AI Can Do Everything… Except This (Why Humans Still Win) With Restaurateur Will Guidara

As businesses race toward faster systems, smarter tools, and total automation, something critical is getting lost: human connection. And ironically, the rise of AI is making that gap impossible to ignore. In this episode, I sit down with returning guest and close friend Will Guidara, former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, to explore why humanity is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage in the age of AI. Will helped transform a restaurant into the best in the world, not by reinventing the food being served, but by reinventing the experience around it. He calls this philosophy "Unreasonable Hospitality," which is the practice of going beyond what’s expected or required to make someone feel genuinely seen, valued, and cared for to create a memorable human experience. He argues that in a world where people expect excellence, the real differentiator is care. And Will isn’t alone in this belief. His book Unreasonable Hospitality, which I’m the proud publisher of, is a global bestseller. And his follow up book, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide, comes out April 28, 2026. In this conversation, Will and I unpack why human value will continue to rise in an automated world, how the smallest moments of care can create lasting loyalty, how we can turn automation’s efficiency into better experiences, and why the things that matter most in our lives are the hardest to measure. And fair warning, Will and I do giggle our way through some of this conversation about why technology can’t replace human connection, the hidden cost of achievement, and a story about how a single piece of Basque cheesecake delivered to a hotel room is a gesture thoughtful enough to make someone feel seen. That’s just the kind of friendship we have. So if you’re wondering how to stand out and live a more meaningful life in a world increasingly shaped by AI… and share a laugh with us… this is a conversation for you. This… is A Bit of Optimism. --------------------------- To stay in the loop with Will or purchase his best-selling book Unreasonable Hospitality, head to: https://www.unreasonablehospitality.com/ If you’d like to pre-order Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide, out April 28, 2026, check out: https://uhthefieldguide.com/ ---------------------------

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

• 0:00Simon Sinek?

  I just need to share it with people. Yes. That this is how we actually have conversations.

• 0:05Simon Sinek?

  Whether we're being recorded or not. Whether we're being recorded or not, like, this is the way we actually talk. We interrupt each other more. We're being polite. We're trying to interrupt a little bit less. We're not doing a great job. We interrupt each other less, but we actually would have this conversation without cameras.

• 0:22Simon Sinek?

  AI is the hot topic right now. There are so many people talking about all the tools that can help us do things faster, cheaper, more efficiently than ever before. All of this is true, but it's also revealing something interesting. That the more automated our world becomes, the more valuable the human being is becoming. Being thoughtful, paying attention, being genuinely nice to people, making people feel seen and heard. It turns out, things like kindness are pretty much AI-proof. Which is why I was so excited to welcome my dear friend Will Guidara back to the podcast. Fair warning that if you listen to this podcast, when Will and I get together, it always turns into what somebody once described as a giggle fest.

• 1:08Simon Sinek?

  Will is pretty incredible. He is the former co-owner of Levin Madison Park, which was the number one restaurant in the world. He is the executive producer of the TV show The Bear. And he is the bestselling author of the New York Times bestseller Unreasonable Hospitality, of which I am the proud publisher. And I'm also the proud publisher of Will's new book, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide, which is remarkable. Will has accomplished all those things and built his entire career around one simple philosophy. That if we go further than anyone expects, that's when we can make people feel truly cared for. Though usually Will is the one going above and beyond, he recently found himself on the receiving end of his own philosophy.

• 1:52Simon Sinek?

  In a hotel room, in Los Angeles, involving a piece of Basque cheesecake. And somehow, me. This is a bit of optimism.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Okay, I gotta tell you something. So I got to LA two nights ago and then I had to go to Anaheim and then I came back. And the night I stayed here, I stayed at the Waldorf in Beverly Hills. Now, you know what this story is going to be about, but other people don't. So when I say Basque cheesecake, what is, what does that mean to you?

• 2:28Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so a while ago, you came to visit LA and you and I went out for something that I'd never done before. You said, we're gonna go out for dinner and you said, do you wanna do Bang Bang? And I said, what's Bang Bang? And what Bang Bang is, is you go to a different restaurant for each course.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44Simon Sinek?

  So you and I went to one restaurant for appetizer.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46Simon Sinek?

  We went to a different restaurant for the main course.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:48Simon Sinek?

  And while we're sitting in the restaurant having our main course, we were planning where we should go for dessert.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:54Simon Sinek?

  And you said, I know where we're going. You said, there's this restaurant called Pajolli in Santa Monica.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:00Simon Sinek?

  And they have what you described as one of the top five desserts you've ever had in your life. Now, coming from the top restaurateur in the world, that's a, that's a bold statement right there.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  It means something.

• 3:08Simon Sinek?

  It means something. And you said, here's the problem. You can't order it. It's off the menu. They give you a slice if they like you. If you see somebody else getting one and you say, hey, can I have one? They say no. You can't pay for it. You can't order it. And they make one a night. That's it.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20Simon Sinek?

  Let me text to see if they've got a slice. I know the chef. So you text the owner and he says, we have one slice left. Get over here. And you're like, we're going to Pajolli. We went to Pajolli. They spoiled us. We had our slice of Basque cheesecake and it was easily one of the top five desserts I've ever had in my life.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  One of the greatest.

• 3:36Simon Sinek?

  One of the greatest things ever.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Okay. So I've never told that story before. I get to the hotel. I go up to the room and there's a really awesome note from the guest relations manager. Her name is Abby. She says, Will, welcome. Congrats on the field guide. Since you probably aren't gonna make it to Santa Monica, we decided to bring a piece of Santa Monica to you. Check the fridge. I open the fridge and it's a piece of the Basque cheesecake from Pajolli.

• 4:02Simon Sinek?

  No.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  So I ended up like freaking out.

• 4:05Simon Sinek?

  But how did they even know?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Well, so I crush it. I go to bed. The next morning, have a breakfast. On my way out, I'm about to leave and I said, I need to see Abby. And, and she comes out. I was like, how? And she starts saying all this nice stuff, unreasonable. I said, no, no, no, no. I don't care about any of that. How? You apparently told this story somewhere else.

• 4:27Simon Sinek?

  I think I did it with Phil Rosenthal when he came on the podcast.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Holy crap, this is a Basque cheesecake.

• 4:32Simon Sinek?

  It is. This is the Basque cheesecake from Pajoli in Santa Monica.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. Yes, I've been there, but I haven't had their best.

• 4:38Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so now I'm gonna tell you, now I'm gonna tell you the story behind this cheesecake.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  God, that's beautiful.

• 4:41Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so my friend Will Guidara, who I think you know, he was the former owner of Eleven Madison Park.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 4:49Simon Sinek?

  So Will's a foodie, right?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:51Simon Sinek?

  To say the least.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  So she did a deep dive on me, somehow ended up listening to something you did that I wasn't even on.

• 4:58Simon Sinek?

  It's not even about you.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  And it was the, it was one of the coolest things ever. And by the way, that cheesecake continues to be so unbelievably good. And it's really cool when you write a book about an idea.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  It's almost like a magician having someone else do their own magic trick on them and it still feels magical.

• 5:21Simon Sinek?

  Because you do that. You are so good at giving gifts to people and like freaking them out to have you get freaked, because nobody can freak you out.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:27Simon Sinek?

  I did it once kinda, a little bit.

• 5:32Simon Sinek?

  Anyway, did I tell you the, the follow on story to the Basque cheesecake story at Pajoli?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Wait, yes, but you need to tell it.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  You need to tell it.

• 5:42Simon Sinek?

  I'm on a date.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Wait, but hold on. So for context, the bang bang dinner we had was probably two or three years ago. It was a while ago now.

• 5:51Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Three or four years ago.

• 5:53Simon Sinek?

