The Optimism We All Need Right Now with Simon Sinek

BUY THE BOOK! Start with Why by Simon Sinek https://amzn.to/4xQ0ETD Simon Sinek’s landmark New York Times bestseller Start with Why transformed how leaders, entrepreneurs and employees think - inspiring them to shift their focus from what they do to why they do it. Simon brought this revolutionary concept to life with his Ted Talk, "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" which instantly went viral - and now ranks as the fourth most-watched Ted talk of all time with more than 90 million views. In this conversation, Oprah and Simon talk about how to feel more energized, optimistic and engaged in your work and life - especially at times of high anxiety and uncertainty. Simon answers questions from several viewers including a woman who is considering leaving her 9-5 job to become an entrepreneur, one who is still looking for her dream job at age 49 and another who is terrified about losing her identity as she faces retirement. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone who may be feeling a little lost and looking for clarity, direction and optimism. 00:00:00 - Welcome Simon Sinek, author of “Start with Why” 00:05:15 - The golden circle 00:09:15 - Asking for help 00:10:30 - Why vs. intention 00:13:30 - The thread of your life 00:17:40 - The age of the Influencer 00:20:10 - Optimism meaning 00:27:10 - Introverts and extroverts 00:28:40 - Blocking out doubt when chasing your why 00:32:30 - Jobs are not safe 00:34:50 - Find your guiding question 00:41:40 - Is a "dream job" a goal? 00:48:39 - The friend test 00:54:00 - The importance of relationships 00:55:20 - The key to finding your why 00:57:00 - A well-lived life Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/

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

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by our partner, Geico. I'm so excited to welcome to the Tea House, Mr. Optimism himself, Simon Sinek. So you have truly changed the culture because we're now all familiar with the phrase of, what is your why? What is the key to finding your why?

• 0:23Speaker 01

  This is how I help people find their why. I look at the past and I find the times where, for whatever reason, they were in flow.

• 0:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  They loved what they were doing, no matter how hard it was. And we can actually define, we can see that pattern, and that is the why.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  I'm just feeling like I'm stuck in a cage and I have the key. What should my guiding question or my guiding light be?

• 0:44Speaker 01

  So I think task number one is not, you're asking yourself the wrong question, which is not, what should I be doing next? But who do I want to be doing the thing next with?

• 0:53Oprah Winfrey?

  That's so key. I saw your lightbulb moment right there. I saw your big aha. Hi, everybody, and a warm welcome. I'm really happy to be with you here on the Oprah Podcast. We know that there is a lot, a lot of anxiety going on with so many people and what some say is an existential angst around jobs and around careers these days. Maybe you or your loved one has a feeling of disruption and unease. When you think about it, here's the truth. We spend most of our adult lives and waking hours at work and for some, even a few more hours a day, just getting to and from their jobs. And so on this episode

• 1:35Oprah Winfrey?

  of the podcast, we're asking this question. How can you feel more energized, more engaged? How can you feel more optimistic about work? And so I'm so excited to welcome to the Tea House, Mr. Optimism himself, Simon Sinek. Simon Sinek's landmark New York Times bestseller, Start with Why, transformed how leaders, entrepreneurs, and employees think, inspiring so many people to shift their focus from what they do to why they do it. Simon brought this revolutionary concept to life with his TED Talk, which went viral and now ranks as the fourth most-watched TED Talk

• 2:18Oprah Winfrey?

  of all time with more than 90 million views.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Why, how, what? This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren't.

• 2:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Self-described as an unshakable optimist, Simon has continued to inspire people throughout the world with his organization, The Optimism Company, his podcasts, A Bit of Optimism, and his most recent New York Times bestsellers, Leaders Eat Last and The Infinite Game.

• 2:48Oprah Winfrey?

  It's hard to believe this is the first time we're sitting down together.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  First time, yeah.

• 2:52Oprah Winfrey?

  How did that happen?

• 2:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I blame you, but, no, it's wonderful to be here. And it is surprising because you and I have a very similar worldview.

• 3:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, very similar worldview.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Which is, we believe in the goodness of people and we believe in sort of striving towards that. It is so, it's nice to finally be here.

• 3:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. And you've written so many books. Your first book, Start with a Why, sold over 3 million copies. Your TED Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, is one of the most popular of all time. But you know what is so fascinating to me about, because this book was now 15 years old, 16 years old now?

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's coming on, yeah, 16, 17 years old now.

• 3:29Oprah Winfrey?

  16, 17 years old. And the golden circle that you introduced in Start with a Why applies now as it applied 16 years ago, as it will apply 16 years from now. Can you explain the golden circle for the 10 people who haven't heard it?

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Very simply, every single one of us knows what we do. It's the jobs we have, it's the things we do, right? I'm a doctor, I'm a consultant, I'm a barista. Like, this is what I do.

• 3:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Some people know how they do it. These are the things that we think make us stand out or make us better than somebody else who does, also does what we do. But very, very few people can clearly articulate why they do what they do, that deep-seated purpose cause or belief. And what I discovered is that the best leaders, everybody from Martin Luther King to Steve Jobs, every single one of them thinks, acts, and communicates the exact same way. And it's the complete opposite to most other people. And every single one of them starts with why. So if you say, what do you do? They don't say, oh, I'm a speaker, I'm an author, I'm a talk show host. They say, I wake up every single morning to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. For me, the fun is finding all the ways in

• 4:42Speaker 01

  which I can do that. And that's how you get to what you do.

• 4:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. And it's interesting because Jim Collins just recently wrote a book and he says that people like that were encoded with that, that there was an encoding for them to do that, that that's not something, just as you say, you don't require it out here, you had it in here to begin with.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  I think, so I agree, and I would add on to it, which is, it's not that some people are encoded like that. All of us are encoded like that. The question is, are we working in environments and do we have a support structure that encourages and support us to live by that code? Very often, we are seduced by money or fame or to be an influencer. We are pressured to be responsible, become an accountant, because that way you can provide for yourself, even though you have no desire to be an accountant, et cetera. So we give in to peer pressure, we give in to societal pressure, we give in to family pressures. And so whether we're following the code is the big question.

• 5:42Oprah Winfrey?

  So, and so you have truly changed the culture. You've changed how the culture speaks about itself because we're now all familiar with the phrase of, what is your why? What do you think it is about your message that has resonated? So first of all, were you surprised?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  I was surprised at the speed and the scale that it took off, but I wasn't surprised that it resonated with people because it's a deeply human message. And it was not something that I put together for any commercial or academic reason. It was put together for me. It was the solution that I found when I lost my passion for my own work and it was only meant to help me.

• 6:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  And it did. And I shared it with my friends and it helped my friends find renewed passion in their work.

• 6:27Oprah Winfrey?

  So you were doing it for their friends and their friends?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. That's how it started.

• 6:29Oprah Winfrey?

  That's how it started?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  That's how it started. I was giving...

• 6:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Which is the most organic of...

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was giving talks in my friends' living rooms to their friends and helping people find their why for a hundred bucks on the side. That's literally how it started.

• 6:37Oprah Winfrey?

