Who Are You, Really? with journalist Maria Shriver

We often define ourselves by what we do or who we are to other people. But at our core, who we are is often something much deeper, and sometimes wildly different, from the version that the world sees -- or projects onto you. Maria Shriver was born into the legendary Kennedy and Shriver families, arriving with a script already written for her—an identity shaped by legacy and expectation. From the start, the world had ideas about who she should be. But after decades as a journalist, years as California’s First Lady, and raising four amazing kids, Maria has been on a lifelong journey to peel back the layers and ask Who am I now?—and answer it for herself. Maria also happens to be my best friend. We talked about how we became each other’s “8-minute friends,” the quiet questions that shape us, and her beautiful new book of poetry—which she reads from in this episode. It’s all about identity, self-reflection, and finding your voice in a world that keeps trying to define it for you. This…is A Bit of Optimism. For more on Maria Shriver, check out: her book, I Am Maria mariashriver.com

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

• 0:00Simon Sinek?

  You and I actually don't talk on the phone that much.

• 0:01Speaker 01

  No, we text, but you don't ever pick up the phone. That cat picture comes up and I call and there's the cat.

• 0:08Simon Sinek?

  It's not personal. It's because my phone's always on do not disturb. And when I see you called it, always call you back.

• 0:17Simon Sinek?

  We all know people with big personalities, but we would rarely call them kind. We also know people with small personalities and they are usually the kindest. But every now and then, there's a big personality, a huge personality that shows up that just exudes kindness and warmth. And one of those people is Maria Shriver. I had the opportunity to sit down with Maria to talk about her new book, I Am Maria. Maria is my best friend and to hear her talk about the journey she is on, to reclaim her own identity is nothing short of inspiring. And that little question, I am and what it yields,

• 0:59Simon Sinek?

  turns out has great value to all of us to find out who we really are and why we love ourselves. I am Simon and this is a bit of optimism.

• 1:13Simon Sinek?

  Yours and my friendship, I think most people, including me, would not have predicted. We met kind of by accident.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20Simon Sinek?

  You reached out to me many years ago.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23Simon Sinek?

  To this day, I've never asked you how you got my email, but you reached out to me out of the blue and said, my son, Patrick, is a young entrepreneur. I don't know if you're ever in LA, would you like to meet him? And I said, of course. And I came to LA and I met Patrick.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38Simon Sinek?

  And he and I had a lovely time.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40Simon Sinek?

  When I got back to New York, you sent me a lovely email saying thank you. And I wrote back and saying, if who Patrick is is any statement about what kind of mother you are, you must be an amazing human being because he's an amazing kid.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:50Simon Sinek?

  I said, I would love to meet you. So next time in LA, I'll come out and see you. And I come back to LA on work for work and you said, come for dinner on Sunday.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:00Simon Sinek?

  And I thought it would be you, me and Patrick having dinner at your house. That's what I thought. I walk into the house, there's some folks getting dinner ready and you're not around.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's kind of normal.

• 2:10Simon Sinek?

  That's kind of normal. And so I'm stranger in a strange land and I said, is Maria here?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:16Simon Sinek?

  And they said, she's downstairs. And I said, where's downstairs? I went down and sitting on the couch was Chris Pratt. And I had no idea he was your son-in-law at the time. So I'm like, okay. Hi, he's like, hi, I'm Chris, you know? Hi, I'm Simon, where's Maria? Anyway, long story short, it was the start of what became now an amazing friendship and you're, you're my best friend. If I say one of my best friends, I get in trouble. You're my best friend and it is a joy to have you here, talking to you very formally.

• 2:49Simon Sinek?

  It's weird. This whole thing is weird.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  I tell, I tell the story. Well, I actually don't tell the story. I just say like, you're my bestie. And that's exactly how it happened. And you walked into a family dinner on Sunday night, which was packed.

• 3:05Simon Sinek?

  And overwhelming.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  It was?

• 3:07Simon Sinek?

  I mean, no, no, meaning the personalities.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  They are?

• 3:10Simon Sinek?

  I mean, there's a lot of big personalities at that table.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lot of big personalities at the table, but you held your own and you got into a like, a big discussion with my brother Bobby and, and then Chris and everybody was talking. And then you stood in the door, you're like, that was fun. And I'm like, he's fun. He's smart, he's fun. I'm going to pursue him. And, and then we started walking. We walked and we talked our way, you know, through years.

• 3:37Simon Sinek?

  We covered years.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  We covered years in weeks.

• 3:40Simon Sinek?

  We pioneered the long distance walk.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:44Simon Sinek?

