Simon Sinek

Male Announcer: This is episode number 862 with Simon Sinek. 

Lewis Howes: Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. And now let the class begin.

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Lewis Howes: CS Lewis said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less”.

Welcome to this episode. In a world where the need to be right, the need to win, the desire to have more power, more influence, more attention is at its all-time high. Today’s episode is about how to really think about the infinite mind-set, the infinite game and how to create an experience in our lives where we get what we want in our life, we have our dreams come true but we also cultivate and experience of dreams coming true for everyone, and healing happening for everyone, and opportunities and abundance for the whole planet, not just for ourselves.

And I’m so excited about this because Simon Sinek is a friend of mine. He was one of the first people on the show over six years ago. And he’s done some incredible things. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the author of multiple best-selling books, a big time speaker all over the world, and an organizational consultant. And Simon may be best known for popularizing the concept of “Why” in his first TED talk in 2009. It rose to become one of the most watched TED talks of all time, with over 43 million views and subtitled in 48 languages. 

In this interview on Millennials in the workplace broke the internet in 2016, getting over 200 million views in the first month alone. This led Simon to being YouTube’s fifth most search term in 2017. And from American Airlines to Disney to Mars, from big businesses, to entrepreneurs, to police forces, Simon has been invited to meet with an array of leaders and organizations in nearly every industry. He has also had the honour of sharing his ideas at the United Nations, United States Congress, and with the senior most leaders of the United States Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, Army, and Coast Guard. And he’s got a new book called The Infinite Game that is out right now. 

And in this interview, we talked about the sacrifices and consequences people make for their work, and the importance of finding a livable work life balance. How true leadership can come from anywhere, not just from the person in the authoritative position, humility as a top characteristic of being a great leader, and why it should be shared, how the best way to build confidence is through the service of others, and the game changing power of having an infinite mind-set versus a finite mind-set. This one will be a game changer. Within the first five minutes, I was captivated as every time I connect with Simon, we somehow dive into topics that just really open up in a powerful way. 

Make sure to share this with one friend today. You can text a friend post it on WhatsApp group message, put it on Facebook Messenger. Just send it to the least one friend. The link is lewishowes.com/862 or wherever you’re listening to this podcast, just take the link and share it to one friend. You can be a champion to them today. You can be a hero in someone’s life by spreading this message and asking them what they got out of this by learning about the power of the infinite mind-set. 

Let us know over on social media as well at Lewis Howes and Simon Sinek tag us over on Instagram story. As I’m sure Simon would love to see the messages you’re sending him. 

And before we dive in big thank you to our sponsor, ZipRecruiter, hiring and building the culture can be one of the most challenging things for most businesses. And Café Altera’s COO Dylan Moskowitz needed to hire a director of coffee for his organic coffee company, but he was having trouble finding qualified applicants. Now Dylan posted his job on ZipRecruiter and he said he was impressed by how quickly he had great candidates apply. He also use ZipRecruiter’s candidate rating feature to filter his applicants so we can focus on the most relevant ones. And that’s how Dylan found his new director of coffee in just a few days. 

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And if you are an influencer or you have a multiple seven figure business and you’re really looking to connect with other people who are like minded – other people who see infinite possibilities who want to grow, who want to make a bigger impact in their communities and in the world then make sure to go to greatnessmastermind.com, read over the page to see if this group is a right fit for you. And if so, then apply for free at greatnessmastermind.com, all about helping you take your impact in your business to the next level. Check it out right now at greatnessmastermind.com. 

Again, big thank you to our sponsors. And without further ado, let’s dive into this episode with the one and only Simon Sinek.

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Lewis Howes: We’ve got Simon Sinek in the house. Welcome to the School of Greatness, my man. We just started. So, good to see you, I’m glad you’re here. 

Simon Sinek: It’s so good to see you. 

Lewis Howes: We were just saying that you’ve got one of the top, what is it three or five most watched TED talks of all time. And that was I think 10 years ago, roughly 10 years ago. And you were hustling hard to build your business, and credibility, and content, and expertise before then, but then you had to maximize that opportunity. And you’ve been working hard. And you just said you’ve been sacrificing social life. Does that mean intimate relationships as well as friendships, family life? What does that mean?

Simon Sinek: So when I discovered this thing called the “Why”, I realized it’s power had a remarkable influence over my life. I love sharing it. I mean, you know what it feels like? 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: You know the obsession with sharing the ideas haven’t, hasn’t gone away. I was obsessed with it, and I understood that I was the only mouthpiece for it. And it was at a time when, you know now people talk about purpose and business like it’s no biggie. Back then it just wasn’t a thing. 

Lewis Howes: It was like this? The big idea that you said —

Simon Sinek: You know. And then those who talked about it were like weird hippy dippy types, you know.

Lewis Howes: Uh-huh.

Simon Sinek: It wasn’t a mainstream thing yet. And so I realized the power of the idea, and I made a conscious decision that I was gonna… you know, everything comes at a cost, there’s no, there’s nothing for free, whether it comes at a cost of money or personal life, or time or energy, whatever it is, everything costs something.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And so I made the choice that I was going to put myself out there. And I was going to drive this message as hard as I could. And I made a deal with myself, that I would drive hard until I achieved momentum. And I defined momentum as if I were to give less energy, the message would continue to spread the same or faster without me, right? In other words, building a movement where other people could spread the message as well. And the sacrifice I made was, I wasn’t at home. 

And so for a long period of time, I was undatable. I’d meet someone amazing. And I’d be like, “Oh my god, I had such a great time with you free for a second date in six weeks. It was like –

Lewis Howes: In six weeks. [laughs]

Simon Sinek: I mean, nobody wants to date me.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: And plus when I would come home from a trip, I’d be exhausted. So just want to stay home.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek:  So I knew that that was happening. And the nice thing is that momentum is like it has its own momentum. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: And so now I’m sticking to my deal. And instead of slowing down the amount of time —

Lewis Howes: Really? 

Simon Sinek:  — I’m actually on the road. Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: Okay. So now you’re – 

Simon Sinek: Looking for better ways and different ways to spread the message.

Lewis Howes: Got ya.

Simon Sinek: You know, the internet is more mature; podcasting is a thing, social media is more mature. There are other avenues that I can continue to spread the message without having to be on plane. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah, it doesn’t have to be you on the ground. 

Simon Sinek: But I like going out because I like, I would much rather connect with people one on one.

Lewis Howes: Well, you’re very talented at what you do. I mean, I’m seeing you speak. I think arch… Archangel – I was getting messed up, is it Archangel (arch-angel) or Archangel (aark-angel)? 

Simon Sinek: I think it’s Archangel (aark-angel), yeah. 

Lewis Howes:  We – I saw you speak there, we did a Q&A and it was like the best performance of the whole show. So you have an amazing message when you speak.

Simon Sinek: Thank you.

Lewis Howes:  So it’s probably hard for you to be like, “Well, no one can say it like me. No one has the experience like I’ve had learning from all these great leaders to tell this story.” And I think that’s a little probably challenging. 

Simon Sinek: I mean, thank you. But I’m a great believer that for – if a message has value, it has to be simple, understandable, and repeatable.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: Right. Because if you can make it simple, that means somebody else can understand it.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And if somebody else can understand it, that means they can repeat it without you there and without reading the words from a book. 

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: So my goal has always been when I am the one on the stage, when I am the one on camera, to try and present whatever ideas that I have in such a simple way that somebody can understand them and internalize them and repeat those same ideas in their own words. And that’s very nice of you to say that – but I would feel, it would be a very weak movement if I was the only one who could talk about.

Lewis Howes: Right, right. Exactly.

Simon Sinek: You know, and so – 

Lewis Howes: So how important is the messenger then for the message? 

Simon Sinek: Well, I think the messenger, of course matters, but a message must be bigger than the messenger. Otherwise it’ll every message would just die with the messenger. 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: You know, civil rights would have ended when Martin Luther King was assassinated, but clearly it didn’t, because the message was bigger than the messenger. But we look to the messenger to inspire us, and point into a far off destination in the future, and unrealizable idealized vision of the future. And we take that vision and make it our own, and we commit our own efforts on our own energies to building it. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. Is there anything you regret in the last decade since you’ve been building the movement and the momentum for the movement with the personal life?

Simon Sinek: Yeah, of course. I mean, of course.

Lewis Howes: Everything you’re willing to share?

Simon Sinek: I mean, of course. 

Lewis Howes: We’re going to people you were like, “Wow, that could have been a great relationship.”

Simon Sinek: Yeah, of course.

Lewis Howes: Or great friendship, or great –?

Simon Sinek: Yeah, you might – you know, the people that I really connected with my true friends have stuck with me through it all. Even now, some people have said sort of as a jab to me, “You’re too busy to date.” The reality is busy people are patient with busy people. I find that that’s still the case. 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: So, look, we make time for the things that matter to us. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: And of course I have regrets, but regrets is not – I wouldn’t use the word regret. Of course, there are things that I missed.

Lewis Howes: Umm.