  So tell us where you were before you discovered it for yourself. What was actually going on with you?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  I was living in New York City, living the entrepreneurial dream. I'd started a small business, had a little marketing consultancy. And I knew the statistics that the vast majority, well into the 90th percentile, of new businesses fail in the first three years. And so if you're sort of like that kind of stress and that kind of competition, you know, entrepreneurship is a crazy fun game.

• 7:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  And we survived. Like, we survived three years in business. And my fourth year in business was dark, to say the least, because I'd survived. I now was a member of the small group of organizations that had beaten the three-year statistic. But I was a victim of my own success because I didn't know how to build the structure for a company. It was all my personality and force of personality. And as things started to go well, I didn't know what to do. And it sort of came crashing down on me, to be honest. Not literally, but like, the pressure was overwhelming. And I went into what can only be described as depression. And being happy-go-lucky and living what superficially looks like a good life, I was very afraid or embarrassed to tell people that I was struggling. And so I kept it to myself.

• 7:45Oprah Winfrey?

  You were struggling how?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I didn't want to, I didn't want to go to work anymore.

• 7:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  I didn't want to wake up and go to work. And I was very, very embarrassed because superficially, things were good. And so I sounded whiny, you know? So if you've ever been in a dark place, if you keep it to yourself, it gets worse.

• 8:04Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  And that's exactly what happened. And it wasn't until a very dear friend of mine came to me and said, something's, something's wrong. And that was the, that was the gate that opened up.

• 8:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. So what did uncertainty teach you about yourself?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  So the single greatest lesson I learned in that whole experience was that I don't have to know everything and I don't have to pretend that I do. And, and to ask for help and to say to people, I don't know what's happening. And I don't need to find certainty. I just need to feel not alone as I go through the journey. That was, that was the greatest gift.

• 8:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And I've discovered that too, that many times, knowing what you don't want to do is just equally as important as knowing what you do want to do.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:46Oprah Winfrey?

  And that's how you get closer to certainty. So you, we were speaking earlier about the fact that you and I, it's a surprise that we haven't really connected over the years because we share the same worldview. I remember when I found my why on the Oprah Winfrey Show. It was around 1989. I didn't call it the why, I called it intention. So I'm wondering if the why and the intention are the same. I mean...

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Depending on how you define them, probably yes.

• 9:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  You know, the way I define why is this, it's this deep-seated purpose, cause, or belief.

• 9:25Oprah Winfrey?

  It's the reason why you're doing it. It's the reason behind the reason.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  It's the reason behind the reason. It's the thing that inspires. It's not a goal.

• 9:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  It's not, it's not some thing you're trying to obtain. It's not based on the job you do.

• 9:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  But it's the thing that inspires you to get out of bed in the morning. And if that thing is there, no matter how hard the work is, it feels worth it.

• 9:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  And that's, so in the way you're defining intention, the way I define the why, they sound very similar.

• 9:49Oprah Winfrey?

  So for me, the intention became in 89. Up until then, I was just doing a show and I was happy to have the job and I was excited about, I was still excited about the work. But something shifted for me and I just wanted to use the show and not be used by the show. I wanted to use the show as a force for good. And so in, in that intention, I told the producers, do not even bring me ideas unless I'm aligned with whatever your intention is so that we all sync up. And so regardless of what the subject is, we're all really saying the same thing, that we're using this story or this person's life or

• 10:32Oprah Winfrey?

  whatever is happening in this experience as a, as a force for good.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  How do you define the intention? How do you define the why outside of the show? Because the show is one of the things that you do, one of the things that you did to bring your cause to life. This podcast is one of the things that you do to bring your cause to life. How would you define the intention? What's the string that connects absolutely everything?

• 10:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Um, being a light in the world.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Wherever you go, you're bringing a light in the world.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  And that's a why.

• 11:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  That's a why.

• 11:04Oprah Winfrey?

  You're bringing enlightenment in the world. You're bringing light to the person who's you're picking up your laundry from today. Being a light in the world and helping people to see themselves differently, absolutely in the best light.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  And this is one of the reasons you have passion and love for what you do, which is it has purpose.

• 11:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And as you said, when you put that filter up and say, make sure that everything we do, and sometimes we'll get it wrong.

• 11:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, sometimes we get it wrong.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  But make sure that as many times as possible with intention that we pass through this filter.

• 11:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  That it does this, it brings light. And the thing that I love, and this is what a good why is, people forget that a why is actually an act of service. It's something we give to the world. It's not something we take.

• 11:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Absolutely, 100%.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  And the fact that you say to bring light in the world, you know, it's not just you. You are one of the things that brings light to this world, but your work will inspire others to bring light to this world.

• 11:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Absolutely.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Your work will inspire others to bring light to this world, and they in turn will bring light to other people.

• 12:01Oprah Winfrey?

  I like the fact that...

• 12:02Speaker 01

  It's magic.

• 12:03Oprah Winfrey?

  I like, it is magic, and I like the fact that you use the term thread. What is the thread that connects everything? Because I think that is true for most people. There is a thread that connects the dots of their lives, that if they were to look back at that thread, you would see that your life has, you've already defined some sense of purpose for yourself, right?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  This is how I find, this is how I help people find their why.

• 12:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Why?

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Which is I, I look at the past. It's not some, it's not a vision board. We do cutting up magazines. It's not what it is. I look at the past and I look through their personal lives and their professional lives, and I find the times where, for whatever reason, they were in flow, where things just naturally were incredible.

• 12:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  They loved what they were doing, no matter how hard it was, even it wasn't a commercial success.

• 12:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  That, and I find that when you look at all of the things, when they just naturally go well, there's a pattern that emerges and we can actually define, we can see that pattern, and that is the why. And our why is fully formed by the time we're sort of in our mid to late teens.

• 13:03Oprah Winfrey?

  I would, I would agree with that.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  We are who we are, we're products of our upbringing.

• 13:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Absolutely.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  And now the rest of your life is an opportunity to make decisions to be in sync with that why.

• 13:12Oprah Winfrey?

  And if I think about that, so if you think about that for yourself, how is that why formed for you by your teens and what was it?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  So I, when I was younger, I said, I said I was happy-go-lucky. That's what I would, that's what I would say when I was trying to explain myself to people. Now I know, I have better words for it, something more actionable. My why is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them.

• 13:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  So together, each of us can change our world for the better. And I guess, you know, I look at my childhood, I lived all over the world as a kid growing up.

• 13:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Very loving parents, very loving family, very close with my sister, and there was this, there was a, there was a constant encouragement, you know, to follow our passions and do what we enjoyed. And sure, we had the pressures to do well in school, but my parents like sort of would encourage us to do the things that we liked. And so I think there was just this natural support.

• 14:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Those of you who watch the Oprah Podcast or listen to us, you know, every story we share, every guest we welcome is chosen with purpose. And when people share their stories, we're reminded that we're not alone in this journey called life. As the official insurance partner of the podcast, the folks at Geico understand that the way we move through life and who we move through it with matters. And I know that life starts to move even faster as a new school year begins. Fall routines get underway, the calendar fills up, whether you're waiting in the school pickup line, loading up the car for a weekend getaway, taking a quiet drive home after a hard day, or cheering on your son or daughter from the sidelines. These moments remind us the road is not always a straight line.