  It was very early in COVID where we said, I think we can go outside. I think if we stay very far apart from each other.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:49Simon Sinek?

  And we just started walking and we did it every single week.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, for really long periods. And we talked about everything. We talked about everything and it was so intimate and deep and meaningful and bonding. And it was so rewarding for me because those are the kinds of conversations I like to have. These are the kinds of relationships I like to have. So that wasn't unexpected to me to, you know, fall in love with you and to have this relationship with you. But what was so beautiful, or what is so beautiful, is that you developed that with each of my kids. And my brothers and my son-in-law.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  And you you took the time to figure out who each person was. And you have a different relationship with each of them, which is so beautiful and so few people do that. I think, and my kids often say that to me, you know, they'll meet somebody 10 times and they'll go, oh, hey, your name is or what? And you know what their interests are, what makes them laugh. They know you. You talk to them individually. You make an effort. And so you have this relationship with my whole family, with my brothers. And and so I think that's such a gift in my life. And it's a gift in their life. So you're in it.

• 5:13Simon Sinek?

  You're being very kind and thank you very much.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 5:15Simon Sinek?

  It's a good transition. It's a good segue, which is you grew up in an insane. For you, it was normal as a little kid. You didn't know any different.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 5:22Simon Sinek?

  But like, visiting Uncle Jack at the White House is what? An eight-year-old, nine-year-old? This sort of larger-than-life, the Kennedy-Shriver family.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:30Simon Sinek?

  As you became older and you started to realize that your life is not like everybody else's life, how did you learn to manage that? And more importantly, kids growing up now in the Kennedy-Shriver clan, and now you add a Schwarzenegger to it, how did you keep them grounded? I'm so curious because I've met a lot of kids of people who've grown up in in different ways. And maybe they get lucky with one of the kids. They're staying grounded, but not all the kids.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  I'll probably take it from kind of my own creation of my own kids and go backwards. So what I, you know, wanted to do when I started a family was to make sure that the kids that Arnold and I had felt like they were a priority, felt that they were loved for who they were, not for what they did, and that they had a sense of home, a sense of calm, a sense of peace, that they understood that they were coming into a privileged home, but that part of that was also that I and their dad expected them to be of service somehow in the world. Those were my goals and that they have manners and they be kind.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Being a priority and feeling loved was the most important thing to me because I had felt like I was part of this, you know, group of like 27 first cousins and I, I felt like, you know, I was always a couple of rows back, like I just, it wasn't really clear, you know, I knew my uncles were in the front row and everything was geared around them and we were all part of a larger story, but I didn't feel like a priority and I felt like, oh, the love was attached to what you do. This is not a complaint to my parents. I adore my parents. I love my parents, but it's the way they were raised and it was the way I was raised. And I wanted to break that pattern. So I wanted the house not to be a place where

• 7:21Speaker 01

  there were fundraisers and political things. I wanted it to be a place of home. I wanted them to understand that their names and who they were was more important than the Kennedys, the Schwarzeneggers, the Shriver's and all of that. And I wanted to talk to them at length about that, about what those legacies were. They were not theirs to uphold for the rest of their life if they didn't want to, that there was good things and bad things about all of them, that they were free to depart from them in whatever way they wanted. I also did not feel that. I think it's also different when someone is making a legacy versus inheriting a legacy.

• 8:02Simon Sinek?

  Is this a conversation that you and Arnold had when you first got pregnant with Catherine? You're like-

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Well, I think Arnold, Arnold was creating his legacy. He had not ever grown up in a legacy, right? And so that was something that I came to the union with. I came with like, look at, these kids are going to be dealing with me, the Kennedys and you. He didn't have an experience with that. So he was like, okay, well, you deal with that, you know, kind of thing.

• 8:28Simon Sinek?

  But you were very prescriptive from the moment you got pregnant?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  I was very, yes. I was very like, I wanted these things for them. You know, I wanted them to feel like they were their own people. I didn't want them to feel weighed down by it. I didn't want them to walk out the door and think every person was a vote. Like I'd walk with my grandmother and she would be like, every person's a vote. Everybody we walked by, we stop, we say hello, we smile, we keep walking, we stop, we say hello, we smile, like, oi. But I didn't want-

• 8:56Simon Sinek?

  So family was, was being, having that Kennedy Shriver name was, that was a job?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, it was like a lot.

• 9:03Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean- It was a lot of joy, a lot of advantages.

• 9:08Simon Sinek?

  But a lot of work.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  But it was, you know, I definitely felt like, okay, we were on a stage, we had a job to do. I was a player in some larger show. I wasn't quite sure what the show was. And I think for much of my life, I was trying to get out of that show.

