0
SPEAKER_00
Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I ve got an invitation for you.
0
SPEAKER_00
Join me at this year s Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness.
0
SPEAKER_00
This is the one time a year
0
SPEAKER_00
that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful, transformative weekend.
0
SPEAKER_00
People come from all over the world, and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jaspreet Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Cinchero, and many more.
0
SPEAKER_00
You ll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.
0
SPEAKER_00
So if you re ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023.
0
SPEAKER_00
Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I ll see you there.
0
SPEAKER_01
This whole idea of setting boundaries, you know.
0
SPEAKER_01
It gets a little bit misunderstood.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like everybody thinks you have to set boundaries, which means keep people away.
0
SPEAKER_01
I refuse to do that.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s beyond my boundary.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m not doing that.
0
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s not what boundaries mean.
0
SPEAKER_01
What boundaries means are, let me tell you what I imagine and what my limitations are.
0
SPEAKER_01
We have boundaries in relationships, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
You sit down with your partner, you co-create the relationship that you want to have.
0
SPEAKER_01
And if you re a good relationship, you discuss what the boundaries are that you both agree to obey.
0
SPEAKER_01
So I hear what the boundaries are you want.
0
SPEAKER_01
You understand the things that I need.
0
SPEAKER_01
And we come to an agreement and say, yes, those are the boundaries.
0
SPEAKER_00
Welcome to the School of Greatness.
0
SPEAKER_00
My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
0
SPEAKER_00
And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
0
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for spending some time with me today.
0
SPEAKER_00
Now let the class begin.
0
SPEAKER_00
One of the things I love about you is how
0
SPEAKER_00
intelligent you are, and also vulnerable you are.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s a rare combination, because usually people lean one way or the other, but you re really great at mixing both of them.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, thank you.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I wanted to ask you a question that I think has been an interesting conversation, specifically in the last three to six months, that includes relationships, work, AI, and leadership.
0
SPEAKER_00
There s been a lot of, in my opinion, distractions over the last few years of all the new shiny things that come out that are available for us at work, at home, and in relationships.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I m curious, with everything that you ve seen in the last few years, all the different distractions that have come out in life, where do you see intimacy and relationships, personally and also professionally,
0
SPEAKER_00
in the workplace as AI starts to evolve in everywhere.
0
SPEAKER_01
So, let s just take one step back.
0
SPEAKER_01
The concept of AI is not new.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s an algorithm.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right?
0
SPEAKER_01
And our lives, since the early days of the internet, have been governed by algorithms.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right?
0
SPEAKER_01
What s an algorithm?
0
SPEAKER_01
Let s start there.
0
SPEAKER_01
We talk about algorithms every day.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s in our vernacular, but what is it?
0
SPEAKER_01
An algorithm is very simply a set of instructions, mathematical or computer code.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s a set of instructions.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s all it is, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
So, a recipe is an algorithm.
0
SPEAKER_01
Two eggs, cup of milk, some flour, what you get is that.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so, you know, the algorithm, a set of instructions is, you know, Lewis went on Amazon and bought this, show him that.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right?
0
SPEAKER_01
That s all it is.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s a list of instructions to solve a problem or to generate some sort of result.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so there s been artificial intelligence around us for a long time.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know, if you go back to the early days of, you know, Ask Jeeves, which was pre-Google, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
Didn t work very well.
0
SPEAKER_01
And you had to write in full sentences.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so Google was invented a different algorithm that worked a different way that you could put in less information and you could get the thing that you re more likely to be looking for.
0
SPEAKER_01
And the goal was always that you d find what you re looking for on the first page.
0
SPEAKER_01
Remember back in the early days, you d sometimes have to scroll a few pages.
0
SPEAKER_01
So they re constantly improving these lists of instructions and tell the computer what to do with a certain input.
0
SPEAKER_01
I think the thing that s new is the generative AI, where the machine can sort of
0
SPEAKER_01
A, it sounds like Star Trek, you know, it s like it speaks in normal language that you don t have to type in Google, you know, Google is a language, you know, you type in the keywords you want, you don t have to complete sentences, but now you talk to another human being and it tells you what you want.
0
SPEAKER_01
But it s still based on existing information.
0
SPEAKER_01
The thing that scares me about AI is the thing that I think scares everybody about generative AI, and the speed at which this algorithm can work and the speed at which it can invent things.
0
SPEAKER_01
And... But is that something to be scared about or more excited about?
0
SPEAKER_01
Both.
0
SPEAKER_01
The answer s both.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I think anybody who comes on one side or the other of the equation is missing the point, you know?
0
SPEAKER_01
There s a cost for everything.
0
SPEAKER_01
And for all the benefits of anything in our lives, there s always a cost.
0
SPEAKER_01
You want to make a lot of money.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s your drive.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know, you want to get rich and become a millionaire.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_01
There s a cost for the money you make.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re going to sacrifice relationships.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re going to sacrifice sleep.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re going to sacrifice your health.
0
SPEAKER_01
Who knows what it is.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right.
0
SPEAKER_01
But you re going to pay for that in some way, shape or form.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s a balanced equation.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right.
0
SPEAKER_01
So the more fantastic.
0
SPEAKER_01
the benefits of any technology, the balanced equation has to be considered.
0
SPEAKER_01
Is it worth all the benefits if it s going to cost this much, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
And we re looking at climate change now and industrialization, like all the benefits industrialization, was it worth the cost?
0
SPEAKER_01
I think some of us would have preferred to maybe scale back some of that and not deal with what we re dealing with now.
0
SPEAKER_01
So, I think we have to do a cost analysis, which is, I want this, but at what cost?
0
SPEAKER_01
I want this, but at the cost of undermining a democracy?
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that seems like a steep cost for something to write a book for me.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know?
0
SPEAKER_01
Like, I m not sure.
0
SPEAKER_01
And at least as it exists now, it s useless for original thoughts.
0
SPEAKER_01
So people ask me all the time, are you scared of it?
0
SPEAKER_01
I m like, absolutely not.
0
SPEAKER_01
Not scared of it at all.
0
SPEAKER_01
Because if you ask AI to write a book in the style of Simon Sinek, you know, on any subject, it can only draw from what I ve already written.
0
SPEAKER_01
But it can t give them a new thought.
0
SPEAKER_01
Doesn t bring new perspective.
0
SPEAKER_01
There s no new ideas, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
Um, it will do some things that I think are really interesting.
0
SPEAKER_01
It ll change the balance of jobs.
0
SPEAKER_01
So, for example, if you work in public relations or if you re a, you know, even a script writer, whatever it is, you know, there is fear of AI, of course.
0
SPEAKER_01
Um, again, can t do general, uh, can t do, uh, new ideas.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right.
0
SPEAKER_01
But a lot of ideas are not new.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know?
0
SPEAKER_01
Steal like an artist, repackage it, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
But let s take a PR company, for example, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
It takes a lot of time to write that first draft, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
And you need a good writer to write a first draft.
0
SPEAKER_01
What ll happen with AI is AI can write the first draft instantaneously.
0
SPEAKER_01
So, like in my world, in writing, you know this from writing a book, the writer s the hero, the editor s like the hired help.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right?
0
SPEAKER_01
That ll switch.
0
SPEAKER_01
Which, not for new ideas, but for ideas that don t require novelty.
0
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
0
SPEAKER_01
Write a press release that, you know.
0
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
0
SPEAKER_00
It has four bullet points.
0
SPEAKER_00
It talks about the benefits.
0
SPEAKER_00
Right.
0
SPEAKER_01
The editors will become the heroes because the AI can write the first draft.
0
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
0
SPEAKER_01
So I think that balance will change.
0
SPEAKER_01
But to go back to your original question, to go back to your original question,
0
SPEAKER_01
One of the conversations that s not happening about any of this, we re not talking at all about social ripples.
0
SPEAKER_01
And there are always social ripples, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
And there s a blindness.
0
SPEAKER_01
People are blind when it comes to how we talk about new things, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
And when I talk about social ripples, what I mean is fear.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right?
0
SPEAKER_01
Fear is an emotion.
0
SPEAKER_01
It is sometimes irrational.
0
SPEAKER_01
Not always.
0
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes irrational.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it can produce behaviors that can be antisocial.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you re afraid enough, you can hurt someone.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right?
0
SPEAKER_01
You can hurt them with your words.
0
SPEAKER_01
You can hurt them with your actions based on fear.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right?
0
SPEAKER_01
We ve all said things in relationships out of fear.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right?
0
SPEAKER_01
So let s take an analogy.
0
SPEAKER_01
A bunch of do-gooders come into a town in Ohio.
0
SPEAKER_01
coal town
1
SPEAKER_01
angrily against it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, the reality is they re not anti-winds, nor are they anti-solar.
1
SPEAKER_01
All I know is I m a coal miner.
1
SPEAKER_01
My father was a coal miner.
1
SPEAKER_01
My father s father was a coal miner.
1
SPEAKER_01
All I know is how to do coal mining.
1
SPEAKER_01
And all I know is this mine down the street produces income for me to take care of my family.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you re coming in here and say, we re going to take your income away.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re not getting rid of coal.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m taking rid of your livelihood.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you have no discernible skill set.
1
SPEAKER_01
What you get is fear.
1
SPEAKER_01
And when somebody doesn t feel seen or heard and they feel afraid that you re coming in to take something away from them, they re going to put up a wall and say, you cannot do that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s the same thing going on here, which is, um, um, all the discussion is all the job that s going to take away.
1
SPEAKER_01
all the things it s going to destroy, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
And so what it s producing is fear.
1
SPEAKER_01
And when you have fear, you have emotional reactions that have nothing to do with computers, nothing to do with algorithms, nothing to do with generative AI.
1
SPEAKER_01
What it has to do with, at the minimum, is how I vote.
1
SPEAKER_01
But worse, it can get people so afraid that they start lashing out in antisocial ways, sometimes as individuals and sometimes as groups.
1
SPEAKER_01
right?
1
SPEAKER_01
And we are not talking about the social ripples.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re also living in a world where the haves and the have nots, um, the richest people and your frontline worker, the disparity is so great, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, the average, so if you go back, I think 50 years or so, 40 years or so, um, on average, a CEO made about 35 times what the lowest paid worker
1
SPEAKER_01
And now you re talking 400, 500, 600, 700 times, 800 times the lowest paid workers, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
The disparity is so great.
1
SPEAKER_01
1% of the population owns 80% of the stock, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s just, it s so great.
1
SPEAKER_01
And when you have huge gaps between the wealthy and those who work to make the wealthy wealthy, that is a recipe for rebellion.
1
SPEAKER_01
So we already are living in a tinderbox right now, where this is normal.
1
SPEAKER_01
right?
1
SPEAKER_01
And we ve seen the rise of this populist message.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t care if you re a Republican or Democrat, we heard it from Trump, we heard it from Bernie Sanders, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
They re pointing out the disparity and the liberals loved Bernie and the conservatives loved Trump, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because they re saying,
1
SPEAKER_01
Look what s happening.