• 14:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Geico is there with insurance design to help keep you covered along the way. Because life happens, and with the right support, we all just keep driving forward. And that, dear listener, is everything.

• 15:08Oprah Winfrey?

  You do these multiple seminars and speak around the world, just as I do, and you always, I know, come across so many people who are like, I don't know what my purpose is. I don't know, how do I find my purpose? And you know, some people may know their why, but still actually fail to act on it. Where does the breakdown occur?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  I've found over the years that the people who struggle the most as their careers progress.

• 15:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Are the ones who chase money and fame.

• 15:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Ah, yes.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  So, and I remember, I have this...

• 15:42Oprah Winfrey?

  And now everybody's chasing money and fame.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  And I know this one, I'm thinking of one case in particular. This guy called me for help. He was in a bad, he was in a bad place, and he needed, he needed some help, and so I offered to help. And I went through his life, and how did you choose this job? And how did you choose this job? And why did you choose that job? And in every single case, he just took whoever would pay him the most money.

• 16:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Not whether I'd enjoy it, not whether I, it leverages my strengths, will they pay me the most money? And it worked fine for a while. He was making good money. He could rationalize.

• 16:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  The pain and discomfort, you know.

• 16:14Oprah Winfrey?

  That's so interesting.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  But at some point, it caps out. At some point, it's gonna cap out.

• 16:19Oprah Winfrey?

  It always caps out.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  It always caps out.

• 16:22Oprah Winfrey?

  And why? Tell us why it always caps out.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Because there's no purpose. That's not a purpose. That's, money and fame are a result, and they should be the unintended byproduct. And if they are the reason, there's a point at which you're not popular, you're just a product on a shelf.

• 16:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  There's a point at which someone else, somebody else's product is better than yours, or their, their thing. And I just, I was sort of, I was at a, I was at a concert once, and before the concert started, this young woman was standing in the stairs, and somebody was taking pictures of her, and she was sort of posing, and somebody next to me sort of nudges me, and she goes, she's a famous influencer. And I respond, you mean, she's a freelance employee of an algorithm? And that's the problem, which is when you're, when you're seeking that, you have a boss. The boss is an algorithm. You work for the algorithm. And if the algorithm says that you must produce constantly all day if you're to make money, then you don't get vacations, you don't get holidays, because you have to produce, produce, because the minute you stop producing, the algorithm chooses somebody else.

• 17:19Oprah Winfrey?

  I just read a statistic that said, between, young people between the ages of 16 to 38, 86% of people want to now be influencers.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:30Oprah Winfrey?

  That's where we are.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Whatever that means.

• 17:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Whatever that means.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  I mean, like, by modern standards, you and I are considered influencers.

• 17:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  You know? I mean, whatever that means. I think, I think that, you know, fame has become not the result of something, fame has become the thing unto itself.

• 17:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I know, I realize that it shifted when I went back to my school in South Africa several years ago, and it used to be, when I first opened that school, everybody wanted to be a doctor, they wanted to be a teacher, they wanted to be, and now all the girls are like, can you tell us how to be influencers? And I'm like, I don't even know, no, I don't know how to do that.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  But it kind of makes sense, right? Because people emulate the things they see in the media.

• 18:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  And so, you know, if, if, if there are doctor shows and hospital shows, people want to be doctors.

• 18:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  You know, when you, when you were on TV and The Oprah Winfrey Show was around, people wanted to be a force for good. People wanted to be a light.

• 18:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Because that was the thing they saw on TV that was so iconic, and now it's so diffuse.

• 18:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  And there's, there's not a thing that stands out, but the things that we see show up in the feeds all the time, because the algorithm feeds it to us, that's the thing we emulate, and that's the thing we wanted. It makes, whether it's healthy or not, it makes sense.

• 18:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, but we do have such, such, you know, aligned worldviews, because I remember when I first became syndicated in 1986, a long time ago, y'all, I got a letter from a woman who said, watching you be yourself every day makes me want to be more of myself.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  That's it?

• 19:01Oprah Winfrey?

  And I thought, well, you know what? I think that's what I've been doing since I was a kid, speaking in the church, being an inspiration to other people, letting them see what's possible for themselves through what was possible for, for myself. But isn't that just, I mean, I want that on my tombstone, if I was gonna have a tombstone. Watching you be yourself made me want to be more and more of myself.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's what it means to accept the responsibility when you recognize that you're in the public eye, when you have a bully pulpit.

• 19:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  And, you know, it is, it is unacceptable for anybody who finds themselves famous, whether they're athletes or musicians or whoever they are, to say, well, kids shouldn't, shouldn't follow my example. It's like, well, you, I mean, you don't get, you don't get that choice.

• 19:44Oprah Winfrey?

  You don't get that choice.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  You don't get that choice.

• 19:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so you call yourself an unshakable optimist.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 19:49Oprah Winfrey?

  You are.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 19:50Oprah Winfrey?

  And your podcast is called A Bit of Optimism. And you even named your business The Optimism Company.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a little obsessive.

• 19:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so we are in need of some optimism. What is the driving force behind yours?

• 20:02Speaker 01

  So I think people confuse optimism and positivity. Positivity is very often blind. Everything's good, everything's good.

• 20:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  And I see it, I see it in leaders all the time. They try, they think that if they just tell everybody everything's fine, then, then it'll be fine.

• 20:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Not true. Optimism is realistic. Optimism can be dark. It can be in dark times, it can struggle, but optimism is the undying belief that the future is bright. So I can say, look, this is...

• 20:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Very different between just being positive.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Very different. I can say I'm having a hard time. I can say I'm living in uncertainty right now. I can say I'm off my game. I can say I'm struggling. I can say that I'm going through, like, I've gotten a lot of things wrong lately, and I need a lot of help. And I know that if I'm surrounded by people who love me, and I'm willing to help others as well, and we do this as a group.

• 20:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Things are gonna be all right.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Things will be fine.

• 20:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  The optimism is the light at the end of the tunnel. It's not the tunnel itself.

• 20:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Ah, okay. So you say we're in the middle of a, of a, of a great rebalancing.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Explain what that means.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  So I think we're, yeah, I think this is a great, it's a great rebalancing. It's a massive, massive social market correction. You know, when, when the stock market is unbalanced, when there's a bubble,

• 21:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  it will correct with a stock market crash. There's a rebalancing. Well, this is happening at a social level. And if you look back at like the seventies and eighties, we started to see robots sort of show up in factories. And the, and the blue collar world said, hey, what about our jobs? And the white collar world said, it's the future, baby. Like progress stops for no one, reskill.

