The Brilliance of Boredom with creative polymath Elle Cordova

We’re wired to chase the next spark - scrolling, swiping, refreshing - but some of our brightest ideas sneak in when we stop chasing, let boredom settle in and give our minds room to wander. Elle Cordova knows the power of that pause. When the pandemic hit pause on her life as a touring musician, she stumbled into new creative territory - making offbeat comedy videos about delightfully nerdy topics like particle physics, grammar, and fonts. Those sketches went viral, and suddenly she was thriving as a social media creator with a devoted following. In this episode, we talk about finding what truly lights you up, pushing through writer’s block, working with anxiety - and yes, Star Wars makes an appearance (because of course it does). Plus, Elle treats us to a live, in-studio performance of her song Roswell. This…is A Bit of Optimism. For more on Elle, check out: ellecordova.com/

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

• 0:00Simon Sinek?

  True Classic is sponsoring today's episode. Fun story, I met Ryan, their CEO, over lunch. And I was like, I really like this guy. That's why we're proud to work with them and have them as our sponsor.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  I've been backed off and banned from probably close to like six, seven casinos now in Vegas. And unfortunately, they're all my mom's favorite casinos, so we can't go there anymore. She's told me to stop.

• 0:24Simon Sinek?

  So I love this, that all you wanted to do was be a good daughter, celebrate your mom's birthday, and now you're banned from half a dozen casinos in Las Vegas.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  I know. It's a funny turn of events, but yeah, I blame my mom. She brought me there.

• 0:36Simon Sinek?

  I mean, it's always childhood trauma.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Exactly. I just wanted to sit with her longer and have more drinks, so.

• 0:43Simon Sinek?

  Two introverts walk into a bar. Let's be honest, that's not happening. But here's what did happen. Two introverts sat down for a conversation about creativity and the importance of boredom. Yes, boredom. It turns out boredom is underrated. It can actually be a remarkable source of calm and creativity, which a lot of introverts may already know. That was definitely the case for Elle Cordova. She's a singer-songwriter, a poet, and a certified nerd, who in the isolation of lockdown, discovered a creativity she didn't know she had. The result? Well, I'm sure a lot of you have seen her sketch about fonts at a party,

• 1:28Simon Sinek?

  or her poem about the Big Bang, both of which went very viral. Before the Big Bang, there was no up, there was no down, there was no side to side.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  There was no up, there was no down, there was no side to side. There was no light, there was no dark, no shape of any kind. There were no stars, or planet Mars, or protons to collide. There was no up, there was no down, there was no side to side. And furthermore, to underscore this total lacking state, there was no here, there was no there, because there was no space. And in this endless void, which can't be thought of as a place, there was no time, and so no passing minutes, hours, days.

• 2:02Simon Sinek?

  I first learned about Elle when I stumbled on her song Roswell, which, if you stick around, she plays live for us at the end of the episode. And if you're a nerd, you'll appreciate our chat about Star Wars archetypes, and how we need to give boredom a rebrand, which turns out, isn't boring at all. This is a bit of optimism.

• 2:30Simon Sinek?

  You are a perfect example of why it's important to meet your heroes.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Aw, I'm not sure if I'm taking this the right way.

• 2:40Simon Sinek?

  Because you know, I always say never meet your heroes because you're always disappointed. I found you and your work from music. I found your song Roswell when you had a different name. What was your name?

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Reyna Del Cid.

• 2:52Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:53Simon Sinek?

  You had a stage name.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  I had a stage name.

• 2:55Simon Sinek?

  You had a stage name. Then I found out that's not your name. So I knew you as a musician, started following you on the Instagram. Then I find out that you're a poet and a smart person and a nerd. And you are the personification of a polymath. I reached out to you on the Instagram, slid into your DMs.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  You did.

• 3:12Simon Sinek?

  And said, hey. And you wrote back and we got together and nerd bonded, I guess.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:19Simon Sinek?

  Is what it was.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Turns out you're a cut from a similar nerd cloth.

• 3:22Simon Sinek?

  You are even better than I thought you were when I saw you on the internets.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Aw, thank you, Simon. And the same is true of you.

• 3:28Simon Sinek?

  Aw, thanks. And we just, I think we can just cut right here. Our work is done, job well done. But going back to this idea of a polymath. A polymath is somebody who is, has diverse interests, learned it across many things. And you have curiosities and talents in many places. You are, I think, have become famous for your poetry on social media. You've done a TED Talk about your poetry. You are a musician. You are extremely well read. You know a lot about science. You are a lover of science fiction. You seem to know not a little bit about a lot of things, but a lot about a lot of things.

• 4:13Simon Sinek?

  Intimidatingly so, I might add.

• 4:17Simon Sinek?

  Were you always, like, where is that from? Like, what's your journey of discovery? And how you have so many curiosities, but also that you're good at those things? It's not just, you know. Go at one thing and have a couple of things on the side.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I I I don't know how much is what you just said is true.

• 4:37Simon Sinek?

  All of it is true.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Okay, well, we'll we'll go with your premise. I think for me, it's just I've always been a very curious person. So curiosity, and you've you've said the word a couple of times when you were speaking just there. Curiosity is like sort of my motivating force in life. And what I'm trying to do with the content or art or whatever that I put out on the Internet or put out wherever for people to consume is to try to spark a little bit of the same curiosity. And I want people to consume, you know, whether it's music or poetry or just, you know, random inane thoughts that I post to the to the Instagram, whatever it might be, I just hope people see that, get this little bit of like resonant spark of curiosity in themselves and then are either motivated to create their own thing or to like look up the concept I'm talking about.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  And I I wouldn't say I know a lot about a lot of things. I just think I've been very curious about a lot of things.

• 5:27Simon Sinek?

  Know more than a little.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Well, okay. And I've gotten to know enough about enough things that it just like keeps lighting the fire. And I always find like new things to.

• 5:35Simon Sinek?

  Where did the curiosity come from? Was it nature or nurture?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Well, my dad is a really curious person. So he he was like a really like one of those guys that's like breaks teachers' hearts where he he was really smart and he would he was curious, but he you couldn't get him to finish an assignment or something, you know? But he would like read on his own. He'd read the things you're not supposed to be reading about. He'd just go and check out a book about trigonometry when they're trying to teach them about, you know, algebra or something. So it's like if you taught him, if you tried to teach him something, he wouldn't learn it. But if you let him loose in a place of knowledge, he will be hungry and he'll do it. So I think I got a little bit of that from him, although I'm more of a rule follower. So I went and got the degree and and everything, less of a rebel.

• 6:16Simon Sinek?

  Would you get your degree in?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  I majored in English. So I got a degree in English literature from the University of Minnesota.

• 6:22Simon Sinek?

  So that makes sense.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so English, I mean, to me, that's just like a gateway to books, like all kinds of books and knowledge and stories from everywhere. So it's kind of like majoring in everything.

• 6:32Simon Sinek?

  And and how did you because you grew up in Fargo?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:35Simon Sinek?

  Grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. Shout out to Fargo.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Shout out to Fargo.

• 6:39Simon Sinek?

  Did growing up in Fargo, it's cold, there's a lot of snow, it's not big.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:47Simon Sinek?

  Did that contribute, is that the nurture part of the curiosity? Like, it's like Perlman, for example. He has polio. So when all the other kids go out to play, he can't go out to play. So what does he do? He stays home and plays the violin and he becomes one of the best violinists in the world.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, or like Isaac Newton, you know, coming through his breakthroughs like during a time of plague, because what else are you gonna do? He's like trapped in a, trapped in quarantine, you know?

• 7:12Simon Sinek?

  Oh, right.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes I think restrictive environments can definitely lead to like an expansion of mind.

• 7:18Simon Sinek?

  And was that the case for you?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I think so. I mean, I think probably more than the cold environment, although that's definitely true of Fargo. And if you ever go there, you'll see it's like, it's not, it's just this unrelenting bitter, bitter winds coming across the plains with nothing to stop them and it's very, very cold. Less so now because of certain global changes that are happening. But yeah, I think that's part of it. But I think that probably the bigger part is just this, just introversion, you know, just, I have always been so cripplingly shy and it's just easier for me to stay in on a Friday night with a book than to like make myself go out and socialize. So I was, even before the age of social media, I was probably spending too much time, you know, alone and not with a phone, but with, you know, books and-

• 8:02Simon Sinek?

  Paper, paper device?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  And like notebooks and stuff.

