that you didn't get to do.

• 1:23:32Simon Sinek?

  That's funny. Yeah, it's, it's not sacrifice, it's service.

• 1:23:35Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:36Simon Sinek?

  And, and, and again, you know, it's really funny, you know, my experience with the military versus private sector. So if I do anything pro bono in private sector, and this is since the dawn of time, right? If I do anything as a favor to a company, almost always, they will continue to take and take and take and take until I put my hands up and go, okay, we're done. This is enough, right? The military, it's the total opposite. I'll do something as a, as a favor to somebody, and I will never hear from them ever again. And the reason they don't call me is for fear that they will look like they're taking advantage.

• 1:24:11Simon Sinek?

  And I have to sit down with these people, these wonderful human beings, and I found a way. I said, do you realize, I got a, I found a way to get them to call me, which is I'm like, do you realize when you don't call me, you deny me the opportunity to serve my country? And that gets them every time. But the reason I bring it up is it's the same in a relationship, which is when you don't call me and ask me for help, when you don't call me and say I need to cry, when you don't call me and say I'm in the mud, you deny me the opportunity, the joy, the honor of sitting in the mud with you. Not joy, honor, you deny me the honor, because it's not always fun. You deny me the honor of sitting in the mud with you. And I remember telling one of my close friends, I said, we were riding bikes somewhere.

• 1:24:56Simon Sinek?

  And I, just out of the blue, I don't know why it hit me, I turned to him and I said, you know, you're one of those friends that if I was really in the shit, I would call you.

• 1:25:04Simon Sinek?

  And his reaction is he didn't say thank you. He said, I'd be mad if you didn't. And I've done that to friends. I've done that to friends. A, a, a, a friend of mine who, who is struggling, I said, when we got off the phone, I said, hey, listen, I know you're in a bad place, so don't be an asshole and deny me the joy, or deny me the opportunity to, to sit in the space with you moving forwards, okay? Like, if you, if you need to call me in the middle of the night, you call me. Don't deny me the opportunity to, to, to be there with you.

• 1:25:33Steven Bartlett?

  If you've previously handled the moment when they did call you by being, trying to be a fixer or anything, they're just not going to do it regardless of what you say. So do you know what I'm saying?

• 1:25:40Simon Sinek?

  Correct.

• 1:25:41Steven Bartlett?

  And the reason why I know this is because I said this to one of my friends recently, who had opened up to me, um, he was in, he was in, he was back in London. And I remember going to say to him, oh, man, please tell me next time this happens. You know, you always seem to tell me when it's, and then I reflected and went, you know why?

• 1:25:56Simon Sinek?

  You're a fixer.

• 1:25:57Steven Bartlett?

  I'm a fixer. So he doesn't want to fucking call me.

• 1:25:59Simon Sinek?

  Exactly.

• 1:26:00Steven Bartlett?

  Because, because he doesn't like the way that I

• 1:26:02Simon Sinek?

  Exactly.

• 1:26:02Steven Bartlett?

  I hold space for him. I'm trying to correct everything.

• 1:26:04Simon Sinek?

  Correct.

• 1:26:05Steven Bartlett?

  So even if I'd gone, you fucking better call me next time.

• 1:26:07Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:08Steven Bartlett?

  He would, in his head go.

• 1:26:09Simon Sinek?

  But what you can say now is, I realize in the past, I was ill-equipped. I didn't have the tools and how to hold space for you.

• 1:26:16Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:16Simon Sinek?

  And I realize in the past, when you've called me, I've tried to fix everything, which is hardly an incentive for you to call me again. And I want you to know, I've been working really, really, really hard on that skillset. So give me another chance. If you're ever in the shit. I am better equipped. I won't be perfect. It's a work in progress, but I want you to know that I want to be there for you. And I think you'll be surprised I'm a lot better than I was. And if I'm not, you can tell me.

• 1:26:40Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:26:42Simon Sinek?

  Because I would want somebody to tell me if they're in the shit and I start going to fixing mode. They go, Simon, you're trying to fix me. I go, sorry, sorry. And I can back off immediately because I know what's happening.

• 1:26:52Simon Sinek?