• 21:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  And then, and then we over, we over sort of indexed on the value of, of knowledge work. And the reason was because we paid knowledge workers an insane amount of money. And so clearly they must be quote unquote more important. And we sort of looked down at blue collar work. Well, now the rebalancing is happening. As AI shows up, it's affecting knowledge work. Your plumber doesn't care about AI. The carpenter doesn't care about AI. Your mechanic doesn't care about AI. Skilled, blue collar labor does not care about AI. It's the, it's the, it's the, it's the engineers and the white collar work and the, and the finance people who are like, but AI is going to take my job. And my cynical answer is like, it's the future, baby. Progress stops for no one, reskill. And it's a rebalancing.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  And I think we can see it. The reason we see a rise of populism, both in this country and the world, and I don't care if your politics are on the right or the left side of the aisle. You know, we're seeing this rise of populism. We're seeing the rise of sort of your average working American saying, hold on, the system wasn't built for me and I'll have none of it now.

• 22:41Oprah Winfrey?

  And, and young people are redefining what work looks like.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:44Oprah Winfrey?

  How so?

• 22:45Speaker 01

  I'm loving it too. So let's just take a step back and, and look at the world that they grew up in, right? Because a lot of people complain that young people are not loyal, that they're entitled. All of these are the words that they use. Well, let's look at the world they grew up in. They grew up in a world in which things like mass layoffs were normal. Their parents, or at least their friends' parents, were laid off through no fault of their own because some company missed its financial projections. They're profitable, just not as profitable as they promised. And so somebody lost their job, not a meritocracy, right? And so they've seen a world where the company offers no loyalty to the employee. So their attitude is, why should I offer loyalty back? Which is the correct logic. They're playing by the rules that the company set.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  So what comes across as entitlement is that like when you and I were younger, we would have to work hard, go the extra mile. Then we would go to our boss and say, look what I did.

• 23:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Can I please have a raise?

• 23:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Young people now are like, pay me more, you'll see what I can do. And their attitude is, well, I don't know if I'm going to have a job at the end of the year. So better cash in now because otherwise I may not get it later. Which again, is the right logic for the world we live in. And so one of the things that we're starting to see now from young people.

• 23:57Oprah Winfrey?

  The idea of pay me more and see what I can do.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's normal.

• 24:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Is so foreign to, to my generation.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Foreign to me too. But, but it makes sense. Get based on the world that they've grown up in.

• 24:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  And so what we're starting to see now is something kind of magical, which is young people are redefining what a job looks like. Where they're working for themselves, they're doing something they want to do. Maybe it's be a coach, or maybe it's be a tour guide, or maybe it's be a comedian, or a chef, or whatever it is. But they're not building businesses. They're not the traditional entrepreneur where they imagine having employees or massive scale. They're just doing the thing that they love that provides an income. And, and they're hustlers. And, and it's, it's, it's sort of like born out of the gig economy, but they're defining what the gigs are as opposed to just sort of taking an Uber job, for example. And they're choosing something they want to do. And they're making, they're making, they're eking together a living. And some of them are doing quite well.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Again, it's not an entrepreneurial aspiration like we understand it. They're not looking to quote unquote build businesses. But they are working for themselves and they're just avoiding and sort of like thumbing their nose at traditional jobs.

• 25:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Working for themselves, Simon, and also saying, I don't want to work like you all did. I don't want to, I'm not giving everything that I have. But do you believe in work-life balance? I hear a lot of my young girls talking about work-life balance.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  I think, yes, of course I believe in work-life balance.

• 25:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 25:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, they're buzzwords that can really, you know, wild people up.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  I think, I think we've misunderstood what work-life balance means. First of all, no amount of yoga is going to fix your work-life balance, right? And taking your computer on vacation and emailing, you know, as the kids are having breakfast, that's not work-life balance either. That's commuting from a beach, right? That's telecommuting from a beach. Work-life balance is, is time to, to reset. Of course, vacations matter. Proper vacations, like disconnect for one week, leave me alone. I gotta recharge the batteries and nothing's going to collapse while I'm gone. But also doing things that we love. You know, I'm fond of saying that working hard for something we don't believe in is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.

• 26:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  And it, and it goes to, you, you worked extremely hard. You were telling us.

• 26:15Oprah Winfrey?

  But it doesn't even feel like working.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  It feels worth it. You can still burn out, you can still be exhausted. But for some reason, the effort feels worth it. And I think that when you have passion for something, and I don't believe passion is an input. Passion is an output. Find, find something that, that inspires you, that brings your, your, your, the, the light you want to give to the world. It somehow is a mechanism to help bring that to light. And passion is the thing that emerges.

• 26:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And remote work is different for introverts than extroverts. That's what you've said before.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think when.

• 26:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Explain the difference.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  So, so when, when we went into lockdown, if you can remember.

• 26:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  You know, all the extroverts went, oh no, this is horrible. And all the introverts went, oh, this is fantastic.

• 27:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  And I think this is kind of the future of work, which is the office environment tends to favor the extrovert. And I don't think that the correct balance is to pick one or the other. I think the correct balance is actually a bit of both. That the introverts have to sort of suck it up every now and then to come work with the extroverts. And the extroverts have to suck it up now and then and let the introverts go do their thing. And it's about service, right? It's about helping each other work to our greatest strengths. But I think sort of, again, one of the happy side effects of us getting comfortable with Zoom calls and remote work is that it allows for balance. Certain industries, obviously you have to come to work. You can't, creativity and innovation don't work remotely. You know, it's hard to have a brainstorming session over a Zoom.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  It doesn't really work very well because you can't have that interruption and that rough and tumble. But, but you know, for those people who like to separate themselves, you can also go to an office and close the door.

• 27:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, our listeners heard that Simon was, was going to be here. And so we have some questions for, for you. I think many of you listening and watching can learn from. Sarah's from New York. Sarah, you're joining us now. Hi.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 28:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi, hi, hi.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 28:13Oprah Winfrey?

  What do you want to share with us today? What's happening?

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Yes. So I am a single mom of two and I find myself in a nine to five job. This is all I've known. It's all my mother has known. She's Gen X. And like you said, growing up, I watched her give her entire life to a company and they laid her off like that and she was devastated. And as a kid, I was like, I'm not going to do that. And yet here I am. And when I'm not happy at my nine to five, I go and look for another nine to five, knowing that that's not what I want to do. And I have dreams of starting my own business. And you know, I want to start a play cafe in my hometown

• 28:59Speaker 03

  that is a place for parents and kids to connect and get off the screens and use their creativity and all the things that I encourage my own children to do and the scap I see in my community. But there's a lot of, you know, doubters and noise in my life, you know, where my mom's generation is, but there's no benefits in, you know, your own business. So my question for you is how do I kind of block out the noise and the doubters and go after that vision?

• 29:31Speaker 01

  So she's touching on a myth. It is a myth now, it didn't used to be. It used to be that if you had a job, especially for like a public company or something like that, that that job was safe, right? Versus entrepreneurship, which is, which is, which is.

• 29:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Risky, was considered risky.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Which is considered risky. And the irony is, as she pointed out, her mom got laid off, right? And so these jobs are, you can come to work one day and just be laid off through no fault of your own. Where if you work for yourself and you're going to go to business, you'll know months in advance, right? And so let's dispense with the myth that a job is safer than entrepreneurship. Now, entrepreneurship is the single hardest thing you can do. You know, when you work for a company, your highs are not that high and your lows are not that low. When you take the entrepreneurial leap, your highs are insanely high and your lows are insanely low.