Simon Sinek: But I made a choice and I’m very happy with that choice. And I stand by that choice because not only have I had the opportunity, the amazing experience to spread this message and see it actually grow and be bigger than me. I’ve had the opportunity to live a naturally surreal life because of it. My life profoundly changed course. And I cannot – it’s not fair to compare those things. They’re not equals.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: You know, everybody was straight hair once curly hair, and it was curly one straight hair.

Lewis Howes: You know, from that once before.

Simon Sinek: Yeah. I mean, I know people who have the stability in the home life, and the families, and look at my life and be like, “Oh my god, I wish I had that.”

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And you look at my life and I’m bouncing all around. And, I think it’s the answer is I’m really grateful for the life that I live.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: So no, regret is not the word that I would use.

Lewis Howes: But there was a price and a cost.

Simon Sinek: There’s a price and a cost that I that I took willingly.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: You know, that’s fine.

Lewis Howes: It’s interesting. You know Robert Greene, the author of 48 Laws of Power?

Simon Sinek: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes: The Art of Seduction.

Simon Sinek: Yeah, I know the books.

Lewis Howes: All those books. He came on like six months ago, a year ago, maybe. His last book, I’m framing of the name of the last book is probably up here somewhere. But he came on, he came in here, and he had a stroke right before his book came out. And he came in here a month after he had a stroke. He had someone helping him. It took him about 15 minutes to get from the door to sitting here. And half of his body was essentially paralyzed. And he’s sitting here like this could hardly move half his body, is very slow. And I said do you think – and it took him about four years to write this book.

Simon Sinek: Um-hmm. 

Lewis Howes: And I said, “Do you think this book was the cause of this stroke?” And he said, “Yes, because I obsess so much about the message.”

Simon Sinek: Oh, yeah. 

Lewis Howes: And I said, “Do you regret putting this book out and putting this much effort into this? Would you do it differently without the stroke?” And he said, “You know, I wouldn’t do it differently. I’m willing to sacrifice this for the message.” 

Simon Sinek: Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: I thought that was very, I don’t know if I would go that far.

Simon Sinek: I mean, that –

Lewis Howes: If you could take it back and like do it differently and like balance a little bit. 

Simon Sinek: Yeah, I admire it. I mean — 

Lewis Howes: But he was like, I stand by this work and the message is that important for me.

Simon Sinek: I can get, I get it. My – when I wrote leaders the last that book. I mean, it was a behemoth. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: And I had – you know, nights and weekends were a fantasy, you know.

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: And if I was became an obsession, I mean, it was like a beautiful mind. I used to keep a magic marker.

Lewis Howes: Wow. 

Simon Sinek: And not a magic marker, a dry erase marker in my bathroom. So that if I was in the shower and had an idea, as soon as I got out of the shower I right on the tiles, and I’d stand there brushing my teeth in the morning or the evening, and I’d read one of the notes that I wrote on the tile and I have another idea. If you walked into my bathroom, the tiles were filled with ideas. 

Lewis Howes: I love it. 

Simon Sinek: I mean it was really insanity. It was fun, though. But I lost two relationships over the course of that book.

Lewis Howes: Really?

Simon Sinek: Yeah, because I was not myself. I was stressed out, and I was short –

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And you know, it was – and as soon as the book was done, I’m still friends with one of my exes, who was the one I was dating of the writing of that a book. And like, she only knew me in that period. And she knows me now, and she’s like, “This is better.”

Lewis Howes: What?

Simon Sinek: I know.

Lewis Howes: [inaudible]are human being.

Simon Sinek: I’m just nicer. I’m just, I’m less stressed.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: But would I have changed it? No. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: I those sacrifices that would have been nice for those relationships to last. But, you know, the book, the message is bigger than me. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. Isn’t there a way to get a message out while also taking care of your health and having some quality relationships?

Simon Sinek: Yeah. Again, these are balances; these are balances.

Lewis Howes: Its part of learning of how to do.

Simon Sinek: It’s learning. And look, I couldn’t I write a book all the time. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: You know, the one consolation is, even though that book took two years, it’s done. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: It’s over. I never want to do that, again.

Lewis Howes: It’s a finite game.

Simon Sinek: It’s a finite game.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: And this one had its moments as well. But you know, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s finite.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: I think we’re, I actually think that that is actually a much more reasonable and liveable lifestyle. And I think what a lot of people live in reality, where they work in an organization, where their leaders are operating with a finite mind-set, but it’s unlike me when the book ends and I’m done. You know, the end of the quarter, the end of the year, the job doesn’t end.

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: In the business it doesn’t end it keeps going and going. I think that’s way more unhealthy, where you’re literally on a hamster wheel all the time and it ebbs and flows, but it doesn’t stop. I think that’s much more unhealthy. 

Lewis Howes: You are talking about for a four employees of a company. 

Simon Sinek: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Lewis Howes: So should there be a finite ending to employees? I’m figuring out and wondering why?

Simon Sinek: No, no, no. What I’m saying is that the business needs to operate in a way, in which they care about their people more.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And then these arbitrary finite things aren’t the end all bill.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: And create an environment which we can have stressful moments, but there’s not the sustained stress with the steady deep of cortisol – 

Lewis Howes: [inaudible] it everyday, yeah.

Simon Sinek: Every day of our lives, which we know has contributed to increases in cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. I mean, our jobs are literally killing us. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: So I think short bursts of stress are not the problem. The life that I live is actually, I think, pretty healthy. 

 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: It’s the steady drip of cortisol when you go to a job, where we don’t believe that our bosses care about us and the company doesn’t care about us, and they have annual rounds of layoffs to balance the books every year.

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: They don’t, they’d see me as a number. And then the company has the audacity to say, “Millennials aren’t loyal.” It’s not, what are you kidding me? It’s like they’ve entered into a workforce in which they’re just treated as a disposable commodity. Why should they give you loyalty? Show a little loyalty to your people and you’ll be amazed the loyalty they give back. 

Lewis Howes: Right, right. 

Simon Sinek: So I think that’s a much unhealthier environment and that’s what I rail against. I’m railing right now. So yeah, I don’t think what I do is actually unhealthy. I think short bursts of stress are fine.

Lewis Howes: Yeah. If [inaudible] tell you build momentum –

Simon Sinek: And it’s manageable.

Lewis Howes: You need to go all in —

Simon Sinek: Yeah.

Lewis Howes: — for your time to build something.

Simon Sinek: Of course.

Lewis Howes: You know, a rocket tape, a rocket ship takes. I think, almost 50% or more than 50% of its fuel is from the first mile of launch. 

Simon Sinek: Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: And then it can manage the momentum for a year.

Simon Sinek: Yeah. Momentum is a good thing.

Lewis Howes: It’s amazing.

Simon Sinek: Going from zero to motion is a massive –

Lewis Howes: Its gives all the energy.

Simon Sinek: If you’ve ever gone, you know, you got out of the bed to go to the gym that’s harder.

Lewis Howes: It’s so hard.

Simon Sinek: Than being at the gym. [laughs]

Lewis Howes: It’s so hard. It’s so hard to get up put your shoes on. You talked about it a little bit about, there’s a whole industry around I think work life balance? 

Simon Sinek: Yes. Yes. 

Lewis Howes: It’s like it’s a massive industry that just trying to teach this and help people with work life balance.

Simon Sinek: Yeah, the problem 

Lewis Howes: It seems like it’s failing.

Simon Sinek: It’s treating a symptom, isn’t it? You know, it’s like so many things in our life. So here’s the bad analogy: So we buy running sneakers, and they have really thick, you know this.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: They have really thick heels, the tons of padding in the heel, right?

Lewis Howes: Uh-huh.

Simon Sinek: But that’s because people don’t know how to run, right? Because we land with our heel, which is bad for our joints – you know, you’re not supposed to have an extended knee.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: Yeah, all of it. You supposed to be a toe plantar, where your knees are always bend. Well you know all of these.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: So instead of teaching people how to run, what we do is we just build shoes with more padding in the heel and treat the symptom rather than the cause, right? I think it’s the same thing. We treat symptoms instead of the cause. 

So the work life balance thing, what we’re doing is instead of changing businesses, instead of changing the way of business operates and changing the way in which we teach leaders to operate with an infinite mind-set, so that we more naturally have work life balance. And let’s be crystal clear what work life balance means, you know, doing more yoga does not create work life balance, right? 

Lewis Howes: That’s the shoe, protection of the shoe.

Simon Sinek: That’s the cushion on the shoe, right? 

 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. [laughs]

Simon Sinek: That what the imbalance is, I feel safe at home, I don’t feel safe at work. That’s the imbalance.

Lewis Howes: Wow.

Simon Sinek: And no amount of yoga or vacation time is going to fix that. What fixes that work life imbalance is better quality leadership in our businesses, and then what you’ll find is the balance. But instead what we do is we have an entire industry, that’s treating the symptom that’s putting cushion on the shoe to make us feel kinda, for an hour – 

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek:  — that I’ve achieved balance.

Lewis Howes: Same, yeah.

Simon Sinek: You know, but it’s just for an hour.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And, you know, we literally market… you know, companies market themselves is helping provide your work life balance. Unless you’re teaching leaders to the people who are my bosses, then you are not helping me achieve work life balance. You’re helping me numb the pain; you have me cushion the blow. But as –

Lewis Howes: So companies have, you know, buffet of lunches every day when they have sleep pods of patients.