  It was a while ago, yeah. So here's the follow on story to the Basque cheesecake. So I'm on a date and I'm telling the story of our bang bang night and this amazing cheesecake that's off the menu. You can't order it. You know, it's a French, it's a French restaurant. That's why they can't serve Basque cheesecake on the menu. And I said to the girl, I'm like, I met the owner. I, I bet we could get a slice.

• 6:15Simon Sinek?

  So we go to the restaurant. It's, you know, it's later, it's later, it's like nine thirty or something. So dinner service is winding down. We get a great spot at the bar, right on the edge of the bar. I told the bartender and I bring up the owner's name. He's like, hey, is he in? You know, dropping the hint, you know? And he's like, no, he's not in tonight. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, sorry I missed him. And then I sort of like, sort of, sort of surreptitiously.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  The side of your mouth.

• 6:38Simon Sinek?

  Side of my mouth, like, um, I think we could get a slice of cheesecake. And the bartender looks at me and sort of like, he's like, yeah, I think we could arrange that. And I am like.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  You're just the man.

• 6:51Simon Sinek?

  I'm just the man.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  You're the man. You're gonna look so good.

• 6:53Simon Sinek?

  So they bring out the cheesecake. The girl is like, oh, my God, this is one of the top five desserts I've had in my life. I'm like, I told you, right? This isn't this amazing? And like, we got a slice, isn't this amazing?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Because I'm like, I am known, I am seen.

• 7:05Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  You are on a date with an important man.

• 7:08Simon Sinek?

  Right, exactly. I got cheesecake pull.

• 7:12Simon Sinek?

  And we had a nice time. We're like, let's get another dessert. So we're like, excuse me, can we have the menu? And he gives me the menu and right there on the menu, it says Basque cheesecake.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  It's on the menu now.

• 7:24Simon Sinek?

  They put it on the menu. Those bests. So all I did was surreptitiously order something off the menu.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Did she see that it was on the menu?

• 7:32Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  And the bartender is like, what is wrong with this guy?

• 7:38Simon Sinek?

  I'm like pulling him aside, ordering something off the menu.

• 7:45Simon Sinek?

  So anyway, if you want to go and have one of the top five desserts you've ever had in your life, just go to Pajoli in Santa Monica.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Whatever.

• 7:55Simon Sinek?

  Now everyone can have a slice of Basque cheesecake at Pajoli, but it's still one of the top five desserts, but yeah, anyone can get it.

• 8:02Simon Sinek?

  It's not so special. This is a treat for me because you've come on the podcast a few times before, but this is the first time we've ever done it in person.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  I know, I love this.

• 8:11Simon Sinek?

  And this is what, you know, I want people to appreciate, which is you and I are actually very, very close friends. And so anytime I get with you is a treat. For the many, many reasons I love you.

• 8:23Simon Sinek?

  One is how your brain works. And it doesn't work like mine.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Opposites attract.

• 8:28Simon Sinek?

  I don't know if it's opposite, but it's, it's, your brain doesn't work like a lot of people. You know, for, for somebody who's extremely good at business. I mean, you're, you're a good, shrewd.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Businessperson who understands the levers of business. You're one of the most creative people I've ever met. And I love, I love bragging about unreasonable hospitality. And I love telling people, you know, where most restaurants find themselves number one in the world because they reinvented food. To come up with the idea that you can become the number one restaurant in the world by reinventing hospitality. The thing that I found amazing about that is for the hundred years of, you know, we've been rating restaurants, that it was always about the food.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Any, anybody could have come up with, wait, what about the hospitality? Like it literally, it's not like, it's not like you're the only person who could have come up with that. And it's both exciting and depressing at the same time. Like amazing you came up with it, kind of depressing, nobody came up with it. When in your restaurant career, because you're a front of house guy. When in your restaurant career do you start to recognize that treating people was the thing that everybody else wasn't focusing?

• 9:35Speaker 03

  I mean, I think where we did something different was thinking about this approach at the very high end. Like Danny Meyer, who was my boss and mentor, was focused on hospitality. And I mean, he gave me the foundation upon which I built all this stuff. Where we took it in a different direction was do it at the three Michelin star level. And we doubled down on hospitality at that level. I think for the following reason, it's easy to have a hospitable restaurant when you are less concerned with the details, right? Excellence and hospitality don't necessarily go hand in hand.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  But when you're so maniacally focused on perfection, hospitality would normally take a backseat. Because you care more about serving a perfect plate of food and having every detail of the service be executed at a certain level. And that always took precedence over how you made people feel. I, I think our. Our thing where we challenged that was to say, hey, yeah, we want to be excellent. We want to have food that is extraordinary and service that is as close to technically perfect as possible in an amazing dining room. And yet those are table six. Like, that's just fulfilling the base level obligation you have, the promise you are making when you choose to operate a restaurant like that.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  We believe that in our hospitality, that's where we can really make.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  So here's where my mind is going, right? Here's where my mind is going. And, and, and this is where I think from a brand standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, from a product standpoint, where so many businesses get it wrong, is they confuse excellence and unreasonable.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Right? And, and here's where my mind is going, right? The number of companies that offer usually some sort of back office service, whether it's accounting or some sort of organizational software, whatever it is, their value proposition in their marketing is always the same. We do all the dot, dot, dot so that you can go focus on dot, dot, dot.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Right?

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Like, we'll do the accounting so you can focus on building the business. And they all kind of have the same, you know, value proposition. And in reality, like, that's what your product is supposed to do.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Like, the reason I'm paying you money is for you to do the stuff that I don't want to do. That is why I hired you.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Right? Like, and the way you're talking about excellence and service, like, you have to do that. Minimum.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  And now, you could argue you do it better than others. Fine, that's a different conversation. But if you accept that that's the minimal standard to do that excellently, now what?