• 30:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  And so you have to be solving a problem for yourself or for others. You know, the best businesses, somebody is trying to solve a problem for themselves or others. They have a solution that they think works because that's what drives the passion. They're not pursuing money, they're not pursuing fame. They're pursuing the desire to give this solution that they want for some problem that they found in the world to others as well. It sounds like she has that. And one of the most important things is, don't do it alone. Because entrepreneurship is very lonely, right? And so you, you, you don't have to have a business partner, but you have to have somebody who says, you got this, right? Now here's the great news, right? Which is. You can find another job.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  And so there's something kind of magical about if you're if it's bothering you. If you're lying awake at night going, I really want to do this. I really want to do this. And the only thing that's holding you back is your own fear and the pressure from from the world. Then I say, do it on the side. Right? You don't have to like quit your job and then go try this. You can start on the weekends. You can start in a place where you don't have to pay rent. You don't have to lock yourself into a lease. You can borrow a space. You can start in a in a church rec center or something. You know, be be quote unquote entrepreneurial about it. You know, if you've got no funding, go do some more where it's cheap. Find some clients, pay, let it pay for itself. Start small, do it on the side, do it on weekends.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  And at some point, you'll get to the point where you're going to have to choose one or the other because you won't be able to do both because you don't have the time. And that's when you get to take the full on leap. But if you if you're curious, go try it on the side.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah, that's great.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  I say do it. I think it's a great idea.

• 32:04Oprah Winfrey?

  I say do it too. I thought I thought what you said earlier too about the way we think about jobs having been safe. That's just an that's an out.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Outdated thinking.

• 32:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Outdated thinking. Outdated thinking.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:17Oprah Winfrey?

  And all the people that are telling you that are probably Gen X generation or older.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Because that's the way we were raised.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  And it used to be safe.

• 32:25Oprah Winfrey?

  And that was the security. That was the security.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  It was true.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  But you have a steady income and you have you have two little kids. And so, you know, let that be your funding. Let that pay your bills. And then and just and no illusion, you're going to be working hard. But start small and start on the side.

• 32:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Got it. Got it?

• 32:46Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  I think it's wonderful.

• 32:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, Sarah. Best of luck to you. Now, Sarah just just touched on something that I think is so interesting. We actually did a whole podcast about this is how Gen X view work differently than Gen Z. And you have a unique take on why Gen Z and millennials struggle in the workplace and vice versa.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, again, I think that remember they're getting advice from people who grew up in a world where work was different.

• 33:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  And the securities were different and the safety was different and and the deal. You know, in, you know, there was a time. So I'll go speak to an audience and I'll talk about the gold watch. And you know, you know what I'm talking about.

• 33:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  And I there's an entire I ask, I play the game.

• 33:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Gen Zers don't even know what you're talking about.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  They have no idea what I'm talking. Anybody who's born who's Gen Z or even some millennials, when I talk about the gold watch, they literally have no idea what I'm talking about. The gold watch meant that you devoted your career to a company 20, 30, 40 years.

• 33:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  And at the end of your career, they gave you a gold watch to say, thank you for your service. But this was a time where we gave our blood, sweat and tears to the company and the company looked after us. Those times are gone. You know, Jack Welch and his and his peers in the 1980s, there was no such thing as mass layoffs to balance the books in the United States prior to the mid 1980s. It didn't exist. It did not exist. It was for existential reasons only.

• 34:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow, okay.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  And and so it was it was this new form of short termism capitalism that took hold in the 80s and 90s and is now so normal, we don't even know that it was different. But that is not that is not the capitalism that made America great. That is a relatively new experience.

• 34:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Maybe you're feeling it too with so many ways to reach each other. It can be easy to mistake being reachable for being truly connected. But I've learned that what many people are longing for is just to be heard, truly heard by another person. That's what we're trying to do here on the Oprah Podcast. I see you contemplating and I can see that you're seeing yourself a different way after he said that. Making space for real connection because every time we stop and actually listen to each other, something shifts, something opens. AT&T believes that too. The right connection at the right moment between the right people can change the course

• 35:12Oprah Winfrey?

  of a day, a relationship, and even a whole life. So the next time you reach for your phone to call someone you love, know that AT&T is with you, keeping that connection strong because AT&T is there when the connection matters. And connecting changes everything.

• 35:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Laura joins us now from New York City. Laura, hi, what's going on?

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Hi. First of all, thank you all so much for having me. So I am 49 years old. I have had a long career in different parts of the performing arts. I was a classical singer, did some work in academia and traveled the world when I was younger and really thought that was my purpose was singing and making beautiful music and experiencing everything that the world could give. And then I transitioned into education, which I find to be one of the most rewarding jobs and most important things that we can do is be with young people and mentor them.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  And it's rewarding in a lot of ways, but I'm feeling stuck because and a little sad because the passion that was once music and singing for me is just not really. I've done it and that part of my life feels like a little bit over. And so I'm teaching students, which is really motivating as well. But I'm thinking like, what's for me? And I just recently, like I said, turned 49 and I'm looking ahead next year to my 50th birthday and I'm thinking about all of my friends that, yeah, thank you, that I want to be able to like take on a trip and like pay for everything.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  And I'm like, well, I don't have the kind of salary to be able to do a lot of the things that I really want to do for the people that I love and with the people that I love. And that is very real to me now as I'm looking forward to this next chapter and I have all this energy and agency to really create things and have this beautiful, meaningful chapter. And I'm just feeling like I'm stuck in a cage and I have the key. But my my question is like for Simon, what what should my guiding question or my my guide light be? What should I wake up with in the morning and ask myself? And then also, what what could be a next step?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  It's so I weirdly see this a lot in the arts. Right?

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Because somebody, I'm sure your your story is somewhat similar to this. You know, you're a little kid growing up wherever you grew up and you dream of being on Broadway. You dream of being a singer and you dream and it's a very fixed goal. You know, Olympians are like this, you know? And you spend your whole life taking singing classes and dancing classes and acting classes to achieve the goal. And some make it. But you spent your whole life achieving, you know, working to achieve this goal and then you make it. And then what? And I see it a lot in the arts, you know, the ones, the ones who make it, the ones who get to Broadway, you know, they're actually completely, they're so passionate until they make it. And then they're sort of don't, what, do you do another show? You know? So let me ask you a question.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Your identity. Yeah, your identity.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  So I get this and it's just to take comfort in the fact that you you are not alone in this in this feeling.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Let me ask you a question. What is something you did in your career? Doesn't matter if it's commercially successful or not, that you absolutely loved being a part of? Something specific that you did that you loved being a part of that if everything you did was like this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive?

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Okay, I think I would have to say, say, recording.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Recording what specifically? What specific album?

• 39:00Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh, that's okay.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  I want to know one, I want to know a specific thing that if you just did this one thing.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Hunchback of Notre Dame, the 2015 new cast recording. And being in the room with Alan Makin, Stephen Schwartz and all these incredible artists. And I was in the ensemble. So just the magic of that. And I remember waking up the next day feeling like I was just hung over, like, why can't I do something like this every day?

• 39:26Speaker 01

  So you've done, you've been in ensembles before. You've done recordings before. You've been in the room with other amazing people before. What specifically was it about this recording that stood out from all the others?