• 8:04Simon Sinek?

  So basically, the polymathitude of it all is a defense mechanism to not wanting to socialize.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:10Simon Sinek?

  And so you accidentally, like it's like Perlman, it's like you accidentally become incredibly good at something when all you're trying to do is not do the other thing.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Escapism, maybe.

• 8:20Simon Sinek?

  Escapism, yeah. That's, and I mean, I remember when you and I first got together, we're both socially awkward for first time meetings and second and third.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  You are not. You, you say that, I've heard you say that elsewhere. You are so warm and welcoming and you're like actually an introvert's dream. When you first, you know, when I first met you, I was like, oh, this, this person puts me at ease.

• 8:43Simon Sinek?

  Well, that's very kind of you say, but it is all, it is all practice.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 8:48Simon Sinek?

  Because like if I'm not working, because that's work, I'm not naturally like that.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:53Simon Sinek?

  So if I'm not working, I will sit there awkwardly and sort of be like, be funny, be funny, say something, say something, you know?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:01Simon Sinek?

  And so it's only through practice that I've learned to sort of ask questions and create an environment where, but, but by the way, it also produces insecurity, being the introvert, because I don't, I don't want to hold court. If I create a space and you're sort of one word answers and sort of head nods, I'm like, have I done something wrong?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:21Simon Sinek?

  You know, it's like, so it, it does, it's all of the introvert weirdness inside my brain is still happening.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Well, you hide it very well.

• 9:29Simon Sinek?

  Well, thank you.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Makes it much easier to talk to you.

• 9:32Simon Sinek?

  Well, thanks.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Maybe, maybe you should start a podcast.

• 9:35Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, it would be good. Yeah. A podcast by introverts for introverts.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  I mean, that's basically what it, what it is.

• 9:41Simon Sinek?

  We just sit here awkwardly and people driving on their commute, just listening to sort of two people fidgeting and without the inner thoughts. Wouldn't that be even better if you could have the, like, if the concept of like a cartoon with a thought bubble, if there was a technology that you could hear the actual thought bubbles of people?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:58Simon Sinek?

  I would love that.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  I would too, although I'd be really anxious about what my thought bubbles are saying.

• 10:03Simon Sinek?

  So you'd have to have a thought bubble of the thought bubble, like the anxiety of what my inner thoughts might be. I hope it doesn't catch that one.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Then we've got an infinite thought bubble going all the way down.

• 10:12Simon Sinek?

  Very meta.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:13Simon Sinek?

  Very meta, it's like those, like being in two mirrors.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:16Simon Sinek?

  But with thoughts. Anyway, there are people who are actually appreciating this conversation, others have already changed the channel. Speaking of changing the channel, another thing I just learned about you, literally minutes ago, you are a gambler.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  I wouldn't call myself a gambler. I would call myself an advantage player. There's a difference. A gambler is somebody who sits down at a, at a slot machine or a table game. Just playing by the rules of the house and playing without an edge, you know? And then an advantage player has an edge.

• 10:45Simon Sinek?

  But you are engaging in gambling.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 10:48Simon Sinek?

  It's like, somebody who drinks is a drinker and somebody who gambles is a gambler.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think if you talk to like the, the world of the advantage players, like they get really prickly about being card.

• 10:58Simon Sinek?

  Advantage players.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a world out there.

• 11:01Simon Sinek?

  They're just trying to distinguish themselves from like the tourist at Vegas, sitting at the slot machine.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Or the degenerate.

• 11:07Simon Sinek?

  Or the degenerate gambler, okay. Okay, so you're an advantaged, advantaged player and blackjack is your game?

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this all started because I, see, I was like, you know, phobic of casinos, I would say. Like, you know, in the way where it's just like, that's a, that's a place where you go to lose your money. Like, why would anyone spend time in casinos? But my mom is a big fan of Vegas. She's a gambler and she loves doing that. So she goes there every year for her birthday. When I was 16, she told me, when I turn 60, you're gonna come with me to Vegas. And then when she turned 60, I kept my word and I came with her. And I looked, I just Googled like, what is the game that I can play while I'm in Vegas? That's gonna lose me the least amount of money. Turned out to be blackjack. And that's because you can have, you can literally just memorize, they call it basic strategy. Memorize the right hand for every, the right, the right play for every hand.

• 11:57Simon Sinek?

  It's, it's, it, there's odds.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:59Simon Sinek?

  It's like, it's math. The statistics of whether you're likely to hit, get an advantage or disadvantage based on pure odds. There's more 10 cards than any other card in the deck, et cetera, et cetera.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:10Simon Sinek?

  And so if you memorize that.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a right play for everything.

• 12:12Simon Sinek?

  Also known as counting cards.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Okay, well, that's not counting cards, but, but memorizing is the first step.

• 12:18Simon Sinek?

  Well, memorizing the shoe is the counting the cards part, like, how many?

• 12:20Speaker 01

  You don't have to memorize the whole shoe. So this is so much easier than people think it is, by the way. This is not a, this is not a difficult thing. It's just a thing that you maybe have to spend a little bit of time to do.

• 12:29Simon Sinek?

  So you've memorized the, the tables?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Memorize the table of like the right play for every hand. Then if you're gonna go to the length where you're memorizing the right play for every hand, then you might as well just go one extra step of just keeping track of when high cards are coming out versus low. So you just add, you assign a value of one to everything that's high and then a negative one for everything that's low. And then for like a medium sized card, it's just zero. So all you have to do, if you can add and subtract by one, you can count cards. It's, it's literally that simple.

• 12:57Simon Sinek?

  So you don't actually have to memorize which cards have happened?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Definitely not.

• 12:59Simon Sinek?

  Cause they keep adding more cards to the shoe to make it difficult to remember which cards have happened because it just.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  They have multi-deck shoes. And so to get more accurate, so if you're gonna do that then, if you're gonna start doing the ones and and everything, then you might as well make it even better for yourself and look and see the like discount tray and then you can kind of divide by the number of decks that are left in the in the in the shoe, because they've, these days, they're using six, eight decks, you know?

• 13:23Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  So to really get an accurate count, you're waiting till the kind of the end and whatever. So it's just like, I got into this because I was like, first, just not wanting to lose all my money. And then second, I want to be able to hang with my mom. So I'm gonna be at this blackjack table anyway. I might as well just like tip the

• 13:39Simon Sinek?

  You're just trying to make it so you can sit with your mom for as long as possible without losing all your money? You're just trying to make a nice night of it.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Just get some free drinks and like, at least just come out even. But as it turns out, you can come out ahead, you know? And and it's not cheating. It's just using the information that's available to every player. You know, so they can't arrest you. There's nothing illegal about it.

• 13:57Simon Sinek?

  It's not cheating, but the casinos don't like it. And I I read somewhere, and you probably actually know the answer, which is the odds of winning in blackjack are it's like fifty, whatever, like whatever the number is, I'm making it up, but like

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you

• 14:09Simon Sinek?

  fifty percent, let's just call it. And if you if you count cards, it's like fifty point one.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's barely

• 14:13Simon Sinek?

  Very, very small percentage.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:15Simon Sinek?

  But over the course of an entire evening, that point one adds up to an advantage versus the casino.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. And if you were betting a lot of money and you did this for long enough, yes, you're gonna take a lot of money from the casino. But I'm just betting pennies, you know, or not pennies, but you know.

• 14:29Simon Sinek?

  Small dollars.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, small dollars. So it's like, they're, for the most part, they know you're counting cards. They actually have machines. They have cameras in the sky, like watching your plays. They even have chips inside of chips, you know? So like little devices that track, you know, how is she betting? How is she changing her bets based on the count? And their computers are counting the cards. So if your bets are changing based on the count, they know that immediately. They don't even have to watch anymore. They just know. But they'll let you

• 14:53Simon Sinek?

  You have chips in the in the chips? Like, like they have QR, um, uh, not QR codes. They have, um, they're called RF RF tags, RF chips.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So I didn't even know.

• 15:04Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. So so that's how you use it. It looks like a credit card piece of plastic.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:07Simon Sinek?

  In there is an RF chip that opens up your hotel room.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:11Simon Sinek?

  That's the same chip.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  It's probably a similar thing.

• 15:13Simon Sinek?

  Same thing.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:14Simon Sinek?