• 9:24Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  I think that's why I went into journalism. That's why I moved to California. Trying to kind of figure out, well, who was I in all of this? And then, you know, be able to go back home and understand who I was in the larger storyline. And I think this is something that every kid probably deals with, right? You know, every person is trying to figure out who they are, no matter what their family is. And where is home for them? And, you know, what role are they playing? And I think it's emphasized when you're dealing with a legacy.

• 9:59Simon Sinek?

  Well, I think, I think what you're touching on is every single one of us at some point in our lives, and sometimes, multiple times, will struggle with our identities.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 10:07Simon Sinek?

  And it's not unique to somebody who's grown up like you have.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:11Simon Sinek?

  You know, people will confuse their identities with their job title.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 10:14Simon Sinek?

  I am a CEO, or their, or their career. I am a lawyer. Like, that's who I am. No, no, it's what you do.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:21Simon Sinek?

  Um, or it's the position you have. And I've seen it, you've seen it many times, which is, you, very successful people, when they move on or they change jobs, they literally will suffer an identity crisis because for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, their whole identity has entwined with a job or a position that when that job or position no longer exists, it's depression or collapse or strange things start to happen.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:44Simon Sinek?

  And so, you know, um, but even beyond, I am a mother. I hear people say that. Well, who, tell me who you are. Well, I'm a mother or I'm a father. But even that's not an identity.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  I think society puts a lot of pressure on you to respond in that way. People ask you, like, I went to a party the other night with my daughter. First question to her every single time was, tell me what you do? Tell me what you do? What is your interest? What do you do? And not who you are, and not even like what your name is. Tell me what you do. I think, you know, this book, I called it, I Am Maria.

• 11:17Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Because I grew up being asked all the time, which Kennedy are you? That was just, you know, the question I got more than any single other question. Which Kennedy are you? And I still get it today, like if I'm walking through the airport or, you know, somebody say, you're a Kennedy, right? And I used to just be like, no, I'm not, I'm Maria. And they would be like, but you're a Kennedy, even as an adult. And now I just go, yeah, I'm a Kennedy. Yeah. It's like, I'm in my sixties, right? So, but I think it's, so I understand. So I often find people come up to me and say, I'm just this, that, or the other. And I always try to say, well, what's your name?

• 11:57Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Who are you? Tell me about yourself. So that's why I wanted to call this, I am is very spiritual to me. It's a, it's kind of has a religious feeling to it. But it's owning your name, you know, your parents give you your name. And it's claiming this is I am, this is who I am. It's claiming the identity of yourself.

• 12:18Simon Sinek?

  Right?

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:19Simon Sinek?

  Because our, our surnames are predefined for us and we're part of that legacy, whatever that is. Our jobs are not ours, you know, but our name, as you said, like it's the only thing that really is, is us.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Right. And it's claiming that over and over, right? It's claiming I am this person. And then it's like, well, tell me, who is that person?

• 12:39Simon Sinek?

  So who is Maria? Without saying mother, you know, journalist, like.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  That's been a lifetime to figure that out. And that's what this book is really about.

• 12:48Simon Sinek?

  Who is Maria?

• 12:49Speaker 01

  So, well, if I were, I am Maria, I'm a woman. I'm a monastic, spiritual, loving, kind, fun, funny, artistic, deep. I think wise, broken, scared, strong, vulnerable, 69 year old woman.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  I have had the joy to be able to have been a mother, and I am a mother.

• 13:18Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  I have been a wife. I have been a daughter. I am a daughter, even though my parents are deceased. I am a sister. I'm an aunt. But these are all titles that, you know, kind of society puts on you. I try to be a loving, supportive family member. That means I'm an aunt, a sister, a mom.

• 13:40Simon Sinek?

  I love the redirect, you know, when somebody says, so what do you do? Instead of making, pushing back against the question, it's, it's, it's an honest question. To simply say, let me tell you who I am.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:51Simon Sinek?

  Just to simply redirect.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, redirect, exactly.

• 13:53Simon Sinek?

  And to say that list, you know, that, that is how we feel and all of the things that go along with it. It's, I mean, I know you really well, but just to hear you say all that word, all those words together, it's, it's arresting because we see ourselves in some of that and we find connection in some of that.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:10Simon Sinek?

  Some of these poems, reading them, which surprised me, it's how you talk. I don't, I didn't even connect that, but you speak in, in poems. You speak like this. Like when you and I are having a conversation, even now, talking to you. You know, if I were to write some of these lines down, the repetition and some of the reinforcements and tell me who you, I mean, it's, I'm, it's, I'm just like, if you read this, then you know what it's like to hang out.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  That's a great compliment because.