• 39:37Speaker 02

  It felt like the story was so amazing to be a part of this specific story.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Was so important about an outcast and, you know, lifting, lifting this up and lifting someone who didn't have a chance. And I think it was that. And then also just the sheer beauty of the sound around me. And there was no, there was no politics. There was no, you know, in New York, you show up for a gig sometimes and, you know, there's like a vibe and the vibe was just so good. Everyone was on the same page and everyone was so excited.

• 40:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Everybody was in sync.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  And now, and last question, which is tell me an early, specific happy childhood memory, something that, you know, not like we went to my grandparents every weekend, something that one specific that we can relive with you.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness, I had a lot, very lucky. I would say going on summer vacations, we had one week in the summer where my dad, we would all go, we'd pile in the car and we'd go to Florida and that was our vacation time, all together, just the five of us and no one else. And that was a really wonderful.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  I can work with that a little bit. So what we have here is, is the, the, the connection between those two memories. There is something to be said for being in a room with like-minded people, all going in the, in the same direction, right? That's what that recording had in common. That's what these vacations have in common. And so immediately, what I'm getting the sense, when you're trying to say, what should I do next? You're saying, what, what's the next stage in my career? And so you're trying to say, how do I act alone to find something to do next? Where you are your happiest, when you are in the car with people heading in the same direction, where you're in the room of a recording, heading in the same direction. Right? So I think task number one is not, you're asking yourself the wrong question, which is not what should I be doing next, but who do I want to be doing the thing next with?

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Go find a team, go find a group, go find a cause, go find something that you believe in, go find a story that resonates with you, but find a group of people and join that ensemble, join that group and take those risks. If you do it yourself, you've got your, just based on what I'm hearing, you're working to your weaknesses because you really love being in the car, in the room, part of the ensemble, part of the story, part of the group, the vibe, you know?

• 41:53Oprah Winfrey?

  In synergy.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  In synergy.

• 41:54Oprah Winfrey?

  In synergy with other people.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  So, so continue on this journey of exploration of what next, but make sure you do it with others who are, who are, who are on the same, who are on the same journey.

• 42:03Oprah Winfrey?

  That's so key. I saw your light bulb moment right there. I saw your big, ah.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:07Oprah Winfrey?

  It's not, it's not, what, it's not what, what next, but who are you doing it with?

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Find other performers.

• 42:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Find other people.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Find other performers in your same, in your same group and start a little group of four, five or six of you. And, and I guarantee you, the four, five or six of you will figure it out. I guarantee it.

• 42:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, Laura.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 42:26Oprah Winfrey?

  You know, Laura, as like so many other people, I thought what you said about searching for the dream and giving everything to dream, who are still searching for that dream. Do you think most people find their dream job? Is that a realistic hope? And once they find it, what does that mean?

• 42:43Speaker 01

  I, I, I think that, you know, this is sort of like where my work and your work sometimes get misinterpreted.

• 42:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  And, you know, our guidance counselors don't help, you know?

• 42:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Like, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?

• 42:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Of your life.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  You know?

• 42:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  And it's, it's, you know, and like my work, people say, people have said to me very cynically, oh, well, you talk about Apple in your book, you know? But I, I work in manufacturing, so it's like, it's, it's, we're confusing the glamour of the product with the people that we're doing it with. And it's, it's about being like, as human beings, we have the desperate need, the deep seated need to feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves, to be contributors to something bigger. And that's more about culture. That's more, so, I mean, one of my favorite leaders, a gentleman by the name of Bob Chapman, who ran a manufacturing company in the Midwest called Barry Waymiller. I mean, it's, it's blue collar manufacturing work.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  And yet, when you visit their factories, you see people who wake up every day with this amazing sense of purpose, because they recognize that their job is not just to make machines, their job is to serve the person to the left and serve the person to the right. And you, they feel each other there to support each other.

• 43:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  And they come to work in service of each other. The product is, is irrelevant. And this is, and this is why it's so important to surround ourselves with the right people.

• 44:07Oprah Winfrey?

  And it's also why I say, and you say in your own way, and I say in my own way, that you, you, you don't concern yourself with success. You shift the paradigm of whatever it is you're doing to how do I use this in service to something that's bigger than myself, that's greater than myself? And everything else changes with that.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  And look, and people are cynical. When you and I sit in front of microphones and our bully pulpits and, you know?

• 44:32Oprah Winfrey?

  It looks like, well, of course.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  There's fame and there's money.

• 44:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  And, and they'd be like, well, you can afford, you can afford to. And what they, what they fail to recognize is if you go back, and I'm just guessing because I don't know. So I, but if you go back to both of our stories.

• 44:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  I was turning down work when I could not afford to turn down work because it was the wrong person who didn't believe in what I was trying to do in the world. And, and, and it, and it was hard. And, and so I've been turning down the wrong people to work with since, before I could afford to. And, and the, and what people are seeing is the unintended byproduct of, of doing something that I believed in.

• 45:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  It didn't suddenly.

• 45:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Aligning with your purpose.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  It didn't happen when the success came.

• 45:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  The success came.

• 45:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Because you did it.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Because it happened.

• 45:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Because, because you asked the why first. I, I know that, I know that. And that the same thing is true for me, is that in, the show took off when I shifted it to how do we use this, not just as a force for good, but how do we use it in service to the viewer and not just by having viewers watch?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  And I think that the great, I think the thing that you and I have to do.

• 45:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Is, is not simply talk about the things we got right.

• 45:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, is to talk about the things.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  It's the things that we got wrong.

• 45:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, all the things that were wrong.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  And the mistakes and the heartache and the, and the stress and the pain and the people who, who pushed us aside. And I think to talk about where we struggled.

• 46:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Has actually greater value.

• 46:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Because by always talking about what we got right, what we got right, somebody who's struggling, it makes it feel like everything's out of reach.

• 46:10Oprah Winfrey?

  I know when you were talking about going into your boss and asking for a raise. I remember going into my boss and asking for a raise and my boss saying to me, because I was working with Richard Shear, who was my, was my partner on, on this talk show. And Richard was making 50,000 and I was making 22. And we were doing the same job. And I went to the boss and I said, I, I think I should be paid the same thing as Richard. And he says, why? And I said, well, because we're doing the same job. And he said, well, Richard has children. Do you have children? Richard has a home. Do you have a home? Richard has insurance payments. Do you have a payment? And I said, no, sir. And he said, okay, then. And that was it.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  I was, I was 20, I was 22 or 23 years old. I had a job for a company and.

• 46:56Oprah Winfrey?

  But I did decide, I'm not going to stay here.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 46:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, I'm not going to stay here.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  I had a boss, literally, which she used to, she used to like to have career conversations with us. And I kid you, this actually happened. And so in one of my career conversations, this is, I word for word what she said to me. She said, you have no talent. And, and I said, none? And she said, none. I said, I can write pretty well. She goes, not for business you can. And I thought it was so hilarious because it's so ridiculous. Like, everybody has some talent.

• 47:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Right? Like, even like a tiny little bit.