Simon Sinek: Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: When they have workout rooms.

Simon Sinek: Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: When they have therapists, are those treating symptoms? Or is that actually trying to create a more safe environment overall?

Simon Sinek: Depends on the company.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: If the company is well led, then it’s part of a broader scheme.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: If the company is poorly led, then it’s lipstick on a pig. You know, you and I have both visited companies that are gorgeous, and have – and there’s one company I’m thinking of that their corporate kitchen, the cafeteria. The food is unbelievable.

Lewis Howes: Right. You never want to leave.

Simon Sinek: But it’s amazing for us as visitors. 

Lewis Howes: It’s amazing. 

Simon Sinek: They get numb to it.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm. 

Simon Sinek: And I don’t know a single person who would turn down a job offer because the food here is so good.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: It doesn’t exist. But I know plenty of people who turned down job offers because I love working here, I love my boss, I feel a part of something bigger than myself. Yes, your office is nicer than the one I work in; Yes, your food is better than the food that I’m fed but I want to work here.

Lewis Howes: And maybe you get more time or whatever it is, right.

Simon Sinek: Whatever it is. In other words, the feeling we have —

Lewis Howes: Interesting. 

Simon Sinek: About coming to work is way more important. Now of course those things are nice. I’m not going to say to until you those things are not nice, but those are not the things that make us loyal. Those are not the things that make us feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: Those are just really nice things.

 Lewis Howes: So is it one person’s responsibility that one leader of a company’s responsibility to create a feeling of safeness, a feeling of something bigger is happening here, a feeling of –

Simon Sinek: Psychological safety and all the rest of it?

Lewis Howes: Yeah, or just like, you know, that I want to be a part of this brand or this mission, because it’s something bigger than myself, even though maybe somewhere else has better opportunities for food or you have a fitness center. Is it one person in a business that’s responsible? Is it the executive team’s responsibility? Is it’s everyone’s responsibility who create that? 

Simon Sinek: Yeah. So it’s more efficient when it comes to the top, but it’s anyone’s responsibility. You know, leadership is a responsibility to people around us. It’s not a rank. You’ve heard me say this before, I know many people who sit at the highest levels of organizations who are not leaders.

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: They have authority, and we do as they tell us because they have authority over us, but we would not follow them. 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: And I know many people as do you who sit at lower levels of organizations who have no formal authority, and that they’ve made a choice to look after the person to the left of them, and look after the person to the right of them, and we would trust them and follow them anywhere. In other words, leadership can come from anywhere within or within an organization. 

Yes, we have the right to demand to have better leaders and better leadership in our companies, but when we don’t, quitting is not the only option, nor is simply complaining, but undertaking the task of becoming the leader we wish we had.

Lewis Howes: Wow. 

Anyone at any level can become a student of leadership, and anyone at any level can choose to take to look after this person in that person and work tirelessly to see that they rise, they become better versions of themselves, and that they show up to work inspired and go home feeling fulfilled and feel safe when they’re at work because of us.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: Though the organization itself may be dysfunctional, there are pockets, diamonds in the coal mine. And if you get enough of those pockets, the tail can actually wag the dog.

Lewis Howes: Wow. 

Simon Sinek: So that’s the great irony of all of this, which is the power belongs to people. This is just an anthropological truth.

Lewis Howes: Sure.

Simon Sinek: You know the power always belongs to the people, which is why dictators buss in crowds to give the appearance that they’re popular, or they actually have fake elections to give the appearance that they have a mandate. Dictators do that, right? If the people didn’t have the power, dictators wouldn’t need rallies and they wouldn’t need election. 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: Right? Dictators fear the people, right? Because people have the power in any population and any organization. And what keeps dictators and bad leaders authorities in power is by keeping the people divided because if you can create mistrust amongst neighbours, then the people can never come together and never depose the leader. And so, if you look at any dictatorship that ever existed, there are systems look at East Germany during the Cold War, we didn’t know who was telling on us. So everybody kept to themselves and nobody trusted anybody, neighbours didn’t trust neighbours, and that allows authoritarian organizations to do as they please.

The people, when people come together, you know, it’s not Congress that just woke up one day and decided the Civil Rights Act, that’s a pretty good idea. It was thousands and thousands and thousands of people marching in peaceful protest. That put unbelievable pressure on a system to change.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm. 

Simon Sinek: And anything that’s ever happened in the world where there’s been revolution, revolution happened this way. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: People always have the power. And this is very true in the business as well, that people have the power. And so if we have mass layoffs on an annualized basis, and you create internal competition, what you’re doing is you’re pitting people against people, especially if you create a system where we’re only incentivized based on individual performance. So in a sales organization, for example, if my income literally depends on how many sales I get, and you’re going to – I’m going to keep stuff –why would I help you?

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: Right? You keep the people divided, you keep the system that we’ve got. But as soon as the people come together, good things happen. And so I’m a great believer that those of us who believe that there’s a better way to build a corporate environment, those of us who believe that being able to say I love my job is a right. It’s not a privilege. It’s not for a lucky few who get to go home at the end of the day, and say, I love my job. 

Lewis Howes: Right? 

Simon Sinek: It’s not some lottery that you win. You know, you go to a dinner party and you ask them, “Do like your job?” and they go, “I love my job.” and you go, ”Oh you’re so lucky.” They didn’t win anything, right? It’s not luck. 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: We are entitled. It is our God given right to love going to work. 

Lewis Howes: Why is that? 

Simon Sinek: Because I think human beings are tribal animals. And all of us want to feel inspired. We all want to feel like we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves. We all want to have some sort of physical and psychological safety, whether it’s at home or work. We fear war, we fear crime, and we want to feel psychologically safe at home. We want safety. And at the end of the day, every human being on the planet wants the feeling that I can provide for myself and my family. There is no bility in work.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm. 

Simon Sinek: You know, hand-outs don’t work and they and they destroyed the human ego.

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: You know, there’s no bility and being able to do a hard day’s worth of work and collect the pay check, and when I do really well, somebody says, “Good job, here’s a little extra for you, because you’re a valuable member of the tribe. And we want to make sure that we’re incentivizing the behavior that you’re doing. And the behavior you’re doing is you’re taking care of something bigger than yourself.” 

Lewis Howes: Before there was corporate jobs –

Simon Sinek: Yeah.

Lewis Howes: The people feel entitled with – or are, I’m sorry not entitled but they feel like they were all working on their own –

Simon Sinek: [inaudible]

Lewis Howes: — before then, they’re doing their own craft; they were doing stuff in the family, in the tribe, what was happening?

Simon Sinek: So scale breaks things. Human beings, Homo sapiens been on this planet, 50,000 years ish. And for 40 of those 50,000 years, literally four-fifths of our time on this planet, we lived in populations that were never larger than about 150 people.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And we didn’t all live on top of each other, and there were communities. And the way we survived in these dangerous times when we took care of each other. We contributed, some people build things, some people wanted things, some people made food, some people – we took care of the kids with their families, and the wealth was distributed. There’s evidence they found an anthropological digs, where the best cuts of meat, which you would think would go to all the alphas because I’m the strongest, I get to choose the food first, you know, the best cuts of meat which they can tell by the bones are actually distributed amongst the tribe. In other words, the alphas, the leaders, yes, they were entitled to eat first, that’s just the way we are we’re hierarchical animals. Nobody has a problem that somebody more senior, nobody has visceral contempt for the idea that somebody more senior in an organization makes more money than me. We’re okay with our alphas getting better treatment. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: You know, nobody has a problem with celebrities, you know – 

Lewis Howes: Making more money, getting fame with [inaudible].

Simon Sinek: Getting a table in the restaurant that we have to write for.

Lewis Howes: Right, right.

Simon Sinek: We’re okay with it.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: It’s one of the reasons; we all try and you know, increase our standing in society by doing good. Hopefully you do it in a good way not just getting internet famous, which is getting fame without any contribution to society, different subject. 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: It was shared hardships, shared sacrifice for the good of each other. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t ego and selfishness. But of course, but at the end of the day, we needed each other. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: And then about 10,000 or 12,000 years ago, we started farming. We didn’t need to travel anymore, we could stay put, and we could also sustain much larger populations than about 150 because we could amass resources. This also allowed for ruling classes and intelligence and things like that. You can have an entire group of people who didn’t hunt and didn’t gather they just governed, you know, like it’s a ruling class, that’s what it is.

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: Or they just fought of that.

Lewis Howes: They begin philosophers, yeah.

Simon Sinek:  Like you could, we had the resources for that and we were okay with it. And that’s a good thing because look at the advancements in modern society in the past 10,000 years, simply because you didn’t have to go toil the field, you could actually go invent something.

Lewis Howes: You could innovate.

Simon Sinek: You could innovate, right? So it’s a good thing. But scale breaks things for human being. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: We were not naturally made for living in large populations. And so the way it work best is when we organize into smaller groups, which is why hierarchy matters, which is why leadership training matters. 

