Simon Sinek: The Advice Young People NEED To Hear

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Third, most watched TED Talk of all time. The return of Simon Sinek. Thank you very much. Plus 30, 40 years, we've doubled down at how do I find love? How do I find happiness? We've doubled down on selfishness. But now in a complicated messy world, we haven't been practicing and developing the skills of taking care of each other. And that's what we need now more than ever. Do you ever give up on someone? I have a fear. I've never expressed this openly. Gen Z are the least resilient generation. They're really good at presenting a confidence.

They're the ones that they don't have. This young generation seems less capable to deal with stress than previous generations. That is true. Going from relationship to relationship to relationship. From job to job to job. There's no stigma to quitting. Flash forward five years. And what's going to happen is an employer is going to look at them and be like, I can't take the risk. Everything we're talking about today comes right back to those human skills that we are lacking. How to listen. How to give and receive feedback. How to have a difficult conversation. And the thing we have to deal with more than anything is

fear. Fear that is the underlying thing why we don't have honest conversations. Let me give you some honesty then. What is the greatest fear you have about how you're currently living your life? I was very insecure about admitting that I was crying. You know, as we were talking about it, that was that was hard. Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett. And this is the Diaviceio. I hope nobody's listening. But if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

Simon, good to see you again. Yeah, good to be here. I have to thank you first and foremost. And many reasons. You know, I'm a huge fan of all your work. But the conversation we have when we're over in an L.A. was received so unbelievably well by the listeners on this podcast. It did millions and millions and millions of downloads in such a short space of time that I had to argue to get you to come back again when you were here in the UK. So. Well, it's nice to be back in this night.

I said, do it on your home turf. Yeah, literally in my home, literally in your home. There's so many things I want to talk to you about. But one of the things that I was curious about, because I've been thinking a lot about this in my life, is this idea of our wise evolving. What is your why and has it evolved over the last decade at all?

So my why is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. So together, each of us can change our world for the better. And it's why I wake up every morning, every day. It is the greatest compliment someone can pay me when they say to me, that was inspiring or you were inspiring, like that feeds me.

And the interesting thing about a why is because it is not, it is objective. A why is the sum total of how we were raised. It's born out of the patterns and the lessons we learned from our parents, from our teachers, when we're young. And our why is fully formed by the time we're in our mid to late teens. And you only have one wife of the rest of your life. It doesn't change. You have you are who you are based on how you were raised. Now, you may not be acting as your true self.

People say that to us all the time. It's like I don't know who you are anymore. But when you are at your natural best, your why is front and center. But we're not always acting at our natural best. And sometimes we make decisions out of selfishness. We take the job that pays us, that offers us the most money and turn down the one to work for somebody who would probably be a better mentor.

We do these things all the time. And so, can you tweak the words of your why, of course. But that's semantics. Can we find better ways to bring a why to life? Yes, that's the evolution. But the why itself is fixed. When you talk about the why being influenced by the things that happened in our life, our experiences are upbringing. Does that mean that our trauma can influence our why for better or for worse?

Always for better. Always for better. Yeah, why is always positive. And I'll give you a real life example of somebody's why discovery that I did. And you know, one of the things I do when I do somebody's why discovery, I asked them about, you know, happy experiences when they were kids. And this person said, I didn't have a very happy childhood. I had a really bad childhood. And I said, OK, so tell me, tell me a bad memory then.

And she talked about a lot of abuse in the household and a very abusive alcoholic father who would beat her mother and the kids. And she told a story of a repeated pattern of when the father would be drunk and come looking for the kids that she'd be hiding in the cupboard protecting her brother with her arms wrapped around him so to shield her brother.

And she'd go through this whole story and at the end, I pointed out to her that she's a protector that in the in these traumatic experiences, it was her instinct to protect her baby brother. And she's lived her life. If you look at all of the times that she's really thrived and where she's her best self, she's usually in a in a position of protection of other people. And that's where she finds joy in taking care of other people.