• 12:21Speaker 03

  That in some way like.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  It opens up an entirely new door for how to build a brand, how to understand marketing, how to understand customer service. If you accept that doing that brilliantly is the table sticks.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  That's how you should describe the product, not how you should sell it. Like, this is the product. We're gonna do all this.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  The reason you should work with us, though, is this. As I've traveled around, except then all over the country, around the world for the last few years, spending time with companies across pretty much every industry. Everyone is trying to identify their competitive advantage. Right? What is it about their business that will prevent someone else from coming in and taking it away? And yet, those conversations to that point almost always center around the quality of the product, sometimes the strength of the brand. But here's the thing, it does not just matter how good the product is or how strong the brand is because eventually, this is not my opinion, it's a fact, time has proven it to be true. Someone will build a better product or they will create a stronger brand.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  They may be better capitalized, they may be newer and shinier, younger and more innovative. They may just be more talented than you are. The only competitive advantage that exists in the long term, in my view, is hospitality. Consistently, generously, creatively investing in relationships because those take a long time to build.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  I think your message is more timely than I think people realize, which is was the rise of AI. What the technologists all forget is people, they always leave the people out.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Right? They have these visions of the world that will exist. And they always forget that people fundamentally are legacy machines, we're tens of thousands of years old, older than that, hundreds of thousands of years old, and our software has not been updated.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  At all, ever. And, you know, you look at the the world where technology has attempted to sort of take over. You know, Amazon is removing all the palm scanners from Whole Foods because of unbelievably low ados. The economics no longer make sense.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Right? Amazon had those stores where you could just walk in, take stuff off the shelf and walk out. Sounds like a dream.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  They're closing them all because they're not working.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, because one's in the airport.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  The worst. And what they're forgetting is I don't want to look on an app to find out where the thing is. The reason I like having a guy stacking the shelf is not because I want a person stacking the shelf. It's because I want a person randomly in an aisle that's nearby that I can say, where's the peanut butter? And they either point or take me, either one, I don't care. But the point is that tiny little interaction makes me feel seen and heard as a human being. And even if it's a basic thing, talking to another person.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Even though the AI could do it is the like. And the airlines know this and hotels know this and anybody in the service industry knows this. But the problem is, is that a person has become a luxury. That you have to earn a person.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  You have to earn access to.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  You have to earn access to human being. And, and all the technologists and, and the sort of the air is like, we're taking all the people away. And this is why your work is more prescient and more important than simply being competitive at the advantage. It reinforces the importance of the human being in any commercial transaction.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Well, and yeah, gosh, I love that. And I, and I think it's only gonna grow and it's important.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Which is a good thing. Your book is selling gangbusters and your, your stuff is spreading like crazy. And I think that is a good sign that as, as AI and automation grows, that at least a class of, of, of people are recognizing that we cannot do it at the sacrifice of people. It has to be done in parallel with people.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Well, and by the way, if everything we're saying is true, humans are a form of luxury. No, that will only become increasingly so. Like even you pick up the phone and you call someone and whether it's one year, two year, five years, who knows how long it's gonna be. We're not gonna know whether we're talking to a human being or. That technology is getting so good that we won't be able to trust. I'll get off the phone and I'll be like, I think I was talking to a human and I really don't know. Which means, I, I really do believe that I've seen enough of it now to feel pretty convicted that we're gonna get close to that. Which means.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Yes, Anne, but go on.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  I think the moments like this.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  The, the truly human moments, they're gonna need to be as human as humanly possible.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  And I think we're at a crossroads in how companies are beginning to adopt the technology. Let me finish.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Where there are plenty of companies, listen, with a lot of the financial pressure people are facing right now. AI represents like a pretty good lever that you can pull to get your profitability in line. You can adopt some of this technology, you can, there are a bunch of people, you can put some more money to the bottom line. You can get, you can save the day and many people will do that. I think the ones that are very, very smart though. Are going to be those that recognize that, yeah, maybe you need to save a little bit of money. But if you reinvest some of the money you saved into making those human moments even more human, you'll make a little bit less today, but you will make so much more down the road.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Because those are going to be the people we turn to when we are failing that way.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  And, and when things go wrong.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  You're like, enough with the computer, I need a person.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  And you'll know who you can go to.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  And you'll know who you can trust. I think that's right. This is an amazing opportunity for something like unreasonable hospitality as a concept, not as a, as a book. Is because if people are concerned about job losses, well, why not expand hospitality jobs? Why not make more jobs, service jobs? And you talk about the nobility of service. And it's not like we're trading in, you know, I used to be a knowledge worker, you know, computer programmer, or whatever I was doing. And now, you know, I'm digging ditches, you know, to build roads. You thought that's not, that's not what we're talking about here, which is the sophisticated problem solving, highly engaged, you know, emotional intelligence required to be good at service.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  And the joy that is derived from helping another human being could be way more fulfilling, or at least equally fulfilling as any job you loved. And so why not reinvest some of those savings, as you said, and convert some of those jobs into service jobs? Let's double down on, on Pete.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  So listen to this, I want to tell you a story from the restaurant back to the day, which is pretty AI, but analogous to what we're going through now. For a long time, I believed strongly that you shouldn't make reservations over the phone. I wanted every experience with us to begin with a human voice. And so even when OpenTable came around and you could book reservations online, we had OpenTable because an interface.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  You have to.

• 19:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, but we blocked every reservation online. You had to call the restaurant to make, to make one. Cause I had awesome reservationists. I wanted to start with a human voice. And then thankfully, you know, Laura, who was like the person on my team that I trusted so much, and she trusted me enough to be able to call me out when I was doing something dumb. She said, hey, have you ever even tried to make a reservation here? And I said, well, no. And she goes, why don't you try? Cause the team was getting upset at me for this decision. So next day at nine AM, 28 days before we opened the books, I called. Only to be put on hold, to wait on hold for thirty minutes, to be taken off hold, to say, I'm so sorry, we're fully reserved, can we add your name a little bit? I was like, oh.

• 20:07Speaker 03

  And so she was right, we, I, in pursuit of

• 20:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  human connection, I was doing something that was definitively less hospitable. So instead I went in the opposite direction. Now, you couldn't put reservations on the phone anymore. They were only available online.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Which meant you going on at nine AM and it was very clear when we had reservations, what we didn't, no one had to waste their time. But here's what I did, and I think, I didn't write about this in Unreasonable Hospitality, and that was a mistake, because I think it's one of the most important decisions I ever made. We did not fire a single person from our reservations team. Now, we had no one answering phones all day, they didn't have to do that. Rather, we redeployed them to spend all the same time they were telling people no and adding people to the waitlist, to spend proper time with people who had gotten a reservation on the phone, getting to know them and understanding how we could make their meal more special. That's what I'm talking about right now. Like, as we shift, and no, I, I'm not gonna blame anyone for saying, alright, we have ten people,

• 21:07Speaker 03

  I'm gonna get rid of a couple people, cuz we're really over budget, all labor perspective, I need a little bit of that back, but keep the eight people. And through a bit of creativity and a lot of intention, figure out how you can deploy them.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  So that the experience feels more connected, more memorable, that you can build that loyalty.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  Listen, the greatest capital we have is loyalty from the people we serve. So it takes a long time to erode. And I'm sure you've had relationships with companies where they drop the ball, big time. And if they've done enough to earn your loyalty, you're gonna give them one, two, three more chances. I've had people come in who maybe do a little bit better job for less money.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Because this person has been good to me for such a long time, I'm loyal. I'm gonna stick with them, and I don't think that's a uniquely, that's a unique trait to me.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Well, this is, this is exactly the conversation we're having, which is the technology, but forget about the people.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  And there's one thing that every human being on the planet needs, it's other human beings.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Right? And we know this, we know that, you know, solitary confinement is a form of torture. And we know that solitary confinement literally makes people lose their minds.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  At one point, once upon a time, an economist said the words, what gets measured gets managed.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  And I understand, obviously, there's a lot of benefit to thinking that way. And yet, I think that one idea has been so destructive to so many companies. Because the reality is, some of the things that are the most important to do, you cannot measure the return in as easily or immediate a way as these companies have been trained to to think. Yeah, if you start investing in hospitality, if you start really putting resource to making the people you work with and those that you serve feel truly seen and valued and cared for, will it benefit you over the long term? Yes. Is it easy to measure in three, six, nine-month increments?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  No. But just because it's harder to measure doesn't mean it matters less. In fact, it means it matters more. And I think that those who don't invest in it because they can't clearly calculate it in the short term are being reckless in the long term.

• 23:21Simon Sinek?

  Well, let's reveal it here. You're operating at a level that's beyond. Like, the amount that you invested in unreasonable hospitality is more than you're even expecting others to.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:31Simon Sinek?

  And yes, you became the number one restaurant in the world. Right here, on camera, did your company lose money?

• 23:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:38Simon Sinek?

  Exactly. The company didn't lose money.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  No, we made more than most.

• 23:41Simon Sinek?

  You made more money.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  I think we're one of the most profitable fine dining restaurants in America.

• 23:45Simon Sinek?

  There you go, one of the most profitable. That's it. That's an important detail.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:49Simon Sinek?

  For the people who are who question your work, which is, you may not have seen it in month one or month two.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:55Simon Sinek?

  But you are one of the most profitable fine dining restaurants in the world, not just number one.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:01Simon Sinek?

  Because of unreasonable hospitality, right?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 24:04Simon Sinek?

  And when we say what gets measured gets managed, or what gets measured gets done, that's 100% true when we're talking about systems.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:11Simon Sinek?

  And processes and and things like that. But you cannot apply mechanical thinking to a human being, right? It's the same reason you can level load a factory, but you can't level load people. You're like, well, if they're working a 50-hour work week, how do we get them to work 50 hours?