So you asked about is the top person responsible? No. The top person is responsible for taking care of the people in their direct responsibility, and ensuring that they are charged with and incentivize to take care of the people with their direct responsibility, who are charged with and incentivize to take care of the people in their direct responsibility and the people on the front lines were actually doing all the work, feel taken care of and we’re happy to contribute. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: There’s a marine that I know, who is a Marine General, who says the way he can judge the quality of a lieutenant is he listens to how the troops talk about their lieutenant.

Lewis Howes: When he’s not around?

Simon Sinek: When – is it the Lieut is the Lieutenant? Or is that our Lieutenant?

Lewis Howes: Ooh.

Simon Sinek: They take possession of their leader, right?

Lewis Howes: Wow.

Simon Sinek: That’s our lieutenant, right? Versus that’s – it’s always the Colonel. It’s never our Colonel. So is the Colonel because there’s no relationship to distant. So as soon as we take possession, emotional possession of our leaders, there’s a sign of devotion and mutual trust. But that relationship starts with how the leader leads. Yes, we have a responsibility to give back, but we call you leader not because you have the rank, we call you leader, because you took the risk to trust first. We call you leader because you took the risk to build the relationship first. You took the risk to create the circle of safety first. You took the risk to go headfirst towards the vision first. That’s why we call you leader because you undertook an element of risk. You literally lead, you went first. 

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: Right, nothing to do with rank.

Lewis Howes: Into the unknown for –

Simon Sinek: Into the unknown, whatever it is. And then we have a responsibility to go, I’m coming. I support you, in this good followership too. You always do this to me, whenever we get together; you get me [laughs]. You know, the best leaders are actually the best followers.

Lewis Howes: In what ways? What do you mean? 

Simon Sinek: The best leaders never think that they’re the final that the buck stops with them. They always believe that they’re in service to something bigger than themselves. And even if that leader of the personal leadership position gets to the tippy top of whatever organization, they still feel that their subordinate to something even bigger, right? So the pope does still thinks that he’s in service to something bigger than him, right?

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: A CEO of a visionary organization feels that they are still beholden to and following a vision bigger than them. So the best leaders actually are the best followers even if they’re at the highest levels of the organization, they’re still in service.

Lewis Howes: Right. It may not be to a person but to a cause, to a mission –  

Simon Sinek: To a cause, an idea, a vision.

Lewis Howes: –a god, a something. 

Simon Sinek: Whatever it is, there’s still some sort of something that they’re beholden to, and they’re devoted to, and they’re in service to. So followership is a thing.

Lewis Howes: Umm.

Simon Sinek: And not to belabour the marine point, but you know, Marines when they evaluate their leaders, they’re looking for good leadership and good fellowship. So for example, when you go through OCS, Officer Candidate School selection, when somebody for a task, you know, chosen to be the leader of that group for that task. The Marines are watching the others as well. So they’re looking to see that everybody’s contributing ideas. They’re looking to see that that leader takes in those ideas but is decisive. And they’re looking to see that the members of the group if their idea’s unpicked they still give their all to see that the leaders idea is successful. And if it fails, give it their all to pick up the pieces and see what they can do as supposed to going, “I told you, should have gotten my way.” 

Lewis Howes: Right, right. “I was right.”

Simon Sinek: Or sabotaging because their idea didn’t get picked. 

Lewis Howes: So they go all in? 

Simon Sinek: So good followership is as important as good leadership that we respect that when a decision is made, we will give our blood sweat and tears to see that the decision that our leaders have made will be successful and if it fails, we will help pick up the pieces because that’s the deal. 

Lewis Howes: What if you don’t believe in the idea?

Simon Sinek: You may not believe in the in the choice but you better believe in the idea. 

Lewis Howes: Right. Gotcha.

Simon Sinek: You know you better be – 

Lewis Howes: The greater idea, but the choice of getting there.

Simon Sinek: And that’s just part of life. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: Heck, man. I’ve disagreed with my own ideas. You know, I’ve been pig-headed and dogmatic about this is the way we gotta go. And everybody is wonderful and kind – it could have like —

Lewis Howes: [inaudible] you’re like – 

Simon Sinek: You are like falls apart and just like —

Lewis Howes: Okay.

Simon Sinek: “Yeah, I kind of screwed the pooch on that one.” But I take accountability. Or we find in the middle, somebody goes, “Hey, if we do this, we can probably be more successful and we pivot.” There has to be at that at the decision making ranks, there has to be a humility that the ideas don’t always have to come from me.

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: Bob Gayler, the Fifth Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force has the best definition of humility I’ve ever heard. He said, “Don’t confuse humility with meekness. Humility is being open to the ideas of others.”

Lewis Howes: Umm. 

Simon Sinek: So, you know, it’s not about like, “Oh, shucks, that’s not humility.” You know, you and I know some remarkable leaders. People have great power and authority and they have huge egos.

Lewis Howes: Yes. 

Simon Sinek: They know they’re good and they I don’t mind talking about how good they are. But when somebody says, “Hey, I got an idea”, they lean in like they’re little kids. They go, “Let’s hear it.”

You know, I’m looking at some of the photographs on your wall, and some of the folks that I know here, they have an insatiable curiosity for ideas. And even though they’re unbelievably accomplished, if you have something to share with them, they want to talk about it, they want they want to hear about it. That’s humility to me. So it’s not this, you know, it’s not me, it’s you know.

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: Have self-confidence is a good thing. Thinking you’re better than everyone else, that’s unhealthy. 

Lewis Howes: Oh, that’s good. Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: You know, thinking you’re good, is healthy. Thinking you’re better than others is unhealthy.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm. 

Simon Sinek: Humility is not thinking that you’re not good. 

Lewis Howes: How do you have –

Simon Sinek: Its nothing can you [inaudible]

Lewis Howes: How do you develop self-confidence? We’re kind of going off here now. But this is a topic I’m really passionate about right now. I believe self-doubt is one of the biggest killers to anyone’s dreams. 

Simon Sinek: Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: So how does someone develop self-confidence and sustain it with the ever going changes and stresses and uncertainties that always come up once you reach a certain level, there’s a new uncertainty, you know?

Simon Sinek: So I think it’s ironic that we call it self-confidence because I don’t for one thing, it comes from the inside. I think our self-confidence comes from the outside. Right? 

Lewis Howes: You mean, and that’s the wrong way of going about it or you think that’s where it comes from in general?

Simon Sinek: We are being misdirected by the name. When we say build yourself-confidence, that’s the instruction is saying go inside, look inside oneself.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: But I think that’s false direction. Children aren’t born self-confident. Their confidence is built from their parents, and their friends, and their teachers, where they’re rewarded when they do well, and they’re pushed, when they fail. When they can do better simply, you know – what we know this, that simply telling kids that they’re great all the time, actually doesn’t build self-confidence, its actually does the total opposite.

 Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: Right? And I for one, I can tell you, in my own experience my own self-confidence 100% comes from the relationships that I have. It’s not some deep internal fortitude. A world famous trapeze artist is not going to try a brand new death defying act for the first time without a net. So it’s the people in my life. It’s when I do doubt myself that somebody says, “You got this.” when somebody says, “I believe in you.” when somebody says, “No matter what happens whether it succeeds or fails, I’m going to be by your side.” 

Lewis Howes: Ah, that’s good. 

Simon Sinek: That’s when I have the confidence to do difficult thing.

Lewis Howes: Wow.

Simon Sinek: Right? I don’t have some natural battery that just… you know that to me is bravado. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: I don’t know that self-confidence. Being a huge risk taker is not an indication of self-confidence to me. Jumping out of a plane and jumping out of a plane with a parachute or two different things, right? 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: To me, self-confidence is measured. And there should be a degree of doubt. But I think true self-confidence, belief in oneself and belief in one’s cause, I could not do the things that I’m doing. And I would not have the strength to have made the sacrifices that I’ve made, or continue to wake up on a daily basis to drive to spread this message, if I were alone. And so, when we talk about building one’s self-confidence, I think the mistake that we make is that we look inside. I think the reality is we’re trying to build our self-confidence. We should be looking to our friends; we should be nursing our relationships. When I’m looking to build my self-confidence, the question is: “Who around me do I need to take care of?” You know, the way we build our self-confidence is by helping somebody else build theirs.

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: It’s an act of we will build our confidence with an act of service.

So I’ll tell you a true story. So I did an experiment. I love doing experiments in my own life. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah, me too.

Simon Sinek: You know I have mad thoughts I’m like, “Well, let’s try this one out.” So I have a very dear friend who has stuck with me through thick and thin, who she is absolutely profoundly one of the reasons that I am who I am today. And I have my confidence, in large part because of her, right?

 Lewis Howes: Wow, yeah.

Simon Sinek: She’s one of a small group of people who like I look at and say, “Um-hmm, yep, yep. Good friend”, right? She was struggling, like seriously struggling. 

Oh, let me take a step back. We decided that we were going to— she was struggling. She goes and she was going through some hard things in her life. Career wasn’t going the way she wanted. Her personal relationship was struggling. There was a lot of rough.

Lewis Howes: She’s lacking confidence. 

Simon Sinek: There was a lot of rough, she was lacking confidence.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: We would get together on a regular basis, and I would attempt to coach her.