• 14:37Simon Sinek?

  It is a good compliment.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, this, it, this is.

• 14:39Simon Sinek?

  It's a very real.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Christina calls it reporter poetry, you know, that I said, I'm reporting from the front lines. It's kind of, it's, you know, the first part of the book is reflections on life and kind of identity and trying to figure out what.

• 14:53Simon Sinek?

  But it's how you think.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  It's how I think. It's how I think. And it's giving a kind of framework to how I visualize and how I visualize my way forward. And it's a revelation to me to discover my own heartbreak and to find connection in other people's heartbreak. It's a revelation to me to discover my own loneliness and to find connection with other people with their loneliness, to talk about. What does home mean? Where is home? To talk about healing and the strength that is required to actually heal, to heal patterns, to heal family dramas that have gone through generations.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  You know, this is not work that I thought of when I was a kid or a young woman as hard work or as successful work. And I now look at it as the most successful thing we can do.

• 15:48Simon Sinek?

  Did you have to learn to be vulnerable?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:52Simon Sinek?

  Like, is it like, was it like the past five years, the past 10 years, the past 20? Like, I mean, it's, I know it's a journey, but like, there has to have been a point where something clicked.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Well, I think certainly, you know, kind of my divorce, I think, you know, landed me on the floor and I had to kind of go like, whoa, you know, what is this? And I want to get up from this, but I'm going to get up differently. And I think that has certainly set me off onto a different path. I think it really probably began way before that with my mother's death.

• 16:27Simon Sinek?

  How old were you when she died?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  I was in my 50s. So she died, but that was something I had feared my whole life because she'd been sick a lot. But she was my anchor. She was my everything. And it was something that I thought like, I'll never be able to survive my mother's death. When she died, it was a soul shifting experience for me. It was an identity shifting experience for me. And it was quickly followed by my father's death, by the end of my marriage, by finding a new home and then a search for a new identity.

• 17:05Simon Sinek?

  That all happened within?

• 17:05Speaker 01

  It all happened within two years.

• 17:07Simon Sinek?

  Oh, wow.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  And then, you know, then it's been all of these many years later.

• 17:12Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, my mother died. Two weeks later, my uncle died. Two years later, my father died. And a couple of months after that, I got separated. And I had been first lady and that ended. So it was a rapid succession of really groundbreaking change underneath my feet. And I think, you know, for me to step back and go, okay, wait a second now. I need to emerge from this. I need to rise from this. I always talk about rising above the noise. I need to rise and I'm going to rise differently. I have to rise differently. I have to break through, as I write in the book, the denial that I had had since I was

• 17:51Speaker 01

  a child. I had to break through the identities that I had hid behind and that had given me cover, that had given me protection. And I now knew I was on my own, 100% on my own. So who was that person? She wasn't the first lady anymore. Was I still a journalist? I don't know. Who was I going to be?

• 18:12Simon Sinek?

  Well, people always talk about the importance of doing the work. I'm doing the work. That person, they need to do the work. You know, in relationships, I wish my partner would do the work. I'm helping him do the work. I'm so fascinated by the relationship of quote unquote, doing the work alone versus needing the support of others to do that. Is it possible to do the work alone of finding oneself?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Well, I've been, I've done the work in, in community, I would say, because I had, as I wrote in the book, I write about kind of having a masterclass in friendship. People held my hand. They walked with me. They talked with me. They sat with me. But I went and did alone work with a therapist, with shamans, with journeys. I went away on my own. I went to a convent on my own. But I did the work or the silence in community. So I don't see that I did it alone. I wasn't in a relationship doing it. But I don't think anybody really quote, does it alone.

• 19:07Simon Sinek?

  Okay, I'll just say, I'll say from a personal point of view. I know that I'm a better version of myself. I know that I'm more comfortable being vulnerable. I know that I am taking myself on in a way because I wouldn't be able to get away with not because of our friendship. That's what I mean.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:25Simon Sinek?

  And to be your friend means you sign up for all of it. There's the fun, there's the laughs, there's the family, but there's also like the conversations about loneliness or ADHD. They come out relatively effortlessly now.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:39Simon Sinek?

  In company, not alone.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. At the end of the day, what jobs come and go. But if we work on our friendships, if we laugh with our friends, if we love our friends, if we show up for our friends, if we give them the eight minutes in those moments of like, I need, I need you on the phone. Are you there? Those are the things that are going to be with us. Till the end. That's what's important.

• 20:02Simon Sinek?