1
SPEAKER_01
And unfortunately, in both cases, a leveraging fear for a vote.
1
SPEAKER_01
But we re not talking about the fear that the discussion of AI is producing and the reactions that it can have that has nothing to do with a computer.
1
SPEAKER_01
Really?
1
SPEAKER_00
We re not talking about that.
1
SPEAKER_00
What are the fear conversations that you re hearing from people
1
SPEAKER_00
Um, and what are the emotions that are coming out of it at the early stages?
1
SPEAKER_00
And where do you think that s good ahead over the next few years?
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, nobody s listening.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, again, it goes back to that coal miner example, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well intentioned people can come in and say, um, um,
1
SPEAKER_01
This is something that s important to the environment, but we understand this is highly disruptive to your life.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re not gonna take anything away, but I wanna hear how you feel.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re not asking those questions.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re not asking questions.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re not trying to understand the fear.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re not making people feel seen or heard or understood.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re just coming in, you know, they re barreling in.
1
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, this is both sides of the political aisle.
1
SPEAKER_01
Both sides of the political aisle are barreling in with their desires without listening to the people who it s gonna affect, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
And then they re surprised that people are angry and put up a roadblock.
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, uh, and so, to answer your question, it s not happening.
1
SPEAKER_01
Those conversations aren t happening.
1
SPEAKER_01
There is a total lack of listening in our nation.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s a total lack of empathy in our nation.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, we re now living in a world of, you re right, and I m right, and you re wrong, rather than we have a problem, and we should be you and me against the problem, rather than me against you.
1
SPEAKER_00
which is like a healthy, conscious, intimate relationship, but they teach you in therapy.
1
SPEAKER_00
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you ll find a lot of overlaps in the stuff that we re going to talk about if you want to talk mass population.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_01
And intimate relationships.
1
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s human beings talking to human beings.
1
SPEAKER_00
Do you think that we will ever, as a nation, at least in this country, be able to say, hey, how do we come together and focus on the problem, not your right and your wrong?
1
SPEAKER_00
Or do you think it s politics create so much of a division that
1
SPEAKER_00
people just, there ll be too much fear for people to actually listen to both sides.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m not even talking about politics, but just about AI or relationships or business or wealth or whatever it might be.
1
SPEAKER_00
Do you think we ll ever be able to do that?
1
SPEAKER_00
You know when people come together and put all their political differences aside?
1
SPEAKER_00
War?
1
SPEAKER_01
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s kind of scary though.
1
SPEAKER_01
When we are challenged by an external existential threat, we come together, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
We saw it happen after September 11th.
1
SPEAKER_01
Osama bin Laden believed that by flying planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, that it would fracture America.
1
SPEAKER_01
It did the absolute opposite.
1
SPEAKER_01
because there s one thing greater than my fear of you is the fear of that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we saw it during the first rendition of the cold war, the fear of the Soviet Union and the nuclear war at the Soviet Union.
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, uh, even though
1
SPEAKER_01
there was politics and there was territoriality and the armed forces and all of the nonsense that still exists today.
1
SPEAKER_01
At the end of the day, we could all agree on one thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s worse.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I can put, we can put our differences aside because that s worse.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so the mistake that America made when the Berlin wall came down and the Soviet union collapsed, um, cause we falsely believed that we had won the war.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s no such thing as winning global politics.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like the Roman Empire doesn t exist, but the physical land still exists, and the people who were Romans are now Italians.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like nobody went away.
1
SPEAKER_01
They just changed forms.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like the law of conservation of matter, the law of conservation of energy, and there s a law of conservation of people.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right?
1
SPEAKER_01
People don t just disappear because the empire has gone.
1
SPEAKER_01
The empire is a political construction.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so we didn t win anything.
1
SPEAKER_01
The Soviet Union collapsed, but the people are still there, and the culture is still there, and the land is still there.
1
SPEAKER_01
And America acted like victors.
1
SPEAKER_01
And...
1
SPEAKER_01
what always happens in an infinite game, what always happens in a game that has no end, is new players will emerge.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like when one company goes bankrupt, it doesn t mean the game of business is over, it means new companies will fill the space.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, new nations fill the space.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so the threats that challenged America showed up in the form of North Korea, in the form of
1
SPEAKER_01
uh, global terrorism, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
Al Qaeda and ISIS and all other, uh, spin-offs.
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, and I think that global competition is actually a very good thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s scary, it creates tension.
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, but the irony is, is we as capitalists, because America believes in capitalism and democracy, we as capitalists believe that competition is ultimately good for the consumer and we have laws against monopolies.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, America for 30 years was acting like a monopoly, like the cable company.
1
SPEAKER_01
Everybody hated you.
1
SPEAKER_01
You had no choice, you know, and you can impose your will on the consumer willy nilly, which America imposed its will on the world willy nilly with no reaction.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I actually think the rise of a, of a, of a, a balance of power, a competition, um, is probably the best thing that can happen to America.
1
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t have to be war.
1
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t have to be war, but it does have to be somebody who offers a legitimate challenge to the power structure.
1
SPEAKER_00
Why do you think, in our personal lives, it takes a near-death experience to us or someone around us
1
SPEAKER_00
a big health scare, a divorce, a breakup, or a massive breakdown in career or something, for us to see a new path and start improving who we are, becoming better, transforming, overcoming this breakdown.
1
SPEAKER_00
And why does it sound like it takes war or conflict or something extremely scary out there for us to come together and start to transform as well as people?
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, we re a myopic bunch.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, human beings are very dopamine-driven.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, find the food, look for shelter, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
Then do it again.
1
SPEAKER_01
And long-term planning is not really our strength as a species.
1
SPEAKER_01
Uh, because long-term planning exists in our imaginations.
1
SPEAKER_01
I better save money for the day that I retire... 60 years from now.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know?
1
SPEAKER_01
It s just like, well, or I could just buy now.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because it feels better.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right?
1
SPEAKER_01
We re just, we re bad at it.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re bad as governments at it.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re bad as individuals at it.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re just bad at it.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re not engineered for it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I think that s a part of it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And what near-death
2
SPEAKER_01
experiences do or competitive threats do is they re tangible reminders of what could be.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because again, we re tangibly driven animals, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
We love tangibility metrics, things we can see.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, you hear a bump in the night, you have to go look for it, you know?
2
SPEAKER_01
And so it makes it real.
2
SPEAKER_01
So even though global threats have existed since the fall of the Soviet Union, now that you can see one, you know, now you can give it a name and a flag
2
SPEAKER_01
you know, in a language, it becomes a real thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think the same goes for, um, new death experiences.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like my mortality, which was something that I didn t think about is now real, which is why I ask, ask old people for advice.
2
SPEAKER_01
They give the best advice because they don t give a what you think about them.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because they re close, because they ve accepted their own mortality.
2
SPEAKER_01
The end is near.
2
SPEAKER_01
The end is near.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I m not doing anything to please you anymore.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m not trying to impress you.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, talk to a 20-year-old and talk to a 70-year-old and see what kind of advice you get.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s not just experience and wisdom.
2
SPEAKER_01
Of course, that factors in as well.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, one is much more concerned about what you think about them.
2
SPEAKER_01
The other one really doesn t care.
2
SPEAKER_01
Um, uh, so I think that s what these shocks do.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think one of the things that storytelling does, one of the things that you do and I do and others do, is by telling the stories of other people s near-death experiences or other people s, um, uh, losses, um, hopefully, hopefully inspires people to take on themselves without having to go through the challenge themselves.
2
SPEAKER_01
Um, um, that s the ideal.
2
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, I remember after September 11th, I was in New York on September 11th, and lived through it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You were there?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I watched the buildings fall.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Where, what part of, uh... I was downtown.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was in Soho.
2
SPEAKER_00
Really?
2
SPEAKER_01
So just about, I was, I actually did the calculations, I figured out I was exactly one mile.
2
SPEAKER_01
You could see the buildings?
2
SPEAKER_01
From my office, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I watched, I was, I was walking, I took the subway, and the subway stopped at 14th Street, and I still had to get to Soho.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I walked down 7th Avenue, which the end of 7th Avenue was the World Trade Center.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I was walking down watching them burning.
2
SPEAKER_01
Holy cow.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then got to work.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the view from my office was the World Trade Center.
2
SPEAKER_01
No way.
2
SPEAKER_01
And yeah, I remember the very strange, yeah, that s embossed in my brain.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m not going to forget that image of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
What was that?
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, this is a little sidetrack here, but what was that?
2
SPEAKER_00
day like?
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, watching it at your office, what was the scene like?
2
SPEAKER_00
Were people paying attention?
2
SPEAKER_00
Was ever all eyes on the building?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, of course.
2
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
2
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
Um, we were, you know, at this point we, when, when I woke up in the morning, cause the first plane hit shortly after 8 AM and I hadn t left the house yet.
2
SPEAKER_01
Had you already heard about it?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, it was on the news.
2
SPEAKER_01
A friend of mine called me and said, turn on the news.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I turned on the news, and there was a hole in the World Trade Center, and it was burning.
2
SPEAKER_01
But the scale of those buildings is so huge that we couldn t tell that it was an airliner.
2
SPEAKER_01
We thought it was a Cessna.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you saw a hole in the building.
2
SPEAKER_01
The buildings were so big.
2
SPEAKER_01
You literally just thought it was an... And it was a beautiful day.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s not like there was a storm.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was a perfect day.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we just thought it was an idiot and a Cessna.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I went to work.
2
SPEAKER_01
And people started to talk about it on the bus.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was taking the Crosstown bus, like, you know, did you see what happened?
2
SPEAKER_01
And by the time I got off the subway on 14th Street, because, you know, media disappears under the ground, now there were people sitting on the sides of the street listening to radios in their cars.
2
SPEAKER_01
And at this point now, we started to realize this was terrorism.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, we started to recognize what it was pretty quickly, but we didn t know what the implications were.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we also didn t expect the buildings to fall down.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, it was a weird flaw in how the buildings were made that made them... Because, you know, most buildings had internal load-bearing structures.
2
SPEAKER_01
And what made the World Trade Center unique was all the load-bearing structures were on the outside.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so, the floor is basically floated in the middle.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, except for the elevators, you could stand on one side of the World Trade Center inside and look clear over to the side of the building.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, it was, it was amazing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so they, they collapsed on top of each other when it came down, which nobody knew what happened.
2
SPEAKER_01
Um, and so, um, I was in constant contact with my sister who worked also in Soho across town and we were talking constantly and after the second building fell,
2
SPEAKER_01
I called her up and said, I m coming to get you.
2
SPEAKER_01
We re going to go home.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we lived uptown.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I walked across town together and, uh, we were part of the mass exodus walking four miles uptown.
2
SPEAKER_01
And, um, of all the thousands of images that were captured that day, um, one image I, and I went through all the books and everything, you know, I, uh, one image that was really never captured was this, it was very quiet.
2
SPEAKER_01
We were all walking in one direction, just imagine thousands of people, no cars on the road, walking north.
2
SPEAKER_01
No one in the subway.
2
SPEAKER_01
No.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, everyone s just like... Everybody s above ground, and we re all going, it was very quiet, and speckled in between all of this exodus were people covered head to toe in soot.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
But other than that, everything was normal.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were holding their briefcase and their newspaper, and it was just covered in debris.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were covered.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we saw the pictures of people covered, but they were just speckled.
2
SPEAKER_01
And my sister, she had two colleagues, which we dropped them off on the way.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I remember there was all four of us and we were coming up Park Avenue and there s a guy sitting on a stoop frantically calling somebody, I guess, to tell them that he was alive, frantically calling.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we walked up to him and we said, give us the number.
2
SPEAKER_01
No words were spoken.
2
SPEAKER_01
I remember, we just walked up and said, give us the number, we ll help call.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he held up his address book.
2
SPEAKER_01
He just pointed.
2
SPEAKER_01
He didn t have words.
2
SPEAKER_01
We all typed in the number into our phones and we re hitting, you know, send, send, send, send, send.
2
SPEAKER_01
Every single one of us was trying to call.
2
SPEAKER_01
We were all getting busy signals.
2
SPEAKER_01
My sister s phone got through.
2
SPEAKER_01
She hands him the phone.
2
SPEAKER_01
He takes it and he says, I m okay, I m okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
And gives the phone back and walks away.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we re all crying, obviously.
2
SPEAKER_01
We dropped off two of my sister s friends, colleagues, and it was just my sister and me walking up the rest of the way.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we got to Grand Central Station, which blocks Park Avenue, so you have to go around it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And as we got there, somebody started screaming, run, run, run.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we saw the cops, because there were fighter jets flying over us.
2
SPEAKER_01
You heard planes, but you didn t know what they were.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you ve heard planes flying over and we look down the street and the cops are going like this.
2
SPEAKER_01
And everybody started running and dropping things and shoes falling off.
2
SPEAKER_01
They thought another plane had hit, we didn t know what it was.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I grabbed my sister and I m thinking to myself, okay, there s gonna be a blast, it s gonna come down like this.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I pulled her off the street and put our hands up against the building.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I look up and it s a huge glass,
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s a, it s a shop window and I like, this is not going to be good.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I grabbed her and we just start running and then eventually just sort of petered out.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was a bomb scare.
2
SPEAKER_01
It turned out later.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then we made our way to the rest of the, we made our way back up town and didn t leave for, you know, two weeks.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, we just, I d like everybody just started watching television obsessively.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Holy cow.
2
SPEAKER_00
Did you guys, did you go back to work or was it like, work was done for weeks?
2
SPEAKER_00
Work was done for weeks.
2
SPEAKER_01
And when it opened up, like, nobody really wanted to go.
2
SPEAKER_01
And my office was in part of the town, in part of New York that was shut down.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, you couldn t... You couldn t get there?
2
SPEAKER_00
You couldn t get there.
2
SPEAKER_01
Holy cow.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, they wouldn t let you down there.
2
SPEAKER_00
How did that moment of being there, Ground Zero, really shape you emotionally after that?
2
SPEAKER_00
After experiencing it in person.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, I was a freshman in college when I saw it on TV and it was like,
2
SPEAKER_00
It was a big deal in Minnesota when I was in college there.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was like, you know, the whole city came together.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was the whole thing, but you were there.
2
SPEAKER_00
How did that shape you?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, my story is one of literally, you know, a couple million.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there was a lot of people in New York that day.
2
SPEAKER_01
Um, um, and they re all pretty unique stories, but they re all deeply touching and deeply personal for all of us.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you said it, I mean, it reminds you of humanity and it reminds you, you know, and I remember that was, it was September 11th was very important to me in my career because I worked in advertising and I, I struggled to go back to that stupid job in that stupid industry.
2
SPEAKER_00
Really?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I really, once I did go back to work, I m like,
2
SPEAKER_01
am I doing with my life?
2
SPEAKER_01
And a lot of people signed up for the military, because they re like, I got to do something with my life.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think a lot of people had the realization that the life that I live is stupid, and I want to do something that matters.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s when I started thinking, this is the stupidest industry in the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
I come to work to help people sell they don t need.
2
SPEAKER_01
What the hell am I doing with my life?
2
SPEAKER_01
And my entrepreneurial venture started pretty shortly after that, so I could do things my way.
2
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
2
SPEAKER_01
and do things with purpose and started talking about things in a very different way.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, yeah, it was pretty formative.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, and it took, unfortunately, a big breakdown to happen for you to start seeing... Maybe you had already noticed it, but that was really the eye of the storm.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, okay, I ve got to make a change.
3
SPEAKER_01
But go back to your original question, you know, which is why does it require these things?
3
SPEAKER_01
I think it, I think that s not interesting to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think that s sort of like, I get it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think what is interesting to me is why does it go back?
3
SPEAKER_01
Right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like what do you mean when you have that life changing experience and then you, you don t make a change.
3
SPEAKER_01
You do.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, no, you do make a change, but then it runs out.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I saw this happen after September 11th in New York.
3
SPEAKER_01
For quite a long time, I would say months, New York was utopia.
3
SPEAKER_01
There was no crime.
3
SPEAKER_00
None.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everyone came together.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everyone came together.
3
SPEAKER_00
There was literally no crime.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everyone loved each other.
3
SPEAKER_00
Strangers.
3
SPEAKER_00
What do you need?
3
SPEAKER_00
I m here for you.
3
SPEAKER_01
There was nothing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the total number of racially motivated crimes in New York after September 11th was zero.
3
SPEAKER_01
So nobody took their anger out on an Arab population, for example.
3
SPEAKER_01
It just didn t happen.
3
SPEAKER_01
And, um, and I remember thinking to myself, this is going to go away.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like we re going to forget and we re just going to go back to being New York again.
3
SPEAKER_01
And sure enough, in enough time, we got distracted by the short term.
3
SPEAKER_01
COVID was no different.
3
SPEAKER_01
In the middle of COVID, we re all thinking, oh my God, you know, I have to reevaluate my life, my work-life balance.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, I don t want to work like a crazy person like I used to anymore.
3
SPEAKER_01
Productivity is not going to be my, my primary, you know, metric of whether I m having a good day or not.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that went away.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re all working like idiots again, and productivity is like, people look down on you now if you re not having a productive day.
3
SPEAKER_01
We forget.
3
SPEAKER_01
And again, it s the biology of the dopamine-driven animal that is more driven by the short-term and the visual.
3
SPEAKER_01
That, to me, upsets me more.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not that you need some sort of shock to convert, but that the conversion doesn t last.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so, you know, you were joking about my orange watch.
3
SPEAKER_01
And, uh, you know, I use symbols to remind me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I m surrounded.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m like wearing an orange belt and like, you know, I...
3
SPEAKER_01
I keep things around me to remind me that these things matter.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I tell the stories.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I tell the story of going to Afghanistan with the Air Force.
3
SPEAKER_01
I tell the story of, you know, my experience at Centennial Element, that it s not... It s in part to remind others, but it s also in part to remind me.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, my sister suffered a horrible tragedy many years ago where she lost her fiance.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was killed right in front of her two weeks before her wedding.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, my goodness.
3
SPEAKER_01
During COVID, she came to me and said, I think I want to talk about my experience on the podcast because I know a lot of people are losing loved ones, and perhaps my experience can help them.
3
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, again, it s in part for others, but reliving that horrible day with her is a reminder to us as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
that our relationship matters and our friends matter and our lives matter and long-term matters and, you know, and productivity is not the primary metric of a good day.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, and the ability to, I think, you know, it talked about the 20 year old versus the 70 year old, you know, it s the ability to shut out the noise, the peer pressure.
3
SPEAKER_01
that judges you based on how much have you accomplished, how much money have you made, how many promotions have you had, what s your salary, you know?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like we re judging our self-worth based on what other people pay us.
3
SPEAKER_01
And sure, everybody wants to make more money.
3
SPEAKER_01
I got it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know?
3
SPEAKER_01
Um,
3
SPEAKER_01
what should we judge our self-worth on?
3
SPEAKER_01
The life that we live.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think we should judge our self-worth on the value we have in the lives of others.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do other people think of you as a good friend, a good sibling, a good son or daughter, a good father, a good mother, a good colleague, a good teammate?
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, I think that I would rather be, I would rather judge myself, uh, on that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And again, we re dopamine tangible driven animals.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s much easier to judge myself based on number in a bank account cause I can see it and I can count it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if there s a lot in there, it must be valuable.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if there s little in there that must be unvaluable, which is nonsense.
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause I can tell you, I know a lot of rich people and have no value in the world.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, um, and rich people,
3
SPEAKER_01
aren t necessarily the hardest working.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know a lot of very rich people who are lazy.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I don t criticize them for that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Just don t think that because someone s rich that they re incredibly hardworking.
3
SPEAKER_01
And please stop calling the homeless lazy.
3
SPEAKER_01
You go be homeless for a day, see how lazy you have to be to survive with no money, no resources.
3
SPEAKER_01
Good luck.
3
SPEAKER_01
Laziness, that s not it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You actually have to work hard at surviving when you have nothing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think we have all of these metrics screwed up and they re all based on what I can count and what I can see rather than the value I have in the lives of others.
3
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, you don t even get to judge that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because the only way you know you have value in the lives of others is if others say you have value in their lives.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that s a thing, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
I m curious about your sister s story.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s really heartbreaking, but also fascinating that she wanted to say, hey, maybe I can help other people through my own tragedy, through my heartbreak, through my loss.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the person she is.
3
SPEAKER_00
What was that?
3
SPEAKER_00
What was the lesson that you learned from you not going through it yourself, but witnessing someone that you loved go through a loss like that?
3
SPEAKER_00
What was the lesson for you?
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, you know, I m, there s a civil, I talk about balance all the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a silver lining in every cloud.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a cost for everything we gain in life, but at the same time, there s goodness that comes out of every loss.
3
SPEAKER_01
My sister and I were already pretty close.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it made us even closer.
3
SPEAKER_01
My family and I were, my family and us were also already pretty close.
3
SPEAKER_01
We got even closer.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think tragedy brings families together in a way that nothing else can.
3
SPEAKER_01
Perspective.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, the stupid stuff that we got stressed about just isn t that important.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know?
3
SPEAKER_01
There s something called post-traumatic growth.
3
SPEAKER_01
We love talking about post-traumatic stress, but there s also post-traumatic growth.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of growth that comes out of loss and tragedy as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think, yeah, I think these things, I mean, you said it right at the top, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s the fragility of why do we need these reminders?
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think that was a big one.
3
SPEAKER_01
And, uh, you know, my sister s happily married.
3
SPEAKER_01
She s got two kids, you know, built a new life.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s super inspiring.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s great.
3
SPEAKER_01
That, you know, people go through breakups or divorces and they think that s it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Their life is over.
3
SPEAKER_01
They ll never find love again.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m like, we re here to tell you.
3
SPEAKER_01
She created it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can find love again, you know?
3
SPEAKER_01
And she has a picture of her fiancé that she lost in her office on her desk.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s like, I see it there and it s a nice reminder for all of us, you know?
3
SPEAKER_01
His loss is a nice reminder to all of us that
3
SPEAKER_01
live, live, live life, love life.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, easier said than done.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you know, you and I write books about this stuff and it s hard.
3
SPEAKER_01
It is hard work.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I get a kick out of that by the way.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s very easy to be a cat.
3
SPEAKER_01
Cats don t think about being cats.
3
SPEAKER_01
They re just cats, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
But you have to be, you have to actually work really hard to be a human being.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like being a good human being actually requires so much work.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, and there s, there s, that s funny to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, to be the best version of a human being is actually very difficult and requires studying and effort and risk and discomfort and all those things that, you know, I think this young generation tries to avoid.
3
SPEAKER_01
Not the work part, the discomfort part.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned about, you know, we shouldn t be, I can t remember exactly what you said, but we shouldn t be focusing on art.
3
SPEAKER_00
a good day being on how productive we are.
3
SPEAKER_00
We should have a different metric of what a good day is.
3
SPEAKER_00
How do we measure what a good day is then if it s not a productive day?
3
SPEAKER_01
So this is the problem with things that are hard to measure.
3
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t mean they don t exist.
3
SPEAKER_01
It just means they re hard to measure.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, um, you re in loves with your girlfriend.
3
SPEAKER_01
Uh, you know, show me the metric, show me the number that proves to me, you know, that, that she is the love of your life.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can t.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can show me a bunch of behaviors and I can ask her if she feels secure, if she feels safe, if she feels seen and heard, if she feels she can be her best self because of the space you provide her.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I got no number.
3
SPEAKER_01
So just because you can t measure something or just because something s difficult to measure doesn t mean it doesn t exist.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right?
3
SPEAKER_01
So that s, that s an important lesson.
3
SPEAKER_01
I learned that in my career too.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I had this meeting at the Pentagon.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was sitting in the foyer waiting for the general to come in for when he was ready to see me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we ve all had this experience where you re waiting in a foyer
4
SPEAKER_01
waiting in a waiting area.
4
SPEAKER_01
And somebody will come and get you.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they take you to the conference room or the office.
4
SPEAKER_01
And because being quiet is uncomfortable, we fill the dead air.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
How s your day?
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
What s going on?
4
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
How was your flight?
4
SPEAKER_01
So hot out here.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly right.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s hallway talk.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s all it is, is designed to, to, to fill dead air.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the minute you walk in the office, it just stops.
4
SPEAKER_01
Nobody actually cared.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s what happened to me.
4
SPEAKER_01
The general came to get me.
4
SPEAKER_01
We start walking to his office and the hallway talk begins.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he says, you know, Simon, I had everybody in my office, read your book.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I said, my publisher thanks you.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he said, uh, tell them not to bother.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had them read my copy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Total book sales, one.
4
SPEAKER_01
Total impact, huge.
4
SPEAKER_01
Compared to I go to an event and they give away 500 free copies of the book, total book sales 500, but they use them as doorstops and coasters, total impact zero.
4
SPEAKER_01
Maybe three or four people read it, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it was that experience that I realized that I can t measure.
4
SPEAKER_01
impact simply based on book sales or dollars or income or anything like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, over the long term, I think you can.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, the book is sustainable.
4
SPEAKER_01
But in the short term, it s really a useless metric.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I had to get comfortable with the fact that I was doing things that I couldn t measure the impact, but I knew had an impact.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you ve heard me talk about these things before.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, I talk about exercise, where you go to the gym and you come home and you don t see anything.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you go to the gym the next day and you come home and you don t see anything.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so you re like, it s not working.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you re in pain, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
And you want to eat a cheeseburger, pizza, and ice cream.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you keep doing it, and you still don t really see anything until you maybe look down and read a scale.
4
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes weight isn t even the thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re replacing fat with muscle.
4
SPEAKER_01
Your weight might go up, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Until people start saying to you, you look really good.
4
SPEAKER_01
You look young.
4
SPEAKER_01
But you never saw it happen.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like you never see yourself get older until you look at a picture of you from when you were younger.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
Um, and, and so you believe we, you know, we know from the science and we know from experience that if I exercise, it s a process and it s good for me, even though I can t measure it in the short term.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if I eat well and I keep doing that, I know it ll keep me healthy for the longterm of eat more leafy greens and less sugar.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know I just have to stick to this process.
4
SPEAKER_01
that 100%, 100% of the time it works.
4
SPEAKER_01
How long does it take to get into shape and you start exercising?
4
SPEAKER_01
Nobody knows.
4
SPEAKER_01
Neither does any doctor.
4
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes a little less time for some people and sometimes a little more time for others.
4
SPEAKER_01
We don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
We just know 100% that it works.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so I had to get used to the idea professionally that I m going to do things that I know work
4
SPEAKER_01
but I won t be able to measure them.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I just have to be okay with the fact that it works.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like exercise, like eating right.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so that s where, you know, learning an infant mindset and letting go of annual goals.
4
SPEAKER_01
So people are like, you know, what s your annual goal?
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t have any.
4
SPEAKER_01
because I can t predict what I m going to achieve based on arbitrary timelines.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I have guidelines, you know, like I run a marathon, I like to know the speed I m going at, like I do look at numbers, they matter to me, they help me measure speed and distance, but I don t get happy or sad if I hit or miss a number.
4
SPEAKER_00
Why do you think so many people get sad or happy based on if they hit their goals?
4
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes you hit the goals, and you re still not happy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because we re dopamine-driven, short-term visual animals.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s going to go in a circle, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
And because we can create, if you create a goal,
4
SPEAKER_01
and you hit it, you get a shot of dopamine.
4
SPEAKER_01
That is what happens, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Any kind of beginning, middle, and end, if you reach the end, you ll get the dopamine.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, find food, found it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it feels good.
4
SPEAKER_01
I lost my keys, found them.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, my God, it feels so good, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Um, this is why we often confuse, um, on a first date.
4
SPEAKER_01
We do this, like, falling in love on the first, you know, on the first date.
4
SPEAKER_01
Not really true.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s not oxytocin and serotonin.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s actually dopamine.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because you... you think you found the thing you re looking for.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you have a list of things in your head that you want in your relationship.
4
SPEAKER_01
This person seems to have a bunch of them, and you have, you know, new relationship energy.
4
SPEAKER_01
All you see is the stuff that you want, that s on your... The perfect stuff, yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
The perfect stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you re literally like, I think this is the one.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think they re the one.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m like, congratulations, you are getting, you re flooded with dopamine on date one.
4
SPEAKER_01
Or date two.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you are not in love.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ve all made the mistake.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re not in love.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ve made it too many times.
4
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
4
SPEAKER_01
go out a bunch more, go out a bunch more, you realize what the hell was I thinking, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
And they ve said that about me.
4
SPEAKER_01
We can t help ourselves.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that if you recognize these things, and let s go right back to the question where you started, which is, you talked about the condition of the human relationship, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think when the human relationship
4
SPEAKER_01
declines, when our feelings of love and friendship and closeness and deep, meaningful relationships decline, we become more obsessed with the external validations, the clicks, the likes, the followers, you know?
4
SPEAKER_01
To the point where it s literally become a career.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m an influencer, which means I have more clicks than you, more likes than you, more followers than you.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that makes me an alpha in our society.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, I went to an event recently and there was this, uh, this pretty girl who was, I was sitting in my seat at this event and she was posing for pictures as her friend took pictures of her.
4
SPEAKER_01
And somebody leans over to me, she goes, she s a very famous influencer.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I said, you mean she s a freelance employee of an algorithm?
4
SPEAKER_01
because that s what an influencer is.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re freelance employees for algorithms.
4
SPEAKER_01
They might make a lot of money.
4
SPEAKER_01
Some freelancers make a lot of money, and they work for the algorithm.
4
SPEAKER_01
The algorithm is their boss.
4
SPEAKER_01
They have to feed the algorithm.
4
SPEAKER_01
Or they have to feed the algorithm.
4
SPEAKER_01
If the algorithm changes, it could destroy their whole income, and you never get to rest.
4
SPEAKER_01
You never get to rest, because the algorithm doesn t rest.
4
SPEAKER_01
You don t get to rest.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it could influence their self-worth.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the smart influencers, if they re making coin, bank that coin, invest that coin, because you are going to burn out
4
SPEAKER_01
or the algorithm will change, or somebody else will do it better than you, more likely you re going to burn out.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because nobody can maintain that pace of recording your life every moment, you know, for content, content, content, because the algorithm never rests.
4
SPEAKER_01
Think of it like CNN.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a 24-hour news cycle for your life.
4
SPEAKER_01
Crazy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right?
4
SPEAKER_01
And we saw what happened to the quality of news when we went to a 24-hour news cycle.
4
SPEAKER_01
24-hour news cycle.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think of some of the quality of life when you go to a 24-hour content production schedule.
4
SPEAKER_01
Your vacations, you have to bring your camera with you.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re always on.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re always on.
4
SPEAKER_01
Your relationships, you bring your camera with you.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re gonna burn out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you ve been saving your money and investing your money, you ll be just fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if you re spending that money, it s not gonna be good.
4
SPEAKER_00
How does someone manage their own life s motivation
4
SPEAKER_00
while making sure they re being somewhat productive to have a career that pays them an income and can cultivate growth within a career or their own business, while also creating the metric of a good day.
4
SPEAKER_00
How can we balance those three of staying motivated, not being lazy, having a balanced, healthy, beautiful day, while also being productive?
4
SPEAKER_01
What s wrong with being lazy?
4
SPEAKER_01
Nothing s wrong with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
What does lazy mean?
4
SPEAKER_00
What does it mean to be lazy?
4
SPEAKER_00
I think my definition, if I m being thinking about it right now, is more of like not caring about anything.
4
SPEAKER_00
It would be my definition of lazy, like not caring.
4
SPEAKER_00
Caring, okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
But maybe not the definition.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I think it s clear that we use that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because lazy to some people might be sitting on a couch watching TV all day, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, if I ve been working with a crazy person,
4
SPEAKER_01
That s relaxing.
4
SPEAKER_00
That sounds good to me.
4
SPEAKER_01
That sounds good to me.
4
SPEAKER_01
Or maybe I m watching documentaries and I m generating ideas.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s not lazy to me.
4
SPEAKER_01
So to somebody that I haven t produced something at the end of the day that s tangible, because this thing s being produced all the time here, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Ideas.
4
SPEAKER_01
Then, so let s be clear that what we mean by, is not lazy, what we mean by is how do you live a life where you care, like people who don t care.
4
SPEAKER_01
So, I think older generations, and I count myself amongst them, our generation is pretty judgy because we believe you go to work, you get the promotion, you move your way up the ladder, and we can t understand people who don t have ambition.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like, what do you mean you re not interested in like moving up the ladder and getting more responsibility
4
SPEAKER_00
one day achieving a leadership position.