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:31Simon Sinek?

  You know, can we restrict bathroom breaks?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:33Simon Sinek?

  Can we intravenously feed them?

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:35Simon Sinek?

  You know? In no more watercooler chat.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  By the way, there might be some people who listen to your podcast that will actually be inspired by what you just said. This is a PSA. That was a joke. It was sarcasm.

• 24:48Simon Sinek?

  But that's my point, which is technologists always forget that people will always be people. I remember in the days, in the rising days of internet and, and e-commerce, they're like, this is the death of bricks and mortar. Now, I understand the economic challenges of a bricks and mortar trying to compete with an online pricing and online delivery. I get that, but that's a different conversation, right? That's, that's an economic and supply chain challenge, right? But people still like going shopping because at the end of the day, we're hunter gatherers and we like going to stores. Not for everything, but for a lot of things. And retail isn't going away. They're just finding new ways to remain profitable in this changing world.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  But I, I will say that if you look at the brick and mortars that really struggled, they were the ones that never cared about actually delivering the kind of experience that sparked joy for those that walked in. Because the reality is if going to a physical store is just a utility.

• 25:49Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Then yeah, do it online.

• 25:50Simon Sinek?

  Then use the internet.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  It's the ones that were like, hey, no, I, I don't want to go online because I really enjoy going there.

• 25:55Simon Sinek?

  And you can tell who trains their employees.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:58Simon Sinek?

  That way. Cause when you feel like they basically are bots, you know?

• 26:03Speaker 01

  There's places where you literally feel like you're annoying someone by trying to, to shop at the store.

• 26:08Simon Sinek?

  Oh, I'm thinking of a store right now where I went and be like, do you have these in, you know, whatever it was? And they went, yeah, over there and then went back to their work. And I'm like, I don't know where there is. There's like four places that could be. And they, and the stuff wasn't there.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  I went to a store recently, the same exact thing happened and I just went on Amazon while I was in the store and bought it instead and walked out.

• 26:30Simon Sinek?

  And walked out. I've had experiences where I'm so enjoying the person who's helping me that I, I literally look online and it's cheaper. And I'm like, ah, and I buy it and I buy it there because I, I like.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  And you want to reward cultures that show up in the world in that way.

• 26:44Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  This.

• 26:45Simon Sinek?

  Maybe you and I are unusual.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  I think there's more. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to presume everyone's like us, but I'm sure.

• 26:51Simon Sinek?

  I just need to share it with people.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:52Simon Sinek?

  That this is how we actually have conversations.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Whether we're being recorded or not.

• 26:58Simon Sinek?

  Whether we're being recorded or not, like this is the way we actually talk. We interrupt each other more. We're being polite.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  We're trying to interrupt a little bit less. We're not doing a great job.

• 27:07Simon Sinek?

  We interrupt each other, we interrupt each other less, but we actually would have this conversation without cameras.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  The other area of the supply chain is marketing, and I see this all the time. Like, you can see, I remember back in the day, we did a lot of brand partnerships. And the question that drives me crazy whenever I'd go to someone with an idea was, okay, how many social media impressions are we going to get out of this? And like, that is how, still to this day, a lot of brands are deciding where to invest their money is based on how many social media impressions they're going to get. Now, why? Because that is the easiest thing to measure. What will the impact be on how much people love their brand for having done that thing? It's much, much harder to measure.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  So they take the easy way out, which is also the thing that is the most meaningless in terms of people's like love for that brand. I'll give you an example. When we did EMP Summer House in the Hamptons, we closed 11 Madison Park to renovate, and we moved the restaurant for three months to the Hamptons. We needed a sponsor to do that. Because the whole point of it was 11 Madison was what it was because of my team. I could not lose them. So I had to move 120 people to the Hamptons for the summer, which meant housing for 130 people in one of the most expensive places on earth. So I had the idea to go to American Express and say, hey, will you sponsor this? This is how much money I need from you.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  And what I'll do is I will only accept American Express cards and cash, but no other credit cards. And I had to go through meeting after meeting after meeting with all these people, Moore, Junior and the company, and they were ready to say no because they didn't think they were getting enough clicks. They couldn't figure out a way to measure it. Thankfully, I had a relationship with someone at the top. I ended up just going to him instead. He greenlit it. They had more people in the Hamptons sign up for an American Express card that summer than ever before. It was one of their best investments ever, and now they're doing stuff like that all the time. But it takes someone with creative vision, who's able to look at things over

• 29:21Speaker 01

  the long term, who's less concerned with

• 29:25Simon Sinek?

  The short term.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  The short term, which by the way, is not necessarily even a testament to the people I was talking to before. It's a testament to how their compensation was structured.

• 29:33Simon Sinek?

  Hundred percent.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Like, they can only operate within the confines of how

• 29:36Simon Sinek?

  I see it with advertisers who want to come on for this show. They only, you know, go through some agency because nobody does it themselves. They all use agencies. The agencies are all compensated based on just clicks. And they'll compare me to some other podcast that does more clicky baity stuff that has, maybe has more listeners, and they're just not interested. They don't think about the brand halo. They don't think about, you know, creative

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Or who are the people that are actually listening?

• 30:00Simon Sinek?

  So, yeah, I mean, it's, I see it in publishing, you know, where, like, to get a book deal these days, the first thing they're gonna do is look at your social media following. And in other words, they're looking at your, the quality of your idea after.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:12Simon Sinek?

  After. They're looking at your

• 30:13Speaker 01

  How many followers do you have?

• 30:14Simon Sinek?

  I mean, it's embarrassing, right? Your work and my work, you know, I'm very open about the fact that most companies will, do not use my work. Most companies, even if they know about it, don't care about starting with why. They don't care about the infinite game. Like, most companies do not use my work. And I know the reason why. It's because my work, like your work, is much more akin to exercise, right? If you work out every single day for 20 minutes, 100% of people will get into shape.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:46Simon Sinek?

  100%.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:47Simon Sinek?

  Every, can I take a day off? Yes, you can. How many days can I take off? I don't know. Not too many, right? But if you work out every day for 20 minutes, 100% of people will get into shape. But here's the problem. When? I don't know, and neither does any doctor.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:01Simon Sinek?

  But if you trust in the process, if you have faith, and the data proves it out, Then just stick with it and it will work. Your work is the same, my work is the same. And the reason most companies are not interested in my work is I cannot guarantee that the result that you want to happen will happen on the day of your financial year.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, will happen as quickly as you want it to or need it to based on whatever.

• 31:25Simon Sinek?

  It may, but because I can't promise, I and I'm gonna tell you, you're gonna have to stick with it regardless. Their incentive structure disincentivizes them to do what is the right thing for their business. And, and I know this because my entire career, your entire career, we are both guinea pigs and experiments we did on ourselves for our own ideas.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:47Simon Sinek?

  And we were disciplined and we did that, that believed in the process and the 20 minutes every day. We didn't know when it would work or when it would pop. But for both of us, we believed in it enough that it, we've made guinea pigs out of ourselves.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:59Simon Sinek?

  Like if you want proof, here you go. I built my brand with a zero marketing budget. To prove that if you learn to start with why and you obey the law of diffusion of innovations and you focus on the early adopters and the way you talk to early adopters is by starting with why.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:13Simon Sinek?

  That is, that is the way you talk to an early adopter, that at some point, a tipping point will happen. And I, and I literally, when I started in the early days, I restarted my business, I reset, I closed my office, the whole thing, I started from scratch because I wanted to prove the idea could work and I did it without any marketing budget. And it worked, not because I'm smarter, not because the timing was lucky, it's because I did the thing.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Cause you stuck with it.

• 32:38Simon Sinek?