  And for those who may know that video that I made where I talked about the eight minutes.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:06Simon Sinek?

  It was you and me. It was you and me. That was our experience. Where I asked you how you were and you said, I'm better now. And I said, what do you mean you're better now? And you're like, I've had a horrible week. I'm like, why didn't you call me? And you're like, I did. And I look at my texts and says, you there? What are you doing? What do you? I'm like, yeah, you, you were the one who read the article that said, all a friend needs is eight minutes.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  And so now if we need each other, I like, you have eight minutes.

• 20:29Simon Sinek?

  We have eight minutes. Do you have eight minutes? You were the OG.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:31Simon Sinek?

  For that experience.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  You know, you were saying actually last night that you forget to call people, you forget to check in, that that happens with your parents. And I, I went to bed thinking, well, that's not my experience with you, actually. You do check in. You do call. You do go like, I'm driving by. I want to, you sometimes check in and I had, walk in and I haven't even invited you. You're like in the pantry. And I'm like, Simon, what are you doing? He's like, I came in to get a mosh bar. I came in to get, I'm like, well, what? But you, you are like.

• 21:02Simon Sinek?

  That happened once.

• 21:05Simon Sinek?

  You came downstairs and I was in the pantry. That isn't true.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. But that's what my kids always says, Simon in the pantry? I was like, no, Simon's not here tonight. But, but I think that that's what makes my life joyful.

• 21:17Simon Sinek?

  Do you want to know the truth?

• 21:18Speaker 01

  My life joyful. Yeah.

• 21:19Simon Sinek?

  You and I actually don't talk on the phone that much.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  No, we text. But you don't ever pick up the phone. That cat picture comes up and I call and like, there's the cat.

• 21:27Simon Sinek?

  It's because it's not, it's not personal. It's because my phone's always under disturbance. When I see you called it or you call you back.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:33Simon Sinek?

  But you and I, but the point is, is like, we actually, like when you and I are traveling, we actually don't talk that much. I think the thing is that the time when we have time together is so intense and so cherished that I don't think we realize that we actually don't talk so much in the gaps.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Well, maybe I'm talking to you in my head.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  But I think, you know,

• 21:54Simon Sinek?

  I'll take it.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  I've watched you.

• 21:56Simon Sinek?

  If I'm getting credit for it, then continue with that.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  But you know what's amazing to me is I've watched you evolve. I've watched you.

• 22:02Simon Sinek?

  From what to what?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  You've become way more open and vulnerable. You've become way more open about how you feel. You know, before you were talking a lot about business and showing up and leadership. And now you talk a lot more about emotions and friendships and family, things that are going on in your life, deep in your soul in a different way. And that to me has been a beautiful evolution to watching you. You'll talk about like, I'm not really sure what I want to do now or what subject I want to speak about. People all want to come up to me and talk about one thing. You know, your version of the Kennedy thing is that everybody wants, you know, can you help me with my why? Can you help me with my why?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  And there's probably nobody saying, how are you? Just help me with my why? Can you fix that for me or find it for me? And I see that with people, you know, in life, that people get really well known for something or get really successful and that, you know, we lose sight of like, well, actually, how are you? Are you dealing with any heartbreak? Are you dealing with any loneliness? Do you have friends that can help you? And those are the conversations that I'm interested in. I'm interested in your heartbreak.

• 23:21Simon Sinek?

  This is what it means to be your friend, which is you don't care. We've never talked about, we rarely talk about work.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:28Simon Sinek?

  And you're only interested in me as a human being.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:31Simon Sinek?

  Which is probably the, one of the reasons it's nice to come over.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:35Simon Sinek?

  Which is everybody can just be, be themselves. It's the, it's, it's the container you, you create to the point where.

• 23:43Simon Sinek?

  Like, your kids had no idea, like, we were out with Christina, and she had no idea that, like, I did work anything other than I was just somebody who came over.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, Christopher was like, "I didn't even know that Simon, like, had a book, or did a thing." That was so funny, because, no, what was really funny is when we went to Special Olympics in Berlin.

• 24:02Simon Sinek?

  Berlin.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  And we went out, we were in a coffee shop with Simon.

• 24:05Simon Sinek?

  You, me, and Christina.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, my daughter Christina. And people started coming up, asking Simon for pictures. And we were like, "What, what's going on? Why is everybody asking Simon for his picture?" And he's like, "I'm famous, you guys."

• 24:20Simon Sinek?

  I didn't say that. I didn't say that. But Christina was genuinely confused.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was confused. She was like, "Why does everybody want a picture with Simon?"

• 24:29Simon Sinek?

  I mean...

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it was really cute. I said, "You should just, like, everybody should just walk around with Simon, and then everybody stops and wants to have a picture with Simon." But, um, it was, that was really funny.

• 24:42Simon Sinek?

  You were exaggerating, but I'll take it.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Christopher was like, "I didn't even know Simon, like, did anything."

• 24:47Simon Sinek?

  But this is the thing, which is I'm invited into your home as me.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  As you.

• 24:51Simon Sinek?

  Not as somebody who's done something. And that's the thing, which is, this is Simon, he's my friend, is how I get introduced to your kids.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 24:57Simon Sinek?

  Right? And so, they set to get to know me as friend of their mom.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:01Simon Sinek?

  As opposed to somebody who did something.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  And now they're friends. They introduce you, "This is my friend, Simon."

• 25:05Simon Sinek?

  Right. And I think the thing that I'm walking away from here, which is this idea of creating the container, which is, I think we have fun with our friends.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Hmm. I love that, where you put that, the container.

• 25:17Simon Sinek?

  The container.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I call it home, uh, for me.

• 25:20Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. Creating a container actually requires work. And you touched upon it before, which is, people prioritize work over their friends.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:27Simon Sinek?

  People think their relationships are sometimes more important than their friends. What I'm learning is that you can't get through this difficult thing called work without a friend.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:38Simon Sinek?

  On the worst days, you better have a friend. And even your relationships, like, relationships sometimes are a struggle. And the way you get through relationships and arguments with your, with your romantic partner is if you have a friend.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 25:51Simon Sinek?

  Like, the friend is the foundation of the success of all those other things. And if you don't have a friend who knows how to create safe containers for you to have those very uncomfortable, difficult conversations of insecurity, fear, self-doubt, whether it's professional or personal, then the relationships, romantic relationships and work relationships are more likely to falter. There's so many, so much talk and so much written about how to be productive at work.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:18Simon Sinek?

  And how to have a successful marriage and how to find your partner of love. And yet, we don't learn how to create a container for our friends to just relax and be themselves.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:28Simon Sinek?

  And being your true self. I actually was thinking about this recently. The idea that we have fully authentic and fully our true selves in the outside world. And that's actually not allowed because if everybody was fully themselves all the time, sort of things wouldn't work because there'd be no norms or standards. Like, like if I go for a job interview and I'm an entry level. Well, my, my true self is, I like to wear, I'd like to dress like a surfer. It's how I feel. No, no, no, no. Show respect for the place you're going to.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:54Simon Sinek?

  Look a little nicer. You can add flourishes for sure. And nobody's telling you to suppress yourself. But the idea of being fully realized at every moment. There are standards and norms that make polite society work. But that's not to say you shouldn't have a safe space to let those things out. And those, those safe spaces are those safe containers with those friends. Just like I don't want to be professional at home. I don't want to be fully personal at work, but I do need to do both. Does that make sense?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think there's, there's so much emphasis in our culture about success at work.

• 27:26Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  That is the be all, end all. And I think that you're beginning to see people thinking about what actually is a successful life? What is a, I call it a meaningful life, a life worth living. Mereslov Wolf calls it, you know, a life worth living. What will I look back on if I'm 80 or 90? What will be the verticals of a life well-lived? And work is, has a place in there, but it's not your whole life. And so how do we cultivate friendships? How do we cultivate a life of faith? For example, for me, that was super important. How do we learn to communicate with our children as they become adults?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  I'm doing a whole different kind of mothering. Today than I did when I had toddlers or teenagers or college aged children. Right now I'm in a different place and space. I'm creating a different container than I did when my kids were growing up. How if I'm divorced, how do I create a container where both of my kids' parents can coexist, can exhibit love, can exhibit friendship, can make everybody feel at peace? That's my job now. How do I live a life where I feel when I'm on my deathbed that I look back and go, I worked out what I needed to work out. I healed what I needed to heal.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  I had all these experiences of joy and heartbreak and success and failure. And that's what a life offers to us. And I went for it in all those areas. That's what I'm interested in. That to me is success. You know, my friend Sean, he was telling me about a test that he did with his partner, his husband. And I said, can you do it with me because I don't have a partner? So I want to do it. He said, well, it's the same. It's exact same thing. Just the only difference is one relationship involves a sexual relationship, but a friendship can ask the same questions. And the questions were, you know, what do you like about this relationship? What do you want me to do better? What do you notice about how I've grown?

• 29:36Speaker 01

  What do you notice about, you know, how I'm living my life? Here are five things you may not know about me. Tell me five things I don't know about you. Tell me what you're afraid of. And these things opened up a whole new area of conversation. So I try to do that sort of thing.