4
SPEAKER_00
Or they feel entitled to just be a leader at 24 without going to work.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
You got to work for it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
But we re pretty judgy.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think we have to recognize that raw ambition is fine for some.
4
SPEAKER_01
And some people want to just come to work, get a paycheck, and have that paycheck
5
SPEAKER_00
pay for their lifestyle.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they re not interested in moving up the ladder.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re interested in fair compensation.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not that they don t care.
5
SPEAKER_00
They do care.
5
SPEAKER_00
They still do good work.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re just not career-minded.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re lifestyle-minded.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so we can t judge them as unproductive and lazy just because they don t have any aspirations to move up through the ladder.
5
SPEAKER_00
But they can t get all
5
SPEAKER_00
if they haven t been giving like massive raises when they re just, you know, like managing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I know a lot of people who are very happy.
5
SPEAKER_00
They make a decent living.
5
SPEAKER_00
They spend their money and they go on vacations and they save enough and it s all balanced.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s, I think they live fantastic lives.
5
SPEAKER_00
They care.
5
SPEAKER_00
They care about the work and they care about the quality of their work.
5
SPEAKER_00
They care about their lives and the quality of their lives.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they, and they, and they want the two to coexist.
5
SPEAKER_00
But remember, we said cost.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a cost for everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you want to be highly, highly ambitious and make all that money and get all that charm, that comes at a cost to your personal life.
5
SPEAKER_00
If all you want is going on vacations, well, that came as a cost sometimes to your income or your professional stability.
5
SPEAKER_00
So the goal is to find the balance that you re comfortable with.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, some may tilt a little more towards ambition and some may tilt a little more towards lifestyle.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s not for us to judge, it s for us to understand.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if I can understand that s how somebody on my team wants to live a life, then I m okay with that.
5
SPEAKER_00
And as long as they do good work and they care, I think that s a very good, important, as long as they care, I m not going to overload them with stuff that they can prove to me that they can do it, but I want them to do good work within those boundaries.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m cool with it.
5
SPEAKER_00
But when we talk about, like, I think,
5
SPEAKER_00
This whole idea of setting boundaries, you know, it gets a little bit misunderstood, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like everybody thinks you have to set boundaries, which means keep people away.
5
SPEAKER_00
I refuse to do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s beyond my boundary.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not doing that.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s not what boundaries mean.
5
SPEAKER_00
What boundaries means are, let me tell you what I imagine and what my limitations are.
5
SPEAKER_00
We have boundaries in relationships, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
You sit down with your partner, you co-create the relationship that you want to have.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if you re a good relationship, you discuss what the boundaries are that you both agree to.
5
SPEAKER_00
obey.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s not for us to judge the boundaries of other relationships based on the boundaries of our relationships and vice versa, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
We create the boundaries that make us comfortable and we agree to stay within those boundaries.
5
SPEAKER_00
We can do whatever we want inside those boundaries, but we cannot step outside those boundaries.
5
SPEAKER_00
Whatever relationship style you want to have, you got to have boundaries.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that is a discussion.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think that is the right thing to do in a professional circumstance as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was always assumed that there s only one kind of boundary, which is the one I have.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if you ve got to work till 10 o clock at night and work on a Saturday, you do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Make it happen.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
But that s not the reality of a young generation anymore, but we re not having the discussion.
5
SPEAKER_00
What we ve confused is boundaries as a conversation versus boundaries as a unilateral wall that says, I m not doing that, and you kind of asked me to do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
It should be a conversation, which is somebody says, look, I m not interested in moving up the ranks.
5
SPEAKER_00
I want to be treated fairly.
5
SPEAKER_00
I want to be paid fairly.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m going to do good work.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I don t want to work late at night and I don t want to work on weekends because I want to live lifestyle.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I ll say, okay, like an early relationship, let s have a negotiation, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Which is, I m cool with that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Every now and then, every now and then, when there s a lot of stress and things have gone haywire or we have a huge deadline, I may need you to stay late a couple nights or the occasional Saturday, but
5
SPEAKER_00
I ll give you Monday off.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ll make it up to you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to take away from you without giving you back.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I won t do it a lot.
5
SPEAKER_00
I won t abuse it.
5
SPEAKER_00
But every now and then, are you OK with that boundary?
5
SPEAKER_00
The flexible boundary, yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
So I hear what the boundaries are you want.
5
SPEAKER_00
You understand the things that I need.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we come to an agreement and say, yes, those are the boundaries.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re all cool with that.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re in alignment, yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re in alignment.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that becomes more productive.
5
SPEAKER_00
But that s not what s happening.
5
SPEAKER_00
Usually the discussion of boundaries is me telling you.
5
SPEAKER_00
as opposed to, and by the way, try that in your relationship.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not going to go well.
5
SPEAKER_00
Me telling you what my boundaries are in my relationship as opposed to a discussion where I can understand where the boundaries are coming from and maybe your past experiences, or maybe you ve had bosses that took advantage of you, or maybe you were underpaid and somebody abused the fact that you were salary, or whatever it is.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s just a conversation because we don t know what somebody s previous experience is that makes them create the boundary that they have now.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they re usually based on some sort of preventing something from happening again.
5
SPEAKER_00
That already happened in the past.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
It happened to me.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m never letting that happen to me again.
5
SPEAKER_00
Bingo.
5
SPEAKER_00
My boundary, yeah, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like everything, this is going to be a circular conversation for us.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s human beings interacting with human beings.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, like, we have to do this together.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, the relationship is ours.
5
SPEAKER_00
My girlfriend and I joke that, you know, when we first showed up in our relationship, you know, I wanted her to fit the blueprint that I expected of her, what I expected of a girlfriend.
5
SPEAKER_00
Which was?
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we all have our own blueprint.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, your own definition of it is.
5
SPEAKER_00
We all have our own blueprints of what we want.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
5
SPEAKER_00
And she wanted me to fit the blueprint of what... Her definition.
5
SPEAKER_00
...of her definition of what a boyfriend should be, and what my definition of a relationship should look like, and we were both failing miserably to live up to each other s blueprint.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really?
5
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
5
SPEAKER_00
How can I?
5
SPEAKER_00
Were you failing after it was discussed?
5
SPEAKER_00
Here s what I... There was no discussion.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everybody shows up with a blueprint in their head, and you either fit it or you don t.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay?
5
SPEAKER_00
So that s where the conflict started.
5
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then they re constantly letting you down, or you re picking fights, or whatever it is.
5
SPEAKER_00
it didn t go very well until we sat down and be like, this is not working.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so we agreed that I have to throw out my blueprint and you have to throw out your blueprint.
5
SPEAKER_00
We like each other a lot.
5
SPEAKER_00
So we know that there s a good basis.
5
SPEAKER_00
We respect each other, we care about each other, we have all the same values.
5
SPEAKER_00
Why don t we agree to write a new blueprint together?
5
SPEAKER_00
and co-creation became our mantra.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
That the relationship will not be mine and it will not be yours.
5
SPEAKER_00
It ll be ours.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I can no longer make a unilateral decision about what I want in this relationship because the relationship doesn t belong to me.
5
SPEAKER_00
It belongs to us.
5
SPEAKER_00
We have joint custody of this relationship.
5
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, you can t make unilateral decisions about what happens in the relationship because it doesn t belong to you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I got 50% of this, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
And the result has been amazing and it requires lots of, lots of, lots of, lots of, lots of communication and boundary setting discussions.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think professional relationships should be the same, which is, I have a blueprint in my head of what an employee should do.
5
SPEAKER_00
An employee has a blueprint in their head of what a company or a boss should do.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the problem is, is hopefully that goes well.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it completely falls apart versus saying,
5
SPEAKER_00
I got this job, you got this...you re my boss. 
5
SPEAKER_00
can we have a discussion about what we want this relationship to be?
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to get everything I want, and you re not getting everything you want, because that s the boundary I declare, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
That s just not going to work.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is why I think it s important for companies to talk about their why and their values.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think it s important for companies to set expectations, what it s like to work here.
5
SPEAKER_00
And don t give me this, work hard, play hard.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like any company that tells you we work hard, play hard, please run in the opposite direction, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Why not work smart, play always, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Because working hard sounds unhealthy and playing hard sounds very unhealthy.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I worked too hard this week, so now I m going to get faced this weekend.
5
SPEAKER_00
very unhealthy at work and very unhealthy on the weekend.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, sounds like burnout recipe.
5
SPEAKER_00
Work hard, play hard is a stupid philosophy.
5
SPEAKER_00
Work smart, play always.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the point is, that s why I think it s important for companies to talk about their why, talk about their values, be honest about them, because you ll attract people who will more likely want to work within the boundaries that you re setting.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
So for example, people often ask me about Amazon.
5
SPEAKER_00
Isn t Amazon a horrible place to work?
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
And I ll say, well, they never lied.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is the expectation.
5
SPEAKER_00
They never lied.
5
SPEAKER_00
They didn t say, oh my God, it s a party here every day.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s just like unicorns and rainbows.
5
SPEAKER_00
You work three hours and you go home.
5
SPEAKER_00
They never lied.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re pretty public about it s a really demanding job with ridiculous hours.
5
SPEAKER_00
And even the people who love it over the last two years, it s a really hard place to work.
5
SPEAKER_00
But if you like those conditions,
5
SPEAKER_00
then go work there.
5
SPEAKER_00
And here s some benefits that come with those conditions.
5
SPEAKER_00
And here s some benefits.
5
SPEAKER_00
And there s benefits.
5
SPEAKER_00
Or like, people talk about Steve Jobs was in it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
But people who worked there, people who worked at Apple under Steve Jobs, will all tell you that they were pushed harder than they ve ever been pushed in their careers.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the
6
SPEAKER_00
things that they accomplished, they wouldn t have been able to accomplish anywhere else but there, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
So if you re okay with those boundaries, then go work there.
6
SPEAKER_00
But the point is, is these companies tell you what their expectations are and what it s like to work there up front.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the reason it s important to do that is to attract people who are more likely to want to work within those boundaries.
6
SPEAKER_00
But it s still an act of co-creation, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
And if you don t like it, then
6
SPEAKER_00
then you should leave.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Enter a different relationship.
6
SPEAKER_00
Now, if the company lied to you, that s different.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Then you do actually have the right to complain and point fingers.
6
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes, even like at Amazon, it got a little too far.
6
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
6
SPEAKER_00
Got to reel it back a little bit.
6
SPEAKER_00
Sure, sure, sure.
6
SPEAKER_01
Why do you think, I don t want to, I mean, I guess I am generalizing a little bit, but obviously this isn t the case for everyone in the younger generation.
6
SPEAKER_01
But why does it seem like there is a conversation happening about the younger generation where there is an entitlement or demand energy towards, okay, this is my first year in this job, you know, out of college, two years out, I don t have all the skills or the experience or the results to show that I m capable of getting this, but I demand and want all of these things that
6
SPEAKER_01
the older generation wasn t able to do.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then they constantly, not generalizing, but a conversation of them wanting raises within the first month.
6
SPEAKER_01
More, you know, unlimited time off.
6
SPEAKER_01
This kind of lazy mentality and entitlement.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
So there s multiple factors, of course.
6
SPEAKER_00
Parents is one of them.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s the parenting philosophies of the generation.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was a big part of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, when, um, you and I got in trouble at school, um, our parents said, what did you do now?
6
SPEAKER_00
Um, if a lot of people get in trouble at school now, their parents say, what s wrong with your teacher?
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_01
No, I got suspended.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, I was like punished for weeks.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
Um, uh, and you know, again, sometimes it is the school and the teacher, but...
6
SPEAKER_00
There s bad kids, too.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, where kids do stupid things.
6
SPEAKER_00
Sure, sure.
6
SPEAKER_01
No, I cheated, so... I cheated on a test, so I got the consequence.
6
SPEAKER_00
Quite rightfully so.
6
SPEAKER_01
But it wasn t like, well, you know...
6
SPEAKER_01
They shouldn t punish you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Let s just, you know, do this or make an excuse for me.
6
SPEAKER_00
So parents is part of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Um, social media is part of it cause we re constantly comparing.
6
SPEAKER_00
My sister had somebody who worked for her back in a previous job and he walked into her office and said, can you give me a promotion?
6
SPEAKER_00
And my sister s like, you ever worked her alone?
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, well, hold on.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t need you don t have to give me the additional responsibility and I don t even need a salary raise I just need the new title so I can put it on LinkedIn so my friends can see come on Yeah, holy cow after what like a few months or whatever was there?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but it was really about
6
SPEAKER_00
the display.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it became one of those metrics like followers or likes, which is how many promotions have you had on LinkedIn, you know?
6
SPEAKER_00
It s a false sense of accomplishment, though.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s really funny because there s a corollary here, which is we know that when there is conspicuous displays of wealth, so name brands, when you wear your little gooch or, you know, or you get your Chanel bag,
6
SPEAKER_00
There s a reason they put the logos on the outside, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
It s because we like that everybody knows, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
And there s data on this that when you wear your fancy stuff and you put it on and it makes you feel good, you actually get bursts of serotonin because it makes you feel proud and like you re higher status in the community and all of that.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s what conspicuous displays of wealth do.
6
SPEAKER_00
Makes us feel good.
6
SPEAKER_00
We also know that when you wear a fake, everybody may think that you got that Chanel bag, but you actually get no serotonin.
6
SPEAKER_00
So if you have a fake, you actually don t get the feeling of, I m the sh... Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Because you didn t earn it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because it s not real.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not the real thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
So...
6
SPEAKER_00
I wonder if it seems to make sense that when you have a fake promotion for the title to show your friends, that though your friends may be impressed because they re looking at the logo, that you actually know that it s fake, so you actually don t get a feeling of self-confidence, and I think that this is good.
6
SPEAKER_00
And in other words, there s no growth that comes from it.
6
SPEAKER_00
In fact, it might do the opposite.
6
SPEAKER_00
It might make you insecure.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
We know this from kids who get medals who come in last, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Which is,
6
SPEAKER_00
Great, you gave them a medal.
6
SPEAKER_00
They know they didn t deserve it.
6
SPEAKER_00
It actually makes them not feel good.
6
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Because they didn t deserve it.
6
SPEAKER_00
They know that.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the kids who did earn it, it s devalued because you gave one to somebody else as well.
6
SPEAKER_00
So parenting is part of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Social media is part of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I think the other part of it, which is not considered by older generations, my business partner talks about this all the time, which is when I entered the work field, when you entered the work field,
6
SPEAKER_00
back in the day, we were legit, when we came out of college, we were legit idiots.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_01
We had no clue.
6
SPEAKER_01
We thought we knew.
6
SPEAKER_00
We had no skill set whatsoever.
6
SPEAKER_00
No discernible value whatsoever.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, we all started making photocopies.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
And...
6
SPEAKER_00
We had to look up to the people we worked for because they were going to teach us everything that we needed to know.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we learned a skillset from working and from the people who we worked for, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
That was how it worked.
6
SPEAKER_00
You have a young generation now that s graduating high school and college that enters the workforce with a skillset.
6
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes it s a skill set that the older generation doesn t have.
6
SPEAKER_00
They understand personal branding.
6
SPEAKER_00
They understand social media.
6
SPEAKER_00
They understand how computers work.
6
SPEAKER_00
Photography, video editing.
6
SPEAKER_00
They understand the algorithms.
6
SPEAKER_00
They can game the algorithms better than anybody.
6
SPEAKER_00
Look at Mr. Beast.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s, what, 22, 23?
6
SPEAKER_00
billions of views, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
His numbers are better than every top movie... -...ever.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
-...ever.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
I went to an event once where there was all these, like, fancy actors, and Mr. Beast was there, and none of them knew who he was.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I was looking at, and I was, like, doing the numbers, which is, if you took, like, one of the A-list celebrities and added up the total number of people that have seen all of his movies ever,
6
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t even come close to like one video from Mr. Beast.
6
SPEAKER_00
Crazy.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
And yet none of them knew who he was.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they all think they re hot, and like, now this kid s the hot.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I think that s another problem.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not a problem, but that s another consideration, which is that 21-year-old actually does have a skill set.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they know that that skill set has value.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so they are entering the workforce knowing that they know something that you don t know.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so they re not coming in as total idiots.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they, though there is still the need for them to learn and to, to, to, there s the sense that I already know something.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so you should start giving me more upfront.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so I think it s right for older generations to recognize that they actually know stuff that we don t know.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they re actually good at things better than we were when we were their age.
6
SPEAKER_00
Um, and that has value, just not as much value as they may think, because there s still a lot more for them to learn.
6
SPEAKER_00
Or there s the application of that skill set that needs to be honed.
6
SPEAKER_00
Um, or maybe that skill set has no value in this job.
6
SPEAKER_00
You should go get a job to do that.
6
SPEAKER_01
So it s, it s... What is the, I mean, we re generalizing this, but what is the greatest, uh, skill
6
SPEAKER_01
that the younger generation has going into the workforce and the thing that will hold them back the most?
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s a good question.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think they re probably one in the same, to be honest.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think it s a complete comfort and a facility with technology integrated into their lives, fully integrated, which is a blessing and a curse.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m just a repeating record, which is there s a balance and there s a cost for everything.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the cost for that facility and that ease and that comfort with technology is deep, meaningful relationships.
6
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
6
SPEAKER_01
Because they re on the phone 20 hours a day as opposed to connecting in person.
6
SPEAKER_00
Or worse, they think being connected and connecting are the same thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
I had a fight with a 16-year-old a couple years ago that her and her friends send voice messages to each other.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I said, why don t you just pick up the phone and call each other?
6
SPEAKER_00
She goes, we are.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m like, no, you re not.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re sending voice memos to each other.
6
SPEAKER_00
She genuinely believed that that was a conversation.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not a conversation.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s a disjointed... It s listening to my answering machine and then leaving somebody s message on their answering machine.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s what it is just in real time.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s just quicker.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Um, but I think that, and when, when we feel a little lonely or down because we have such facility with the stuff,
6
SPEAKER_00
we go to the stuff to be a balm for that feeling of loss or loneliness we have.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not that different for any white, white alcoholics drink or, you know, which is alcoholics drink only for a finite number of reasons, which is social stress, career stress, and social stress.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s pretty much it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Did I say financial?
7
SPEAKER_00
Um, and, you know, when, when, and we see it all the time, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
You see, you know, Brene Brown talks about this as well, which is we ve confused, uh, vulnerability and broadcasting, which is making a video by yourself in your room of you crying because you re depressed or you got broken up with or whatever, you know, and, and you just being vulnerable.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then you have that expression validated by likes and views.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s not vulnerability.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s not vulnerability.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s simply broadcasting your emotions by yourself.
7
SPEAKER_00
By the way, you re by yourself in your room with your phone, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
That s literally what s happening.
7
SPEAKER_00
Now, I challenge people who do that, go have that exact conversation, say all the same words to a friend in the same room as them, and you ll find that much more difficult.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is it harder to broadcast to a million people your emotions than it is to one person in person?
7
SPEAKER_01
No, it s easier.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s easier to do, to broadcast it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Than it is to have a conversation with a friend, a family member, or someone close to you.
7
SPEAKER_00
I can go on, I can hit play, I can hit record on FaceTime, and I can look in my computer and be like, I m struggling.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m really having a hard time.
7
SPEAKER_00
Stop.
7
SPEAKER_00
Play.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna do that again.
7
SPEAKER_00
Record.
7
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m struggling.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m really having a hard time.
7
SPEAKER_00
Real talk here, just talking real talk.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, just speaking my truth here, you know?
7
SPEAKER_00
Um, and I want you guys to know that, you know, I ll get through this.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then analyze it afterwards.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then post it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Pick a picture to go on it, you know?
7
SPEAKER_00
Versus going to a friend and sitting across the table from somebody and going, I m struggling.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know what s going on.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s excruciating.
7
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s true vulnerability because there s no vulnerability doing it by yourself.
7
SPEAKER_00
There s a perception of vulnerability just the same way I can turn on a movie and watch an actor playing vulnerability, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, oh my God, so vulnerable.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, I m watching the performance of vulnerability.
7
SPEAKER_00
So for me, the viewer, it s real.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I have no doubt that the person making the video is feeling something, I get it.
7
SPEAKER_01
But they re creating a piece of art.
7
SPEAKER_00
But it s not that they re creating a piece of art, it s that they re not, the thing that will help them
7
SPEAKER_00
The thing that will help them get over that feeling and feel safe is not the number of likes that validate the expression.
7
SPEAKER_00
The thing that ll make them feel safe is for them to take the, have the incredibly uncomfortable, awful conversation with somebody where they say the same things.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that person sits there and goes, I got you.
7
SPEAKER_00
I got you.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
And like I remember I have a friend who is he s he s an impressive if he s an impressive dude.
7
SPEAKER_00
And.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I love him to death.
7
SPEAKER_00
And.
7
SPEAKER_00
I didn t want to show him vulnerability because I m so impressed by him, I wanted him to be impressed by me.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s so strong, I want him to know that I m strong, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t want him... And it s not because I intellectually understand the importance of vulnerability, but it s still, I want my friend to like me.
7
SPEAKER_00
My amazingly impressive friend that I think is super impressive to think I m impressive too and I m on his level.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I remember I was struggling and I called him up and I go,
7
SPEAKER_00
I m not in a good place.
7
SPEAKER_00
Hey, and he was like, what do you got, bud?
7
SPEAKER_00
What do you need?
7
SPEAKER_00
And, um, I remember we were, uh, I, we were out once and I said to him, you know, you re one of those friends that I would call in a hard time.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he said to me, I d be mad if you didn t.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we have this magical relationship now where we open up to each other.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we open up to each other, and it doesn t at all do any damage to what I think about him.
7
SPEAKER_00
In fact, it makes me think more of him.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s beautiful.
7
SPEAKER_01
The interesting thing, not to interrupt you there, but the interesting thing that you said
7
SPEAKER_01
intellectually, I think all of us think, I want to be on their level.
7
SPEAKER_01
I want to be strong or make sure that I m representing myself in a way that is at their level.
7
SPEAKER_01
And if I m vulnerable or showing that I m struggling, then will I be less than that?
7
SPEAKER_01
Why is that when actually vulnerability brings us closer together?
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s also a story we say in our own heads, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
Because it turns out
7
SPEAKER_00
He s not all buttoned up, and it turns out he s not got every answer, and it turns out everything he touches doesn t turn to gold, and it turns out he s got insecurities, and it turns out he s got fears, and it turns out he s got anger, and he s got frustration.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he s got all those things too.
7
SPEAKER_00
It turns out he s human.
7
SPEAKER_00
And this is where the relationship became beautiful, which is he is more impressive than me.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s a much more impressive guy than I am.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I love him to death and he loves me to death.
7
SPEAKER_00
Not because we re comparing our resumes.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s because we trust each other and hold space for each other.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I ve seen him at his worst and he s seen me at my worst.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that s the point.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s what social media doesn t allow.
7
SPEAKER_00
And again, forget about the people who they re broadcasting to.
7
SPEAKER_00
I have absolutely, you ve helped me, seeing this has helped me.
7
SPEAKER_00
I know that when I broadcast things, it helps people.
7
SPEAKER_00
I know that.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that has value.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m talking about the person who s making the video, who s struggling themselves, how they find safety and salvation.
7
SPEAKER_00
They will not find it in the broadcast.
7
SPEAKER_00
They will, at some point, have to go to a friend and ask for help.
7
SPEAKER_00
And they can still make the broadcast to serve others.
7
SPEAKER_00
Not anti the broadcast, but that person is kidding themselves if they think that is the way to find peace and calm in a life.
7
SPEAKER_01
There s something that I wanted to go back to.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m loving all this, by the way.
7
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for sharing so openly.
7
SPEAKER_01
Which is about the breakdown in life.
7
SPEAKER_01
And the breakdown, the scenario, the situation that causes us to either fall apart or come together or start to look differently about our life and ask, what s the point of the direction we re heading?
7
SPEAKER_01
I m curious in your mind, again, there s been a lot that s happened in the last few years.
7
SPEAKER_01
pandemic, war, and AI, which is being talked about more.
7
SPEAKER_01
Obviously, it s been around for a long time, but now it s being talked about more.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and it s moving at a pace that s ridiculous, which is very, very scary.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t mean to diminish it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Of course, it s fast now.
7
SPEAKER_00
When the internet showed up, the adoption for internet was years.
7
SPEAKER_00
The adoption for most technologies is decades.
7
SPEAKER_00
This thing is increasing its potential and its speed in weeks and months, which is not giving us time to consider that balanced equation.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s the part I find scary.
7
SPEAKER_00
is not the technology at the speed of adoption.
7
SPEAKER_00
The social ripples.
7
SPEAKER_00
The social ripples.
7
SPEAKER_00
And remember, governments have to adopt it.
7
SPEAKER_00
They don t have a choice.
7
SPEAKER_00
So like nuclear weapons, when nuclear weapons showed up, governments had to.
7
SPEAKER_00
Whether they wanted to or not was irrelevant.
7
SPEAKER_00
They had to because if the other one does, we don t have a choice.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s the same thing here.
7
SPEAKER_00
All of the defensive and offensive weapons and AI, governments have to, they have no choice.
7
SPEAKER_00
But we actually do have the ability to set pace.
7
SPEAKER_00
and we re not.
7
SPEAKER_00
And there is fear of being left out.
7
SPEAKER_00
There s massive FOMO.
7
SPEAKER_00
So one company s investing in it heavenly.
7
SPEAKER_00
The other one s like, we have to invest in it heavenly because they are, so we have to.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right?
7
SPEAKER_00
And so there s FOMO and fear of being left behind.
7
SPEAKER_00
And some of it s true, but not necessarily the pace and blindness, which we re throwing the technology at our companies and our businesses.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think history will always repeat itself, which is when you do something blindly and too quickly, at some point it s going to break.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so we don t know what or how that looks, when it s going to happen, but it s probably going to happen.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, nature abhors imbalance and seeks equilibrium at all times.
7
SPEAKER_00
This is why when there s a stock market crash, we call it a correction, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
Because there is imbalance and it finds correction.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s how mother nature works.
7
SPEAKER_00
She always finds balance at some point.
7
SPEAKER_00
You don t know when, but it s going to happen at some point.
7
SPEAKER_00
You don t know when, but it is going to happen.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think that the imbalance that we re creating with the speed of the adoption of the technology that we don t fully understand, the balance is going to happen.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how, I don t know what, I don t know what it s going to look like.
7
SPEAKER_00
No one can predict it.
7
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of people trying, and there s no way to slow it down because now the genie s out of the bag.
7
SPEAKER_00
No one s going to be like, you know what?
7
SPEAKER_00
I ll be the one to slow it down.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Let s stop this.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, government can put some guardrails on.
7
SPEAKER_00
Europe is actually attempting to put some guardrails on, which I think is helpful.
7
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
America, not so much.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, we think guardrails are anti-capitalist, which they re not.
7
SPEAKER_00
They re just guardrails.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
We can debate where the guardrails are, but guardrails are good.
7
SPEAKER_01
Sure, sure, sure.
7
SPEAKER_01
You mentioned early on, I liked that you talked about the fear that causes a lot of social ripples with these different things that happen, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
Especially around AI or around pandemics or around war, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
You ve mentioned a few of these things.
7
SPEAKER_01
With everything we ve seen in the last few years,
8
SPEAKER_00
which one do you think will cause more fear and more emotional reactions or social ripples between another virus or pandemic-like experience, war, or AI and the acceleration of AI?
8
SPEAKER_00
I think income inequality is bigger than all of them.
8
SPEAKER_00
Which, what is that?
8
SPEAKER_00
Income inequality.
8
SPEAKER_00
Income inequality will create more social ripples and fear than these three.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, just look at what s been happening over the past 30, 40 years.
8
SPEAKER_01
The rise of populism, the rise of strongman leaders, the cynicism about democracy.
8
SPEAKER_01
And it s not that democracy or capitalism are bad, it s that
8
SPEAKER_01
this version of democracy, this version of capitalism, not democracy, this version of capitalism that we have that was largely engineered in the eighties and nineties by people like Jack Welch and Republican and Democratic presidents at the time, um, is woefully imbalanced.
8
SPEAKER_01
And, um, it is, it is, um, lopsided, you know, the stock market used to be a place that the average working American could share in the wealth of the nation.
8
SPEAKER_01
And now the stock market has become the bastion for the few.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, CEOs who are incentivized by the price of inequity work hard to make other people rich and often don t include
8
SPEAKER_01
the workers, or worse, use the workers to help balance those books, the use of mass layoffs, which was a relatively modern phenomenon.
8
SPEAKER_01
Didn t exist in the United States prior to the 1980s.
8
SPEAKER_00
Really?
8
SPEAKER_01
Didn t exist.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there were layoffs, but not to balance the books.
8
SPEAKER_01
They were used for existential reasons.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like, we re going bankrupt.
8
SPEAKER_01
We have to do something drastic.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right.
8
SPEAKER_01
Versus, oh, we missed our numbers.
8
SPEAKER_01
You lose your job.
8
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
8
SPEAKER_01
That didn t exist.
8
SPEAKER_01
And so we have a very woefully
8
SPEAKER_01
a flawed version of capitalism that is not the capitalism that made America great, nor is a capitalism the kind of capitalism that Thomas Jefferson was enamored by as written by Adam Smith.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I think the
8
SPEAKER_01
that disparity, and we re seeing it play out now in the strikes, the writer s strike and the actor s strike, which is people working hard to make a small group of people very wealthy and being left out.
8
SPEAKER_01
Nobody minds that a CEO is highly paid.
8
SPEAKER_01
The problem is, is that it s the system of how they get paid that you re, you re not including and bringing people with you.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s the problem that you re making money off of their backs without them, without them letting feel like they re sharing in the spoils that they helped create.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s the problem.
8
SPEAKER_01
And we know how we got here.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s because, again, this goes back to metrics, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
The way we measured money was very easy.
8
SPEAKER_01
This is sort of going off on a tangent, if we really want to talk about it.
8
SPEAKER_00
I like your tangents, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, which is...
8
SPEAKER_01
I used is very easy, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
And this has been talked about.
8
SPEAKER_01
This is not, this is not a new idea.
8
SPEAKER_01
Um, um, I would broadcast a TV show and I could count how many people viewed it, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
Ratings.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then, and then I could get picked up for syndication and I can count everything and I can give you a percentage of all the things that I can count.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right?
8
SPEAKER_01
Um, whereas when we went to streaming, and everybody, when streaming first showed up, they thought it would be minor, so they didn t, it wasn t built into the contracts.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was considered an alternative media, don t worry about it.
8
SPEAKER_01
But now when something gets a billion views, um, there s no direct advertising dollars applied to that show.
8
SPEAKER_01
And there s no syndication applied to that show.
8
SPEAKER_01
And even though that show may...
8
SPEAKER_01
We can t tell that that s why somebody subscribed, because the subscription made the money, not the show, even though the show gets more views than everybody else.
8
SPEAKER_01
And so, and Netflix and none of the streamers tell you the numbers of the views, which is really a bad idea, because it goes back to metrics and numbers, which is, if you can count it, you need to share the numbers so that we can establish a value.
8
SPEAKER_01
And if we can establish a value, we can say what it s worth.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right?
8
SPEAKER_01
So hiding numbers is never a good thing when it comes to playing with people s income.
8
SPEAKER_00
What do you think capitalism should be, the new definition of capitalism should be then?
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s everything that I write about in every single one of my books.
8
SPEAKER_01
The infinite game, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
The infinite game, the leaders he less, and Start With Why, all are attempting to chip away that, you know, Start With Why was that companies should be driven by a higher calling and higher purpose, not just making money.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s totally anti Milton Friedman and Jack Welch.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I hope to undo everything Jack Welch ever did.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, Leaders Eat Last was about taking care of the people in our care.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, that leadership is not about being in charge, but taking care of those in your charge.
8
SPEAKER_01
And The Infinite Game is recognizing that this game of business cannot be won, so stop playing it like it s a finite game.
8
SPEAKER_01
And stop using people as pawns and start being grateful that they re helping you advance something bigger than yourself.
8
SPEAKER_01
And, and I lay it out there, you know, I lay out what the principles of capitalism should be.
8
SPEAKER_01
Um, uh, in the chapter of it, we re on Milton Friedman.
8
SPEAKER_01
Um, I offer an alternative, um, list of hierarchy and priorities.
8
SPEAKER_01
I can t remember what they are.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I mean, I m hearing you say, go ahead.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Feel free to share.
8
SPEAKER_00
Chapter five.
8
SPEAKER_01
Uh, what page is it on?
8
SPEAKER_01
Capitalism should advance a cause, protect people, and generate profit in that order.