Lewis Howes: Uh-huh.

Simon Sinek: You know, and she feel great for the hour after she left me and then it would very quickly go back to normal. And we get back together and I would coach her, and she felt great for the hour after she left me, and then it would go back to normal. And I wouldn’t, I can’t say that there was some profound change being made of like –

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: So I had a hare-brained idea, I went to her and I said, “I need your help”. I said, “I’m struggling. I don’t have a coach that I that I love and trust. You’ve known me for years. I trust you with with everything. I feel unbelievably safe around you. Can you put together a program and can you coach me? I think you’re good at it.” And I – it wasn’t reciprocal. It wasn’t I coach you, you coach me.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: I said, it’s just, “I need your help because I’m struggling.” And it was legit. It wasn’t like I was just making stuff.

Lewis Howes: You’re stressed.

Simon Sinek: It was legit. I mean, I could do with the help, and I trusted her to help me. And something profound started to happen, over the course of just a few weeks it wasn’t even a few months. But over the course of a few weeks, she started to gain way more confidence. Her career started to really move in a more positive direction, her relationship firmed up. And the more that she was in service to me, the more that she grew herself.

Lewis Howes: Wow.

Simon Sinek: So I think self-confidence. I wish we didn’t call it self-confidence.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: Because like I said, I think it gives a false direction. The way we build confidence is with. You know, “con” means “with” doesn’t it?

Lewis Howes: Interesting.

Simon Sinek: So I have no idea of the etymology of confidence.

Lewis Howes: That’s interesting.

Simon Sinek:  Its interest just making stuff up here.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek:  But “con” means “with” I mean to confide. Let’s look this up because fidelity, you know, is something to do with truth. So confide, right? Yeah, look it up with the etymology of confidence, is to confide is two people, like a conspiracy is a co whisper. That’s what conspiracy is a co-whisper. So confidence is its co-fidelity. 

Lewis Howes: Right? 

Simon Sinek: Let’s see if the instinct is matched by the etymology of the word. And which if it isn’t, I’m still okay with it. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah, yeah you look…

Simon Sinek: What do you give, what does it say? So it comes from late Middle English confident translations, origins and meanings, here we go. Online etymology dictionary gotta love it.

Lewis Howes: [laughs]

Simon Sinek: Where is the word come from? Yeah, I’m not gonna sit here and waste everything. But it comes from “confidre” and “fidre” means to trust. 

Lewis Howes: To trust yourself or trust the people or?

Simon Sinek: So come, what does come mean? It means with.

Lewis Howes: [laughs] with.

Simon Sinek: It means with trust.

Lewis Howes: Wow. They can be with trust with yourself or –

Simon Sinek: I think it’s been missed – that’s my point. I think it’s been… I think it’s like a conspiracy requires two people. You cannot have a conspiracy with one person. It’s a co-whispering. You commit the crime of conspiracy when you tell someone something and you both in on it.

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: So I think confidentiality, confidence is the same thing. I think it’s at least two people who undertake the task of trust and reliance. 

Lewis Howes: So she was coaching you and you saw a change with over a few weeks of her confidence.

Simon Sinek: Her confidence built.

Lewis Howes: And her belief in herself.

Simon Sinek: Her belief in herself grew when she was in service helping me. And so that goes back to the root of the question. How do you build your self-confidence?

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm. How do you overcome self-doubt?

Simon Sinek: How do you overcome self-doubt? Help someone else overcome self-doubt. 

Lewis Howes: I love that. I love that.

Simon Sinek: To overcome self-doubt by helping. And it’s not a selfish thing. I’m only helping you so I can.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: You have to genuinely love and commit to the person. This person that you’re helping, you have to genuinely care about their success, and their confidence, and their luck in life.

Lewis Howes: Yeah. It’s so true. Everything comes back to service. I liked it.

Simon Sinek: And I like cuz it goes back to the origins of humankind, right, which is we are naturally tribal animals, and we actually are at our best when we are in service to each other in a cause greater than ourselves. 

Lewis Howes: The more we focus on what we’re lacking, what we don’t have, what’s not working for us the challenges we’re going through, the more doubt we’re going to have.

Simon Sinek: Correct.

Lewis Howes:  When we’re inwardly focused on what we don’t have.

Simon Sinek: I wish we’d had this conversation about eight months ago because I would have written half the stuff in the book because –

Lewis Howes: Well, I’m writing a book on that stuff right now.

Simon Sinek: Well, because this is what the infinite mind-set is all about.

Lewis Howes: Uh-huh.

Simon Sinek: A finite mind-set is when being number one be the best, me, me, me. Right?

Lewis Howes: Win, win, win, meaning win at all costs, not “win-win”.

Simon Sinek: Correct. Not “win-win”.

Lewis Howes: Not win-win.

Simon Sinek: It’s win, win, win.

Lewis Howes: Yeah. Because the infinite game is you win, I win, the world wins, right?

Simon Sinek: Um-hmm.

Lewis Howes: We all win, humanity wins.

Simon Sinek: It’s the world win, definitely.

Lewis Howes: It’s not win-win.

Simon Sinek: Right. We are players in different games every day of our lives, whether we like it or not. There’s no such thing as being number one in marriage. Like good luck with that.

Lewis Howes: Right, that’s not gonna work.

Simon Sinek: There’s no one who’s declared the winner of life, like we come we go. Like if you make more money than somebody else, you’re not the winner of life. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. Sorry.

Simon Sinek: Sorry, right. 

Lewis Howes: Someday you die. 

Simon Sinek: Someday you just die and you don’t take it with you. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: You know, and there’s no such thing as winning business, or winning global politics. But if we listen to too many leaders, they talk about being number one, being the best, and beating their competition.

Lewis Howes: This was me in my entire life. 

Simon Sinek: Yeah, it’s a lot of people.

Lewis Howes: It’s like six, seven years ago. I learned that that doesn’t work anymore.

Simon Sinek: And you’re an Olympian.

Lewis Howes: Well, I haven’t made the Olympics but I’m on the Olympic handball team, yes, on the national team.

Simon Sinek: Okay, whatever. You’re the highest level of athletics.

Lewis Howes: Yes.

Simon Sinek: And you know this from spending time with athletes –

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: — which is individual athletes.

Lewis Howes: I know. It’s all about –

Simon Sinek: Right? Where team athletes tend to be a lot healthier. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: So like individual athletes when they reach the top of their game, Michael Phelps, Andre Agassi, they become the greatest in the world, the next thing that happens to them is depression, right?

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: Whereas the team athletes you win the World Series, you win the Super Bowl, it doesn’t like deep depression is not the next thing that happens. 

Lewis Howes: Some people maybe but not in general, yeah.

Simon Sinek: But it’s – not in general. And, you know, Olympic athletes are such a unique and I talked to a bunch of them for this book.

Lewis Howes: Yeah, especially for the gymnast, who were like 16, you have a billion people watching you win the gold medal. 

Simon Sinek: Yeah.

Lewis Howes: Now what?

Simon Sinek: And it is one of the most selfish finite pursuits.

Lewis Howes: Yes

Simon Sinek: Because the entire pursuit is I’m going to be number on.

Lewis Howes: The old metal.

Simon Sinek: Right. And they all said the same thing: I want to win the Olympics. Well, you don’t actually win the Olympics. You win one event.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: But they all say the same thing, “I’m gonna win the Olympics”, right? Then they say nonsense, like, “I want to inspire all the little children.” Not a single one of them on their vision boards has pictures of little children, overcoming adversity. You know, they have pictures of them standing on podiums— 

Lewis Howes: Holding the medals, holding the trophies, or the vision boards. It’s entirely a selfish pursuits.

Lewis Howes: Yes.

Simon Sinek: Right? And any inspiration to little kids is just a Lucky Strike Extra that’s really good for the press conference.

Lewis Howes: Right, right.

Simon Sinek: Right? But not a single one of them is waking up doing it for the kids.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: I drag myself out of bed; I’m running in the rain, I missed thanksgiving for the kids. Didn’t happen never on any planet, right? It was for me. 

Lewis Howes: Right. [laughs]

Simon Sinek: Right? And so there’s this, you know, whether they metal or not, even if they’d were medallists, when they’re done with the Olympics and their ability to pursuit, they spent their entire lives from their childhood to adulthood striving to be number one. And let’s be honest, they’re not the best. They’re just better than everybody else that day…

Lewis Howes: That day.

Simon Sinek:  — which is really funny to me, right? Which is you can get a gold medal in – pick a sport, ice skating…

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: And you fell in your routine, but if everybody else fell twice…

Lewis Howes: You’re the best.

Simon Sinek: You’re the best.

Lewis Howes: You’re the winner. 