• 29:52Simon Sinek?

  That's so good. I love this exercise of going through these questions that are again, we develop these systems to help romantic partners.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:00Simon Sinek?

  But we don't develop these systems to help friends. And simply to have a card where you take the time to sit down with someone.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:06Simon Sinek?

  And say, let's do this. By the way, romantic couples do this. We do this and we have review sessions at work. We have feedback sessions at work where we learn about each other from a work context.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 30:16Simon Sinek?

  But we don't do this as friends. We don't do the work of friendship.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so like your love language. It's that's interesting to me. Me as your friend. So why is it only that a romantic partner gets to ask what's your love language?

• 30:28Simon Sinek?

  Or And that it's allowed and it's allowed to change.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Yes, it's allowed. Or, you know, there's that New York Times 36 questions. And but it's for people who want to fall in love with the person they're asking the question. But those questions are really cool to ask anybody.

• 30:42Simon Sinek?

  Fall in love with a friend.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, fall in love with a friend or understand who if you could have dinner with one person from history, who would it be? Like, why do you have to ask that to somebody you want to fall in love with? Why can't you just ask that to anybody?

• 30:55Simon Sinek?

  It goes back to that service component, right? If you want that safe container, then offer it to someone first.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:01Simon Sinek?

  If you want someone to be curious about you, then be curious about them first.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, curiosity is my not my superpower, but I've always, since I was little, been curious, which is why journalism was so great for me because I'm always like, why? That was always my gem. My kids are always like, could you please not, you know, talk to the waiter all the time? Could you please not talk to the valet guy? Because now we're like 20 minutes later? Could you please stop talking to the barista? But I find, you know, I find it so interesting to talk to the baristas to why she has blue hair. You know, Christopher, who my youngest son, you know, he's always like, just I see that the woman has blue, please do not ask her why she has blue hair. I go, well, people have blue hair want to be asked why they have blue hair. He goes, she does not. I say, how do you know? You don't know.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  But anyway, it's like, because he's always like, like this, you know, with it's so, it's so funny because each kid is different, you know? But so when I'm with him, I try not

• 32:03Simon Sinek?

  To be curious.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Not to be as curious, just because I can see he's as embarrassed as he could get by me sometimes.

• 32:11Simon Sinek?

  But I think this is the point, which is you have a curiosity about your friends.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:15Simon Sinek?

  That a lot of people have for strangers.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  For me, when I think about like, what makes, you know, we talk so much about success. And we talk about presenting ourselves as success and all of these things. This is success.

• 32:28Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Having time to spend with people that I love, that I adore, that make me feel home. You know, this book is really about making the way through heartbreak that is inevitable in everybody's life. Doing the work of healing that is a choice. And then finding your way back to home. Home, you know, you're home to me. I'm at home in me. Why does everybody tell us we're here to be on the cover of Forbes? Why does everybody tell us we're here to be the CEO and have no time for our family or our friends? Why does the world tell us to run around like a lunatic at the expense of everything that's important?

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Why does the world or society or our culture or the press tell us it's this when it's this?

• 33:20Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, we're all obsessed with productivity and metrics and measuring and sleep apps and.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  And this goes like that, right? I've been fired from a job and then you're sitting there going like, what? What? I thought that was my quote, home. I remember when I was fired from the CBS Morning News. I was the anchor with Forrest Sawyer and the president of the news division fired all of us overnight. And I was like, wait, what? And he's like, the show's gone. I'm moving it to the entertainment division, out of the news division. You all can go look for other jobs and you can stay here if you want and go work in another division. And I was just like, but this is my home. They're like, it's not your home. And I'm like, it's not? They're like, no. And I was like, oh, oh, okay. Wow, I made a big mistake.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  I thought this job was my home.

• 34:11Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Uh-uh. So I picked up my bags, walked out the revolving door at CBS News and said, I'm never coming home again.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  But, and then I walked down the street and went over to NBC News, right? But I didn't make the same mistake at NBC News that I made at CBS News. I didn't think I was gonna go and get a new home.

• 34:35Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  I thought I was gonna get a new job. Hopefully I'd meet some people that could make me feel like I'd had, and I have, I've made relationships there outside of the building. So that when they fire me or tell me, like when I became first lady and they called me and said, you're out. And I'm like, wait a minute, what? They're like, you can't work here anymore if you have a husband who's a governor. It's a conflict of interest. Bye-bye.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  I didn't have the same meltdown that I had when I was at CBS because I knew I wasn't being kicked out of my home. I was losing a job.