8
SPEAKER_01
One more time.
8
SPEAKER_01
Advance a purpose, protect people, generate profit.
8
SPEAKER_01
So the responsibility of business is to use its will and resources to advance a greater cause than itself, protect the people and places in which it operates, and generate more resources so that it can continue doing all those things for as long as possible.
8
SPEAKER_01
An organization can do whatever it likes to build its business so long as it is responsible for the consequences of its actions.
8
SPEAKER_01
That is, for me, what capitalism shouldn t be.
8
SPEAKER_01
And we re not seeing that right now.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s the opposite order.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s generate profit, you know, advance purpose on your website.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s called marketing and protect people, you know, when it suits us.
8
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
8
SPEAKER_01
Nah, nah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like version of capitalism we have right now is pretty bastardized.
8
SPEAKER_00
So the, I m hearing you say the income inequality and where that s heading is a greater fear and risk than another pandemic, AI and war.
8
SPEAKER_01
the, whenever you have a huge Delta between those that have and those that don t have.
8
SPEAKER_00
you have revolution.
8
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
8
SPEAKER_00
But this is happening all over the world, not just in America, right?
8
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
8
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, none of the countries, it s right now.
8
SPEAKER_01
There s a rise of populism around the world.
8
SPEAKER_01
There s a rejection of democratic values because they ve confused democratic values and the version of capitalism we have that conflated the two.
8
SPEAKER_00
Right.
8
SPEAKER_00
So what usually happens in a scenario like this and how long does it take for that thing to occur?
8
SPEAKER_00
What has history taught us?
8
SPEAKER_00
There s going to be a revolution.
8
SPEAKER_01
Really?
8
SPEAKER_01
Around the whole world?
8
SPEAKER_01
Come on.
8
SPEAKER_01
No.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, come on.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, January 6th, these are not the signs.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, listen to the messaging of the populists.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s the haves versus the have-nots.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know?
8
SPEAKER_01
And the left needs to listen.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, they re quick to, the left and the right are both quick to criticize the leaders of each other s movements.
8
SPEAKER_01
But they re missing, they re not listening to why people are interested in those messages.
8
SPEAKER_01
They both think, both sides think the other side are sheeple.
8
SPEAKER_01
Both think the other side are blind, deaf and dumb.
8
SPEAKER_01
And yet neither side is paying attention as to why they both have their own rabid followings.
8
SPEAKER_01
And problem is, is most of the country is moderate.
8
SPEAKER_01
Most of our nation is pretty moderate.
8
SPEAKER_01
Most of our nation is pretty fine and willing to find compromises
8
SPEAKER_01
not really reasonable.
8
SPEAKER_01
And yet the angry extremes on both sides have seemed to set the tone.
8
SPEAKER_01
They re playing a finite game.
8
SPEAKER_01
But I m genuinely afraid of, and I don t know how it looks or when it happens, but I think
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think when we start ripping when we start accusing each other of being Traitors, I mean the left and the right literally say call each other traitors or un-american That s not good.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s not good.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s not good.
8
SPEAKER_00
Not good.
8
SPEAKER_00
I ve got a few final questions for you.
8
SPEAKER_00
This has been powerful.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m so glad you re here.
8
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for opening up and sharing.
8
SPEAKER_00
We could go on for hours.
8
SPEAKER_00
This is a question I asked you before that is called the three truths.
8
SPEAKER_00
So imagine a hypothetical scenario.
8
SPEAKER_00
It is that last day.
9
SPEAKER_02
on Earth for you.
9
SPEAKER_02
And you get to live as long as you want, extend your life as long as you want, and create and do all the things you want to do.
9
SPEAKER_02
But for whatever reason, it s the last day.
9
SPEAKER_02
And you ve accomplished everything, or not, and just lived beautiful days without accomplishments.
9
SPEAKER_02
But you can t take, or excuse me, everything you ve created has to go with you.
9
SPEAKER_02
This conversation, gone.
9
SPEAKER_02
Your books, they re gone.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s on to another world or somewhere else.
9
SPEAKER_02
They re not in this world.
9
SPEAKER_02
everything you ve ever said or done, we don t have access to anymore.
9
SPEAKER_02
But you get to leave behind three lessons.
9
SPEAKER_02
I call it the three truths.
9
SPEAKER_02
Three things that you know from your experiences are true to you that you would wanna leave behind as lessons to the world.
9
SPEAKER_02
What would be those three truths for you?
9
SPEAKER_00
Really love the people who love you.
9
SPEAKER_00
Really love them.
9
SPEAKER_00
um, learn all the human skills that you need to be a good human being.
9
SPEAKER_00
Um, who s being human is hard.
9
SPEAKER_00
And, um,
9
SPEAKER_00
and have as much fun as possible.
9
SPEAKER_00
And what I mean by having as much fun as possible doesn t mean playing video games and taking vacations every moment, but make jokes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Make jokes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Have a sense of humor.
9
SPEAKER_00
You can t be angry and laugh at the same time.
9
SPEAKER_00
Stephen Colbert talks about this.
9
SPEAKER_00
You can t.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like there s something magical in a high stress situation as a joke.
9
SPEAKER_00
And you know, whether it s gallows humor or whether it s, you find the absurdity in something, you know, it s like, just make sure to maintain your sense of humor.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
So love those who love you desperately.
9
SPEAKER_00
Learn the human skills to be a great human being and make sure that you appreciate that life really is fun.
9
SPEAKER_02
of over 1,000 conversations, I don t think I ve heard them in that way, those three truths.
9
SPEAKER_02
I ve asked it every time, and I didn t expect that from you, so that was really beautiful.
9
SPEAKER_02
I appreciate you sharing those three.
9
SPEAKER_02
I wanna acknowledge you, Simon, for your constant personal growth.
9
SPEAKER_02
No, thank you.
9
SPEAKER_02
Your constant personal growth.
9
SPEAKER_02
I ve watched you for years be a phenom on the internet with TED Talk and books and all the things and accolades.
9
SPEAKER_02
You know, I ve been at events with you, I ve had you on the show, we know a lot of the same people, and you know.
9
SPEAKER_02
But I really love just watching you personally grow as a human being, speak about these things, loving people desperately, having as much fun as possible.
9
SPEAKER_02
You know, being someone who s looked at as an intellectual and extremely smart, talking about humor and fun is awesome for me to hear.
9
SPEAKER_02
and being the best human you can be, knowing that this is a challenging existence, or it can be, unless you choose to learn skills and overcome it.
9
SPEAKER_02
So I really acknowledge you for your personal growth.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I hope now that we re more neighbors, I ll run into you more frequently and get to give you more hugs.
9
SPEAKER_02
So I really acknowledge you for everything.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I also acknowledge you for this, which I think is interesting, I asked you before you came on here today,
9
SPEAKER_02
I acknowledge you for not having something to be productive in right now.
9
SPEAKER_02
Of course, you ve got, you know, book and your podcast and, you know, content that you re creating, but you re not like, I m working on this massive project and I ve got to do it.
9
SPEAKER_02
I ve got this deadline and it s got to be this way.
9
SPEAKER_02
You re like, yeah, I m allowing ideas to come to me.
9
SPEAKER_02
I m allowing things to form.
9
SPEAKER_02
I m building deeper relationships.
9
SPEAKER_02
I m connecting with my, my girlfriend, I m doing these things.
9
SPEAKER_02
I acknowledge you for that because I think it s hard.
9
SPEAKER_02
at times, to allow ourselves to not be overly productive and always creating something and always trying to strive to be on top.
9
SPEAKER_02
So I acknowledge you for being in that space.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I think it s a beautiful thing too.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s very nice of you.
9
SPEAKER_00
I think it s important to know who you work for, right?
9
SPEAKER_00
So I would only have stress to come up to write another book if I believed that I worked for my publisher, but I don t.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I would only have stress about the amount of content creation I have to produce if I believed I worked for the algorithm, but I don t.
9
SPEAKER_00
I work for the people who share this world with me.
9
SPEAKER_00
I work for my friends.
9
SPEAKER_00
I work for my family.
9
SPEAKER_00
I work for the people who see the world the way I see it.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I live, try and work very hard to live a life of service.
9
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, the way I manage my social media is I say something that I think is additive.
9
SPEAKER_00
I never pile on, because there s no point.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m very prescriptive that I will speak if I have something that I believe is additive.
9
SPEAKER_00
And if I have nothing to say and I have nothing to write, then I m going to say nothing and I m going to write nothing.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I think you have to know who your customer is and then be fiercely customer oriented.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I use the word customer in quotes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like if you re a parent, you know, your kids are your customer.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, if you re a teacher, your students are your customer.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, if you re a nurse, your patients are your customer.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I think you have to be fiercely, fiercely customer focused.
9
SPEAKER_00
And, um, um, in my, in my chosen line of work, my customer is the army who chooses to stand shoulder to shoulder with me to build the world that we imagine, a world in which people wake up every single morning, inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
I love it, man.
9
SPEAKER_02
I want everyone to support you and you ve got a number of great books.
9
SPEAKER_02
The Infinite Game is one that I think the themes have been spoken about throughout here over and over again of how we can start re-imagining our own personal lives or career, industries, you know, everything, the world.
9
SPEAKER_02
So I want people to get this.
9
SPEAKER_02
Start with why, obviously, as a phenom that everyone should have as well if they haven t got it.
9
SPEAKER_02
SimonSinnick.com has got all your content and information.
9
SPEAKER_02
I love your Instagram and your LinkedIn is massive as well if you guys are over there.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s all focused on human skills.
9
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s what it is.
9
SPEAKER_02
So if you want to develop better human skills, follow wherever you re on social media.
9
SPEAKER_02
Other places.
9
SPEAKER_02
All the things.
9
SPEAKER_02
All the things.
9
SPEAKER_02
The podcast, a bit of optimism.
9
SPEAKER_02
And check it out there if you want to go deeper as well.
9
SPEAKER_02
But how else can we be of service to you today?
9
SPEAKER_00
Do the things.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like, the being of service to me is to... I m one person who puts out a vision of the world and some tools to help build it.
9
SPEAKER_00
But until leaders lead with those tools, until we... And by leader, I don t mean those in charge.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean those who choose to take on the awesome responsibility to see those around us rise, which can happen at any level inside an organization or in our society.
9
SPEAKER_00
And what I need people to do is do it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Because my work is intangible, and I need people to make it tangible.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Final question.
9
SPEAKER_00
What s your definition of greatness?
9
SPEAKER_00
I think it s everything we ve talked about.
9
SPEAKER_00
My definition of greatness is living a life of service.
9
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, the people that I think are great devoted themselves to the lives of others.
9
SPEAKER_01
I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
9
SPEAKER_01
Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
9
SPEAKER_01
And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on apple podcast.
9
SPEAKER_01
If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend.
9
SPEAKER_01
Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes.
9
SPEAKER_01
I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better.
9
SPEAKER_01
And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.
9
SPEAKER_01
And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
9
SPEAKER_01
And now it s time to go out there and do something great.