  I stuck with it and there were days that were hard, but I, the discipline to turn down the wrong customers, the wrong clients who weren't early adopters and say yes to lower paying clients who were the right, I did those things, you know? I did those things. And people say to me now, oh, but you can afford to turn down business. No, no, no, I was turning down business when I couldn't afford to.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can afford to turn down business now.

• 33:00Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, but I was turning down business when I couldn't afford to because I needed to prove the point.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, by the way, with marketing, that's why I think that overlap between our stuff is it's very different and it's very similar. I've never spent any money on marketing, ever. Because I just think if you spend all that money on just being relentlessly gracious with the people you serve, creating memories and giving them stories to share, one day you're gonna wake up and you have legions of ambassadors out there in the world doing your marketing on your behalf far better than you could ever do it yourself. But.

• 33:37Simon Sinek?

  I mean, I'm not anti-marketing, but I also know that companies that are built solely with sale, sale, sale, promotion, promotion, promotion, the minute you stop that, the minute you turn that off, the business disappears.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  The good part about marketing is you do something, a lot of people see it right away.

• 33:51Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  What we're talking about, it just takes a lot more time to trickle out into the world.

• 33:55Simon Sinek?

  And I think you can, I think smart companies know that you can do both.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:59Simon Sinek?

  The dumb companies ignore the one because they, you know, they get the hit from the ad.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:05Simon Sinek?

  Let me change tax on you entirely.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:08Simon Sinek?

  I wanted to share just a funny theory.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:12Simon Sinek?

  That I was telling your wife yesterday and she said, you have to tell Will.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:18Simon Sinek?

  I firmly believe that grades should be given as a ratio, not as an absolute.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:25Simon Sinek?

  So it should be the level of accomplishment, A, B, C, D, over the number of hours you studied.

• 34:32Simon Sinek?

  Right? So.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  By the way, as I'm listening to this, I'm trying to figure out why my, well, as, before I even hear what you say, I'm like, you're, my wife told you to tell this to me and that's either display of praise or insult from her.

• 34:45Simon Sinek?

  I know which one it is because we talked about it and we'll get there.

• 34:51Simon Sinek?

  I'm just doing it on camera.

• 34:54Simon Sinek?

  This is a private conversation. I'm gonna do on camera.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:58Simon Sinek?

  Anyway, so the grades be given as a ratio, right? And in that way, you know much more about the kind of person, right? So if you need somebody who does A work and you're willing to give them 50 hours to do it, hire that person. If you need somebody who can work well under pressure, but you're not gonna get A work, you, you, you know, like, you know, you'll get B plus work, you know, then hire the other person. So like, my friends in, in college, you know, one, one friend I'm thinking of, he was an A over 50. Right? He's a straight A student, he works his brains out. I was a B plus over three.

• 35:30Simon Sinek?

  Right? Occasionally an A minus.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:32Simon Sinek?

  But a solid B plus over three is was me.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Less investment, pretty good results.

• 35:38Simon Sinek?

  Okay, but so now that's just from a hiring standpoint. Now let's think of it as a lifestyle, right? Now let's leave college alone and let's come into the real world, right? Which is because I've stressed out about like, is my work good enough? Am I doing all enough? And then I realized, hold on, I'm actually very comfortable with a B plus. You know why? Because I work three hours.

• 35:59Simon Sinek?

  And and like this, I've accepted that there's always going to be people who are going to make more money than me, sell more books than me. Like, I know a guy, he sells an insane number of books. I also know he works his fricking brains out. I do well, like my books are are good, you know, solid A minus work.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:17Simon Sinek?

  You know?

• 36:19Simon Sinek?

  I didn't do 50, you know? And so the reason I bring this up is because I think because there's no ratio, the only thing we have to judge each other, or worse, judge ourselves, is the first number. So we compare how much money we make, how many followers we've got, all of the very simple to to to measure metrics.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  The easier to measure.

• 36:43Simon Sinek?

  The easier to measure. And so what ends up happening is people either work extremely hard to chase those metrics, followers, clicks, likes, revenue, whatever it is, right? Or worse, they're comparing their actual worth, their own self-worth to somebody whose numbers are higher.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:00Simon Sinek?

  Until you add the ratio.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:02Simon Sinek?

  I was always very stressed out with people who were my peers.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:04Simon Sinek?

  Who like they're making bigger deals, they're making more money, their their social media following is bigger than mine. I was always intimidated by it and and I beat myself up. I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I don't have the work ethic they have. And that's when it occurred to me, hold on, that their A's over 50 and I'm a B plus over three. I'm very happy with my B plus in the world.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:29Simon Sinek?

  And the difference is, is I really like my life. I really like my lifestyle. And if I wanted to change, and again, there's no judgment. That's really important to say, I do not judge the A over 50s. If that's the life you choose, so long as you're happy with it, go forth. But my point is, is without the ratio, we only judge our value and our worth by the level of accomplishment, but not the lifestyle we're living to get there. So if you want to have an amazing relationship with your kids, an amazing relationship with your spouse, if you want to go on vacations, if you want to have hobbies, odds are you're gonna have to do B plus, A minus work for the rest of your life. And if you're okay with that, that sounds like a banging good life to me.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I was talking, by the way, I'm still not sure, does my wife think I work too much or not enough?

• 38:16Simon Sinek?

  Do you want me to answer the question?

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:19Simon Sinek?

  You set a goal for yourself, an aggressive goal, let's call it an A.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:24Simon Sinek?

  You know, and I know what your goals are, and you know what your goals are.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:28Simon Sinek?

  And you worked 50 hours to get your A, and you got your A.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:33Simon Sinek?

  And now the question is, is why are you still working 50 hours if you got your A?

• 38:39Simon Sinek?

  That's where that came from.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  I was really hoping it was gonna be that I was a slacker. I'm an A over 50.

• 38:44Simon Sinek?

  You're an A over 50, and there's nothing wrong with being an A over 50, but if you keep moving the goalposts, and it's the same, it's the equivalent of, I'm gonna make a million dollars, I'm gonna make two million dollars. I will only be happy if, and then you keep moving the goalposts, then you're gonna spend your life chasing As and always working 50s. And at some point, you have to be like, I did that. And now, a B plus over three is the life I want to live. Again, these are lifestyle choices.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:11Simon Sinek?

  There's no judgment, there's no right or wrong, these are lifestyle choices. And the only reason I wanted to bring it up is because I myself have suffered the extreme stress of, let's call it chasing the grade, or not even chasing it, being intimidated that I was incapable of getting the grade when I compared myself to people who were outperforming me on every metric.

• 39:32Simon Sinek?

  Until I recognized that my life was different and I was okay with that.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the, listen, there's a couple of things that this is.

• 39:41Simon Sinek?

  I'll add one more thing, which makes it even worse.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  For me?

• 39:44Simon Sinek?

  No, for in general. Uh, oh, she also told me to tell you she wants, that she wants a divorce. I'm sorry, sorry, I forgot that bit. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I forgot. My bad. Bury the lead, sorry.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  She wanted to do that on the, on your podcast.

• 40:04Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, she wanted me to tell you on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. The other thing is, which is the worst part and the most insidious part about the A over 50 mentality is we pick our own metrics. Let's just compare you and me, right? Just for fun. If metrics is book sales, right? You blow me out of the water. Like, the speed at which your book has achieved book sales. I mean, if I only look at my momentum on books and I look at your momentum at books at any time in my own career, I will feel nothing but dejected and lesser than and incapable if that's the metric I compare with you. But if I look at my social media following and compare it to yours.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:48Simon Sinek?

  I'm a frickin' rockstar.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Then you're the winner.

• 40:49Simon Sinek?

  And then I'm the winner. So the problem is, is we pick our own metrics. So you can be a hero or a zero, no matter which metric you want to choose compared to somebody else. And that's the problem. The A that you're chasing is sometimes arbitrary. And by the way, this is true for companies as well. Are you chasing revenues? Or profit? Or market share? Or price of your stock?

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:12Simon Sinek?

  Your new equity price, like, or longevity, over what time period? Like, those As are very largely arbitrary. And so you either have a hero complex, which is also stupid, or you have a zero complex. The ratio solves all of those things.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think everything that you're saying, there's a couple of things that it's making me think. One, it's funny how we've talked about like three different things and they all boil down to one idea, which is how the things that are harder to measure seem to matter more.

• 41:47Simon Sinek?

  Yes.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Which is just interesting, right? Like, everything that goes into the grade is easy to measure. B plus over three. The thing that's not implicitly stated, or not explicitly stated, is what's happening with the other forty-seven. And that's time that's being invested into things that are harder to measure.

• 42:08Simon Sinek?

  Yes.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  But if we actually look through what is on that list, those are the things that matter the most.

• 42:15Simon Sinek?

  Yes. And it helps reconfigure, right? Because if you're doing C minus over fifty.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:21Simon Sinek?

  Okay? If you're doing C minus over fifty, then either you're in the wrong job, like your talents are not being leveraged, or you have to change the way in which you're working. Right? So again, if you're doing C plus work and you're working your brains out and you kind of stand, you're not dumb.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:37Simon Sinek?

  The ratio helps you understand where the configuration needs to be. Because if you have that level of work ethic, you should be doing good work, B and above.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:47Simon Sinek?

  That's why both metrics matter. Level of accomplishment still matters. It's still an indicator. Right? But I think you're right. I think the very interesting thing that we're talking about here is the stuff that doesn't get measured seems more important.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:01Simon Sinek?

  For the long term.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  By the way, in work and in life.

• 43:04Simon Sinek?

  In work and in life. Unreasonable hospitality and what I'm talking about are, yeah, they're the same thing.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  It almost makes me like, it's almost like everyone should be doing an audit of themselves.

• 43:16Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Are you investing too much of your time into things that are too easy to measure? And if you are, you might be missing out on some of the best things that life has to offer.

• 43:27Simon Sinek?

  Beautifully put. And by the way, you can change. Like, if you want to start your career, because I definitely started, like, when I was, when I was trying to prove my point that the golden circle worked out on the road, you know, doing all my speaking engagements, you know, I joke that one year I was in my apartment for one full week, once, the entire year. Was that the best year of my career or the worst year of my career?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:50Simon Sinek?

  You know?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:51Simon Sinek?

  I knew that I was working, I had the fifty.

• 43:55Simon Sinek?

  But then I chose to change. Neither of them are absolute. They're choices and you can adapt over the course of a life. Like if you have a family, then maybe it's okay to make less money. Maybe it's okay to get the promotion slower. Like, maybe that's okay.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  And it's also okay to work nonstop for measures as well. Like, that's the one thing when you see some of these people on Instagram and they're very successful, wealthy people later in life. And they're like, you gotta take more time to relax. And it's like, okay, hold on. What were you doing in your twenties?

• 44:29Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  And when you actually get to know them a little bit, they were A over 150, right? Like, every single week, working nonstop. And they earned the right to have that kind of privilege.

• 44:41Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  And so the point, I think, is there's not a wrong way, so long as you're aware of what's happening.

• 44:47Simon Sinek?

  It's not a wrong way, it's information.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:49Simon Sinek?

  You know, if we say what gets measured gets done, what gets measured gets managed.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:53Simon Sinek?

  Then if you only have half a metric.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:55Simon Sinek?

  If you only have.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  You need a little more information.

• 44:58Simon Sinek?

  A little of accomplishment, but you don't have the ratio. It's an incomplete metric. And so if we say what gets measured gets done and what do I do with those other 47 hours? Oh, my goodness, I went to movies.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:09Simon Sinek?

  I traveled. I have a hobby that I love.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  I pursued friendships.

• 45:13Simon Sinek?

  I pursued friendship. And the irony is, if you take that mentality and now you're sort of like, we are in a world right now that's obsessed with longevity and supplements and all these other things. And the thing is, people are applying that A over 50 mentality to their longevity.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:28Simon Sinek?

  And what they're missing, it's the 47 hours of time to just relax and enjoy your friends. That is actually what makes you live longer. There's a great irony.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:39Simon Sinek?

  In this.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  No, I mean, Bob Waldinger's stuff. Like, I'm like, all right, so hold on. I don't need to work out for 20 minutes a day as long as I'm a really good friend.

• 45:48Simon Sinek?

  No, you need to work out some.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  No, no, I'm just kidding.

• 45:50Simon Sinek?

  But this is what I think is interesting. You need to work out some. I mean, I was talking to somebody who measures the inflammation of our cells. And because inflammation, you know, it's the root of a lot of problems in our, in our, in our bodies, heart disease, cancer and all the rest of it. So you want inflammation down, right? You don't need to overdose on blueberries to keep the inflammation down, you know? Just reduce stress. That's what keeps inflammation, inflammation down. And what they were telling me in their work and studying this stuff is that elite athletes don't live longer than the rest of us. And the people who are obsessed with their health, like they're longevity nuts, who are doing intermittent fasting and an extreme workout, then a sauna and then a cold plunge,

• 46:34Simon Sinek?

  what they're doing, it's okay, all of those things are healthy, but not when you do them all every day.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Not when you do so much of it.

• 46:40Simon Sinek?

  And so it's called stress stacking. So yes, a certain level of stress in the body does make you healthier, right? But stress stacking, which is what it's called, actually makes you unhealthy. So they're obsessed with the metrics that they actually cause themselves more stress when they don't hit the number of steps that they promised they would hit. The increase of stress actually outweighs, there's, there's a great one that I read a bunch of years ago, that when we stress, like real stress about eating the chocolate cake, the cortisol that's released in our bodies from the stress is worse for us than the chocolate cake.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:11Simon Sinek?

  Have a piece of chocolate cake, enjoy it. You're fine.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:14Simon Sinek?

  And if you do it every now and then, it's like, it's not like you're eating McDonald's for every meal. If you had a McDonald's once a year, it'll do a total of zero to your body.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:22Simon Sinek?

  You know? And that's the point, which is exercise in a reasonable amount. Stress your body a reasonable amount. Some, some stress is good. Stress stacking, bad. But all of these things come to light when you start to play with ratios.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  So hold on, I want to go back because the other thing. That was going through my mind as we were talking about this. A, all the good stuff is harder to measure. But over the last week, I've hung out with three different people, all very successful. And there's been one conversation that's come up, which is even the most successful people I know, there's a little piece of them that no matter how well things have gone or are going, that's scared, it's all gonna go away. And I know I feel that.

• 48:12Simon Sinek?

  I feel that, yeah, yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  And so when you say you worked 50 hours, you got the A, why are you still doing it? Well, because what if you wake up one day and it's all gone? And by the way, intellectually.

• 48:24Simon Sinek?

  I know, intellect is madness.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  It's insane, obviously, I know. But people have a hard time talking about it because

• 48:33Speaker 01

  they feel weak for acknowledging either the fear around it or the insecurity around it. But that is what keeps people working 50 because they fear they will wake up one day and there's no opportunity left.

• 48:47Simon Sinek?

  I think it's more insidious.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 48:49Simon Sinek?

  Yes, the fear is absolutely there, but I think it's actually more insidious. I knew this billionaire who, when the economy went into recession, he lost an unbelievable amount of money and went into like serious depression, right? So his wife was like, can you do me a favor? You can just talk to him, right? And he's, he's an arrogant guy, you know? He's, he's that, whatever stereotype you have in your mind of, yeah, it's all true, right? And I walk into the room and he's, he's, he's sitting on the table in the dining room with his head in his hands on the dining room table. I've never seen anything like this. And I sit down and I talk to him.