• 47:30Oprah Winfrey?

  So it didn't make you feel bad?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  It didn't make me feel bad because it was such a ridiculous, if she said, you don't have much talent.

• 47:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  That would have hurt. That would have sent me spiraling into a deep depression. Right? But she said, you have no talent? I mean, like, how can you take something like that seriously?

• 47:44Oprah Winfrey?

  You said, I know I have some.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  I got something. I mean, like empirically, you're wrong.

• 47:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, Marsha's in Denver. Hi, Marsha. I hear after 40 years of working, you've decided to retire and it's terrifying and it keeps you up at night. Right?

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Yes, thank you, Oprah. Thank you, Simon, for letting me join this conversation.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Thanks for joining us.

• 48:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm ready for the gold watch. The problem is, I cannot figure out how to get to a why that I have to completely divine for myself in this new experience. You know, I've had the thread when you were talking about that. I think back on my career and my thread has been always, there's been a community of people that, you know, like that Laura has and Laura's looking for. And I think about that, I'm like pushing myself into a place now with retirement where I'll have maybe blocks of time where I do go to the gym or I play mahjong or something. But there's big blocks of time where no longer am I part of a community.

• 48:47Speaker 04

  And first, so my two questions for both of you would be, one, how important is it that I make a community my why? Because it seems more like an endpoint than a, that seems more a what than a why? And two, help me sort all this out to get to what do I need to do to find the why to move me into this next phase of my life?

• 49:09Speaker 01

  So I, uh, community is probably, uh, it's probably in the how stage, which is how do you go about bringing your why to life? Community is, is one of the essential components. But there's a fun little thing that you can do that will get you in the ballpark of your why. It's called the friends test, right? Find a friend you love and who loves you. Like if a friend who, if they called you at three o'clock in the morning, you'd absolutely take the call. Or if you called them at three in the morning, you know they'd be there for you, right? Do not do this with family. Do not do this with, with a spouse. It just doesn't, those relationships are too close. Do it with a best friend, right? And ask them this question, why are we friends? And they're gonna look at you like you have seven heads, right?

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Because it's an emotional question and it's very hard for human beings to put emotions into words. It's the wrong part of the brain. So they're gonna look at you like you're crazy and then you immediately change the question. You actually abandon the question why. And you say, come on, what specifically is it about me that I know you would be there for me no matter what? And they'll hem and they'll ha and they'll try to describe you, you're loyal, I trust you, you've always been there for me. And you play devil's advocate. Great, great. You have that with lots of friends. What specifically is it about me that I, that I, that I am so confident that I know you'd be there for me no matter what? And again, they're gonna go through a few rounds of this. Do not help them. Do not let anybody else help them. Let them go through the stress and the strain and eventually they will give up trying to

• 50:35Speaker 01

  describe you and they will start describing themselves. And this is what my friends said to me. They said, eventually when they gave up, they said, Simon, I don't know. All I know is that I can just sit in a room with you. I don't even have to talk to you and I feel inspired. And I got goosebumps. In fact, I'm getting them right now. Because what your friends will articulate to you is the value you have in their lives. It's the space you fill that no one else can fill and that's your why. It's that act of service. It's the thing you give to the world. And if you do this, and you will have an emotional response when they say it. You will get goosebumps, you'll swell up with, you'll well up with tears, you will have an emotional response, which is proof that they're tapping into your why.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  And if you do this exercise with a few friends, they will say similar, if not the exact same thing. Because that's the value you have in the world. Go do the friends test and that will help you get to the core of who you are and the value you give to the world. And then the fun thing is now in retirement, what are all the new ways that I can bring this to life that I didn't have the opportunity or the time before?

• 51:40Speaker 04

  Great. I can't wait to go torture my friends and family.

• 51:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And you know, so many people, and I think you mentioned this on the phone to, to the producers, that so many people who are going through what you're going through, particularly having identified with a job for so many years, once you are leaving that job, lose that identity and don't, don't know who you are anymore.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  It's very, very common. This is one of the reasons to, to articulate your why, because it allows you to define your personality and, and your person in terms other than your job, right? When I blur books, it always says, Simon Sinek, optimist and author. Because I never want to be defined by the work that I do or that I have done. I want to define by, be defined by who I am. Until the day I die, I'm an optimist. I may not write more books. I may not give more talk. So I don't want to define myself by work. My work is my output. It's, it's, and so if I stop writing, I don't care. If I stop speaking, whatever, you know, but I will never stop being an optimist.

• 52:47Speaker 04

  I love that. I just think that's great. Maybe it's that I want to be a connector or that I want to, uh, I think about, when you talk about being a force for good, Oprah, I think about maybe just being a little kinder, right? Maybe that's all I get out of the next 30 years. I think that would be.

• 53:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  I look forward to hearing how you torture your friends.

• 53:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. We can all be a little kinder. Thank you so much, Marsha. Okay. So we've been through so many crises lately, pandemics and economic downturns. What distinguishes, do you think, a leader who navigates crises well?

• 53:24Speaker 01

  It's a, it's that infinite mindset. Too many leaders are focused on the quarterly results, the annual results, and that's pretty much it. It's, it's short-termism.

• 53:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  And the great leaders have a very, very long-term view of things. Their goal is not to quote unquote, be number one or be the best, because that doesn't exist. There's no, there's no such a thing as winning in business. It doesn't exist. Like when, when Circuit City went bankrupt, Best Buy didn't win anything, right? The goal is to stay in the game as long as possible. That's what The Infinite Game is all about. And so when we have crises, they understand even if it's difficult and even if it adds stress to the system, it's, it's, it's a moment in time. It's kind of like getting the flu. It's not the end, it's just a period. It sucks and I have to cancel a vacation, but, but I'll get through this.

• 54:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, I think that applies to people who are leaving corporations and people who are also just leaving themselves.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Hundred percent. Hundred percent. Which is, and again, I will say this over and over again, and this has been my own journey, right? Which is I'm writing a book about friendship right now. I'm obsessed with friendship right now. And people look at me and I've written sort of these philosophy books cleverly disguised as business books.

• 54:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  And, you know, I've been writing about work, work, work. Why would I write about friendship now? It doesn't, you know, Simon, that doesn't seem to make sense. It makes perfect sense. Because all of my work, what I've learned, is that starting with why is something we give to the world, it's something we give to other people. We just talked about it, right? Leaders Eat Last is about how to create circles of safety and psychological safeties for other people to thrive and be at their natural best. The Infinite Game is how to have this long-term perspective that we can only get through difficulty and uncertainty if we are together. And so it makes perfect sense to write about the, the mechanics of friendship, how to actually be a friend, which so few of us are actually very good at. Because it's relationships. It's relationships. We're social animals.

• 55:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  We cannot survive or thrive alone. It just doesn't exist.

• 55:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  And, and to understand how a friendship works and how to resolve conflict and have difficult conversations and how to nurture friendship and grow a friendship and how to repair a friendship, these skills are all transferable to absolutely every aspect of our life. Being a good leader doesn't make you a better friend. Being a good spouse doesn't make you a better friend. But being a good friend makes you a better spouse and it makes you a better leader.