Simon Sinek: But you’re not you just better than everybody else in the competition, because it’s finite. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: And finite, has known players, fixed rules, and agreed upon objectives. It’s only the players, but it’s not life and there’s an imbalance. Yes, finite games are very important. Finite games and finite objectives are essential in an infinite game, right? But the infinite game is the context for those finite games. I need to Excel or be the best here in order to x, right? And recognize that this is not the annual bill. The analogy for living with an infinite mind-set is not about winning, right? The better analogy is exercise. So how do you be a healthy person? Well, you have to eat well, you have to sleep, get enough sleep, you have to nurse your personal relationships, and you have to exercise. If you do some of those things, you’ll be healthier than doing none of those things. But you kind of have to do them all, right? Living in infinite mind-set is the same thing. There’s a series of practices, do some you’ll be better than none, but you kind of have to do them all.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: Right? And the way the finite mind-set fits into it is I want to get into shape. I’ve been sitting on the couch for most of my life watching TV; I’m going to get into shape. And I have a fitness goal, a finite goal that I can easily measure my weight. I can look on a scale and I can measure the progress. And I’ve made the goal that I’m going to lose this amount of weight by this date. And so I commit to a healthy lifestyle. I eat better, I exercise more and getting more sleep, and I’m watching the weight fall off and I miss my goal. I don’t lose the amount of weight that I wanted to lose by the day time.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: So what? You’re still healthier and you’re on the road to being healthier. And I can see for a fact that you absolutely will hit the goal later on. And even if you hit the goal, the problem is you can’t stop exercising, you have to do it for the rest of your life.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: That’s what an infinite mind-set is. An infinite mind-set is more like a lifestyle, which is yes, absolutely having finite goals, is very important. We are absolutely driven by goals. We like measuring things; it is much easier to get into the lifestyle of exercise and the habit of it if I have metrics. Look at the insanity of fit bits and things like that, which is over done is actually unhealthy and has adverse –

Lewis Howes: Obsessiveness, yeah.

Simon Sinek: It will talk, you know, it’s not that the subject. But the nest point is it’s helping people get up and have a healthier lifestyle. We like measuring stuff; it’s just as a human thing, right? But it’s not about winning. It’s not about actually; it’s not actually about the goal. The goals and metrics are simply a way to help us measure speed and distance. I’ve lost this amount of weight over this amount of time, right? You cannot run a marathon without mile markers- it’s unnerving.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: The mile markers help me measure, how far I’ve go. –

Lewis Howes: How far I’ve go, yeah.

Simon Sinek: How far I’ve gone, and how fast have I gone?

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: And the metrics we haven’t worked. Help us measure how far we’re moving and how fast we’re moving towards a vision that is for all practical purposes unrealizable.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: Right? That’s the infinite game there’s a context. And so when we beat ourselves up, because we miss an arbitrary number by an arbitrary date, but the question is are we building a healthy organization?

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And I would rather organizations do all the right things to build a healthy organization, even if they miss arbitrary dates. 

One of my favorite stories is Gary Ridge from WD-40. WD-40 is a public company.

Lewis Howes: Huge company.

Simon Sinek: That’s a decent sized company, which is kind of incredible coz it’s basic one product.

Lewis Howes: [inaudible]

Simon Sinek: Basically one product.

Lewis Howes: It’s just like grease.

Simon Sinek: It’s, you know, very sophisticated lubricant that was actually made for the space program. But – by the way, we talked about fancy food and – their offices for – they just moved into a new office recently. They’re old offices, or a dump.

Lewis Howes: Really?

Simon Sinek: And yet the morale through the roof.

Lewis Howes: Why is that? 

Simon Sinek: People love work – because it was never about the office, it was about the people.

Lewis Howes: Wow. 

Simon Sinek: It’s never about the office; it was about the people, right? Anyway, they have a lovely new office now, but it’s still about the people. That’s why I said before, is it the food? Well, depends on the company.

Anyway, he was on one of his quarterly analyst calls and hit one of the analysts said, “You missed your numbers” And Gary said, “No, I didn’t. I missed yours.” Minor fine. 

Lewis Howes: Wow.

Simon Sinek: Right? And that’s the point. Which is there’s nothing wrong with having metrics and goals. Those are very important to human beings. But to what end? What are we serving bigger than ourselves? Right? 

So my analogy is like an iceberg, right? So we know that the majority of an iceberg lies underneath the water. So when there’s a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of the iceberg sitting above the ocean, right? It’s the visionary who can see beneath the ocean. It’s the visionary who stands there. And even though everybody sees a tiny or nothing, they can see nothing. The visionary is able to explain what exists in their imagination only, okay? It only exists in their imagination. And they inspire a few people to join them because like that, yes, we can do that. And they start working and a little bit of the iceberg shows. And a few people go, “Oh, it’s going to work.” And so they commit to joining the movement, or the company, and a little more of the iceberg shows, right? And before too long, enough of the iceberg shows that people can go, “This is a real thing. You’re not insane and crazy, what you’re doing is actually in reality.”

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: But the thing is the vast majority of the iceberg still exists under the ocean. And so what the visionary does is constantly remind us where we’re going and how much more we have to do. And though we can celebrate how much we’ve achieved, how much of the iceberg is sticking up above the ocean, the reality is we have way more work and when I die it’s still going to be the majority underneath the ocean. 

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: And that’s what the movement is all about.

Lewis Howes: Wow.

Simon Sinek: The metrics help us measure how fast and how far of how much of the iceberg we revealed. But the infinite game is understanding that the majority of our work still lies undiscovered.

Lewis Howes: I wish we had three hours because this is amazing. But I want to finish with a few questions to be mindful of our time. And there’s so much more good stuff in this book, I want you guys to get this. Make sure to get the Infinite Game. Check this out a lot of good stuff that we haven’t even started to scratch the surface on, but so much good stuff in this interview.

Simon Sinek: Well, I think everything that we talked about has been influenced by what I’ve learned in that book.

Lewis Howes: Okay. 

Simon Sinek: I mean –

Lewis Howes: There’s a lot more.

Simon Sinek: We don’t necessarily have to talk about chapter three.

Lewis Howes: Right, right. 

Simon Sinek: But I can tell you that I write about the ideas that mold me and direct me. My work is semi to semi-autobiographical. You know, start with why was born out of my loss of my passion, and a discovering of a concept that put me on a road where my passion was greater than I’ve ever experienced and I shared it with my friends. That’s just how it began. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: And my friends invited me to their homes to share it with their friends. That’s just how it started. And how was I to know that there would be a TED talk in a book? I had no imagination for that. I just knew that I loved sharing this idea that was awesomely powerful. And it changed the way I saw the world but operated within it. And Leaders Eat Last was the struggle I was having with trust. You know, I kept meeting members of the military who would lay down their lives for people they didn’t even like where in business, people don’t even like to give up credit for things. I wanted what they had. We call each other colleague and co-worker; they call each other brother and sister. I want that. I want to work in that environment. 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: And so my initial theory was that they’re just better people. And you find better people in the military because they’re drawn to a life of service. But the more I started to learn, the more I started to discover that it wasn’t the people; it was the environment, and that anyone can create those kinds of relationships and that kind of trust if you get the right environment. That’s what I wrote about the Leaders Eat Last, which directed how I live my life and see the world. And now this book is no different, which is in my – I’m an idealist. I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people can wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe at work, and return home fulfilled at the end of the day. And people told me that I’m crazy. And people tell me, stop being such an idealist. And when I talked to CEOs, they say to me, you don’t understand business. And it gets, you know… and too many of us are going to work with an uncomfortable feeling that this isn’t what work should feel like.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: And yet those in power, those with more money than us, and more influence on than us, and more authority than us keep telling us that they’re right, we’re wrong, that we don’t understand how business works, that this is how things are. For example, shareholder supremacy, right?

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: And so we just go to work uncomfortable.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: But I trust the human instinct. I don’t believe that when the majority of people “feel” that something is not right, that it’s the “few” people who know and the rest of us are wrong. And I got tired of people telling me and the discovery of this little idea by Jim Cars, you know, he was the first one that really beautifully eloquently articulated this concept of finite and infinite games, and unleashed a whole new way of seeing the world and realized, “Oh, my God, I’m not the one who doesn’t understand business. They’re the ones that don’t understand business.”

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: And oh, my goodness, all of us who have this really uncomfortable feeling that this isn’t how work should be, we’re right.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: And so this book, this concept, and I took Jim’s work and the goal was, he had perfectly articulated what an infinite game was, but I was stuck with the challenge was like, what do we do with that?

Lewis Howes: Yeah, how do we apply that?

Simon Sinek: Like, how do we build upon that? How do I actually apply it? How do I create an organization? How do I change my mind-set in order to operate with infinity to operate with an infinite mindset?

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: What practically, what practical things can an organization do, can leaders do to go from a finite mindset to an infinite mindset? That’s what the challenge I was set up on. And so it is profoundly influenced the way I see the world, and profoundly influenced the way in which I navigate through it now. So every answer that I’ve given you today absolutely has run through the filter.

Lewis Howes: Sure.

Simon Sinek: And has come through the education of learning about and writing this little treatise.

Lewis Howes: To wrap things up, what would be three things that a leader of an organization who’s listening to this or watching this right now could say, could start to apply something they could do tomorrow? 

Simon Sinek: Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: Then they go into their work and they take a team of five people or 5000 people. 

Simon Sinek: Sure. 

Lewis Howes: And they can get started with three things, a couple of things to have their… to start the momentum of creating this family environment. 