  I didn't even know that they're doing that.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  So the old days in the seventies where they had the pit boss just coming, like standing over your shoulder, counting to see if you're counting, that's gone. They don't even have to let on that they know what you're doing, because the computers are doing it for them. So. I've been backed off and banned from probably close to like six, seven casinos now in Vegas. And unfortunately, they're all my favorite, my mom's favorite casinos, so we can't go there anymore. She's told me to stop.

• 15:39Simon Sinek?

  So you're now playing at Circus Circus because no one else will let you in.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Right. Well, those are bad odds. You only play where they have good blackjack. But anyway, my mom, my mom is like, why can't we just go have fun? And I'm like, okay, that was the, that was the original intent anyway. So.

• 15:52Simon Sinek?

  So I love this. All you wanted to do was be a good daughter, celebrate your mom's birthday, and now you're banned from half a dozen casinos in Las Vegas.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  I know. It's a funny turn of events, but yeah, I blame my mom. She brought me there.

• 16:04Simon Sinek?

  I mean, it's always childhood trauma.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:05Simon Sinek?

  It's always like childhood trauma. It's exactly what it is. You're banned from casinos.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Exactly. I just wanted to sit with her longer and have more drinks. So, yeah.

• 16:13Simon Sinek?

  But this is, but this is what I love about your brain, which is 99.9% of people on the planet would, if mom says, come to me with Vegas, I just want to have a nice time with you. They would say, fine, I'll spend a hundred dollars and then I'll just sit with you or whatever, you know, whatever's in their limits. And maybe they'll play somewhat seriously and slowly to maximize, like no big bets, all minimum bets to just maximize the length of play. They would probably not have figured out which game can I lose the least amount on, which is blackjack. They probably play something where they'd guess they can lose the least amount on, or just play the game that their mom likes. But the fact that you did that and then your brain works in a way that you could not help yourself.

• 16:59Simon Sinek?

  But to find the advantage, to prolong the game and learn to count cards, this is what I love about you. It's not the bite of the apple you take. We all take the first bite. It's that you always find a way to take a second bite of the apple. And this is what I love. There's always something in addition to the thing that you started to do. Is and I'm just trying to think now, like even your own platform, like you you always find a plus one in everything, even in the way you're trying to sort of like make a you you have accidental fame. Is it fair that is it fair to say?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:36Simon Sinek?

  Or is it or is it a little more prescriptive than that?

• 17:38Speaker 01

  I think I was trying to reach people with my music before I started this whole social media thing.

• 17:42Simon Sinek?

  But the fame came.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  But in a different way.

• 17:43Simon Sinek?

  You had fame ish.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:45Simon Sinek?

  From the music.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  A very small.

• 17:47Simon Sinek?

  It's small but loyal group.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:48Simon Sinek?

  From the music, but the when when the poems started.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:51Simon Sinek?

  And I think it was the font poem that really put you on the map, right?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  The font skit and really was the before that it was the um.

• 17:57Simon Sinek?

  The skit.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  The Big Bang poem, which is a space poem that I wrote. That was like probably the big thing that launched my.

• 18:02Simon Sinek?

  Oh, that's right. I remember that one too. Who's the other guy?

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Hank Green. We were just talking.

• 18:06Simon Sinek?

  Oh, that's Hank Green.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  The lovely Hank Green. Yes.

• 18:09Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:10Simon Sinek?

  Okay. So, yes, the space poem, the Big Bang, which is, by the way, brilliant poem. So the poem and the skit really launched you. They you had viral success.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:20Simon Sinek?

  Twice. Did you know that was gonna happen?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  No, no, I definitely did not. And really, what happened was that I was I was very much just all in on the musician career. That's what I did for 10 years. I was touring and and then, you know, I was kind of picking up steam as we went along. We were slowly growing and we had these tours set up in like Europe and Australia and then bam, the the pandemic happened. Everything got canceled. Everything we had planned out for that year got canceled. And my first thought was like, oh, no, all the money that we're gonna lose and like, how will we pay the bills? And then my second thought was like, thank God, because I really needed a break. I was like getting sick all the time on the road. I had no time to create anything new. I was just playing the stuff I had written, you

• 19:03Speaker 01

  know, sometimes five years ago. There just was I I had a schedule that did not allow me to be a human being and certainly not a creative human being. So when everything got canceled, it was such a blessing in disguise because then I rediscovered my creativity and then discovered that it was like it went beyond music. I could write other things.

• 19:23Simon Sinek?

  Had you not written poems?

• 19:24Speaker 01

  I I'd always written poems. I mean, I think every English major has written some poems at some point. But I never shared anything publicly with anyone. And I had never allowed myself to be playful online. It was always just like, share your music and, you know. And TikTok and these new vertical format apps, just they really encourage something in me. Just like, and a lot of people, I think, is just like, share yourself, share, you know, be silly. Like, who cares? We're all just killing time in the pandemic. It doesn't matter. So I, I shared this comedy side and that seemed to, well, like an earnest poetry side, and then also a comedy side. I should probably niche down at some point, but you know.

• 20:00Simon Sinek?

  Oh, because you're a polymath. Well, there's no niching down. We love you for your diversity.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  But various things, you know, just throwing things at the wall. And it turns out like other things were sticking and I, I was just getting a lot of fulfillment from it. So I haven't really gone back to the musician lifestyle, although I'm starting to dip my toe back into it now.

• 20:17Simon Sinek?

  What's so interesting is I don't think people appreciate the value of space for a creative person. Like you said, you're sort of going about this music career. And then when you get a gap where you can't do the thing, you can only think about doing the thing.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:31Simon Sinek?

  It, and we saw, like, I remember Bo Burnham, you know, when he wrote Inside during the pandemic. And it was, it was of a time. I'm not sure it holds up anymore. I don't think you can watch it in 10 years.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Some of those songs still will.

• 20:42Simon Sinek?

  No, the songs, yes, but as a piece of art.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:44Simon Sinek?

  You know, I, I don't know if it's timeless or not, but it is a work of sheer genius. And I'd seen his comedy before, and I think he's a brilliant comedian, but this was something, this was something else.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  That only could have been made in that time.

• 20:56Simon Sinek?

  In that time.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:57Simon Sinek?

  And, and I'm thinking about my own creative process. And people are like, how do you come up with ideas? And what they, would I, it's hard to explain, which is the way I come up with ideas is when I'm not thinking. I get ideas sparked in conversation, but it's the rumination, the space, the gaps. You know, I, I like to describe my writing process as, is days and weeks of guilt and self-loathing, punctuated by hours of sheer brilliance.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:23Simon Sinek?

  If only I could predict when those hours would happen.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the trick is to be ready for them.

• 21:27Simon Sinek?

  And the trick is to be ready for them. And I've sat at home going, can't go out in case it strikes. And then I like. Just end up watching TV and be like, I should have gone out. And then I go out and then it starts happening. And I'm like grabbing anything I can write on napkins. I literally have sugar, sugar packets because I couldn't find anything to write. And I know that one loses ideas as quickly as they happen.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 21:48Simon Sinek?

  And so if you don't, if I don't capture it immediately, I will lose it, even if I wait a minute.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  The muse is not patient.

• 21:52Simon Sinek?

  The muse is not patient. And so literally I would take a sugar packet and open it delicately, dump out the sugar, grab a pen and start writing. I have, I have binder clips of sugar packets with ideas on them.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:03Simon Sinek?

  And the thing that I've learned is you can't, is I, is I can't be precious. You just.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can't be precious.

• 22:08Simon Sinek?

  You know, 99% of the ideas are shit and the other 1% I can't read my handwriting.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:14Simon Sinek?

  So it's the act of the writing that is actually more important because I sometimes go back and read them.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:20Simon Sinek?

  But once they're written, for some reason they get stored somewhere else. But this idea of gaps in space, you said it during the pandemic, you know, during, watching TikTok, it was unbelievable how funny people were.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:31Simon Sinek?

  And how creative people were. Like, I didn't realize that people were that funny and that creative of every age and every disposition. And it just, people are really funny.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 22:41Simon Sinek?

  You know, and I don't think anybody guessed that from you, did they?

• 22:44Speaker 01

  No, no, definitely not. So, yeah, I think that's true. And also when you're, when you're contributing to that and trying to be your own brand of funny and your own brand of witty and, you know, smart or whatever, and to try to contribute to the, the conversation. Part of what I find is helpful is to remember that your audience is also that. It's not just the people making this, um, this content, it's also the people consuming. And when you reach a wide enough audience, like I can say confidently that all, even my, my best work, the work that I've spent the most time on, that I've put a lot of myself into, that I've made intentionally very, you know, I've tried to make it witty, I've tried to make it funny. Nothing I've ever posted will beat the top comment underneath the post,

• 23:29Speaker 01

  you know, because you get the hive mind and people are so funny and they're so smart. You know, so it's a good way to to stay focused and to stay humble and, and, you know, and just to realize like you're part of, you're part of a species that's really innovative and smart and funny. And I think with these platforms, a lot of that rises to the top. You get, you get really smart and funny top comments.

• 23:49Simon Sinek?

  But you're also attracting smart and funny people.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  I've been really lucky with the community.

• 23:53Simon Sinek?

  I mean, well, you're attracting, there's a lot of people like us. There's a lot of nerds who really like your stuff because you have to know a little bit about something.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 24:02Simon Sinek?

  To appreciate your humor.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  And I've pushed it a little. I'm like, could I, could I make a really weird, obscure skit about like particles hanging out in the saloon verse, you know, and talk about like the Higgs boson like.

• 24:13Simon Sinek?

  Loved it.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  And a lot of people in the comments like, I didn't know what that was. And then I Googled it and looked it up. And now I know what it is. And that makes me happy. You know, it's like a sort of gotcha. Now we're, now we know more.

• 24:23Simon Sinek?

  But this is the genius of your work because we live in a world with unlimited access to unlimited information. And yet still, we see a post online, or we hear a comment from a politician, or some CEO says something. And in the span of 10 seconds, we can verify that, that statement or not.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:42Simon Sinek?

  And we don't. I, I mean, I joke about it. Like, I go around saying, so I read this study. I think it's true. I don't know. But here you go. I literally could verify it any day.

• 24:54Simon Sinek?

  But I don't.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:55Simon Sinek?

  There's just, like, it's amazing how the momentum of laziness, when we have the access. And what I love about your work is it forces somebody to go, what is that? And they do go look it up.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:05Simon Sinek?

  Not because they want to be smarter. It's because they want to get the joke.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. You dangle the joke as a carrot.

• 25:11Simon Sinek?

  Dangle the joke as a carrot. Where, where all the other criteria of like, all the other circumstances of like, what's that politician saying? What's that CEO saying? It's like, oh, I have to go be smart now. Oh, forget it.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:23Simon Sinek?

  You know, I'd rather just react. It's easier.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  But if the reward is getting in on a joke and getting to be part of this little community where everybody's joking in the comments, then yeah, maybe it's worth looking up, what's a Higgs boson? You know?

• 25:34Simon Sinek?

  I want to go back to this idea of space because I'm so fascinated by it, the gaps in space. Do you force your schedule? Because you're busier now than you ever have been. Do you force gaps in space? Because For you, lockdown was a thing that unleashed this new creativity. Do you make mini lockdowns for yourself?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. Well, it taught me the value of that.

• 25:55Simon Sinek?

  So how do you do that? Like, do you schedule space? Like, do you put a blank thing in your calendar where like there's presence and absence, right? It's like.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I would love to tell you that I'm really disciplined and I have my phone and it's locked in a safe like from my creative hours every morning. I would love to tell you that. I don't. I'm just as addicted to everything. I'm addicted to the supply that I give out, which is social media, dopamine, whatever, as the people who are consuming this stuff. But I think what I do try to do, though, is I try to consume. I try to consume more of the things that are going to fill me up creatively so that my output is better. So instead of spending, you know, four hours a day just combing through social media, you know, trusting the algorithm to give me the things to fill me up, which it will not, you know. I will try to minimize that amount of time and try to instead replace it with like rereading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own or something.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Something I know is gonna, especially if I'm going through a rut. I'll revisit the things that I know are going to light me on fire and they're gonna create better output for me.

• 26:57Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so this is, this is, okay, this is good. So I'm not a reader, which we've talked about. I'm over the shame, but I still have embarrassment. I'm not a reader, but I do still need those things. I've had to recreate my creative process every time I've had to do something creative because what worked before doesn't work again. I don't believe in writer's block.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:17Simon Sinek?

  Right? I believe that the format or system that you're using to create in the past isn't working anymore. So you're not having writer's block. It's not that you're having no ideas. The system is broken.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:30Simon Sinek?

  And so what we do when people have writer's block, they keep doing the same system and blaming themselves. And I say, okay, I know I have ideas. I know I'm an idea guy. So if I'm having no ideas, am I broken? Or is the way I'm attempting to have ideas broken? And so I have experimented with it. Every time I lock up on ideas, I break down on ideas. I change the way I'm coming up with ideas. But this idea of space, like I, when I realized I needed time. And so here, here's the thing. So I learned this a bunch of years ago, which is the, our rational brains, our thinking brains, the part that weighs the pros and cons and access our expertise, that has access to the equivalent of about two feet of information around us.

• 28:15Simon Sinek?

  Right? Our subconscious brains, our limbic brains, have access to the equivalent of something like three acres of information around us. Every conversation we've had, every movie we've seen, every book we've read, gets stored somewhere. You just don't have access to it. And so the value of the brainstorming session is not to solve the problem, it's to ask the questions. Cause your brain won't ruminate on things that aren't presented. It won't just solve problems that don't exist in your life. You're not going to just, you know, come up with some random idea. Like a problem must exist or a question must be asked. And then you can quote unquote, think about it. But if you think about it, we, we have our best ideas when we're falling asleep or when we go for a run or we're standing in the shower or, you know, drive, sitting in traffic. Like it's when we're not quote unquote, thinking,

• 28:58Simon Sinek?

  but the brain is still ruminating in the subconscious and it gives you the idea. And it seems like divine intervention, but it's not. It's just your limbic brain.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  It's been working on the problem.

• 29:07Simon Sinek?

  And it's been working on the problem the whole time. And so the problem is, is you need those gaps for the, for your mind to give you the ideas. And in our modern world, we have filled in all those gaps. So we don't sit on the subway on our commute and just stare off into space anymore. We're on our phones. We don't just sit in the car in traffic and just sort of let our minds wander. We make a phone call. I mean, you go out for dinner with a friend and they go to the bathroom. We don't just sit and like, look around the room.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Or talk to somebody.

• 29:36Simon Sinek?

  Or talk to somebody. We pull out our phones because it's too uncomfortable to just sit. And so I have worked very hard to force myself. Like if I, if I go out for dinner, I give my phone to someone else. Be like, here's my phone, put it in your bag. So when they go to the bathroom, they take my phone with them.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  That's smart.

• 29:54Simon Sinek?

  And so I'm forced because I, I have no willpower. I'm addicted like everybody else, but if you take away the crack, can't do crack.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yep. I do the same thing with daily walks. So I don't allow myself to bring a phone or whatever.

• 30:07Simon Sinek?

  You're creating space and gaps.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:09Simon Sinek?

  And those moments, and by the way, space and gaps can also be created going to a museum or, you know, it's just engaging in other passive stimulation.

• 30:19Simon Sinek?

  Not playing a game, not doing work, not surfing the internet. Passive stimulation has been absolutely invaluable to my idea generation. Almost all my ideas happen in crazy, random places. This episode is brought to you by True Classic. And this ad won't sound like regular ads, because it's not. Instead, I sat down with Ryan and had an hour-long conversation with him. And we pulled out some of the best clips, so that their ad is real content. I hope you enjoy.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  When people troll us online, I will find out who they are, and I will find something in their timeline that signals something that they're into. And I will always come around and figure out, even if I have to spend like, if I spend 45 minutes on this. Here's a good example. Some guy was trolling us a couple of years ago, said like, "Stop sending me ads." And I just replied with, "I hope your dad gets better soon." And what I figured out was he had a GoFundMe account, and his dad had cancer. And I made a big donation, a couple thousand bucks. And I just completely won him over. And the next week, he made a video about it, and he posted it. And he was wearing all True Classic, with a True Classic hat. And he told the story, and he just was like, "This is how you're supposed to respond to this kind of stuff."

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Not just like, "Let me block the guy, get out of my ecosystem, I don't want to talk to you." Just like, "Let me show this guy what true empathy and kindness looks like, and let me just go overboard." And I didn't know if I'd ever hear from him again.

• 31:43Simon Sinek?

  Didn't matter.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  But now he's lifelong True Classic, now we follow each other, like, we've become friends. So like, you build these unbelievable connections with people. And when I was growing our customer service team, it was the same thing. It was, "Guys, you've got to have a big antenna that just goes deeper than like, 'This is the issue, you know, that I'm solving.'" Tracking, whatever, like, you've got to find out, where are they? What are they into? And just probe a little bit for some questions that you can show up for them, because that'll last a lifetime.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  But I think another important piece of it is something you said earlier, you said, "A question must be asked."

• 32:19Simon Sinek?

  A question must be asked.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  We can't expect our brains, the brain that's ruminating and doing all this work behind the scenes, to be working on a problem that we haven't presented to it.

• 32:28Simon Sinek?

  Correct. It won't.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  It won't just spit out random ideas, like you said.

• 32:31Simon Sinek?

  No.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  So I think our brains are computers. There needs to be an input. You know, we need to ask it something. We need to ask it to solve a problem. And the problem might be, "What is my next idea? What is the thing I want to write about next?" Or whatever. But we need to actively feed our brains those questions and give them something to work on.

• 32:48Simon Sinek?

  I think more specific than that, too, at least for me, you know, that's where the conversations happen, because the backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, you know, yes, there's answers in those conversations, but it raises more questions. And so it's not like, "What's my next idea?", but rather like, "Why are we friends?"

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:02Simon Sinek?

  And then you start saying, "Why are we friends? Okay, like, I understand the biology, I understand the anthropology, I can look that stuff up, that's pretty written about." What is a friend? Now, it gets complicated.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's not just asking a question, "What is my next idea?", it's asking specific questions about specific...

• 33:19Simon Sinek?

  And they can be big problems, like, "Help me understand the world order as we know it, post-Cold War." That's something I've actually thought about, right? Like, what is the new world order? And it's such a big question that it's not going to be one... And that's why all the conversations and all of the articles I'm reading and all of the people I'm interacting with, different points of view, I'll either ask directly, "So, what do you think about the world right now?", and it's all feeding that, until at some point, you go, "Aha, I have an idea." You need, I guess, two things. You need to ask three things. You need the question to be posed, big or small. You need to feed it with data, through conversations, reading, whatever your chosen, preferred way of intake is.

• 34:02Simon Sinek?

  And then, and only then, do you need space and gaps. And we do the first, we do the second, we don't do the third.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:10Simon Sinek?

  And I think this is the thing, and there's been stuff written about this, there's a basic global decline in ideas, like, the number of patents that are filed these days is vastly fewer than in the past.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Wow, that's terrifying.

• 34:22Simon Sinek?

  And the quality of the patents is lower. And so, like, we know that there's fewer ideas that are happening. And I think this idea of space and gaps... And if we're going to be a hyper-scheduled, hyper-connected world, not rebelling against it, just it is what it is, then schedule gaps.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  See, now, I know you are an optimist. This is sort of central to you.

• 34:47Simon Sinek?

  It has been, I have been accused of such.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  I will say the pessimistic take on this is, and I'm not calling myself a pessimist, although I have tendencies, is that now that we have the technology we have, we won't in any meaningful way be able to make those spaces, the way that you're saying. And instead, I think what will happen is we'll channel our, our decision-making, our idea generation into our technology. Soon, we're going to have, you know, you talk about the decline in patents, we're going to have AI coming up with a lot of solutions for us that we simply haven't devoted the brain resources to think about, because we don't have to anymore. We have a much bigger, smarter brain to sort of solve those problems for us.

• 35:28Simon Sinek?

  I don't think it's either or. I think it's both. I think, I think, you know, just as the calculator or the abacus could help us do calculations faster, the calculator up that ante, certain things in mathematics or going to the supermarket got quicker. And so I think where math got quicker, ideas will get quicker, but that doesn't mean that the machine has the lock on all the ideas.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:52Simon Sinek?

  And I still think that a human-generated idea will always be the kind of idea that,

• 36:00Simon Sinek?

  it's the asymmetrical idea. It's the idea that nobody could see happening because, and maybe I just either underestimate the power of the machine or overestimate the power of the brain, the human brain, but.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  I have a more pessimistic view in general of like, you know, I think that machines will take a lot of our, of our purpose, you know, but I do think there will be ways for us to work with them and alongside them, to also, you know, generate ideas, continue generating ideas. There'll always be a premium on human, human-made creations, human-generated ideas. But I, I just, I do think that a lot of the, the really heavy lifting, problem-solving, the things that you'll need patents for, that's all going to. I think we're gonna see a major shift toward.

• 36:44Simon Sinek?

  And then the question is, can you put a patent on a thing that a machine came up with?

• 36:47Speaker 01

  The company who make who made the machine will probably get the patent.

• 36:50Simon Sinek?

  That's where IP law is gonna get completely destroyed. Have you found this in your work yet? I know in the art world, artists are being asked to sign affidavits to affirm that this was designed or produced by them and not by AI. Or have you found that in your work yet? That people are asking you to say, did you actually come with this? Or did the machine come up with this for you?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Not yet. I'm sure it's coming. And I'm sure I've signed some agreement already that's signed away all my creative rights.

• 37:15Simon Sinek?

  It's not just the creative rights. It's they want the affirmation that the person came up with it.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  That that it wasn't AI generated?

• 37:20Simon Sinek?

  So like, hey, this little cute little skit you wrote, this little poem that you write, like.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  That is in many contracts, yeah.

• 37:26Simon Sinek?

  So they want to know

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:28Simon Sinek?

  that you wrote it and you did not write it with AI.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:31Simon Sinek?

  So that's what I mean.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:33Simon Sinek?

  Which is we we're not buying the product. We're buying the story.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you're buying a piece of the creator.

• 37:39Simon Sinek?

  You're buying a piece of it, but you're you're buying the fact that, hey, she did this.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 37:43Simon Sinek?

  And that there's a premium on the human, on the man-made, the human-made.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'm not saying that all like AI assisted art is worthless and should be thrown in the trash.

• 37:52Simon Sinek?

  Agreed, agreed, agreed.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  But I do think there'll always be a premium on human, fully human-made things. I mean, we we don't watch, we don't sit around for fun watching computers talk to each other, play chess against each other. We watch humans play chess. It's more interesting to us.

• 38:08Simon Sinek?

  The story.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're better at it, but we watch humans.

• 38:10Simon Sinek?

  Because we we like watching the mistake, the potential for the mistake.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:14Simon Sinek?

  It's true. Isn't that beautiful, though? That the reason we find a human game more interesting, even though they're not as good, is the drama of the pressure and the mistake

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:24Simon Sinek?

  is the part that we find entertaining.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 38:26Simon Sinek?

  It's not actually the gameplay.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:28Simon Sinek?

  It's the it's the human drama.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 38:31Simon Sinek?

  Oh, I love that. I think one of the really good sides of of the AI. And by the way, I can't have a fricking conversation without AI coming up.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm sure this is just all over the podcast.

• 38:41Simon Sinek?

  Um, every conference, every other talk is AI. And but, uh, um, is I think it'll help us appreciate. Because we have this, at least in America, we have this sort of.

• 38:54Simon Sinek?

  Vomit reaction to the concept of boredom.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 38:58Simon Sinek?

  Like that it's some sort of you cannot be bored. You know? And I think boredom is the ultimate space. Where you sit there staring off at the clouds, not knowing what to do. And you're kind of like.

• 39:12Simon Sinek?

  How are you? I don't know. A little bored. Got nothing to do. And I think there's joy in the appreciation of boredom, because as I was saying before, for a curious mind, it goes right back to the beginning. For a curious mind, there's always questions and problems being asked. And yet there's not enough solutions to all the questions.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:31Simon Sinek?

  And I think boredom and joy of boredom is the thing that not only keeps us human, but helps us see things, find things, invent things, write things, paint things, sing things that the machine never can and never will. And I think, I think in this hyper creative, not hyper creative, hyper productive world that we live in, where the machines are just making us even more productive, that our creativity comes from being bored, not from being active.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, I think I agree, because boredom is the very space you were talking about. We need to create spaces where we can allow ourselves to, and I don't know if boredom is exactly the right word, but allow our brains to be freed of distraction.

• 40:15Simon Sinek?

  By boredom, I mean I have nothing to do.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:18Simon Sinek?

  I have nothing to do, at most, walking.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah, and that's why I take my, I guess you could call them boredom walks. I take my like enforced boredom walks, so that my, I'm forcing my brain to think, to just, whether it's problem solving, or just thinking about the world around me, or whatever it is. I think it's really important that I don't have my device and I'm just forced for the next forty five minutes, however long the walk is, to my destination, to just ruminate.