• 55:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. Incredible. So would you give the same advice to everyone watching and listening to us right now that you just gave to Marsha to do the friend test?

• 55:58Speaker 01

  It's tons of fun.

• 55:59Oprah Winfrey?

  But would you do that? If, if people who are listening to us right now and are like, okay, this has really inspired me, but I still don't know what my why is. What is the key to finding your why?

• 56:11Speaker 01

  So, uh, you cannot do it for yourself, because we're not objective about ourselves, right? And so as much as I, even, even I asked somebody to help me with mine, right? Because you need somebody to be able to look at those patterns objectively. We can't see them. It's, it's the forest for the trees.

• 56:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  And so I've made it my goal to offer as many resources as possible to people and they can choose the one they like. I wrote a book called Find Your Why, if you want to do the workbook.

• 56:39Oprah Winfrey?

  You wrote a book called Start With Why.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Like we, I, I've done, you know, we have an app called Leaderful and in there, there's ways to help find your why. You can do the friends test, which is free.

• 56:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  You know, we're, we're certifying coaches now. We have a why school. We're certifying coaches. If you want to hire a coach to help you find your why. The point is find the thing that works for you. And my goal is to make as many of those things available. So start with the friends test. It, it'll get you in the ballpark. It'll get you language that's, that's actionable. And however you want to do it, you should absolutely do it. And there's, and, and there's, and my rule is you have to want to. That's really important. So I tell my friends, my friends know what I do, and I say to them, I will help you find your why. The answer will always be yes, but you have to ask me. I will never push it on you and I will never tell you. And if I see my friends struggling and I know it's gonna work, I know it's gonna fix everything, I'll never force it on somebody. They have to be ready and they have to come to me and say, can you help me find my why?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  And the answer's always gonna be yes. So if you think you're ready, choose the thing that you think works best for you, dip your toe in with a friends test if you like. And, and, but you have, you have to want it.

• 57:45Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm curious to your thoughts on this, because you're so well-known for helping millions of people find their why. What is the why behind a well-lived life?

• 57:59Speaker 01

  It's service. A true purpose, true purpose, is the opportunity to serve those who serve others. There was a guy named Matthew O'Reilly, and he was an EMT. It's a five-minute TED Talk. You can find it on YouTube. And basically, what happens is he showed up to a scene of a car accident or a motorcycle accident. And he could tell from this person's injuries that they weren't going to make it. They were conscious, but they weren't going to make it. And people look at these EMTs and they say, "Am I going to make it? Am I going to die?" And for some reason, we believe that by lying to them, it makes it better. "You're going to be OK. We got you. Don't worry. We're going to take care of you. You're going to be OK." And it's a lie. They know that these people aren't going to survive.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  And so he showed up to a motorcycle accident, and he doesn't know why he did this, but for some reason, he told the truth. The person said, "Am I going to die?" He goes, "Yes, you're not going to make it." And this calm came over them.

• 58:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Over the person?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Over the person. They asked three questions. They said, "I hope my family loved me." You know?

• 59:09Speaker 01

  And they wanted to make sure that they were good to others. It's incredible.

• 59:14Oprah Winfrey?

  It's called, "Am I Dying?"

• 59:15Speaker 01

  "Am I Dying?" Matthew O'Reilly, thank you. And they just wanted to know that their life mattered to others.

• 59:23Oprah Winfrey?

  They asked the EMT that? You asked him that?

• 59:26Speaker 01

  It's not that they asked. It's that they said, "I hope I lived a life that mattered to others."

• 59:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  And so, and then the more he did this, the more he discovered that those same three themes were the exact same person, the exact same themes that showed up for every person who was dying.

• 59:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Which means it's deep-seated in us. It's deep-seated in us that we want to matter to our friends, we want to matter to our family, and we want to matter to the people in the world. And so if that's the question you're going to be asking when you come face to face with your mortality, why not live that life now? This is the thing that I found that...

• 59:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Isn't that the thing that everybody else is looking for? That's what I learned. That was the one thing that came out of 25 years of experience of every single show, is that everybody wanted to be heard, seen, and to know that they mattered.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's service. I'll tell you a quick, funny story where I learned this. I have a friend who was struggling. I mean, like, everything wasn't working. Her marriage was collapsing. Her career wasn't going well. Her kids were driving her nuts. I mean, she just, she was just, it was, she was making a hard go of it. And, you know, we've been friends forever. And she says to me, "Can you help me?" I said, "Why don't we get together every Wednesday, and I'll coach you?" And so every Wednesday, for 90 minutes, we got together. She told me what was going on in her life. I gave her some friendly advice. She felt amazing.

• 1:00:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  She went away, lasted about, the halo lasted about two days, and then went back into malaise. Repeat, Wednesday. Amazing, two days, malaise. And this went on for months. This was just the pattern, rinse and repeat. And so I realized, this is not working. And so the funny thing is, I went back to my own work. And I looked at Alcoholics Anonymous, right? The 12-Step Program. We know the, most of us know the first step. Admit, you have a problem.

• 1:01:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  But it's the 12th step. It's the 12th step, which is to help another alcoholic. Service. And to help somebody who's struggling with the thing that you're struggling with. So I said to my friend, I said, "Look, we get together every week. I have an idea. Why don't we split the time? Why don't we do 45 minutes where you can coach me? Because I need help too." And I was, it was genuine. It wasn't, it was like, I want to talk to somebody who I trust. And then, and then, and then we'll help each other." She goes, "Great." So we got together the next Wednesday. And we started with me, and it lasted the whole 90 minutes. And then the next week, we started with me, and it lasted the whole 90 minutes. And the next week, we started with me, and it lasted the whole 90 minutes. And in about three weeks, everything in her life was thriving. And I never gave her a single word of advice.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  It's when she had the opportunity to coach me, she solved all of her own problems. And what I have learned is that if you're looking for love, go find, go help somebody else who's looking for love. If you're struggling to find joy in your career, go help somebody else who's looking to find joy in their career. If you're looking, whatever you're struggling with, if you can find a friend and somebody you care about, and you can help them overcome the struggle that they're struggling with the same thing, you will find very quickly that you will overcome those challenges yourself. The greatest opportunity is to serve those who serve others and serve those we love. That is, that, to me, is the ultimate purpose of life.

• 1:02:34Oprah Winfrey?

  That was the ultimate purpose of this podcast. Thank you so much, Simon Sinek.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  Oprah, what a joy.

• 1:02:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Just thank you for being here in the tea house. His books, Start with the Why, Find Your Why, The Infinite Game. What is the one you're working on now?

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  It's, I don't have a title for it yet, but it's all about friendship. How to be a friend.

• 1:02:52Oprah Winfrey?

  How to be a family. All of, that's not available yet, but all the other books are available everywhere books are sold. And thank you to Sarah, and thank you to Laura and Marcia for zooming in. We wish you luck on your next path. Thank you for watching. See you next time. Go well, everybody. And thank you to our friends at GEICO for presenting today's episode. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing. I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's just a quick tap of the Subscribe button, and that way, you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything.

• 1:03:37Oprah Winfrey?

  I know Subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time, it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening.