Choose Your Seven Humans Wisely with author Fredrik Backman

What if great friendships aren’t found by luck but built through effort? Bestselling novelist Fredrik Backman, the mind behind A Man Called Ove (adapted into the Tom Hanks film A Man Called Otto), Anxious People, and the beloved Beartown series, has spent his career writing about the quiet power of ordinary people. But in his real life, he learned one of his most important lessons from his best friend of 30 years: meaningful friendship is a skill you develop, not a lottery you win. Despite being a self-described introvert, Fredrik discovered that you don’t need hundreds of friends. You only get a few humans who truly shape your life. His newest book, My Friends, is a tribute to those relationships and the daily work of showing up for the people who matter most. In this candid and inspiring conversation, Fredrik and I talk about the healing power of friendship, why differences make relationships stronger, the value of having friends who edit us, and the joy of being genuinely happy for someone else. If you want to become a better friend and build deeper connections, this episode offers heartfelt lessons from one of the world’s most compassionate storytellers. This is A Bit of Optimism. --------------------------- This episode is brought to you by the Porsche USA Macan --------------------------- To check out Fredrik’s newest book, “My Friends,” visit: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/My-Friends/Fredrik-Backman/9781982112820 Find the full-length speech Fredrik gave for Simon & Schuster here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSuSyZ92Cjg

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  My best friend and my wife,

• 0:03Speaker 00

  if they would have,

• 0:07Speaker 00

  if they would have gone on one of like the matchmaking websites or something, if they would have put themselves through an algorithm and said, "Find me a person," they would have never found me. Like, never in a million years would an algorithm have said, "This lunatic, he's the guy for you." Never. The guy was fortunate in the way that I stumbled upon people early on in my life that was very different for me.

• 0:37Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  And I found out very quickly that that was a good thing for me. That was, like, I needed people who were not like me. So that I could look at their best qualities and strive for them.

• 0:53Simon Sinek?

  If you're an avid listener of this podcast, you may know something about me, that I'm not a reader. I've actually written more books than I've read. But this conversation with Frederick Backman makes me want to read. The way he thinks, the way he sees the world, the way he sees humans and friendships and people, it inspired me. I actually bought two of his novels, Anxious People and A Man Called Ove, which was later made into a movie, A Man Called Otto, starring Tom Hanks. We live in a world where loneliness is an epidemic. And Frederick reminds us that meaningful relationships are built with intention. They take showing up again and again and again, even when it's inconvenient.

• 1:38Simon Sinek?

  His new book, My Friends, drives that point home. The people who have deep, meaningful connections in the world, they're not lucky. They do the work, and that work is worth it. I wanted to begin this episode talking about Frederick's fantastic viral speech that he gave about creative anxiety and procrastination at Simon and Schuster's Centennial. He is, of course, humble about the video's success, but it's easy to see why his words connected with so many people. It's brilliant, hilarious, and painfully relatable for introverts like me. And that is a perfect description for the conversation that follows. This is a bit of optimism.

• 2:21Simon Sinek?

  Oh, and P S. If you ever go to Stockholm, Frederick and I reveal who has the best cardamom buns in the world.

• 2:35Simon Sinek?

  This episode is brought to you by Porsche. And like all great brands with great products, it's the people behind the products that make them so spectacular. You already know this, irrespective of whether people are fans of your books or not. The little video you did at the publishing thing went viral and made you a bit of an internet sensation.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, fueled by pure panic. My wife has this thing where she doesn't give me all of the information, which she finds to be very effective. So she didn't, I thought my publisher was celebrating their 100 years, Simon and Schuster. And they only invited me because they needed like a Scandinavian. Like they needed to show we have authors from all over the world. And at some point, someone in a meeting was like, do we have anyone from Scandinavia? And they were like, yeah, I think we have a guy. My wife also explained to me like, oh, they're gonna have a thing. And I, you know, and I thought, based on what she told me, that I was gonna give a speech at a dinner.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  And then I arrived and it was at a theater in the presence of a lot of, a lot of writers and a lot of people that I really, really admire and really look up to. And I had prepared a speech full of stupid jokes. I don't know how to write a speech.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Good evening. My name is Frederick Backman. I'm here tonight because my agent said that this would be good for my career.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  She said, I need to learn how to speak in front of people. It will be fun, she said.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  So I told her that I write books. I spend eight hours every day locked inside a room with people I have made up. If I was comfortable talking to real people, I would have a real job.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  But my agent said, you know, just go up there and talk about the life of a writer. And I said, all right. Being a writer is the best way I know how to get paid for being insane.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  So it was it was pure panic. What you saw on the video, that was just me panicking and thinking this is gonna be the end of my time at this very nice publishing house.

• 4:58Simon Sinek?

  Well, the good news is they hire you for being a writer, not a speech giver. And the better news is you nailed. But inherently, the audience is always rooting for who's ever on the stage, I've found. And where things are the best and we most enjoy will be here is that somebody is showing who they truly are, which is if they're nervous or if they speak slowly. As long as that's who they are, I think people fall in love.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  I am here tonight with all of my anxiety because I know that in this room, there might be someone who is dreaming about writing a book, dreaming of becoming an author. So I am here to tell you that I am obviously an idiot. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I became an author anyway. So you can too. And I hope that one day I will be able to tell my agent that the reason that my next book is not finished yet is because I was busy reading yours. Thank you very much.

• 5:57Simon Sinek?