  Because you can correct. This is the great thing about human beings is where it's kind of like the difference between public speaking and writing a book, right? Public speaking is really forgiving. I can have screwed up grammar. I can misspeak. And people are tracking. I can bounce from subject to subject and people are fine. If I do that in a book, it's unreadable, right? And so it's the same, having a conversation with someone, like it's a very forgiving process. Like when you're trying to fix something and then you're doing, and that's not what they need. And they go, stop trying to fix it. You're like, sorry, sorry. You can actually get the energy in the right place back really quickly. Something you can't do over text.

• 1:27:27Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:29Simon Sinek?

  Just had to put that public service announcement in there.

• 1:27:33Simon Sinek?

  You know, they're very easily correctable. That's the nice thing. Like you can start, I mean, we've both had the experience where you're having a really bad. It's going sideways fast and it is going towards bad. And one of you or both of you is really making it worse and pouring, you know, fuel on that fire. And then all it takes is one of you to back off and say, listen, I'm this, can we just take it back? And you'll end the phone call hugging and, you know, hugging each other.

• 1:27:59Steven Bartlett?

  It happens all the time.

• 1:28:00Simon Sinek?

  It does.

• 1:28:02Steven Bartlett?

  We sit here in a couple of years' time, Simon, and we have a conversation. And some of the challenges you're facing in your personal life, some of the ones you've talked about, personal and professional, transition moment in your professional life. They are, they're in a better place. Things are idyllic, dare I say, because I think that's a bit of an impossibility in the human condition. But things are idyllic. What does your life look like?

• 1:28:29Simon Sinek?

  You know, for me, scale matters. And I, I am looking to the, the, one of the things that I, I, I measure success by momentum, not by achievement. I think I've shared this with you before, how I've always viewed my career as an iceberg, which is when I first started, when I had a vision of the world, you know, I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. That is a vision that no one else can see. It exists in my imagination. It's like an iceberg under the ocean. I know it's there. I can see it, but no one else can see it because there's nothing sticking above the ocean. And so I talk about my vision and people be like, you're an idiot, you're an idealist, you're crazy, that's impossible.

• 1:29:14Simon Sinek?

  And I do some work, whatever it is, and a little bit of iceberg pops up. I've done something that is a tangible demonstration of what I'm talking about, you know, gave a talk, you know, gave some examples, found a company. And somebody goes, oh, oh, I see. Yes, I can see what you're talking about now. And they start working with me. And now those are the early adopters. And I keep doing work and I keep doing work and the more and more of the iceberg starts to stick up above the ocean. And no matter how much, no matter what point of my career I've been in, no matter how much success I've had, however you want to define it, when somebody says to me, oh my God, it's amazing what you've achieved, my answer is always the same, tip of the iceberg. Because though there may be more iceberg sticking above the ocean now than there used

• 1:29:58Simon Sinek?

  to be, all I can see is what remains to be done beneath the ocean. And that is vast. And so I'm never really satisfied with what I've achieved. I'm trying to find ways to get more of the iceberg out of the ocean. Right? And so the question is, is what I've been doing up until now will have some effect to get more iceberg up, but not, not as much as I need. So if you ask me sort of like, what does my life look like in, in, in the future? I always think in terms of momentum. And the thing that drives me is all of the founders of the women's suffrage movement in the United States, all died of natural causes before the first woman ever voted. In other words, I have to put in place

• 1:30:44Simon Sinek?

  as many systems and elements as I can so that when my time comes, I will die confident that others will continue the work that I've been working on my whole life without me, just as I have continued the work of those who came before me. Why does that work matter to you? I believe we all have a responsibility to leave this world in better shape than we found it. The accomplishment of that work, how would it make you feel? How does it make you feel on an ongoing basis? I am proud of the momentum that I'm contributing to. And momentum is more important to me than any specific thing that I may or may not have accomplished. You know, because I think- Why not just go get a yacht and go to a beach and just like live it up? I mean, I would probably enjoy it for a few weeks

• 1:31:29Simon Sinek?

  and then I'd get bored. You know, I like, I, it's probably some sort of neurodivergence. I like, I like difficult and uncomfortable. And overwhelmingly huge problems are my favorite kind. I, you know, and, you know, undoing everything Jack Welch did and getting capitalism rebalanced. I mean, I can't do that alone for sure. I'm not the only person who has that vision. I'm doing my part and it is so vast with so many moving parts that is so complicated that the easier thing would be to give up and just go live on a yacht. It gives you a sense of meaning, right? Don't get me wrong. There are days that that abandoning it and just like is very appealing. You know? But it gives you a sense of meaning, right? Yeah. It gives you a sense of like,

• 1:32:13Simon Sinek?

  life becomes worthwhile when there's something scary. I want to know, I want to know that I lived a life worth living. And for, and I, and by the way, for different people, that is defined differently. You know, for some, living a life worth living means looking at a child that you've raised and saying, that kid will be okay without me. In other words, they will continue the work that I've done without me. It's the same, it's the same, it's all the same mentality. And, and, and-

• 1:32:40Simon Sinek?