Simon Sinek: Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: People coming to work, maybe they don’t love their – everything about their job. 

Simon Sinek: Sure. 

Lewis Howes: They feel safe.

Simon Sinek: You don’t have to like it every day but you do get to love it every day. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. They feel safe at home. 

Simon Sinek: You don’t like your kids every day but you get to love them every day. You really are.

Lewis Howes: Right, exactly. You do feel safe at work, you feel safe at home, you feel like you’re part of a bigger mission, what will be three things they could do it and also three things that an employee of companies could do tomorrow going in to work?

Simon Sinek: Yeah, okay. So the tomorrow thing is a good constraint. So I would say that there are two, three concepts in there that can be done tomorrow. One is to build trusting teams. And we’ve talked about this already, which is being the person in charge doesn’t make you the leader. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: Every single person has the capacity to be the leader they wish they had. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek:  And so I’m a great believer that leaders are made not born, right? It’s a skill set.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: You can learn it, you can practice it. Not everybody wants to learn it, not everybody’s going to be good at it. And it takes a lifetime of work.

Lewis Howes: It does.

Simon Sinek: And you’ll never be the best, right?

Lewis Howes: Umm-hmm.

Simon Sinek: And so, for people who want to be the leader they wish they had they have to become students of leadership. You have to read books, you have to watch talks, you have to read articles, you have to have conversations about it. You and I have these conversations when we’re not on camera.

Lewis Howes: All the time.

Simon Sinek: All the time, right? We’re genuinely interested in the subject.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: And when we hang out with each other, and –

Lewis Howes: That’s what we’re talking about.

Simon Sinek: That’s what we talk about. We talk about this stuff all the time. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: Right? So, you know, I talked to small companies all the time and say, we don’t have a budget for leadership training. I’m like, “Do you have the budget to buy a book?”

Lewis Howes: Right. Or have some podcasts or videos?

Simon Sinek: Have a book club.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: Once a week, get together over lunch, and talk about a chapter of a book that everybody’s reading, or an article that you read, or a TED talk or a podcast that you know, give everybody homework to watch something for 18 minutes and then talk about it on Friday at lunch. Congratulations, you have a leadership development program. I don’t assign anybody to run it. Ask the people who are already reading the books, watching the pod, the talks, and listening to the podcast, ask them to leave it because they have genuine interest. Every single one of us can be the leader we wish we had. So on Monday, if you want to be the leader you wish you had then start really learning become a student of leadership. Do watch one talk, listen to one podcast, buy a new book about the subject, and just do it yourself whether the company endorses it or not do it. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: That will make you a better qualified leader of the people could left the people.

Lewis Howes: Okay, I like that. 

Simon Sinek: So you can do that on Monday. What else can you do on Monday? So one of the things that I go into in this book is about changing our mind-set away from having competitors to having rivals.

Lewis Howes: Ooh.

Simon Sinek: So there are other players in the game, right? A competitor in the game is someone I want to beat, right?

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: But in this game, there’s no such thing. And so we have to change our mind-set away from having competition, which is finite, and directed towards having rival which is infinite. We should not have internal competition but having rivals internally is fine. You know, we’ve all had the experience where somebody in our company got promoted, and we got angry. 

Lewis Howes: Right. 

Simon Sinek: Like what’s going on inside you? 

Lewis Howes: God, right. 

Simon Sinek: You got mad at someone else’s success. And I generally believe that a worthy rival is someone whose strengths reveal to you your weaknesses. And we can take that energy and direct it against them in a competitive spirit, or we can take all those uncomfortable feelings and say, “Where can I grow? What self-work do I have to do?” So it’s the same in businesses. I’ll give you a great example of worthy the rivalry. 

So go back a bunch of years, probably 10, 15 years, when Starbucks was really becoming a thing, there was a huge backlash because they were putting Mom and Pops out of business, do you remember? 

Lewis Howes: Right, yeah.

Simon Sinek: Turns out that when Starbucks moved into a neighborhood, Mom and Pops actually did better. 

Lewis Howes: Wow. 

Simon Sinek: Because a few things happened: one, there was a sort of a grassroots rumble to support a local business, and the other is abroad customers.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm. 

Simon Sinek: Now, a problem was, remember what coffee shops used to be. Coffee shops used to be some dingy little hole in the wall with a ripped couch, right?

Lewis Howes: Right, right.

Simon Sinek: And when Starbucks moved into our neighbourhood…

Lewis Howes: It was nice.

Simon Sinek: It was nice. And so – 

Lewis Howes: They made them up level. 

Simon Sinek: So the ones that thrived are the ones that saw Starbucks not as a competitor, but as a worthy rival that Starbucks existence revealed to us our weaknesses and we upped our game. The ones who went out of business are the ones who got mad that Starbucks was stealing other customers because they didn’t change a thing. 

Lewis Howes: I’ll give you per hole of the couch. 

Simon Sinek: Give you a perfect example. I’m lactose intolerant. So I don’t put milk in my coffee, right?

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: There was a Starbucks, there’s a Mom and Pop. These are true stories. This happened to me many times in the early days. Mom and Pop across the street, I want to support the local business. Walked into the Mom and Pop from the back of the line and go “Hey, do you guys have soy milk?”

Lewis Howes: No.

Simon Sinek: “No, we don’t.”

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: I want to cross the street to Starbucks because they had soy milk.

Lewis Howes: That’s it.

Simon Sinek: You went out of business because you wouldn’t up your game. That’s worthy rivalry.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: Worthy rivalry is someone else who’s really good at what they do reveals to me why weaknesses and it’s an opportunity for me to grow and be better when I do.

Lewis Howes: Um-hmm.

Simon Sinek: Taxi companies are suing Uber or just not Uber, Uber deserves to be sued for a lot of things. Taxi companies are in up in arms about ride sharing. News flash: An app is not putting you out of business because you can call a cad taxi with an app. It’s not the app. It’s that – in some cities, not all cities, the product that I get when I get an Uber is better.

 

Lewis Howes: Superior.

Simon Sinek: I live in New York City. In general, Uber lift Juno is a superior product. There’s a nice person and a nice car, versus getting in the back of a New York City cab, which quite frank –

Lewis Howes: Like you are here to die. 

Simon Sinek: — it’s just a shame, it’s a bad product. So they can complain about the app and sue the ride sharing companies where they can up their game, right? We see this over and over again, when people complain and file lawsuits against a new competitor but it’s because that competitor is exploiting a weakness then you have an opportunity to fix.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: That’s the difference between rivalry and competition.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: Competition I set out to beat, which if it means I have to bring them down, I’m bring them down. Rivalries is about lifting me up, I don’t care, there’s nothing about winning or losing this is about constant, constant, constant improvement.

Starting tomorrow, find your worthy rivals at work and outside work. In other words, who are the people at work? Our colleagues. Let’s be honest, they’re better than us. 

Lewis Howes: They’re better than us.

Simon Sinek: Let’s be honest, they be the better leaders, or they’re smarter, or they’re better product development, or they’re better salespeople, or they’re better designers. Admire them, learn from them, grow, don’t see them as people to be beaten, see them as people to reveal to us where we have opportunities for growth and the same goes for companies. Who are the companies out there? In your industry, outside your industry; you pick your own where the rivals, it doesn’t matter. Pick as many as you want. Who is out there doing a better job than you? Airlines should all admire Southwest because it helps them up their game, right?

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: So who are the other organizations out there who are better than you? So reveals to you your opportunities for improvement. They’re really good at that.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: Right? What can we do better? We can do that; you can do that on Monday, right?

Lewis Howes: Okay.

Simon Sinek: And then the third one is just the courage to lead, which is the final game is just easier, it’s more fun. It’s the thrill of competition, you know, all of that stuff. It’s a thrill man.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: The finite game is thrilling, and exciting, and seductive.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: It’s like eating chocolate cake versus eating healthy. It’s like sleeping in versus going to the gym. It’s just the momentum for the infinite games. I mean, for the finite game, it’s just easier, right?

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: The infinite game and an infinite mind-set, it’s work. It’s like it’s going to the gym, it’s making sure you get enough sleep, it’s sacrificing for your friends, it’s eating healthy. Do I want to do it? No. Can I cheat? Of course I can. But you know, it’s hard work. It’s hard work to change an organization’s incentive structure away from individual achievement and include, not abandoned, but include a team effort. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: It’s hard not to see the end of the quarter, the end of the year is the end mobile rather just a guidance that are we on the right path? You know, I reject this whole notion of hyper growth companies. You know, I talked to chemists like, “We’re hyper growth.” “Is that good?” 

Lewis Howes: Yeah. Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: “Is that, I don’t know. Is that good?” Like, somebody just put on 20 pounds of muscle in a month. “Is that healthy?”

Lewis Howes: Right, right.

Simon Sinek: Aren’t, it doesn’t sound –

Lewis Howes: Sound fast. Yeah. 

Simon Sinek: I don’t know. Who said hyper growth, or that we’ve organized our company for high speed growth. Why? For what purpose? Growth is a dial. It’s like a retail organization, right? That we have it we’re hyper growth we’re gonna open 200 stores this year. Yeah, and in the process, you’re not hiring the right people. You’re not training them, right. And by the way, the store experience, disaster.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: So guess what, we’re all going to close.