And so the the experiences mold us into who we are. And the effects, you know, the impact will be positive regardless of where it comes from. So yeah, I mean horrible childhood that made her a wonderful human being. I was going to use me as an example there to try and rebuttal that somewhat, but I remember having a very similar conversation with a very good friend of mine a week ago upstairs who talked to me about their childhood there. They've talked about this publicly as well.

So I'm not letting the kind of out of the bag, but they're they're farther used to beat their mother up really, really severely. And she was telling me literally just a few days ago upstairs that she her memories of trying to hold on to her dad's arm as it swung for her mother when she was five years old. And when you look at the pattern of what those early experiences have caused and a few other experiences, she's obsessed with with with helping others.

And she's building these amazing businesses. She's unbelievably successful. It's like frighteningly successful at a very, very young age. However, that force in her to help others has meant that she's compromised sometimes helping herself. And if everyone I know in my life, she is the most successful woman I know. But she's also the woman that is most unsuccessful in all of the personal aspects relationships, boyfriend, mental health, all of these things.

So when we say, you know, I understand the positive side of it, but the negative side of it seems to be of this unbelievable, I guess, why she's gone seems to just honestly for me not be worth it. Because this is not this is not someone that is the would say they're happy. This is someone that is in therapy and is every day in tears and upset while serving the world in an unbelievable way.

So is that a positive is that a positive why so so the the rub about the why. You know, a why is basically the thing we give to the world it's the value we have in other people's lives.

Her friends would say of her that she is our protector. You know, that is the role we fill in their lives, which is why they love us because we're giving them our why it is our value. The rub, the most difficult thing about the why to understand is the thing that we give to the world is also the thing that we need the most.

It's it's always balanced and so I would argue that you know she it's not that she's unable to take care of herself. It's that she needs to find friends colleagues whatever it is who are committed to taking care of her. And that's where the change happens and you know we were talking about this you know before the show started you know this entire section of the bookshop called self help and there's no section of the bookshop called help others.

And I believe what we need is the help others industry. I'll tell you something something that happened to me a friend of mine was going through a really rough patch in her life. Her marriage was struggling her career was struggling she was unhappy like just none of the boxes were getting checked you know.

And she knows what I do we've been friends for forever and she asked a favor can you help me you know of course of course I said and every week we had a standing 90 minute meeting where we should come over and she would tell me what's going on.

And I would give her some advice and point out some patterns and she'd feel fantastic she would leave on a high and she'd feel amazing for like two days and then go right back again and she'd come back the following week and this went on for months two days three days and then back down again right.

And then it occurred to me I like I remember my own work in leaders eat last I talk about alcoholics anonymous where they have 12 steps to help an alcoholic beat this disease and alcoholics anonymous knows that if you master 11 of the 12 steps you're going to probably slide back and succumb to the disease but if you can master the 12 step as well.

You were more likely beat the disease the 12th step is to help another alcoholic it's service and so I remember my own work and I decided to do a little I decided to change things up right and so I said to her look I love that you come and see me every week and I love helping you every week but you know I struggle with things too

and I don't have anybody to talk to you would you be willing to help me maybe we can split the time and she said of course yes and what started to happen is every week we got together and I would and was genuine I wasn't faking it like I would unload and tell what I was going through and what I was struggling with.

And it ended up that we wouldn't split the time it ended up that she would spend 90 minutes talking about my stuff right and she was the advice giver and she was the one looking for the patterns and she would leave on a high and that I would stay until the following week.