• 49:32Simon Sinek?

  And he's telling me he's going through how awful he feels in the depression. And I'm just listening and I can't help it. I'm so curious. I say, can I have to ask like, how much did you lose? You know? And he said, 80%. So I'm doing some quick math in my head. Okay, you got a billion, you've lost 80%. You still have 200 million.

• 50:02Simon Sinek?

  It's not like you have to like, start eating like ramen noodles or sell a house.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  You're gonna be fine.

• 50:09Simon Sinek?

  Like, it changes your lifestyle zero, right? Zero. So I'd said something that I thought would help, right? I said, "Oh, you're not upset because you lost the money. You're upset because of the score."

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 50:27Simon Sinek?

  I wanted him to see it was an abstract score and the score was down, which is why he was depressed. And it made him feel worse.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 50:36Simon Sinek?

  And that's why I say it's more insidious, which is there are some people who are so driven by the score that the money ceases to be money. It's a score that they compare themselves to each other. And, and the humiliation of having a low score compared to other people with a high score. You know, Bezos and Musk are obsessed with each other. Why?

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:01Simon Sinek?

  You know? Why? Who, who cares? Right? And that's the point, which is when you reach a certain level, money ceases to be the thing because you have more than you could possibly, you have more than countries. Right? It's the score. And I think people who are raised, and this now goes into sort of like parenting, I guess, that, that people who are raised, the grade is everything. The A is everything, you better get an A. I think confuse worth with the, that the score and self-worth become, become somehow melded together.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Because, again, the score is easier to measure.

• 51:41Simon Sinek?

  When you start to combine your self-worth with the score, it's a level of accomplishment, it's not the value of the person.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  But, but it is a part of it.

• 51:50Simon Sinek?

  It is a part of it.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Like, you work really hard, like you invest a lot, like you have ideas, people react to them.

• 51:56Simon Sinek?

  And you wanna see fruit, you wanna see fruit to your labor.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  And like that, that is a part of yourself.

• 52:00Simon Sinek?

  And every human being.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  But it's not everything.

• 52:02Simon Sinek?

  Because we're talking about people with wealth and that's nothing to do with it, right? They're just examples and they're extreme examples, which is why they're easy to point to because the metrics are easy.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 52:09Simon Sinek?

  But every human being on the planet, when you're working with the most junior person to the most senior person. Everybody wants to see that the hard work that they invest pays off in some way. That the product gets shipped, that the person gets helped, that we save a life. You know, that the blood, sweat and tears was worth something. So yes, that's a hundred percent true. We want to know that our work matters.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  And it's harder to calculate the score of being the person that like always shows up for your friends.

• 52:40Simon Sinek?

  It's hard to calculate the person who calls, you know, somebody who's already got a reservation and just to, because then they hang up and you don't hear the, oh, oh, that was a great phone call. You don't hear that. It's, it's, it's one of the things that's hard about our work. Which is intellectually, I know, but I don't know. I don't have an instant gratification. It's kind of a kind of faith that you have to just believe in the miracle of it all. That and keep the faith and stay true to the belief set. You know, there, there is an element of that.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  That's wild. It's actually one of the really funny differences between restaurant, my world, when I ran restaurants in my world now, like, restaurants, you serve people a meal, but you're right there, you can see whether they like it or not.

• 53:27Simon Sinek?

  They'll tell you.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  You put out a book, you're like, I think, I mean, like, sometimes I wish I could just like sit next to a stranger and watch them read my book. And be like, hey, do, are you enjoying the book so far? Like, how's your, how's your entree?

• 53:42Simon Sinek?

  That's really interesting that you, you've grown up with instant gratification. Or, or, or not even instant gratification, instant feedback. Because if they don't like the meal, they'll tell you.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  And it's, it's totally normal and expected for someone to come over and ask you while you're eating your meal.

• 54:00Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  In so many words, are you enjoying the meal?

• 54:03Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Which is not really normal in almost any other industry. It's not like the person from wherever I got this Buck Mason is gonna be like, are you enjoying the sweater? You know, or like, do you like the book? But in restaurants, you always, and the reason is because you can make changes on the fly.

• 54:19Simon Sinek?

  Okay, okay. So what we're talking about, okay, now this gets interesting, right? Which is the reason I pursue the A.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:28Simon Sinek?

  The A over 50 is not simply because it's easier to measure. It's because there's no other feedback mechanism for me to know that my work is valuable other than the A. So I don't know if people like wearing my sweaters. But I can count how many sweaters I've sold.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:46Simon Sinek?

  And I can draw some loose conclusion that if they're selling a lot, I'm guessing they're liking them.

• 54:53Simon Sinek?

  Right? And so what we're talking about, which is totally fair, which is, and it's, and maybe they do desire everything we're talking about, and they are frustrated with the metric system, but without an immediate feedback loop, and sure, I can send out surveys that, you know, 5% fill out. Or only the angry people, you know, respond, you know, all of this stuff that the best I can do to know that I'm doing okay is, is the business is growing.

• 55:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:19Simon Sinek?

  And so maybe, just maybe, like my A over 50, which is, it's fine to count the revenues, totally fine. But maybe there's another metric that should serve as the ratio.

• 55:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. This is gonna end up being like a 17 different things.

• 55:34Simon Sinek?

  No, I don't think it's, I think it's, I think things like repeat sales.

• 55:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:38Simon Sinek?

  Like, I know a company, the true story, this is hilarious to me, and this is how misguided, this is a funded company, spending millions of dollars, blah, blah, blah, I think they're in the financial world. And their sales team is knocking it out of the park. But the product isn't so great. And so customers aren't renewing. Right? So do you know what the CEO did?

• 55:57Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 55:58Simon Sinek?

  Yelled at the sales team. And the sales team was like, talk to the engineers. The clients are calling us and say, we love you, but it's not working.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  It's just not gonna happen.

• 56:08Simon Sinek?

  We can't, we can't do this. So the CEO is yelling at the sales team. Right? And I'm listening to this going, no, right? So like in our business, right? I am fully aware that first time sales, that's a marketer.

• 56:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 56:22Simon Sinek?

  Like marketers drive first time sales. Second sales, that's my product guy. If the product's good, I can only measure that on a resubscription. A first time subscription, marketing.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 56:32Simon Sinek?

  A second time subscription, product.

• 56:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:34Simon Sinek?

  Right? But I know that. And my point is, in this modern sophisticated world, this is a modern company that's yelling at their sales team because resubscriptions are down.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Which is insane.

• 56:45Simon Sinek?

  Which is insane. So this is what I'm saying, like the, I think all metrics that we should be looking at, stock prices, revenues, all of these things need a ratio that gives us some indication of value or quality. So if A over fifty is quantity over quality, I mean, that's kind of what it is. The A is the quantity that I achieved and the fifty is the quality of the life that it took me to get there. That there should be a quantity over quality metric for everything. So if the quantity is revenues, then what's the quality metric? Maybe it's second time purchases. Or in the case, let's play the game, you know, EMP, right? If quantity was revenues, you had a business to run, what was the, what was, what would be the quality metric?

• 57:27Simon Sinek?

  Because it's insufficient for us to say, you know, you just have to trust.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Restaurants are a little weird because you have four stars, this accolade, this, all those things which you could.

• 57:37Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, but sometimes four star restaurants go to business.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  What I was thinking as you started saying that was during the recession, the great recession, oh nine, we were working our butts off. We were losing money. And the people that came into the restaurant were leaving so unbelievably happy. And that's like I could measure because I was in the room with them every single night. And it was the thing that actually kept us going, which is.

• 58:04Simon Sinek?

  So could you, could you have, and for the sake of this little hypothetical, how many tables does one server work? Five tables, ten tables?

• 58:13Speaker 01

  Like, depends, yeah, somewhere in between those.