• 40:43Simon Sinek?

  And the important thing here is that it's okay if nothing happens.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 40:47Simon Sinek?

  By applying pressure to the boredom is, is the paradox, is the exact problem we're trying to solve for.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Or giving permission for boredom.

• 40:55Simon Sinek?

  Giving permission.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  I can just be bored. I don't have to solve problems on my walk.

• 40:58Simon Sinek?

  And that's one of the things that people don't realize, which is, I actually, I won't schedule anything in my calendar for Fridays.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 41:03Simon Sinek?

  And I work on Fridays, but I will not pre-schedule anything on a Friday. It has to be blank, so that if I choose to have three hours or four hours of whatever I want, which includes staring off at a wall, that is my prerogative. And I, this is expanded, because I used to do hour, like I would literally put an hour break in my calendar. To do nothing. I would schedule nothing. Not that I'm scheduling nothing. I'm scheduling to do nothing.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:29Simon Sinek?

  The act of nothing.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:30Simon Sinek?

  And um, and I think in any job, it's, I don't care what your job is. I don't care if you're a homemaker. I don't care if you're a caretaker, a parent. I don't care if you're in a creative job, a non-creative job. I think all problems are solved. And maybe boredom just has bad branding.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 41:52Simon Sinek?

  What should we call it? Because we can't call it creative space, because that creates pressure that the space has to be creative, and it doesn't.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Maybe a period of stasis or openness.

• 42:03Simon Sinek?

  Good, nothing?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, good, nothing.

• 42:06Simon Sinek?

  I'm gonna do good, nothing for an hour.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 42:10Simon Sinek?

  Hmm. I like good, nothing. What are you doing right now? Good, nothing? You wanna do something?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Hmm. It's my good, nothing time.

• 42:20Simon Sinek?

  I'm doing my good, nothing time.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I like that. Yeah, it's better than boredom.

• 42:24Simon Sinek?

  It's better than boredom, because I'm not bored. I mean, sometimes I am.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:27Simon Sinek?

  I mean, I've, I went out for dinner with a friend last night, and you know, she went to the bathroom, and I sat there and just stared around in the restaurant. And yeah, I was bored and started wondering, like, is she okay? Like, she's been gone a long time. I wish she'd come back. I'm kind of bored. Do you have the same paranoia that I do when you go out for dinner with a friend, especially if it's a new friend, and there's a line at the bathroom that you're in a restaurant? And so, or somebody's in there for far too long, and you're just waiting for them to come out? And so you find yourself waiting for a very long time, and then immediately you have the paranoia that the other person thinks that you have, like, stomach problems or something, because you've been gone a long time. But, and I always come up like, oh, my God, the line was really long. Somebody was in there. It's not me. It's not my stomach

• 43:08Simon Sinek?

  problems. I was, I was really quick in there. I have that intense paranoia that somebody thinks that I'm sick because I was gone a long time.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Well, sometimes I do have stomach problems, and I'll say it even then. No such a long line.

• 43:19Simon Sinek?

  Sneaky, sneaky. Okay, I have a, I have a couple more questions.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:24Simon Sinek?

  What's the thing you've dealt with? What's the challenge you've?

• 43:27Speaker 01

  For me, it's, it's anxiety. It's an intense, you know, panic disorder. I get panic attacks. Um, they used to be incredibly bad when I was a teenager, and then into like, early twenties, college, um, almost crippling. I had intense agoraphobia, could barely leave my apartment, and And was like untreated, you know, during those times and and I kept thinking.

• 43:47Simon Sinek?

  Phorophobia is afraid of outside.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, like not.

• 43:49Simon Sinek?

  Afraid of people.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Not being able to leave your place because of fears of anxiety, panic attacks, which are happening anyway. So, yeah. So, yeah, I think just really thinking back to those memories, it was just like, again, like a warning sign. Like, if I don't get my stuff together and I don't get treated, this is the the ultimate reality and it's going to tear our family apart and, you know.

• 44:16Simon Sinek?

  How old were you when you started to be like, I think I need someone to look after me?

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's a good thing about having, you know, grandparents that have gone through stuff like that is you realize early on that, you know, this is a this is a thing that needs to be treated. It's a condition, you know. So I was probably sixteen when I finally started to ask for help. Because I was having such intense panic attacks at school. I was having to leave classes, which is, you know, like we said earlier, I'm afraid of authority. I like to be a good student when I can and having to like run out of class and look like I'm skipping or something was not.

• 44:50Simon Sinek?

  Which only added to the anxiety.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, knowing that you have to be in class.

• 44:54Simon Sinek?

  Is it under control now?

• 44:56Speaker 01

  I would say it's like as under control as it probably ever will be. To the point where I can live a normal life, but I just I always have to deal with panic attacks.

• 45:04Simon Sinek?

  How often do they happen now?

• 45:06Speaker 01

  It depends. If I'm traveling, if there's like a lot of going on, especially if I'm traveling, I'll have them regularly on in my travels. So maybe every few days or sometimes multiple times a day. But if I'm home in my routines and I'm taking care of myself and everything, then maybe once month, once in a month.

• 45:25Simon Sinek?

  Is there a reason you choose to talk about it?

• 45:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I just think we could all just talk more about our mental health. I think that there I feel two ways about it. Because I also think there's like an over maybe an over diagnos diagnosing.

• 45:40Simon Sinek?

  We over diagnose things, yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:41Simon Sinek?

  Like everybody who's a little bit, you know. Everybody's OCD, right?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, like.

• 45:46Simon Sinek?

  They don't realize what real OCD is, which is deep, deep, deep superstition like your grandmother had.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there are so many forms of it. But yeah, that's the how her is manifested. But. Yeah, I think, you know, on one hand, we have people, I think, over diagnosing themselves and others and their friends and talking about it. And then I think there's another side of it where, you know, people who really struggle with severe debilitating mental illness still don't really want to talk about it. And I think it's it's just better for everybody if we get the word out there that that these things happen because, you know, you if you don't, it just gets worse, it festers, and then we have negative outcomes, you know, so.

• 46:24Simon Sinek?

  Have you ever written a poem about it?

• 46:26Speaker 01

  No, it's weird how I find that the things that are the most personal and then go down the deepest are things I can't seem to get myself to write about. Maybe that'll change. I don't know. Maybe one day. But I like to just find solace in like humor and distract away from that.

• 46:45Simon Sinek?

  I do find it ironic that you are such a rule follower and you sort of respect authority figures and running out of class created more anxiety.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  It's not that I respect authority figures.

• 46:56Simon Sinek?

  Fine, but you like rules.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  I am afraid to break the rules.

• 47:00Simon Sinek?

  Yet you count cards and are banned from casinos.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  But that's not a good feeling when they when I do I see the suits swarming because they they get the pit bosses together, they start swarming, I hear the telephones ringing, I know they're coming. I hate that. I get all sweaty and and then I.

• 47:15Simon Sinek?

  Do you try and anticipate and leave before they throw you out?

• 47:17Speaker 01

  No, I just let it happen because, yeah, it's just better to know because sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes they're actually just just hanging out, talking about something else, you know, and then they they all disperse. So, no, they'll they'll come over. And they're generally pretty nice, I will say.

• 47:29Simon Sinek?

  They haven't broken the law.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Well, right. They'll say they'll say something really sweet like, ma'am, I'm sorry, but your play is just a little too advanced for us. We won't be able to take your action here, but you're welcome to, you know, enjoy yourself at the bar or any other game in the in the casino.

• 47:43Simon Sinek?

  They invite you to play. They invite you to play craps.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  You're welcome to lose your money at our other places where you don't have the advantage. So, other other ones ban you, though, from the whole premises. So, it just depends on if you get a mall cop type pit bull pit boss, so. Yeah.

• 48:00Simon Sinek?

  By the way, we should, I have to like, insert a warning. Like, if you're listening to this podcast, the conversation is about to get incredibly nerdy. And we're going to talk about Star Wars and archetypes and in-depth characters. And if you don't know what we're talking about and you don't like Star Wars, perhaps go listen to a podcast, another podcast right now. So you and I, the first time we met, we very quickly bonded about our love of science fiction. You skew Star Trek, I skew Star Wars.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  I mean, I love them almost equally.

• 48:31Simon Sinek?