• 35:08Simon Sinek?

  And it goes back to identity again, right? Because when we lose our jobs, we think they're taking away our identity.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Well, they're taking away our finances. They're taking away, they're taking away stability. They're taking away identity. Oh, still. And they're taking away where you go every day. They're taking away everything. And, and so it is, it's a lot to lose your job. When I was fired from CBS, I was stunned. But I made a mistake thinking that, as I said, that that was my home. So when I write on the cover of this book, Finding Our Way Home, I want to have a conversation about the home within, the home that we create with our friends and our family and our loved ones. It's not a home that a job gives to us. It's a home we create.

• 35:53Simon Sinek?

  My reflections and poems on heartbreak, healing, and finding your way home.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:58Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. Do you have a favorite poem in here?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  That's a good question. No, I, I think for me, maybe small is a, it's in the beginning, is that I, I think another thing that society does to us is tells us, you're small, you're big, you're a winner, you're a loser.

• 36:17Simon Sinek?

  Do you want to read it?

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Puts these.

• 36:20Simon Sinek?

  It's gonna just sound like you speaking.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  I feel so small. I always have. So small in a house where everything was so big. So small that I got lost. Did you notice that I was small? Did you notice I couldn't reach? Did you notice I was scared? No, of course you didn't. Your door was shut, your eyes were closed. Your heart, I couldn't find it, couldn't touch it, couldn't reach it. It too was lost, deeply buried in a dark place. I couldn't reach it. I tried all different ways to grow big. Big was what you noticed. Big was what you liked. Big was what I tried

• 37:01Speaker 01

  to be. I grew up, I grew out, I tried on big, but it never fit. Big was an illusion. Big enough was unattainable. I was too small to be big enough. There were so many bigs in my house. So I left. I found another place to try on big, but I was small there, too. I couldn't reach the lights. I couldn't touch what I wanted to touch. And so I gave up. I made peace with being small. I gave up trying to be big. I decided it hurt too much. I changed my mind about big. And when I did, I found your big heart in that small little room you hid in. My big heart loves your small little self. I wish you'd

• 37:44Speaker 01

  known how big you already were. When I read this, I think about my mom, who was so big to me, but she didn't realize how big she was because she was surrounded by brothers who society told her were bigger than her and who were so big. JFK, RFK. Yeah, it was just, they were so big that everybody was looking up here. So she couldn't see down here, right? And she couldn't see in here because she was trying to reach that, compete with that. When I think of my mother now, I have so much empathy for her and I

• 38:25Speaker 01

  have so much sadness, but really empathy for how hard she worked and how unseen she was. And that I was not able to really talk to her about her heartbreak, or her healing, or her way home, because she had never been granted the time to have those conversations. She was in such a hurry to be big, that I've had those conversations with her now in death, actually. That she herself, you know, we all have this small little child inside of all of us. And so today, I try to think about the little girl that lived in my mother,

• 39:09Speaker 01

  how small she was and how beautiful she was and what she was like as a little girl. And I say to her, I see you now, mommy. I see you. And you're enough. You're so big to me. And I think I've learned in life is that people who are, society say, are so big, so often don't feel that at all. I don't try to be big anymore. And I don't try to be small. I just try to be, I am.

• 39:41Simon Sinek?

  That book is a gift.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 39:43Simon Sinek?

  It's a gift to the world. It really is.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 39:46Simon Sinek?

  The questions you ask are deep.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:48Simon Sinek?

  Not difficult, but deep.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:51Simon Sinek?

  People don't have to ask the questions of themselves because you will ask them of us.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm hopeful that they will, because I think so many people that I meet or feel like something's quite not like it's supposed to be. I'm stuck, or whatever it is. And I think by asking yourself reporting in a way on yourself, I love this thing, your mind, this is called be miracle minded, and your mind wages war on your tender little heart. You know that, don't you, child? Said the voice from afar. So instead, be miracle minded. Yes, miracle minded. I like the sound of that. But just how does that work? How does miracle minded feel inside the busy

• 40:35Speaker 01

  mind? And then just going on like, thinking like, is your mind busy? How can you get it to be different? Have you ever thought of yourself as miracle minded? And people come in, they're like, oh, my God, Maria. But then they come back and go, you know, I thought about being miracle minded.

• 40:58Simon Sinek?

  Thank you.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 41:00Simon Sinek?

  Joy. Delight.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Delightful.

• 41:04Simon Sinek?

  Delightful.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  I'm delightful.

• 41:11Simon Sinek?

  If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simoncinek.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself. A production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbenius, David Ja, and Devin Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rude Shan.