• 58:15Simon Sinek?

  Somewhere between five and ten.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:17Simon Sinek?

  So at the end of the night, you could go to each server and they're not judged by it, right? They could fill out a form and say, table one, on a scale of one to five, how happy were they? Or just thumbs up, thumbs down.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:27Simon Sinek?

  Table two, how happy were they? Table three, how happy were they? You could keep a satisfied customer metric.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 58:33Simon Sinek?

  And that would be an indication that even though revenues are down, we're doing good work, guys.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  We're, we're, we're on the right path. We're making people happy if we stay the course.

• 58:42Simon Sinek?

  Because otherwise, you only have revenues down and everybody's like, we gotta work harder.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:46Simon Sinek?

  But we're working our brains out.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Or revenues are down and we have to change the product. Well, no, you maybe need to change the, the sales strategy.

• 58:52Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  But don't change the product because it's working. People are enjoying it.

• 58:56Simon Sinek?

  So this is what's helping me understand this, right? Which is the level of achievement over the hours it took to achieve that is a quantity versus quality ratio. And, and I've always, like, I've always wanted to do something called a Y index, which is to measure the Y of a company or measure the Y of an economy. And so when you look at the Dow Jones, it says the Dow Jones is up X percent. Okay, at what cost? Or for a single equity, like, look at their stock price going up. I'm like, but what's their Y index? Right? And so the whole idea is that if the stock price is going up, but the Y index, which is, which would be a combination of like, you know, employee happiness, engagement, all those things, is going down, that's a short-term investment.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, for sure.

• 59:34Simon Sinek?

  If the Y index is way up, but the, the stock price is down.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Buy.

• 59:37Simon Sinek?

  Good long-term investment. And ideally, you want them both in parallel.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:41Simon Sinek?

  And again, because even looking at stock price, it's only half a metric. That a stock price is going up doesn't tell me that the company's healthy. It just tell me that the stock price is up.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Same thing with the stock market and the economy.

• 59:53Simon Sinek?

  Because you know this, when you announce layoffs, stock prices go up. And when you announce R and D, stock prices go down.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  It is one of the cool things about the restaurant industry. It also, I mean, we're talking about how much you give of yourself to others and at what cost. I mean, in hospitality, like, I really like making other people happy. And if I'm not careful, I end up being an A50 for the rest of my life because I don't like letting other people down. And at the end of the day, I end up letting some of the people that are most important to me down.

• 1:00:34Simon Sinek?

  And that's the problem, which is there's nothing wrong with the 50. You just have to weigh the cost of that 50. And there's an entire group of people. And again, it's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's just, let's be honest with ourselves, who spends, I'll give you, I'll give you the real-life example.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Simon Sinek?

  I'll use myself as the guinea pig, right?

• 1:00:53Simon Sinek?

  So for years, I had close friends accuse me of being a bad listener. That was my answer. That's exactly.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I don't see it. Never in a million years.

• 1:01:04Simon Sinek?

  And I would say things like, you know what I do for a living, right?

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Like, you know you're wrong and I'm a really good listener, right?

• 1:01:11Simon Sinek?

  Right? I mean, that's pretty much how those conversations went.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  You were like, I'm sorry, what did you just say?

• 1:01:14Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:01:18Simon Sinek?

  So I ended up, I took this listening class. And that's when I discovered that I am an unbelievably good listener with people I will never see again for the rest of my life. But for the people closest to me, terrible.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:01:35Simon Sinek?

  So I, all of the skills I had learned about listening and being focused and reflective, you know, reflective listening and being present, all of that. I was doing it with strangers. I was doing it with clients. I was doing it with, you know, one-time interactions. But the people who I had regular, ongoing relationships with, I applied none of those skills.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  I think I'm guilty of this sometimes.

• 1:01:58Simon Sinek?

  Right?

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Simon Sinek?

  And I simply assumed that I was good at it because I had the capacity and knew that I could do it. And, you know, in the public world, people are like, you're such a good listener.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  And the random people that are more prone to praise you are saying you're really good at it because you're good at it with them.

• 1:02:10Simon Sinek?

  Exactly. And I ended up taking the people around me for granted. So that is akin to, I appreciate the 50, but who's paying for that 50? Are you paying for that 50? Like, if you're unmarried, no friends, making the investment in you, and you're the only one paying the price for that 50? Great.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:28Simon Sinek?

  Go, go. Go invest in you, you 22-year-old. Like, I love it, right? But if you start having relationships and family and close friends or family in need. I'm sorry, I can't come to your funeral. I have a meeting.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Simon Sinek?

  You know, I don't think you'd say sorry to the person who died. I can't come to your funeral. You get the idea?

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  You're saying it.

• 1:02:50Simon Sinek?

  I'm sorry, I can't come to the funeral. Like, now who's paying the price of that 50? Who's bearing the load of that 50? It's no longer just you.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  I'd also dial that back, just to make sure that the idea is clear. The funeral's almost too big. I'm sorry, I didn't answer the phone the last couple of times you called. I've been busy at work.

• 1:03:09Simon Sinek?

  And you and I have done this with each other, right? Because I'm guilty of not calling my friends because you and I can't talk for less than many hours.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Simon Sinek?

  Right? Like, the conversation we're having now, this is what people don't understand. This is like a normal conversation, you know, with fewer interruptions. But it's pretty, this is pretty much how it goes. Where we start feeding off of each other and so I, and because I crave it and love it, and I laugh more with you than any other friend. And I enjoy it so much that I put it off and put it off. It's like, oh, I don't have an hour. I don't have an hour. I don't have an hour. Oh, I don't have an hour. And so I just, and then before I know it, three months go by and I haven't talked to Will.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Simon Sinek?

  And I've made a very conscientious change in my life, which is, as much as I crave the hour, I would rather have an imperfect 10 minutes.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, just get something.

• 1:03:53Simon Sinek?

  So I, and you know this because I've done it with you. I'll call you up and be like, I'm in the car. I only have 10 minutes. I wanted to just call and say hi.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  Or you've, you've answered the phone when I've called you and you've said, I'm on a call in two minutes. But, but, and which, by the way, is cool.

• 1:04:06Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  Because normally if it's 9:28, you have a meeting at 9:30, someone calls, you're not answering.

• 1:04:10Simon Sinek?

  You hit, yeah, you, you turn it down.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  But just to be like, hey, I only have two minutes, but just nice to hear your voice.

• 1:04:15Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Love you.

• 1:04:16Simon Sinek?

  And it's amazing how little it takes for the other person to feel mattered.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's nice when you call someone and they answer the phone.

• 1:04:24Simon Sinek?

  And now this goes all the way back to the beginning of our conversation about AI, which is, it took two minutes of an inconsequential, useless conversation that accomplished nothing for a friend to feel like a friend.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:38Simon Sinek?

  And think about the incredibly light lift.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:04:42Simon Sinek?

  Like, sometimes unreasonable is simply, thank you, please, nice to see you, come back again. The usual.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:53Simon Sinek?

  For a barista to say to you, the usual? Hey, Will, the usual? I mean, that means they know who you are.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  It's not even a little bit hard. It just requires trying a little bit harder.

• 1:05:05Simon Sinek?

  I mean, that's some, that's, why don't we end right there? It's not even a little bit hard. It just requires trying a little bit harder. I really love you.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  I love you too.

• 1:05:14Simon Sinek?

  You're so smart.

• 1:05:20Simon Sinek?

  Now you better call your wife.

• 1:05:23Speaker 04

  I'm so sorry.

• 1:05:25Simon Sinek?

  Find out who's bearing the cost of the 50. And when she starts telling you, don't say, "But look what we get for that 50. Look how good the A is." Don't say that.

• 1:05:38Simon 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 simoncinek.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.