  I don't care where somebody finds that meaning. I want them to have it.

• 1:32:44Steven Bartlett?

  The reason I ask this is because I'm always trying to separate like the virtue from the from reality. And when I speak to young kids, they all want to change the world. And I'm always compelled by like, why? And even with this podcast, if someone asks me, Steve, why did you do the podcast? Of course, I can say, you know, I want to help people with disinformation and whatever else. And I'm always like, trying to make sure that I'm fully in tune with the exact why, the most like innate human reason why I'm doing this, like, why I'm doing this. Am I doing it because lots of people watch and that's great for my ego, my self esteem or whatever, because loads of people are clapping? I'm doing it because I see these messages and people come up to me and say it's really helped them. To be honest, it's probably all of these things. If I'm being like truly honest with myself, it's probably all of these things.

• 1:33:23Simon Sinek?

  Well, they're they're they're metrics. They're indicators, right?

• 1:33:25Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:25Simon Sinek?

  Like you and I, you, you and I, one of our metrics, that's it's a hard one to track, is there is tremendous, um, I don't know what words to use. I think there is gratitude when somebody comes up to us on the street and says, thank you so much. I read your book, listen to your podcast, whatever it is, and it changed my life. Right? And this is a total stranger who, just by chance, that we happened to walk past them in that moment. So we can safely assume that there are other people that we haven't walked past. But through and and not only did they see us, they mustered the courage to go up and talk to us, you know, and, um, uh, and that is, that is a metric.

• 1:34:10Steven Bartlett?

  Why does it feel so good?

• 1:34:13Simon Sinek?

  It's not about feeling good. It's not about feeling good. For me, it's, it's proof that the work that I'm doing is going places I never imagined it would go.

• 1:34:23Steven Bartlett?

  And does that feel good?

• 1:34:25Simon Sinek?

  That feels like, yeah, I mean, it feels like the work that I should continue working. That's what it, what it makes me feel. It's not, doesn't make me feel like, it's not like I like, it doesn't like, do anything to my ego or anything. It just reminds me, you got to keep doing this. Like, you don't have a choice, you know? Um, I don't know if I've shared the story with you before, but I went to Afghanistan with the Air Force during the war. In Afghanistan, I went for twenty four hours. And nothing went according to plan. And we ended up thinking we were going to get stuck there. And I never told my parents that I was going to Afghanistan. We landed at ten o'clock at night in Bagram Air Base. And and the door had opened on the side of the plane. We hadn't got off the plane yet.

• 1:35:09Simon Sinek?

  And about ten minutes after we landed, the base came in on rocket attack. And three rockets hit a hundred yards off our nose. I could you could hear the booms, obviously. The air raid sirens are going the over the speakers. It's telling everybody to go to their shelters. And we're just on a plane filled with gas. And weirdly, I was calm because everybody else was calm. And we never bothered putting on our vests or helmets because what's that going to do? And everybody, we just sort of hung out and I was weirdly relaxed. And for anybody who's ever been in a war zone, they'll know this. You have all the feelings you're supposed to have. You don't necessarily have them at the right times. My panic came later.

• 1:35:46Simon Sinek?

  We finally were given the all clear. We went to our quarters. The next day I had the most amazed after about three hours of sleep. That's all we got. Had the most amazing experience. I got to experience an airdrop mission where we flew a C seventeen at two thousand feet. I watched the back of the door open and and whoosh flew out the back fuel ammunition and water supplied a forward operating base. You know, about an hour and a half, two hours from Bagram. And then we flew back most amazing experience, right? Now, the goal was to leave the country. I was just there to experience an airdrop, meet some people. I had no particular responsibility other than to witness. And now the goal was to leave the country. Great, there's nothing regularly scheduled. And so we found another plane that was going back to Bagram. We asked the pilot, can we join your flight?

• 1:36:28Simon Sinek?