  That is not true.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  If you put a gun to my head and you told me I had to only keep one, I would say Star Trek.

• 48:36Simon Sinek?

  I know that, because no one, it's like, there's no such thing as I love Star Trek and Star Wars equally. It is impossible and it doesn't exist for anyone.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  I come very close.

• 48:44Simon Sinek?

  Well, you're the one.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  It's just that I-

• 48:46Simon Sinek?

  But you still skew.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  It's just only, and only because there's more of Star Trek. I've spent more hours, I've logged more hours, there's more to consume.

• 48:53Simon Sinek?

  Whatever.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  So that's-

• 48:55Simon Sinek?

  Whatever, whatever the reason.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  I just want to belong to both fandoms.

• 48:57Simon Sinek?

  No one is 50/50 on Star Trek and Star Wars. Everybody skews one way. I like Star Trek, I love Star Wars.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Hmm, yeah.

• 49:06Simon Sinek?

  I like Star Trek, and I like different Star Treks. You know, like, I'm a Trecker, not a Trekkie.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 49:12Simon Sinek?

  Which means I like Next Generation.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 49:14Simon Sinek?

  Which apparently they call themselves Trekkers.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 49:17Simon Sinek?

  I mean-

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Maybe I'm not a real member of the community.

• 49:19Simon Sinek?

  Maybe, maybe I'm wrong or it's outdated, because there've been so many Star Treks since then. So I don't know what the new bifurcations are, or there wouldn't be bifurcations, because that's only two things. But, but I don't know what the new delineations are. But it was my understanding when Next Generation came out, that you were a Trecker if you were like, into Next Generation. You were a Trekkie if you're into the old Captain Kirk stuff.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Okay, I learned something new. That's, that's amazing. I don't think I didn't notice.

• 49:41Simon Sinek?

  My bedazzled-

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is amazing. And I don't know how the camera angle is, but I love that I'm, I'm associated here with the dark side. You are associated with the lone rebel hero.

• 49:54Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  And I like that, because in my mind, I think I've said this elsewhere, Star Wars, Star Wars is not the story of the Skywalker's. It's not even the story of a beautiful rebellion against an oppressive regime. It's the story of a brilliant political strategist named Shiv Palpatine, whose, whose Machiavellian plans were foiled by dumb luck and familial relations.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  And if I get canceled for anything off of this podcast, it's gonna be for being a Palpatine apologist. I just love Palpatine as a character.

• 50:28Simon Sinek?

  I know you do. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  He's just, you just have to admire the man. It's like he, he lays-

• 50:37Simon Sinek?

  I mean, he'll stop at nothing. He's a-

• 50:38Speaker 01

  He stops nothing, well, like most villains, but he goes so much further because he lays the most intricate plan. And it's just airtight. I mean, he's, he creates the Clone Wars. He's orchestrating things on both sides, you know?

• 50:50Simon Sinek?

  No, he's an evil genius.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Just an intense genius. And also, one of the most gifted Force users of all time. Happens to be both. Happens to be an evil mastermind and a gifted Force user. It takes both, you know, Anakin and Luke. It takes a cheap shot betrayal to kill him in the end. And that, even that doesn't kill him.

• 51:08Simon Sinek?

  And, and, and a ma- and a great actor.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 51:12Simon Sinek?

  Pretends to be good when he's really bad and like got everybody fooled.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  His genial senator, like, like personality.

• 51:17Simon Sinek?

  What a sweet old man, you know?

• 51:19Speaker 01

  So charming. And then his like dark horrible voice.

• 51:23Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Such an incredible, like, it's the perfect amount of camp in that voice. It doesn't go too far somehow, but it's just perfect and-

• 51:32Simon Sinek?

  One of the things I think that the reason Star Wars is important in the world is because the, the archetypes of all the characters are so true, so consistent, that everybody, you can learn about anybody by saying, which one are you?

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:51Simon Sinek?

  And like, are you a Han Solo? Are you Luke Skywalker? Are you C-3PO? Are you R2-D2? Are you Darth Vader? Like, everybody knows who they are and you can know everything. Like, I have a friend who's like, oh, I am so C-3PO. Like, that's-

• 52:04Speaker 01

  I also have a best friend who is 100% C-3PO.

• 52:07Simon Sinek?

  And you know everything, and I, okay, so let's compare. I'll just tell you what my friend was like and you tell me if your friend was the same.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:11Simon Sinek?

  Like, service oriented, like, loves to like, take care of people and like do, get things done for them.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:18Simon Sinek?

  Finds joy in like getting through the checklist.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:21Simon Sinek?

  Extremely organized.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:23Simon Sinek?

  Right?

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:24Simon Sinek?

  This is what I'm saying. They're archetypes. So you can learn everything about a person simply by them telling you which Star Wars character they're, they're, they're find most like them or most drawn to.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  So who would Star Trek character, or Star Wars character are you?

• 52:36Simon Sinek?

  So, um, I am an equal lover of Boba, of Boba Fett and Han Solo.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:45Simon Sinek?

  I'm full, I, you know, if you force me, like, gun to your head, pick one.

• 52:56Simon Sinek?

  I mean, I had two computers, a laptop and a desktop, and one was named Han Solo and the other one was named Boba Fett.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:01Simon Sinek?

  But if, ugh, I don't know how to choose. Can you guess why I like those?

• 53:06Speaker 01

  No, I'm trying, I'm trying to imagine.

• 53:08Simon Sinek?

  You and I have hung out a little bit. We're not besties, but the, but you know me enough, I think. I mean, I can tell you, I've thought about it plenty.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Well, why Boba Fett? Tell me that one.

• 53:18Simon Sinek?

  Okay, well, I can't talk about Boba Fett without talking about Han Solo. They're both incredibly independent.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:24Simon Sinek?

  Right? Like, Boba Fett is just, he's, he's a bounty hunter, but he, he works for himself.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 53:29Simon Sinek?

  Right? And Han Solo, super independent. I guess maybe I more like Han Solo than Boba Fett. Boba Fett's just so damn cool. He's just so damn cool.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  He is.

• 53:38Simon Sinek?

  Um, so, uh, I guess more like Han Solo, which is fiercely independent,

• 53:44Simon Sinek?

  begrudgingly, like, really wants to be a part of the group,

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:50Simon Sinek?

  but really wants to be himself and is in constant battle. It's like, I want to be my own person, but I want to be a part of the team, but I want to be my own person, but I want to be a part of that team. And, um, as independent as he is, always goes everywhere with a friend.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Chewy.

• 54:05Simon Sinek?

  Just, yeah. So that's where I'm different than Boba Fett. Boba Fett's a total loner.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  And, and really loyal to those friends that he, that he keeps close.

• 54:12Simon Sinek?

  And plays up the independent, like, I don't really care about you guys.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  But he does.

• 54:14Simon Sinek?

  But he really does a lot.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent.

• 54:16Simon Sinek?

  And so it's the hyper independence, but the, the constant struggle of, I want to be my own self, but I also want to be a part of the group at all times, that paradox. But also as independent as he goes everywhere with a friend and that I'm just, and that rebel spirit of let's just give it a try.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 54:29Simon Sinek?

  It to me is, I am, I'm, I so identify with Han Solo.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think for me, it's, it's, well, I love Palpatine. I'd love to say I identify, I mean, obviously in the real world, authoritarian regimes, tyrants, you gross, don't want anything to do with it. In the world of Star Wars, he is such, I won't call him a, a dynamic character because he never changes. Like any, you know, a dynamic character is one who like discovers something about themselves and has changed. And in the process, we as viewers change too, because we learn something about ourselves. That's not Palpatine. He literally never changes. He's static throughout. But that character is so well drawn and so.

• 55:06Simon Sinek?

  So what about you as Palpatine?

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Well, he's a planner and I like to be, I like to be a planner, you know? His plans tragically did not work out. Um, through real no fault of his own. Uh, but, but yeah, I'm inspired by his, his scheming. I won't say that I see myself in him entirely. I think if, if I really had to pick a character, I would say R2-D2.

• 55:27Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Because R2-D2 is also-

• 55:29Simon Sinek?

  By the way, the original, it's the original episode four, five and six that are the perfect archetypes. It's those-

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:36Simon Sinek?

  Those are the characters, the original characters.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Although you really see Palpatine shine in one, two and three.

• 55:41Simon Sinek?

  Exactly. But you and I have had this fight, which is you can keep your one, two, three. And I'll-

• 55:46Speaker 01

  But, but again-

• 55:46Simon Sinek?