Lewis Howes: Right.

Simon Sinek: In a couple years. So you dial it down because you recognize you’re growing too fast. It’s not healthy. So you dial it down. We’re going to open 20 stores this year instead, doesn’t matter what the pressure from the outside tells us. That’s where the courage comes from. It makes more sense for us to open 20 stores, hire the right people, train them properly, get those stores really humming, and then we’ll see about. 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: Right? So there’s nothing wrong with having the 200. But if you recognize that we’re actually breaking things on the way to getting 200, you dial it down.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: So I do not believe in hyper growth. I do not believe in fast growth. I believe in a healthy growth. Sometimes it’s fast. But sometimes it actually needs to be slower.

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: It’s the same for losing weight; it’s the same for putting on muscle. You know…

Lewis Howes: The best things fit out.

Simon Sinek: I think the only thing that grows for the sake of growth is cancer.

Lewis Howes: Right. Fast.

Simon Sinek: Yeah, that’s the only thing that grows just for the sake of growing, you know? 

Lewis Howes: Yeah.

Simon Sinek: Everything else should have a reason for growing. 

Lewis Howes: I love this man. I know we could talk forever, but I want to respect your time. Go get the Infinite Game. I feel like I could just listen to you forever so go get the Infinite Game. I have two final questions for you.

Simon Sinek: I’ll try and get sure as it is. [laughs]

Lewis Howes: Yeah. They can get this.

Simon Sinek: Speak slower. 

Lewis Howes: This is you guys can pre-order this. Get this now, it’s everywhere. Books are sold. Going to be very powerful for you whether you’re an employee, you’re a leader, “a leader in an organization already,”

Simon Sinek: Um-hmm. 

Lewis Howes: — or you’re an independent contractor, wherever you’re at, this could be powerful for you in your life. 

Simon Sinek: Yup.

Lewis Howes: If you’re running a family, it doesn’t matter where you at.

Simon Sinek: Yeah, it’s an infinite mind-set, it applies.

Lewis Howes: It’s actually a lot of places. And this is a question I didn’t get to ask you last time. Is don’t get started asking it until maybe the next year where you came on. 

Simon Sinek: Oh, yeah.

Lewis Howes: So this is called The Three Truths.

Simon Sinek: Okay.

Lewis Howes: So imagine it’s your last day on earth and many years away.

Simon Sinek: Um-hmm.

Lewis Howes: And you do, you’ve created everything you want to create in your life. You’ve got the family you want, the relationships; you’ve moved up the businesses, your ideals have impacted the world.

Simon Sinek: Sure. 

Lewis Howes: Whatever you want to do, it’s happened.

Simon Sinek: Um-hmm.

Lewis Howes: But for whatever reason you got to take everything with you, all your books, your work your TED Talks, it’s all gone. Right? It’s with you to the next world.

Simon Sinek: Oh, you take it with you to whatever.

Lewis Howes: You take it with you wherever you’re going. Okay, no one has access to The Infinite Game. 

Simon Sinek: Oh okay. Okay.

Lewis Howes: All this this books you’ve written. All your body’s work has now gone with you.

Simon Sinek: Yeah, yeah. 

Lewis Howes: It still existing to the other world.

Simon Sinek: Yeah, it does.

Lewis Howes: But you get to leave behind –

Simon Sinek: Three things.

Lewis Howes: –on a piece of paper and write three things down, and this is what the world has left. Three things you know to be true. Three lessons that you would share with the world from everything you’ve learned up to this point that you think that would be helpful lessons for the world to use as a guide. What will you say are your three truths?

Simon Sinek: I mean, this is so cheesy, but I can’t, that’s where my mind went. I mean, it’s the first one is start with why, like, know why you do what you do, and start there. The second one is commit your life to a life of service. Take care of the people around you. And the third one is commit yourself to a vision of the world that you’ll never practically achieve, but you’ll die trying. Start with a sense of a foundation of purpose, take care of the people around you, and commit your work to drive something bigger than yourself.

Lewis Howes: That’s good.

Simon Sinek: Yeah. 

Lewis Howes: I love this. Before I ask the final question, Simon, I want to acknowledge you for just consistently showing up with so much passion, so much heart, so much wisdom. You do so much research and work into your ideas and you create frameworks so we can understand them and apply these ideas to our life. So I acknowledge you for just consistently being you, and showing up. And I acknowledge you for finally allowing yourself to get an intimate relationship. 

Simon Sinek: Yes. [laughs]

Lewis Howes: Taking you – allowing the momentum to move what you enjoy other areas as well.

Simon Sinek: Well, you know, I’m very, very grateful to people like you, because of people like you, they give me a platform to share these ideas, to allow these ideas to exist outside of me, that I can achieve the balance that I promised myself. 

Lewis Howes: There you go. Well, it’s part of the message for you man.

Simon Sinek: This is – I’m super grateful to you.

Lewis Howes: Much better for the best for you.

Simon Sinek: And we’re both working together to advance and [inaudible] ourselves. It’s a joy. 

Lewis Howes: Final question: What’s your definition of Greatness?

Simon Sinek: I think greatness is living a life committed to see the others find greatness. For me greatness is about service.

Lewis Howes: I love it. Me too. Sounds [inaudible] Thanks brother.

Simon Sinek: So good to see you.

Lewis Howes: Appreciate it, man.

[background music] 

Lewis Howes:  I am so glad that you took the time to listen to this episode and to connect with a friend about it. I would really love for you to share this with at least one friend. You can be a hero and a champion in someone’s life by paying this message for, by sharing it with one person. You could text them, you could post on social media, but let someone know about this episode because it could really help change the way they think, the way they act, the way they build their life, their business, their brand, their family, their relationship, their health. I want to get this message out there in a big way. And I hope you enjoyed this if you did just share it with one friend. I would love to hear what your thoughts are about this. You can message me on Instagram @lewishowes. You send me a tweet. LewisHowes over there. Just let me know because I’m curious to hear what you thought. 

I love this interview. I love connecting with Simon. I feel like he just has so much information, he has so much experience. And every time I get to sit down with him or when we connect over email, it’s always just a pleasure to learn from his wisdom. So make sure to share with at least one friend today, and ask them to give you thoughts on what was their most insightful part of this episode as well. And have an accountability connection with that friend of yours on this interview and on this episode?

If this is your first time here, please subscribe to the School of Greatness over on Apple podcast. You can just click the subscribe button when you go to Apple podcasts and look for The School of Greatness, right there.

Leave us a review. I don’t care if you leave me a one star review or five star review, all I care is that you leave a review and let me know at least in a sentence or two what you enjoyed about this? How we can make it better? And if it’s something you want to continue to listen to in the future? So go ahead and subscribe and leave a review over on Apple podcast. 

Big thank you to our sponsor today, Zip Recruiter. Again, if you are struggling growing your business, maybe check out ziprecruiter.com/greatness. It’s super effective. You get amazing candidates within the first few days. And it’s how our friend Dylan found his director of coffee in a few days by posting over a ZipRecruiter. And it’s effective for all businesses. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business, looking to hire a couple people, one person, or if you have a big business trying to build and grow as well. Could try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com/greatness. Again, that’s Z-I-P-R-E-C-R-U-I-T-E-R.com/greatness. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.

And if you are an influencer, you have a massive audience, you have a multiple seven figure business, and you’re looking to really make a bigger impact in the world in your community, and increase your income at the same time, then check out greatnessmastermind.com. We’re opening it up for new applications, and we’re bringing in a select few of influencers and business leaders who are looking to connect with a tribe of people just like you who want to have on-going accountability, on-going coaching, learning, teaching, and the ability to really learn the strategies and tools to help you grow your business, and bring your impact to another level. If that’s you, if you feel like you’re ready to level up in a massive way for 2020, then make sure to go to greatnessmastermind.com right now.

Again, CS Lewis said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.” If we can come from a place of service first, right? We get to serve ourselves, take care of our needs, take care of our health, take care of our mind, our thoughts, our actions, our relationships but if we can come from place of service to other people, I love the part where Simon said, you know, his friend when he asked friend to start giving him advice, coaching him, she was able to get out of herself, out of her self-pity, for self-destruction or self-negative thoughts. And when she added health to his life, she started to grow her confidence, and then she created more abundance in her life.  

So, again, humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. It’s putting your effort and energy towards the betterment of other people, towards the people around you, towards your environment, towards your community, towards the earth, towards the planet, towards animals, towards whatever you care about put your energy towards other things, and start to see your mind-set grow in an infinite way, and see the belief about yourself grow as well. 

If you enjoyed this, my friend, please share it with a friend. Let me know what you think @lewishowes over on social media. I love you so very much. I hope you know that you are such an important part of this world. And if you ever feel disconnected, just reach out to a friend, reach out to a friend and say, “Hey, I want to be of service to you. Is there anything I can do to support you?” offer a helping hand to someone else and watch the support you gain in return. 

I love you so very much. I hope you know you’re loved. And as always, you know what time it is. It’s time to go out there and do something great.

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