  I think that's what happened, which is we fell in love with somebody who was very honest about how you were actually feeling in the day and age where we filter everything and everything's performance.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  I'm glad if it felt that way. There was a lot of people who told me afterwards, like, it was so good because, you know, it wasn't perfect. It wasn't like practiced. And I'm like, I, well, I tried. I, it wasn't my intention not to, I, it was my intention for it to be good. You know, you walk up on stage and I had a piece of paper with a speech written down. And and they said, no, no, we can put that on the teleprompter. And I was like, absolutely not. I'm holding on to the paper that like this is like my life raft on open sea. I'm holding on to this like I'm holding on to like the the edge of a mountain. It went all right, but it was, it was, there was a lot of panic involved.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  This is also a lot of panic involved and that we we talked about that earlier, but the reason that I The reason that I said yes to this, I was gonna explain to my children what I was gonna do today. I said, well, I'm gonna be on this podcast and said, what kind of podcast is this? And I said, this incredibly intelligent man who who has written these books on leadership and he invites these incredibly smart people to his podcast and they they talk about, you know, profound things and and they talk about like research and and science and and, you know, the world and the society. And you can see my kids looking at me like, when are we gonna get to the part of why you're here? Why are you gonna be on it?

• 7:30Speaker 00

  But the reason that I couldn't say no was that my best friend, we've known each other since we were teenagers of thirty plus years, is a great extrovert, you know, the always was always a good leader, always one of those guys that you followed everywhere because he just had that charisma. Uh, and he, when he was nineteen, he started working as a forklift driver at a warehouse, uh, fruit and vegetables. And uh, and then over the course of twenty five years, he's worked his way up. And now he's the head of HR uh, for the company of nine hundred people. He talks about, you know, your books and your writing and how it's affected his view on leadership,

• 8:12Speaker 00

  how it's affected his view on how to be of service to others. Like he talks a lot about, he talks a lot about how he learned that leadership, it's not about the position, it's about the responsibility and responsibility to others and being of service to others. We talk about it a lot. Um, so I couldn't, like, there was no way that he would forgive me if I said no to this.

• 8:39Simon Sinek?

  That's very kind, thank you. What I'm taking away from that story, which is so beautiful, uh, is how proud you are of him. You're glowing as you talk about it, as I've been looking at friendship and trying to understand friendship. There's this very interesting observation that we all, I hope, have at least one, but a few, a group of people that we can turn to in dark times. When we're at our worst, when we're struggling, we can go to these people and say, I, I just need to vent. I need your help. I'm, I'm not doing well, you know? I, I hope that everybody has that, that group of friends. What I've found fascinating is that it's a smaller group of friends that we can call to brag,

• 9:21Simon Sinek?

  that we can call to say, I did something great, something great happened to me. My book hit the bestseller list. I'm so proud of myself. And there's no jealousy on the other side and there's no envy. And what I find so fascinating is the number of people that we can brag to is smaller than the number of people we can go to in hard times. And so this says a lot, I think, about the quality of your friendship. You said he's such a close friend. You've been friends since you were teenagers, that you're talking about his accomplishments as if they're your own. Has it always been like that or have you ever had the times in your, in that friendship? Where you were jealous or something he did highlighted an insecurity in you?

• 10:02Speaker 00

  No, I, I think it's always been that we were really proud of each other. I think it's always, was always that we, we rooted so strongly for each other. He's always been insanely proud of me, like for whatever I accomplished. And I, but I think, I really, really think that I, he was the person who taught me how to be, that it was important to be happy for others, like that that was a genuine part of the friendship to be, to have that, to be able to be genuinely happy for each other. It's funny that you say that because I have that with him, that I call him sometimes and I say, I can't say, I can't

• 10:45Speaker 00

  say this to anyone else because I'm going to sound like a, like a douchebag. I'm going to sound really full of myself, but this thing happened and I'm super proud of it. And we also have this, he can call me once in a while and he'll say, you know, I'm.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  This thing happened, I'm really, you know, I'm upset with this person. I just need to vent. Is that okay? And then he just goes off. And then at the end of it is like, I know I'm like exaggerating. I'm overreacting. I know that, but I have to like. Sometimes you need to get it out to like edit yourself and like, yeah, this is not how I'm gonna say it to them, but I needed to say it to you first.

• 11:24Simon Sinek?

  I think you've just summed up the problem with social media. Which is our initial reaction, which is not the best reaction. It's the venting reaction. It's not the way we actually want to say something to somebody. It's not constructive. But it is necessary for us to get it all out in the most exaggerated form so that we can be calmer and rational again. That I think a lot of people are using the social media, the comments section as that outlet. Not, not the friend.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  If you're married and you're upset, you know, you have an argument with your wife. And you go to your friends and you say, you know, I, I just, you know, it's this and this and this and this and this. And you know, we had this argument. She didn't listen and whatever it is. Your friends will tell you, yeah, but you know, but you are that way. Like you're, she's right about these three things. Like you might be right about this one thing, but the other three things, she's spot on there. Like you're, you're the annoying one. You're in the wrong. And you have to go like, all right, all right, fine. And then you kind of edit yourself.

• 12:31Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Uh, because they're your editors and you go back and you, you're like, okay, this is how I feel. You need people around you who edit you. When people have read one of my books. And they tell me like, well, I'm excited to meet you because I read one of your books. And I want to tell them like, you need to tone down your expectations because you read my book. I edited the book for a year. That's the best version of me. And if you didn't like the book, that's still the most you're gonna like me because that, that was, that was the, that was all I had. That was the best. That was the best way that I could phrase this. Like I, I, maybe I rewrote that sentence a hundred and fifty times before. I'm like, yeah, this is how I feel about it.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Um, if you meet me in real life before editing, then um, that's how I found writing. When I was a kid, I was very bad at being in an argument. Being in a confrontation, I didn't know, like, I, I always went away like, oh, I should have said that, I should have said that, I should have said that. So writing was my way to find, I was in an argument, I think I was in an argument with my dad. He's very good with words. So he would win all the time because he knew more words. I mean, he, he could like twist an argument. And I was maybe six or seven years old and I was like, I went into my room and I was really angry and instead of like engaging in the argument,

• 13:58Speaker 00

  I went to my room and I wrote him a letter. And I started doing that a little bit with people, like when I was upset with them, I sat down and I wrote them a letter because then I could edit myself. So it didn't come out, it came out the way that I wanted it come out. That's how I started writing, I think.

• 14:14Simon Sinek?

  I absolutely love this idea as friend, as editor. And there are people who are better editors than they are writers, you know, um, where they can see the flaws in the argument or they can see how to make the argument better more than we can. They have clarity and we're open to editors. The good writers are open to editors. The good writers know that they won't get it right and they need somebody's input to see the things that we can't see. And to think of a friend, to have that same clarity and objectivity and to be able to see what we're trying to say. And for us to be open to an editor rather than to just hire somebody to just agree with our writing.

• 14:57Simon Sinek?

  Um, that you said that you learned to, uh, to be proud of somebody else uh, from him. Did he actually sit down and teach you the lesson? Or did you just feel his joy for you and, and you learned it by example by watching him?

• 15:14Speaker 00

  No, with him, I think I learned with that, that particular thing, I think I learned by example. Uh, and, and still do. I mean, he's still my,

• 15:25Speaker 00

  he's still very much my role model. He's always.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  You know, showed showed me how to be a better person. I'm always trying to.

• 15:37Simon Sinek?

  Give me an example.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  He was always the first with a lot of things. So he was the first to get a serious relationship. We were twenty two, twenty three, and we would always watch movies. We would always end up at, you know, whatever night it was, we were at usually at my my apartment and we would watch movies and or play video games. He met a girl and and and, you know, after a while they got serious and one night he just he just sat there and he like just looked at me and he said, you know what? Um.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  I think this is gonna be the last time for a very long time that I watch a movie with you guys. I was like, what? And he's like, no, I've I've been thinking about it and this is something that we do, but we're gonna do other things like we're gonna go, we're gonna go grab a beer, we're gonna go grab dinner, we're gonna hang out, we're we're gonna go to concerts, we're still gonna go do all that. But this, like Tuesday night, just sitting around watching a movie, I'm gonna do that with my girlfriend now.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Because that time is really important for me to have with her if this is gonna work and I want this to work. And he had this really discussion with us that that, you know, you need to be happy for me for this. And um.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  And we would, you know, we were twenty two, which was a, you know, and it was such a mature way of telling your friends, like, I love you, I I but but I have to invest time in her. And then a few years later, he was twenty five and they had their first child. And uh.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  We were twenty five years old, you know, you're not the smartest and we were all single, the rest of us. So I remember we were in a room and three of his friends. It started as a joke and then it went a little too far. And then we kind of said, well, you never, you know, you never hang out with us anymore because you always have to be with your family. Now that you have a kid, you always have to be with your family. And he sat down and he did, he did it in the nicest, most compassionate way. But he sat down and he looked at us and he says, it's not that I have to be with them. It's that I want to be with them. And he says, you know, I, I love you. I love hanging out with you.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  But there is no situation where I wouldn't rather be with my kid.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  And he was so just, it was such, uh, such a moment for the rest of us. We were all single. We didn't have kids. We didn't know anything about that. And we all, and I remember, and we've talked about it afterwards, like it was such a profound moment for the, the rest of us in the room. And it kind of, it impacted the way, I really think it impacted the way that we looked at a relationship. Because after that, we were, we were all, okay, that's what I'm looking for. That's the thing I'm looking for. Over the next five, six years, we all met someone. We're still with that person.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Ten, fifteen years later, we're still with that person and we all have kids. And we all look at our families, the way that he told, the way that he said that, that day. We still, we're all, like we're all invested in our families in the same way. We, we all have this discussion all the time that.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  People talk about quality time over quantity time.

• 19:21Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  And I think that's the part where where we would wildly disagree. Like, all four of us is like, I would rather have quantity. I would rather have a hundred hours with you over the phone than like going on this trip to Las Vegas and watch a Formula One race or whatever, you know, super experience that you could have with a group of friends. I would much rather have a hundred hours with you over the phone.

• 19:49Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  He's impacted me tremendously because he's he's always been the one to do something first. That's very often he said something and then three years later, I'm like, I get it though. I I didn't get it at the time, but I get it now. You were right.

• 20:05Simon Sinek?

  There there's so many things that I'm taking away from this. He's also talking about growing up.

• 20:11Simon Sinek?

  And that our lives change as we grow and we have to by we have to reprioritize. And sometimes that'll come at the expense of the people who aren't at the place we're at. You know, as you said, you were single, he was in a relationship. You learned some of the things he was saying, you understand some of the things he was saying only three years later, when some of your life caught up with some of his life. But I so appreciate that level of communication where you tell your friends just so you know. And they get to have the reaction, no, no, no, you know, as opposed to getting angry because it's more passive, which is, I think, unfortunately, what most of us do. A, because it's easier and B, because I don't think we know how to tell our friends for fear of disappointing them or upsetting them. And he didn't seem to have that fear.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  No, no, no. And I think I practiced talking about my emotions because we we were that kind of group of friends. And it was always very normal to us to to talk about how we felt, especially me and him. And it it so I had a lot of practice talking about my emotions. And he also, you know, he's a great editor. He's very good at telling me like, yeah, you're way off here, you know.

• 21:24Simon Sinek?

  You're talking about honesty. He's honest.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  He was always, but he was also also this, you know, he taught me how to.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  Um. To view time, we live seven hours apart in Sweden now because I I moved north. So uh we talk over the phone a lot. And um uh so we can text each other like are you are you go we both have dogs. So I'll I'll text him like, are you gonna walk the dog? He's like, yeah, nine P M. I'm gonna walk the dog. I'll call them. But we were always talking about time, like time. Like he was so clear so early on in life that this is the amount of time I have.

• 22:07Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  And these are the things that I need to do. And I like, we're still gonna hang out, but I'm gonna have to take a little bit of it. He said on multiple occasions that like the only thing I can give you is time. Like, that's what I have. Like, that's that's what I'm I that's that's what I have.

• 22:29Simon Sinek?

  Indemnable precious commodity.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, and and for him it was, I can give you time. Whenever there's someone who loses someone, he's that person who.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  He just gets in the car and he goes to their house.

• 22:46Simon Sinek?

  It.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  And he says, I'm here. And he says, if you don't need me for anything, I'll go sit in the car. But I just I just want you to know that I'm here. And at so many occasions, he's he's someone lost someone. And there's this thing that happens when you lose someone that everyone thinks, oh, I don't wanna call. I don't wanna disturb. I don't wanna intrude in there. So they end up sitting there alone. And he would say like, there are probably people who can stay smart at things or or give you like more profound words at this time or like, but I can give you like, I can be around. I can be here.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  I can do the dishes or, you know, go get food or or I'll, you know, if there there's a chore around the house, I'll do that. Like, I'll I'll give me something to do.

• 23:39Simon Sinek?

  A lot of people listening to this are.

• 23:44Simon Sinek?

  I don't wanna use the word jealous or envious, maybe feeling a long.

• 23:51Simon Sinek?

  That in their lives. And I know people are asking this, how do I get a friend like your friend? Look who you are and who you've become. That we have to, we have to admit in some way, shape or form, whether it's you as a father, you as a husband, you as a friend, you as an author. In some way, shape or form, you have become good at those things. In part because of this person in your life. Who's rooting for you since the beginning. Who's been honest with you since the beginning, who's been helping manage time since the beginning. I've been modeling what all of it looks like for you. And I know a lot of people listening to this are thinking themselves, how do I get that? I want that. There's beauty in what you're talking about. There's also profound sadness. That click, go have it.

• 24:43Simon Sinek?

  We interrupt this podcast with an ad with authenticity. Authentic because we do our ads a little differently. And thank you to Porsche for being open to something a little different. I met up with race car driver, Patrick Long. He's competed with Porsche in some of the most iconic races in the world, which is why I thought it would be safer if I did the driving.

• 25:09Simon Sinek?

  How did you come to Porsche?

• 25:10Speaker 03

  I was a young Southern California kid who was just chasing a dream of being a pro racing driver, if it was for one weekend or for what it ended up being multiple decades. I was living in Europe and I had a phone call from Porsche. I showed up to Germany not knowing much. I knew I loved Porsches as a kid growing up, but I didn't really understand what was behind this brand, their story, their DNA, and just how successful they've been in racing.

• 25:37Simon Sinek?

  Every little boy wants to be an astronaut or a race car driver. Where did your dream of being a race car driver, where did it come from? And how did you actually get into it?

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, my little league was go karts. And at six years old, on a closed circuit dirt road, I was in control of my destiny. There was no one telling me what to do.

• 25:54Simon Sinek?

  What was your first professional race? How old were you?

• 25:57Speaker 03

  I was 21 and I was racing on the German. TM schedule in a one make nine eleven cup series where down to the steering wheel in the seat, everybody's cars were identical as delivered from Porsche. And basically, the driver was the differentiator. It was my college career, if you will. You know, I was the first non-German to be signed into the Porsche junior team, the farm league, where they developed their factory fighter pilots. By the fourth race, I had my first victory. And I think people were shocked, not only because I was a rookie, but because I was an American. And Americans racing in Europe are sort of black sheeps, for whatever reason, and just still loving every new journey within the brand.

• 26:47Simon Sinek?

  How do people get a friend like that?

• 26:50Speaker 00

  I mean, part of it is just I was lucky. Just the way that I talk about, you know, my wife. Well, I was lucky. And I, you know, I ran into someone.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  And they were my humans, me and Ria, my best friend. And that friend group, like that I still have, like those three friends I still have in my life. And it's, they're still my, my, my most important people. And, and, and I figured out with them, and then I did the same with my wife. We figured out that, okay, there's, there's two things that we need to be aware of here. First, we need to have

• 27:37Speaker 00

  rules of fighting, if that makes sense. And like my wife and I, very early on in our relationship, we had been just started dating.

• 27:48Speaker 00

  Like, we, we agreed that we would never in a fight. No one could say, no one could threaten with.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Like, maybe we shouldn't be together. Maybe we shouldn't, you know, maybe, well, maybe this relationship is a mistake. Maybe you should leave me. Like, no one could do that because that's like an atomic bomb in her, in, in, in, like, the discussion is immediately over. Someone threatens to leave.

• 28:14Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  Then the argument is immediately over. Then you won't. Like, we set up boundaries for fighting, and I think we talked about the way we fought, like, after the fight, we would talk for hours and hours and hours and hours about the fight. If that made sense, like, we would try to analyze each other and we would try to figure each other out. And I think it was coming from a place where we understood that we are very, very, very different. And I think it's the same thing with my wife. We knew immediately going into that relationship, like, we are really different people.

• 28:50Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  This is gonna be a journey for both of us. When you're young, people tell you that, well, a relationship is a lot of work. And when you're young, you think it sounds unromantic because you think like, well, in that case, it's not true love. If you have to work on it, it's not true love. But that's because when you're young, you don't understand that the work is not on the relationship and it's not, it's not, it's on you. The work is on you. That's what people mean when they say a relationship is a lot of work. The work is on, on, it's on me. It's I have to work. I have to work on

• 29:31Speaker 00

  who I am, communicating better, explaining my feelings better, understanding me better so that I can explain myself better. But also the fact that me and Riyadh has, we've been friends for

• 29:46Speaker 00

  thirty plus years. Um, my wife and I have been together for eighteen years. And we change all the time. Like, we've changed a lot. Like, we've changed immensely. It's like the, you, you find someone, you get married, and then you have kids. Like, you become a completely different person in some regards when you have kids, because then, then there's this whole other responsibility that I have to.

• 30:13Simon Sinek?

  You're unraveling some of the tropes and the, and the, and the punchlines, you know, like, relationships are a lot of work. And to your point, it was like, yes, but the work is on yourself. Like, that's, that's not. People don't say that. Um, you know, I love my relationship because I've been working on myself and I'm a better version of myself. And that's my definition of a great relationship, whether it's a friendship or romantic relationship. The youth do the growth yourself, the other person can only support you. They can't grow for you. And, and I think when we talk about sort of the sadness that goes along with hearing about a friendship like yours, I can't accept that it's a lottery. I can't accept that it's like, some people are good looking, some people are smart and some people get great friends. Like, I can't accept that, you know, the good looking and the, and the smart, you know, that's genetics.

• 30:59Simon Sinek?

  That really is a lottery. But the friendship, I, I know you said you were lucky and that's probably how you feel. But based on everything you've been describing in the, in the, in your relationship about the, the choice to do the work and your friend's choice to spend time with his family and his choice to spend time with his, his, his girlfriend. I think the way you get one of those friends that you want is you choose to be that friend first.

• 31:28Simon Sinek?

  You choose to show up at someone's house and say, I'm here, give me, give me, give me something to do. That's the work on yourself. Like first you have to choose to be the good friend. Your friend made the choice to be a good friend and what he got back was a great friend.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  What's the term you use in business ROI, return of investment? That's why I talk more about quantity time than quality time. I think it's a return of investment for me. I'm the same way with my kids. I'm, um, I know that I'm not a great dad. I know that I'm not like, I'm aiming to be an okay dad. I, I know that I, because I live in my head a lot and I'm easily distracted and I have all these things and I, I, I'm bad with stress and all of that, but I'm, I'm like, if I'm around enough, then I will have time to make up for

• 32:19Speaker 00

  my mistakes.

• 32:20Simon Sinek?

  Does your wife think that you're a bad dad?

• 32:24Speaker 00

  No, I think she would agree that I'm I'm I'm usually distracted. I think she she would say that I'm a good dad because I really try.

• 32:33Simon Sinek?

  So.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  That's that's because that's her definite that's that's her definition.

• 32:38Simon Sinek?

  She's a better judge of the quality of your parenting than you, I would imagine, because they're her kids too. And she doesn't want you to screw them up.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  No, no, no. She tells me that a lot like you. Like you, you are good. Like they think you're a good dad because they can see how hard you try to be a good dad. And then you make mistakes sometimes and that's all right. And you know, you mess it up. But I think it's the same way with friendships. And it's the same way with with my relationship with my wife. The thing we invest in is our friendship, if I if that makes sense, like if we would like I I view I view that relationship.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  As. It's it's a romantic relationship. It's husband and wife. It's all of that, but it's also at its core. We invested in in in in our friendship, like hanging out, doing things together.

• 33:30Simon Sinek?

  This whole conversation to me goes right back. To where we started on the four minute speech you gave at Sid and Schuster.

• 33:40Simon Sinek?

  Which is you tried. And I think I think. That you you're tying together a lot of things. I I've said a lot of things before that you're tying together for me. My girlfriend, we were having a fight that went like this. I said, here's what I got right and here's what you got wrong. And she responded, well, here's what I got right and here's what you got wrong. And you can see how this goes backwards and forwards. And at some point, like, you know, I I I interrupted the fight and said, this is not going to. Go anywhere good. I'm changing the rules. And the rules are, I'm going to tell you what I did wrong. I'm going to tell you what you did right, then you're going to go. And that's what we did. And within thirty seconds. What we both discovered is we're trying.

• 34:21Simon Sinek?

  And I think this idea of letting people see that you're trying, not just tell them that you're trying, but let them see that you're trying. When you show up at someone's house and say, I'm here, give me something to do. Meaning I don't know what to say. I didn't prepare anything. I don't have a sense of what right or wrong is in this situation. But I'm here, give me something to do is the great syndication of I'm trying. Telling your friends, guys, just so you know, this will be the last time I come to movie night, which is I'm going to try this relationship thing. And that's the respect we had for him is was the effort.

• 34:59Simon Sinek?

  The the visual effort, the measurable effort is the most romantic thing in the world. In in a romantic relationship or a friendship or a work relationship is effort that someone is investing in in a person.

• 35:17Simon Sinek?

  Not that they get it right. And I think you're an amazing father

• 35:22Simon Sinek?

  because you're trying so hard to be a good father.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I.

• 35:29Simon Sinek?

  I I don't know why I'm so emotional today. Like I have close friends and I have a good relationship with my folks and they're both amazing parents, you know? I don't know why this is touching me so much.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  I mean, this is super emotional to me and you because we're talking about, you know, we're talking about these are my most important like my wife, my kids and my best friends. These are my, you know, humans. I I always separate. Like I always try to explain that that I don't, there are people and there are humans, like humans, you have maybe seven humans that you chose. These are your and then people, people are the ones at the airport. You can be annoyed by people as they love humans. My best friend and my wife. If they would have.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  If they would have gone on one of like the matchmaking websites or something, one of the apps or whatever it is now, it's like I I I'm too old for that, but I'm too old to understand the technology now. But if like if they would have put themselves through an algorithm and said, find me a person, they would have never found me. Like never in a million years would an algorithm have said, this this lunatic, he's the guy for you. Never. I was fortunate in the way that I stumbled upon people early on in my life that was very different for me.

• 36:59Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  And I found out very quickly that that was a good thing for me. That was like I needed people who were not like me. Um, so so that I could look at their best qualities and strive for them.

• 37:15Simon Sinek?

  I wanted sort of double click on one other thing, which is you're very self deprecating. And there's a difference between being self deprecating and being uh having low self esteem.

• 37:28Simon Sinek?

  And I think you're self deprecating. You accept you. I think you find you funny. I think your ego is healthy. And I think the ability to be self deprecating in a way that you're is owning either real shortcomings or perceived shortcomings is by by naming it, you could say, I'm working on it. I'm trying. You can make it a thing as opposed to not naming it. Keeping it hidden means it can never be addressed. It can never grow and it and that then becomes an insecurity. And I I'm fascinated by healthy self deprecators. You know, where by putting it out.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  That's the way to put it, yeah.

• 38:13Simon Sinek?

  I I mean, I do. I I think there's a difference between going, uh, I'm I'm no good at this versus, yeah, I'm I'm no good at this. But it's not a giving up. It's an identifying, and that's the difference. I think low self-esteem is giving up and accepting this is this is my lot. This is how I am. Self-deprecation, when it's healthy, is simply identifying something and saying, look, I'm maybe that sometimes it goes better, sometimes it get worse. I'm working on it. You know, haven't conquered it yet, but still doing it. And that probably might take me my whole life, and I may never get to the standard I want, but I'm working on it. And I think the ability to put it out there does so many things. A, I think it's super healthy. It also makes you super authentic. It also allows others to support you in whatever journey you're trying to grow in.

• 38:57Simon Sinek?

  I mean, I watched your speech and I was so inspired by it. Because I just love that you just put it out there and said, this is what I'm gonna try and do and. Here you go. I I also wonder how much of it is just because you're Swedish. You know, what is it? Yenta? What's it called? Yanta?

• 39:16Speaker 00

  Yanta, the Yanta law.

• 39:19Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, the Yanta.

• 39:20Speaker 00

  Um, there's a certain part of it.

• 39:22Simon Sinek?

  So that people know what we're talking about. I do they teach it at school in Sweden?

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just a common, everybody knows.

• 39:31Simon Sinek?

  Don't pick up yourself, never brag, never think you're better than anybody else. Don't seek attention. It's all of these forced humility things. And Swedes, you know, I know, like, if you walk through the very, very fancy street with all the fancy shops in downtown Stockholm. Like in the Gucci and the Prada, in the window, nothing has a logo on it. You know, no conspicuous displays of wealth is looked down upon and talking about yourself and bragging about yourself.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  I think a cer- certain part of it, sure. And I think it's, to a certain extent, I defend Yanta. I think it's, uh, I mean, for for for some of us, it's kind of good. It's it's like, you know, don't get too full of yourself. The bad quality of it is what you call crabs in a bucket. Um, like one crab tries to get out of the buckets and the other crabs pull him back down.

• 40:24Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  But I think part of it is that Sweden is a small country, and I think it's the same if you grow up in America, but in a small town.

• 40:34Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Well, kinda. It does something to you. You have this idea that we kind of have to stick together a little bit.

• 40:42Simon Sinek?

  Yes.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  And we have to find a way to get along because there's fewer of us. And so there, I think there's a, there's a positive quality to it, but I also think honestly, I think it's

• 40:55Speaker 00

  a huge part of it. I've always looked for people who are different from me. I think I, I very,

• 41:04Speaker 00

  it was good for me to very early on in life, understand like the people that I butt head with, like the people that I get annoyed by.

• 41:12Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  Very often people who are more like me.

• 41:15Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Like I get annoyed with someone at the airport and my, my wife and my kids will go like, yeah, because he's like you. That's how you are when you're having a bad day. That's how you are when you're annoyed by something. It was a blessing for me very early on in my life that I have stumbled on, but also have sought out people who were very different from me. So that, I mean, what you call self-deprecating, it's also, part of it is also that,

• 41:45Speaker 00

  you know, if you hang out with people who are very different from you, you kind of learn how to make jokes about how different you are.

• 41:52Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  You, you, you understand the way that you are different from the people around you. Sure, it can be self-deprecating, but it can also be this, we never feel that we deserve each other.

• 42:06Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  We always feel that we have to earn it. Like I always feel like I have to, I have to earn the attention of my wife. Like I always feel like I have to try a little harder to make her laugh or to, to, you know, to make her think that I'm, I'm doing okay.

• 42:28Simon Sinek?

  What you're talking about is doing the work. What you're talking about is, is you doing the work of the relationship. Like it requires effort. Like you can't take it even for granted. You have to earn it every single day. That's the work.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  Like I have very few close friends. I have very few humans in my life. Because I figured out very early on that I, I, you, for you to get the best out of me, you have to spend.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  A lot of time with me because I'm also gonna be very annoying and I'm also gonna be very intense sometimes because I can't, you know, I'm very often at a one or an eleven. I talk too little or I can't shut up. It's, so there's a lot of things that I'm gonna do that you're gonna find highly annoying.

• 43:13Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:13Speaker 00

  So I need, so I need a lot of time from you so that you can see my good qualities too. And I figured that out and realized from, you know, Riyadh's lesson that, okay, so everything is about time, then I can't have, I can't have three hundred friends. It's um, because I'm never gonna be able to give them the best of me.

• 43:36Simon Sinek?

  For the record, I like the the Yantolaw. My only complaint about it is that all of those things are expressed in the negative. Don't do this, don't be this, don't do this, don't do this. And I would love to see it updated for the modern world that says, be humble, be appreciative of others, see the value in others. I'd rather the Yantolaw tells us what to do rather than not what not to do. And I wonder if it's a bucket of crabs because everybody's saying you can't do that as opposed to, let's lift each other up as opposed to pull each other down.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Is actually

• 44:11Speaker 00

  incredibly clever and very, very true. And I have to admit that I've been living with this my entire life and I haven't thought about it that way. But it's exactly that. It should be, if you, if you would just turn around and say, these are the things you should do, then it would be a list of very

• 44:34Speaker 00

  positive things because that's the kind of like, all of the things are things that you try to teach your kids.

• 44:39Simon Sinek?

  I like Yanta. I just wish it was expressed. I'm gonna rewrite all the Yantolaws and in the affirmative. That's what I'm gonna do.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  You should. This, I think, I think this could really, this could really benefit all of us.

• 44:50Simon Sinek?

  I wish I could have ten more hours. The, I, I, I'm so profoundly moved by this idea of time and choice. You know, and I'm so, I'm so curious about Riyadh and his, if he's, if his, his obsession with time, if it's born out of fear.

• 45:10Simon Sinek?

  Or something else.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  So, you know, this is a very personal thing to say about someone that you you have in your life and that I love, you you know, immensely. I think it's a fear. For him, it's always been a fear of not being enough for people. Like, that's his main fear. For a long time, he's like every, if you rise within a company, you get a new role, you become, all of a sudden, you're the boss of people you used to work with.

• 45:39Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  And you have to change your identity a little. You have to, this is certain, there's a new responsibility now, and I have to think differently. I have to be a service to others and all that.

• 45:49Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 00

  I think he, he had this self-esteem problem at every new level. He felt everyone knows more than I do. They have more education than I do. They come from this huge background. They bring so much to the table.

• 46:05Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  And I don't have anything that I'm bringing. So he always felt that he had to outwork everybody. He had to come the best prepared, the the most, like, he had to just find so much things to bring to the table. Everyone else just showed up. But he felt to deserve a seat at a table, I have to bring so much more than everyone else. This is something that I learned later on in life, that I'm dealing, trying to learn now, trying to deal with now. But I think I kinda

• 46:39Speaker 00

  I developed this fear of disappointing people, which my wife has told me a lot. Like, you you have this fear of disappointing people, and it's so strong in you that

• 46:54Speaker 00

  you do, like, you try to do too much. And then, when you don't feel appreciated, or you feel like, oh, I think they're disappointed in me, you kind of lash out, e- even before they've reacted. You're so afraid that they'll be disappointed, that you're, you lash out at them, you become angry before they're even disappointed in you. Yeah, you you kind of, you you took it out in advance.

• 47:19Simon Sinek?

  Oh.

• 47:19Speaker 00

  And I'm really trying to become better at that. My wife told me in so many words, sometimes you, the only thing you want is for the kids to be happy. And you want that so much. So if we're at some place and you wanted them to be so happy when we got to this place and you get kind of upset with them for not being happy enough. And, and, and that's not on them. That's on you because you raised your expectations of how happy you were gonna make them. And so this is, this is a you problem.

• 47:56Simon Sinek?

  I had a guest on my, on the podcast, Bo Goddard, and he talked about expectations and fantasy. Like, and what happens is we have these expectations, we have these fantasies. And then what happens is if, if real life doesn't match that, that's where the disappointment happens. So you, you, you plan something for you kids and in your mind, they scream and shout and dad, you're the man, this is the best thing ever. And that's, that's the fantasy that you concocted in your mind when you show up and when reality shows up and it's not that, it's the delta that leaves you so disappointed. Leaves us so disappointed. And his whole point was like, can you let go of the fantasy that you plan the thing and the reaction will be whatever the reaction will be? And trying to let go of the expectation, uh, because you're only gonna be disappointed.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  No, but it's, it's entirely true.

• 48:41Simon Sinek?

  I've been plagued by this my whole life. Like, I, I, I am more excited for the things I plan for people than they are. And I, I've had to learn that the gesture is the thing and not the reaction. Uh, and I still struggle with it. Here's another question for you. How can we understand bullies without excusing them?

• 49:06Speaker 00

  I think for me is to see how much I have in common with them. I write books and it's not to be self-deprecating, it's not to be humble, but I often tell people that the, the, the the worst people in my books, the worst characters, they're very often from me. The most annoying characters, the, the characters with a lot of flaws and a lot of, who do stupid things, they're very often from me and the best characters are from people around me. Those are the people that I aspire to. If people find something in my writing or in my characters that they connect to, it's very often that. I don't start, I, I don't, I don't write about the best parts of me. I write about The really, you know, the parts of me that I'm not super proud of, the, the, you know,

• 49:51Speaker 00

  when I'm envious or, or I'm, you know, I'm, I'm petty or I'm, I'm mean. I don't excuse bullies by seeing, oh, but there's good in them. I excuse them by seeing, but the, the, the things that they do, they are within me too. And maybe I'm not that far from them that I wish I was.

• 50:14Simon Sinek?

  Oh, it's such a brilliant device. Which is instead of forcing each other to find the good of the people we don't like or disagree with, but rather to find what we have in common with the people we don't like or who bully us.

• 50:29Simon Sinek?

  I, I find that much more humbling. And it's not so, it's not so arrogant, which is, boy, I'm pretty flawed too. And I, I think what it does is it, it produces empathy. It helps you understand another person who's, who we don't like or disagree with.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  I do that a lot with my wife. That I say, you know, someone did something at a, you know, we see someone do something or say something or behave badly and we come home, you know, maybe we're at a party or a dinner or something and I come home and I say, you know what? I, I saw him say this or I saw him behave in this way. And I got this shame that that is probably something that I do once in a while and I have to become better at fighting that part of me. And it's not to be, it's not to be self-deprecating or humble, but I think that I'm in large parts a narcissist. I really do. Uh, I just fight it.

• 51:28Speaker 00

  And I think that's, maybe that was my, you know, survival mechanism kicking in that, that.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  I have to find people around me who are different from me and better from me so that they constantly remind me not to be a jerk.

• 51:47Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 51:47Speaker 00

  Because I I I struggle with my narcissism all the time. Like I I I fight it actively to be to be better because I think I if I let it loose, it would just I would I would be a horrible horrible person.

• 52:02Simon Sinek?

  I think of myself as an idiot.

• 52:05Simon Sinek?

  There are people who are much smarter than me, much more disciplined than me, much more schooled than me. I the thing that I have, though, that I do recognize is and I and I and I don't joke when I say that I'm an idiot. I'm not being self deprecating and I'm not sort of it's not false humility. The one thing that I'm very comfortable being is outwardly curious. And saying, I don't know, or saying, can you explain that again, please? Because I don't understand the way you explained it the first time. And saying and asking the questions that other people are afraid to ask because they it'll make them look dumb. And I already know I'm an idiot, so I'm not going to look any dumber than I already think I am. And so I ask those questions. And I the result is I get to learn more because I simply ask the question.

• 52:51Simon Sinek?

  And hopefully, whatever I learn, I want to share, but I don't believe in being selfish with anything I learn because I think the lessons are interesting. And the other thing I hate is tadas. Like, I hate I write my books. I never wanted to be like, wait for it, wait for it, and look how smart I am. I I always want my reader to come to my conclusion one page before I reveal it. So that by the time I reveal it, they go, oh, yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, of course.

• 53:20Speaker 00

  But it's the it's the whole, I think it's a it's a very generous way of writing. It's a very generous way of telling a story.

• 53:28Simon Sinek?

  It's why I like Sweden. It's why I like Yantolaw. And it's why I like I just wanted it done affirmatively. But it's why I like all those things because because and you said it like it's that small country, small town, like it's either us or none of us. Like, I don't necessarily like you, but like, we got to do this, you know? So we all have different jobs to make the machine go. And just everybody has to do their job, but it's. Every job is important to the machine.

• 53:56Speaker 00

  Because I write, that's what I do. I I'm only interested in like writing and storytelling. But you have this incredible inclusive way of writing. You have this way of writing where

• 54:10Speaker 00

  you feel immediately that someone is

• 54:15Speaker 00

  talking with you, not to you, not down to you. There are so many people that I know, my best friend included, who will say, I don't read a lot of books. And Reid will say, like, they're like, I'll read Frederick's books because he's my best friend. And but I don't, you know, I'm not a great book reader. And he says that all the time.

• 54:37Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  But he's read all of yours.

• 54:39Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 54:40Speaker 00

  And I think a lot of people will say that, no, I don't read books, but I read Simon.

• 54:46Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  And that's like, the the best compliment I get as a writer, the the ones I value the most is when people come up to me at book signings, when you know, teachers or parents and they say, no, I have a teenage kid or my husband or someone in their life. And they said, they don't read books. They don't read ever. But they read one of your books.

• 55:08Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:08Speaker 00

  And now they're reading other books.

• 55:10Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  You were like being a gateway to harder literature, if that makes sense. It's the greatest thing that a person can be. And I think you're opening a lot of doors to people. They read you and they feel like, maybe I can read other stuff, too. And that's amazing.

• 55:25Simon Sinek?

  Thank you, Frederick. This is, um, I know why they gave me this question to ask you. This is the because I have a very strong opinion about this, this question. Um, who has the world's best cardamom bun?

• 55:39Speaker 00

  Oh, the world's best?

• 55:40Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 00

  We do, the sweets.

• 55:43Simon Sinek?

  I know a bakery in Stockholm that I will walk, I walk out of town to go to. It's called Et Baggeri. And it is profoundly good, how good that cardamom bun is.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I think you will, you would.

• 55:57Simon Sinek?

  Raisin bun with butter. Oh, I could just eat, I could just sit there and eat bread all day.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you'll get, I think from a lot of Swedes, you will get the same answer that you would get if you asked an Italian about the best pasta, they would say my mother.

• 56:16Simon Sinek?

  Well, I would like to compare your mothers to Ed Baggeri and we'll have a, we'll have a bun off.

• 56:21Speaker 00

  He's right up there, I promise you.

• 56:23Simon Sinek?

  I love cardamom and I love bread. And I, I also know that it ends with the letter N, not the letter M. It's not cardamom, it's cardamun. I know that. Like orangutan, not orangutan. Uh, but it's these little things. Anyway.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Very complicated. There's a lot of things to keep in your head.

• 56:40Simon Sinek?

  And this is why I stay up all night.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  You're absolutely right about that, that bakery. It's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's awesome. I think we have a, you know, baker wise, Stockholm is pretty great.

• 56:52Simon Sinek?

  The best. What an absolute joy. Uh, didn't expect it to be so emotional and I'm really grateful I got to learn from you. I get to try to be a little better version of myself today. Thanks to this. Thanks to you. So I really, really appreciate it. Really love, really love the conversation. Lovely meeting you.

• 57:10Speaker 00

  I, I really appreciated you having me on. It was really nice. I never know what people expect. I don't know what you were hoping for with this. So I, I, I really hope your viewers aren't disappointed that, because I, I imagine they, they tune in for someone to be super smart and have profound insights and maybe know a lot of research and science.

• 57:32Simon Sinek?

  Well, then they wouldn't be coming to me because I know no research and no science. So they'd be disappointed with, with or without you about what the thing they're coming for.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  But that was, it was a, it was a real, real pleasure and thank you so much.

• 57:46Simon Sinek?

  A bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company, lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford and Devon Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simoncinec.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.