  He said, yes, we waited for many hours because that there's a lot of waiting. And we finally got on the plane. We're literally five minutes from leaving. We're all strapped into the back of this KC forty six again. And it's a outbound air medical. So we're taking out wounded wounded servicemen and women. And and five minutes before we leave, the pilot comes up to us and says, I need to bump you off this flight because I need some extra room for stretchers. And we went, sounds good. If there's ever a good reason to get bumped off a flight, this is it. So we took our stuff off and we thought, OK, let's go find another flight. And that's when we learned that there are no other flights leaving until Tuesday and it's only Saturday. And

• 1:37:11Simon Sinek?

  And now, all of a sudden, every fiber of my body sank. All of a sudden, I realized I'm stuck in this country and there's no guarantee I'm gonna get on a flight on Tuesday. I don't have any way to contact my parents. I'm just gonna be completely out of touch after the date that they think I'm coming home. And even if I did call them, what am I gonna say? I'm not gonna be home, I'm in Afghanistan, like, in the middle of a war, you know? Every, I remember, I had, I was, I had a tremendous self-awareness of the, of how I felt and who I was becoming. And there was a public affairs officer who said, "I can get you to Kyrgyzstan, but you don't have the right visa." And I literally put my finger in his face. I don't do that. I've never held my finger in someone's face in my life.

• 1:37:54Simon Sinek?

  And I put my finger in his face and said, "You get me on that plane." Like, I don't talk to people that way. And I could see myself becoming this person that I am not and didn't want to be. We went back to our quarters, we're all exhausted. And so I laid down on the bed and closed my eyes just because I was tired, but there's no way I was sleeping. My mind was racing. One of the officers said, "Well, I'm gonna see if I can find us another flight." And so he left. And the other officer said, "Well, I'm gonna go to the gym then." And he left. And he thought I was sleeping, so as he left, he turned the lights out. And I was left by myself in the dark, my mind going crazy. And now, I'm panicked. That feeling that I should have had when the rockets hit, I'm now having it right now. I'm convinced I'm gonna die.

• 1:38:39Simon Sinek?

  I'm convinced there's gonna be another rocket attack. I'm convinced it's gonna land on me. I'm convinced my parents are gonna find out I was here when the military knocks on the door and tells them. And no logic can dissuade me. I know that one of the reasons I feel this way is because I have no sense of purpose, right? I didn't come here for any reason, I just came here to witness. And so, I, look, I'm in the purpose business. I'm like, "All right, Simon, you need purpose, you need purpose. Come up with a sense of purpose." "All right, you're here to learn and come back and tell their story." "Okay, there you go." And it made me feel good for like, five minutes. And then it disappeared in the panic, and the paranoia came back in. And I went through this cycle multiple times, trying to invent a purpose for myself.

• 1:39:22Simon Sinek?

  And then I finally realized I couldn't come up with anything, and I gave up. And I lie in that bed, resigned to the fact that I was stuck there without a sense of purpose. And I decided that if I was gonna get stuck here, I might as well make myself useful. That I would volunteer, that I would speak to the troops that they wanted me to. I would carry boxes, I would sweep floors. I didn't care how menial the work. I just wanted to serve those who were serving others. And in that moment, I found unbelievable calm, even excitement to be there to serve those who serve others. As if it were a movie, the timing was extraordinary. Having just come to this remarkable insight, the door flies open.

• 1:40:06Simon Sinek?

  It's Major Throck Morton. He says, "There's a flight that's been redirected. It's going to Ramstein. We can get on the plane if we leave now. They're not gonna wait for us. We have to go. We have to go now. We have to go now. Where's Matt?" I'm like, "He's at the gym." We run to the gym. We get Matt off the treadmill. There's no time for him to shower. He puts his uniform back on. We grab all of our stuff and we run to the flight line to get on this plane.

• 1:40:28Simon Sinek?

  We get to the flight line. We can see the C-17 we're supposed to get on. It's right over there. We can see it. But the security stops us and won't let us onto the flight line. There's a fallen soldier ceremony happening somewhere on the base, and out of respect, everything stops. And so we sat on the curb and waited. And while we were sitting there, I told the guys what I had gone through lying in that bed. Mind you, I have no idea how long I was in that bed for. I could have been in there for 10 minutes. I could have been there for an hour. I don't want anybody to tell me either. I had, I'd lost all concept of time. I sat there and told them what I had gone through, and I'd come to this remarkable insight that true purpose in life is to serve those who serve others. And I wept, and I wept while I was sitting on that curb.

• 1:41:12Simon Sinek?

  And one of the things that a lot of people don't know about the military is crying is just fine. Finally, the security came up and we were able to walk to the aircraft. We boarded the plane. We would be the only three passengers aboard this aircraft. What, what I didn't know at the time is the reason this flight had been redirected is that we would be carrying the soldier for whom they just had the fallen soldier ceremony.

• 1:41:40Simon Sinek?

  We stood there and waited and the army brought on the flag draped casket. The soldiers put the casket right in the middle of the aircraft. They stood there and did a very slow eight count salute. They turned, marched off the plane and we could watch them hugging and crying as they walked out of sight. Our Air Force crew got to work and they strapped the casket down in the middle of the aircraft and we got going. I've never had such an honor in my life, having just gone through this experience that I had on the ground, learning that true purpose is the opportunity to serve those who serve others. That I get to bring home somebody who knows a lot more about purpose than I ever will.

• 1:42:24Simon Sinek?

  We land at Ramstein and we have one night at Ramstein before we come home. The final flight home is another C-17 back to Andrews Air Force Base. And this is a, an, uh, an aeromedical evacuation. So it's what they call an AE mission. So wounded, the wounded, some ambulatory, some not. And we get into the, the flight, this flight was a little more relaxed and you know, lots of nurses tending to the wounded. And in the back of the aircraft was a single gurney, a single Marine, who was in what they call CCAT, which is an artificial coma.

• 1:43:08Simon Sinek?

  Very, very badly wounded and he had four doctors attending to him personally. And I sort of avoided going to the back of the plane because it was uncomfortable. And I finally said, no, I gotta go. So I, I walked to the back of the plane to talk to the docs. And they walked me through his wounds. His buddy stepped on an IED and was killed and he took the shrapnel. He had shrapnel in the chest, shrapnel in the eye. And he was in very bad shape. And the docs were telling me that the, the amount of new, techniques that they were learning how to, how to treat trauma, just because of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, was slowly making its way into civilian hospitals.

• 1:43:52Simon Sinek?

  So even when they're wounded, they're still serving us, you know? And the lead doc was a, was a, was a reservist who works in an ER in Austin. And had I not gone through what I had just gone through 24 hours before, I would never have asked him this question.

• 1:44:10Simon Sinek?

  But I did. I asked him, "Hey, doc, you're a good guy. You work in an ER. You save lives for a living. That's your job. Do you have a different kind of feeling on these missions than you do back home?" And he looked at me and he said, "90 to 95% of the people who come through an ER are either drunks or idiots." He says, "There's not a single drunk or idiot on this aircraft." He said, "The feeling that I get when I get to work these missions during my reserve hours is more powerful than any feeling I ever get when I'm working back home." Again, the greatest sense of purpose and meaning we can have in our lives is to serve those who serve others. Part of the deal that they made with me when I went, the general said, "I want you to go and I want you to come back and tell us your insights.

• 1:44:55Simon Sinek?

  What you saw that we did well, what you saw weak, just tell us your insights." So about two weeks after I got home, I went back to Scott Air Force Base and was standing in a room full of all the brass, all the generals, the colonels, all the command from the mobility forces. And they just wanted me to report on what I saw. And I went through everything and I wasn't sure if I was going to tell them about bringing home this flag-draped casket. That was my, the emotions were very raw still. And I'm not sure I wanted to do it or could do it. And I remembered I was reporting on everything else that I saw and the people I met and the things that I thought were amazing. And I took a pause and I decided to tell the story. And now, again, the emotions are right on the surface. And I tell the whole story in even more detail than I'm telling you now. And I got to the point where I choked up and I couldn't continue.

• 1:45:40Simon Sinek?

  I couldn't tell the story anymore. Now, if this was the private sector and I was standing on a stage telling this exact story, somebody in private sector would say to me, "Take your time." They'd say, "It's okay." That's what they would say to me, right? "It's happened. Take your time," right?

• 1:46:00Simon Sinek?

  That's not what happened.

• 1:46:02Simon Sinek?

  I stood there, completely choked up. I couldn't, I couldn't speak. And was one voice from the back of the room, the general. And he said, "Go on." Meaning, "Go on and we're with you." Right? And that's the difference between private sector and these wonderful people. In private sector, they say to you, "Take your time," as if you're alone. "Take all the time you need, by yourself." And here, these people who understand what service truly means, they say, "Go forwards, go on, move forwards, you have no choice, and we will be with you." And that's what I learned from them. 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."

• 1:46:47Simon Sinek?

  The underlying message is, "And I am here, sitting in the mud with you." It is the greatest honor of my life. And because of that experience, that's where the book Leaders Eat Last came from. That experience was the impetus for that book. So when we talk about what the future looks like, I just want to live a life of service. I want to continue to serve those who serve others. And to meet people who live a life of service, I will do anything for them. I think there's an unwritten rule, that when you meet someone who's devoted their life to serving those who serve others, that it is our responsibility to serve them. There's an unwritten rule. The reason I do so much pro bono stuff is because when I meet people who are on the side of good, on the side of service, I obey that unwritten agreement, that I will be

• 1:47:32Simon Sinek?

  there for you and I will serve you, and expect nothing in return. And if you want to bring it full circle back to relationships, when one person shows up in the relationship to serve you, you have the moral responsibility to serve them. Because to serve someone who serves others, they are serving you, which means we have to serve them. I live my life by that code.

• 1:47:59Steven Bartlett?

  The key, the key second, second line in True Purpose is serving those that serve others. The line that you've added and that you learned from your experience going to Afghanistan was that we'll be there with you along the way.

• 1:48:19Steven Bartlett?

  How important is that for you and your mission that you have someone there with you? And do you feel like you have someone there with you on the mission you're on? You talked about the iceberg, pulling it out of the ocean. At the start of this conversation, you reflected on feeling lonely, not understood.

• 1:48:34Simon Sinek?

  I feel lonely for personal, it's my personal life, right?

• 1:48:39Steven Bartlett?

  Do you feel like you have people that are there with you?

• 1:48:41Simon Sinek?

  Absolutely. And when somebody comes up to me on the street and says, thank you, you changed my life, I always say the same thing to them. Thank you for being a part of the movement. I always thank them for being a part of the movement. When they say, your life changed me, my word back to them is, continue your work, right? Thank you for being a part of the movement is what I always say. Because when you say, I, I do not feel alone. I feel, I feel that I'm a part of an army with thousands to the left and thousands to the right, dare I say, millions to the left and millions to the right. Some who I know and most I will never know. But we were all marching towards the same direction to build this world that we all believe in, in our capacity, whether we're doing it for our little company, whether we're doing it for our family, whether we're doing it for our friends, or whether we're

• 1:49:24Simon Sinek?

  doing it at massive scale because we have, we have that opportunity, because we have a bully pulpit, or we, we lead a large organization.

• 1:49:30Steven Bartlett?

  That's the professional side.

• 1:49:32Simon Sinek?

  Yes. Personally, do I feel I have people to my left and right to work with? Yes, 100%. Absolutely. My team is incredible. My closest confidant is my sister. You know, my sister and I are business partners and the best of friends.

• 1:49:47Steven Bartlett?

  This question started with me asking you about looking forward a couple of years and everything's idyllic. You've given me the professional answer.

• 1:49:54Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:54Steven Bartlett?

  The personal side of that coin is kind of what I'm trying to understand.

• 1:49:57Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, I mean, I think the answer is I want somebody, I love companionship. And I want to be able to more than talk about and share my magical surreal life with someone. Because I have a wonderful life and I do want to share it with somebody. I think sharing is more fun than just telling people about something. You know, I want to come back and be, do you remember that thing that we did? As opposed to can I tell you about this thing that I did, you know?

• 1:50:22Simon Sinek?

  Like, I, and I wanna, and I want to share somebody else's life. I want to hear about their bad day. I want to hear about their good day. I want to be their cheerleader, you know? I, I, I want the opportunity, I've been a shitty servant in my relationships in the past. I've been a really shitty servant and, and I've built the skill set. You know, I'm a slow learner, give me a break. Better to learn it now than learn it never.

• 1:50:51Simon Sinek?

  But I want the opportunity to like, take all these skills that I've been talking about really effectively. And really good at doing professionally. And I want the opportunity to do it just for one person.

• 1:51:07Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, you spent your life being a fantastic servant to me from before we even met. To many more people like me. And you know this, you said millions to your left, millions to your right. It's millions. You've been a fantastic service to millions. And sometimes even in my own life, I reflect and think the service that I did, whether it was building the service to my employees or the service to the outside world, it came at a cost. And that was often the service to one individual who was right there, who I sometimes took for granted over and over again. To the point that I lost them and then had to live with the regret.

• 1:51:41Steven Bartlett?

  But I mean, it just seems so obvious to me that because you have the awareness of all of that, you're perfectly placed to serve.

• 1:51:52Simon Sinek?

  I'm having a thought, an insight right now, which I hadn't had before. Which is, we've talked about,

• 1:51:59Simon Sinek?

  you know, everything that we gain in this life comes at a cost. And the only question is, was the cost worth it? And so now, if you say, I put all of this focused on this movement, and it came at such personal cost, right? Like, I took my eye off the ball. I wasn't investing the time to be a better boyfriend, to learn how to have a relationship, to learn how to manage, you know, some of the symptoms of the ADHD, just to forget about the ADHD, just to learn not to be an idiot, you know?

• 1:52:28Simon Sinek?

  Was it worth it?

• 1:52:31Simon Sinek?

  And the sad thing is, it was. Like, if you're asking me, in the state that I'm sitting in now, would I sit in the state right now again and do it all exactly the same way? I'm not sure I'd do it exactly the same way. But I believe the movement that we're building, and that what you and I are both a part of, it was worth it. Now, it wouldn't have been worth it if I didn't learn this lesson now and be given the opportunity now.

• 1:53:04Simon Sinek?

  You know, would I have preferred it five years ago, 10 years ago? Yes.

• 1:53:09Simon Sinek?

  But, uh,

• 1:53:11Simon Sinek?

  but I believe the cost was worth it. Because I think the work that we're doing has nobility to it, and it matters. And that,

• 1:53:21Simon Sinek?

  that weirdly makes it sort of, huh. That's really nice. Yeah, the cost was worth it.

• 1:53:29Steven Bartlett?

  Simon, thank you.

• 1:53:32Simon Sinek?

  Do I have to pay for this?

• 1:53:38Steven Bartlett?

  I think everybody's probably thinking the same, to be fair. No, I really, I really mean that. I mean that.

• 1:53:45Steven Bartlett?

  No, I really mean that. I really mean that because it's so unbelievably powerful

• 1:53:52Steven Bartlett?

  to have a conversation like this. These are the most important conversations we have. It's not like information sharing and this trick about this business and how to have this team member. The human level stuff, which is the foundation of all the things we do, our success, our businesses, whatever, that we struggle with the most, but people like me and you just don't talk about because that's not what we're recruited to talk about.

• 1:54:12Simon Sinek?

  And people don't ask us those questions. And sometimes if they do, we got good at avoiding them. And I think that the tragedy is, is that, you know, people are modeling, they're making choices based on what we're saying, and we're leaving out a huge part of the human story. And, you know, for us not to talk about this stuff, does the people who are on their own journey and using our information as part of their education a disservice? So yeah, I think this is a great lesson all around.

• 1:54:49Steven Bartlett?

  And this is it. You know, people often ask me why on the diary of a CEO I spend so long talking about health, mental health, mental fitness.

• 1:54:56Simon Sinek?

  Mental fitness.

• 1:54:56Steven Bartlett?

  Mental fitness, struggles and all of those things, because I think that's the subject matter that is underserved. So that's pretty much the whole space that I play in. I spend very little time talking about how to scale a company. And I focus on what I believe is the underserved foundations of being a great, successful, quote unquote, individual, which is all the stuff we've talked about today.

• 1:55:16Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. Hey, thanks so much. I really love when we do this.

• 1:55:22Steven Bartlett?

  So do I.

• 1:55:23Simon Sinek?

  And the thing is, the thing is, I think what people don't realize is, you know, you and I know each other, respect each other and like each other, but we don't go out for dinner. We've never actually gone out for a meal, you know? And I think what's so interesting is, I think if we did, this is what we would talk about. And so, you know, it's better to do it with others than just by ourselves at dinner.

• 1:55:46Steven Bartlett?

  We skipped the first date. We went straight into the deep end.

• 1:55:48Simon Sinek?

  We did skip first date, went straight into the relationship. It's true.

• 1:55:50Steven Bartlett?

  But we both hate the first date, so that's okay.

• 1:55:51Simon Sinek?

  Hey, thank you so much. I really do appreciate it.

• 1:55:53Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you, Simon.