  I'll start Star Wars.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  As a Palpatine fan, you gotta watch the prequels.

• 55:49Simon Sinek?

  Oh, no, I, I watched them.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  No, I know, I know.

• 55:51Simon Sinek?

  Won't watch them again.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  But they're, they're worth it for Palpatine.

• 55:54Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so what, what is it about R2-D2?

• 55:56Speaker 01

  R2-D2 is, R2 is incredibly underestimated. And I like that he's, he always seems to know exactly what's going on. He's like privy to more information than we are even aware. Like, everybody's writing him off as this little droid. It's like, oh, get out of the way, you trash can, you know? But, but he's always saving the day. He's prepared. He, he knows where the map of where, you know, Luke Skywalker is at. He's, he's just behind the scenes, just so instrumental to everything, the entire mission.

• 56:25Simon Sinek?

  Are you underestimated?

• 56:26Speaker 01

  And I, I wanna say like, what I like about him is that he's not out there being flashy about it. He's ju- he's just-

• 56:33Simon Sinek?

  Get the job done.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, gets the job done. He's, he's really capable, really like much smarter than people think and, and humble about it. And, and he's funny. And I just think that, I don't know, I relate to R2 in that way, you know?

• 56:46Simon Sinek?

  Unexpectedly funny.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:48Simon Sinek?

  Good planner.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:50Simon Sinek?

  Always lurking in the background.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  But like, yeah.

• 56:52Simon Sinek?

  Not, not a big bragger.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  No, he doesn't-

• 56:53Simon Sinek?

  That describes you.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we, I mean, to be fair, we don't know what he's saying. Only C3PO can understand.

• 56:59Simon Sinek?

  But see, we, we assume that C3PO is accurately translating because that's C3PO's nature. He's a translator.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  And I love the relationship between them because R2 is always like checking C3PO. Who is kind of braggadocious and-

• 57:10Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  But anyway, I just, I, I really like R2-D2.

• 57:13Simon Sinek?

  He's probably the most secure character in all of them.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:16Simon Sinek?

  He's, he's, all of them have their baggage and he doesn't. He's gonna, he's, he's kinda like- He just gets the job, he just gets his shit going, gets the job done.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  There's a reason why Anakin, you know, bends over backwards to, to protect him and through the Clone Wars, you know, the animated series.

• 57:32Simon Sinek?

  And, and take him with.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:34Simon Sinek?

  He's, he's the chosen.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  There's an episode where he almost gets left behind and it's like, oh, it's a lost cause, it's just a droid, just let him get destroyed with the ship or whatever. And, and Anakin's like, nope, I'm actually gonna go risk my life to get, cause he's my friend.

• 57:46Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:47Simon Sinek?

  So I think that, that's a perfect way to, to end this and to move into Roswell, which is, uh, I think you are a friend that everyone would be lucky to have you by their side. You are R2-D2.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Thank you, Simon. I won't call you C3PO, cause you're not that.

• 58:01Simon Sinek?

  I'm not that.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  But you're, you're Han Solo. So, yeah.

• 58:05Simon Sinek?

  I am. Uh, can I ask a favor?

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:08Simon Sinek?

  This is totally selfish, totally selfish.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:12Simon Sinek?

  Um, I've, I've discovered you because of this magical song called Roswell.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:17Simon Sinek?

  My favorite thing about the song is it's accurate.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  It, yeah.

• 58:22Simon Sinek?

  Every line.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Intensely accurate.

• 58:23Simon Sinek?

  Every line, and I knew the story of Roswell.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:26Simon Sinek?

  And how it became a thing that it wasn't. It's not aliens, but it's funny.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:31Simon Sinek?

  Um, and I love that every line of that song is an education. Like if you, if somebody listens, sings along, they're smarter.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Here's one thing though, that I kinda got slightly wrong, and I'm gonna take this opportunity to correct myself. So I say, I mentioned the CIA, and technically the CIA was created like a month after.

• 58:50Simon Sinek?

  It was the OSS.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know, was it? I don't know the exact.

• 58:53Simon Sinek?

  I mean, it was CIA-ish.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:55Simon Sinek?

  It was the precursor.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  But the CIA was formed kind of in the wake of this event.

• 58:59Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  So maybe because of this event, we don't know. But I did mention that they called the CIA, which technically they couldn't have done that.

• 59:05Simon Sinek?

  They couldn't have done that, but they called the OSS.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  But it's a fun line. It's a fun line to put in there.

• 59:09Simon Sinek?

  So let's just be clear what, what happened at Roswell. I mean, well, actually, we don't have to. My ask is, can you please sing the song?

• 59:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:16Simon Sinek?

  And.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  I can tell you exactly what happened in Roswell by, by singing the song.

• 59:19Simon Sinek?

  By singing the song. But first tell us the origin story of the song. How did that song come to be?

• 59:24Speaker 01

  So Tony and I were, um, Tony's the lead guitarist in my band, and we were coming back from Minneapolis, having played a show, and we decided, since we were coming close, we're going through New Mexico to get back to LA. I was like, we have to visit Roswell. Like that's, that's, as a space nerd, you know?

• 59:40Simon Sinek?

  It's Mecca.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  I'm less into conspiracy theories, but whatever. I, I just wanted to see it. So we, we stopped through Roswell. We were there for two days, and then on our way out, we were actually about to leave, the van broke down. So, and it broke down hard, like they had to get like a, there's some obscure piece that they needed to send in. And we ended up being there for 10 full days while the van was being fixed.

• 1:00:02Simon Sinek?

  10 days?

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  10 days.

• 1:00:04Simon Sinek?

  I mean, that's like a, okay, that's a long time to be.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  It was a lot, and they kept, they kept saying, oh.

• 1:00:09Simon Sinek?

  And Roswell's in the middle of nowhere, right?

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's not much to do, other than learn about the incident and go to the museum and

• 1:00:15Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  all the like kitschy alien things. It's great. I mean, even the McDonald's there has like alien, it's like a spaceship and it's really, it's really a cute town. I liked it a lot. And everybody was super nice. So I would, I was asking locals about it. I was going to the museum. I was reading books about it. Like, what else are you gonna do for 10 days in Roswell? And then I was like, we have to write a song while we're here. So before we left, we, we, we wrote the song and then we filmed it in front of the Roswell, like, water tower.

• 1:00:42Simon Sinek?

  I hate to point this out.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:45Simon Sinek?

  But Roswell was your lockdown. It was your blank space. It was your good nothing.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 1:00:50Simon Sinek?

  And good nothing. You had nothing to do. You were bored because you've exhausted everything there is to do in Roswell. The only thing left to do was to be creative.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's exactly right.

• 1:00:59Simon Sinek?

  And so, maybe we shouldn't call it good nothing. Maybe we should call it Roswell time.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  That, I like that.

• 1:01:03Simon Sinek?

  I need some Roswell time.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:05Simon Sinek?

  I need to be, I need to be stuck in Roswell to create something.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:08Simon Sinek?

  I like it.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 1:01:10Simon Sinek?

  Roswell time it is. Okay. So, amazing, we have El Cordova and Tony Langren, and they're gonna perform Roswell for us. Yay.

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  Yes, we actually do it.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  There's big news today out in Roswell. That sleepy New Mexico town. And Major Marcel, what can you tell us about Roswell?

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  Well, the Roswell Army Airfield sent their finest personnel. A ranking file of the sir was young Major Marcel. And Major told his story and it echoed round the globe. Flying saucer captured at the old New Mexico. But the orders came from Washington, materials were changed. The town was hushed in silence and the caravel was detained. They scooped up all the evidence and flew it to Fort Worth. Staged a couple of photos and the headlines were revved. There's nothing to see here in Roswell.

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  Torn up all the weather blue. And Major Marcel was mistaken as well about Roswell.

• 1:03:33Speaker 03

  Get it, Tommy.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  Years pass on in Roswell, but the story still persists. Rumors turn on theories and the theories turn to myth. But to his dying day, the Major swore on his head, "There's no way in hell the NFL was made right here in hell." It's a mystery lives on out in Roswell. That sleepy New Mexico town. Major Marcel, what can you tell us about Roswell?

• 1:04:43Speaker 03

  The Story of Roosevelt. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much.

• 1:04:51Simon Sinek?

  A bit of optimism is brought to you by The Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team Lindsay Garbenius, David Ja, and Devon Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to simoncennick.com. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.