It was only when we reversed the scenario where that she was I had the opportunity to take care of someone she loved that she was able to find the solutions to her own challenges and I'm a great believer that that we're we have to remember where social animals we need each other and this is the great paradox of being human at every moment of every day we are both individuals and members of groups you know and there's a there's a there's a debate do you take care of yourself first or you take care of others first

and there's a whole school of thought that says you have to take care of yourself first because if you're not healthy you can't take care of others and there's a whole school of thought that says no you have to take care of others first so that when you're in need they'll be there for you and the answers you're both right and you're both wrong it's a paradox it's a struggle and every day we're faced with sometimes big but often small choices do I prioritize myself at the sacrifice of the group or do I prioritize the group at the sacrifice of myself and you know folks like

a maslow like maslow's hierarchy of needs maslow made a huge mistake in that hierarchy which is his his baseline we are basic need is food and shelter right I've never heard of anyone dying by suicide because they were hungry I've heard of people dying by suicide because they were lonely right and yet social relationships in in maslow's

hierarchy is number three but that kind that doesn't sound right seems like there's something more important to human beings than just food and shelter and then the top of the peak of self actualization which sounds the most selfish thing in the world like I am so self actualized that I would literally sit on top of

a pyramid and look down at all of you unactualized people because that's my goal to be self actualized he's half right the mistake that maslow made he's the only thought of us as individuals and as individuals yes I need food and shelter first but as a member of a group I need friends and I need love and self actualization is not the thing I'm actually in pursuit of as a member of a group it's shared actualization that I'm looking for

and unfortunately for various reasons which we don't have to go down that rabbit hole the past 30 40 years especially in the west we have double down on individualism we have double down on my own career

we've double down how do I find love how do I find happiness we've double down on selfishness and it worked for a while it worked when the economy was really good like in the 80s and 90s and 2000s so awesome selfishness was great because it worked but now in a complicated messy world where the economy isn't great and everything's not roses all that self interest is now not working except we haven't been practicing and developing the school skills of taking care of each other

and that's what we need now more than ever and so I don't know your friend and sorry I can't make any I'm not I can't make any conclusions but we are we are animals in balance right and nature of horse of acumen and so whenever I hear about these things my question is always about the balance so for example every single good thing that happens in our lives everything comes at a cost

there's nothing for free somebody with an incredible career has no relationship with their kids right everything comes at a cost but at the same time everything we struggle with has opportunity and lesson that goes with it it's always balanced right and so whenever anybody tells me this great thing I was like yeah but what cost and was the cost worth it sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no and when something horrible happens in someone's life or something goes sideways I always ask but what did you learn

you know I mean my career and yours is the same you know the whole the gold circle and the concept of why came out of me losing my passion and hating work I went through depression I never want to go through that again but I'm really glad it happened because it look what it's it's given me an entirely new life view and I think of strengths and weaknesses the same way you know I think it's hilarious when people say what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses well it depends

on the life is balanced and it's always contextual and everything that we have that's a strength has liability attached and every weakness we have has strength that's attached I can imagine because of the books you've written and the channels you have in the content you produce that a lot of people come to you

on a personal level friends family to help solve some of the problems that they're having in their lives I I find myself in somewhat of a similar position maybe they're not coming to me maybe I'm inserting myself into the problem to try and solve it because that's my nature

but do you do you ever do you ever give up on someone something I've thought about and I'm I'm reflective on my friend a little bit here yeah and friends I've had from my childhood who I've I remember offering a guy I was like I

I will if you can just do one month working in a in subway where he was working I'll pay for your rent so you can move out of that city yeah and go get a job he didn't do the one month in subway yeah and I and at one point I get there's part of me he's like I you know everyone's solvable the optimism the optimistic in me and the other part of me goes at some point you have to give up on people so the single greatest lesson I ever learned in my career that profoundly

changed the course of my life and it comes right before the realization that in the articulation of why I learned how to ask for health and I learned how to accept it when I was offered okay and I think that it's not about giving up on someone it's that it's a it's that it's a that helping someone is a team sport success as a team sport and if you find that you're the only player in in their life

when they should be the primary player you can only be you can only do the assists you'll never be the one making the baskets that's their job right but if they won't take the pass then at some point you stop throwing the ball and it's not about giving up on people it's it's that they have it's about accountability to take responsibility for oneself and that and giving up on somebody is don't

ever call me again you don't take my advice this is over right that's giving up on someone for I think the other way to do it is like listen I I cannot help you if you cannot be involved to help yourself and I will want to sit down with them and I will want to I won't criticize and be like you're not doing this you have to follow my advice you have to do this you

got to go work at subway for the week like that that's not what I want to sit down and understand what the blockages there's something else that's the blockage that I can get to hopefully but at the end of the day I will say to them point blank listen if you're not going to be involved in this then there's no point to me be involved you know you have to like this is a team

and I'm the only player here so I will always be here and when you're ready maybe it's just bad timing I don't know what's good else is going on your life and maybe this is not the right time or maybe I'm a bad fit but when you are ready I will still be here no matter what but you have to call me there's no more there's no more me throwing you the ball like you're going to have to call me and then they call you and sometimes they don't sometimes they don't sometimes they do sometimes they

don't in my case they call me and and then they say it's time I'm willing to accept the help and then the same cycle happens over and over again and you go you go you know five years of them calling you then you then then then it's then they're lying but they don't think they're lying they always think this time is going to be

different I'm going to do it Monday I mean like I said I want to know what else is the blockage you when there's that kind of repeated pattern then there's something else and I think I think you know our mistake in those situations is repeating our pattern which is okay I'm going to give you the same advice I'm going to do the same thing you're going to do the same thing I'm going to tell you the same thing I'm going to give up on you I'm going to go like we're we're actually

repeating a pattern as well and so you know we know this is entrepreneurs which is you got to try something completely completely different and I think you know this is goes back to what we were saying a moment ago you know which is we we are we are not teaching the skills of how to help

others and part of one of the biggest skills of learning to help others is learning how to listen and most of us are really crap at listening right we confuse listening with a hearing the words that were spoken you know you're sitting watching TV and you know

somebody you love is trying to tell you something and you're like aha you're still watching TV you're not even listening to me and we turn around and repeat all the words back to them that's not listening that's hearing the words that were spoken to you you listening is when the other person feels

heard right and where you are in pursuit of meaning not the words spoken you're not so literal right and I think in the cases of like your friend the is to go from an advice giving mode and the men suffer from this more than we're just we are intention is to fix everything right all we want to do is fix fix fix fix fix we see the problem here's the solution but sometimes that's not what people need people need to feel seen and heard

and understood and maybe just maybe you're going too quickly to fix and he doesn't feel seen or heard or understood yet and in this particular situation and again I don't know the person but I would I would go to an extreme listening you know give the kid the opportunity to empty his

bucket like and there's only three terms you're going to use in the conversation go on tell me more what else because there's it sounds like there's it's whatever you think the thing is you're fixing it's probably something entirely different and until you can get to that you're

going to give up on somebody who maybe it's just that we had the wrong strategy it wasn't until these examples surfaced in my life where I had friends asking me for this kind of help that I started to consider that maybe mindset itself is a privilege one that if you don't

acknowledge and understand you'll end up giving advice from a very privileged place you know you know I might say well just work harder or just I just cheer up yeah these kinds of things come from like a misunderstanding that my brain is fortunate enough to think

and be a certain way yeah and but I've never heard someone people talk enough about this idea that our mindset in and of itself is a privilege and that you know it's interesting that mindset is a privilege is that true if we think about early upbringing in childhood

then yeah so that was maybe you know some people have monetary privilege from that childhood one thing that your parents or your experiences might have given you a show psychological privilege so let me just think out loud for a second right let's try let me try and

unpack that you know there are many stories of people who when odds were against them whether they came from extreme poverty or abuse rose up to have successful and happy lives right and when when we read about the more talk to them or meet them or hear interviews from them

they talk about mindset they talk about my mother taught usually the mother like my mother taught me to never be a victim my mother taught me that I was capable of anything and so they had a mindset they you know where some people have a victim mindset

and then they that's that's the life they continue to live some people have a my a different mindset and it can lift them out of what we would consider unprivulaged circumstances right so you know it makes me question then is mindset a privilege and we both know people

that have every privilege afforded to them you know every one of them and yet for whatever reason their mindset is the wrong one and they can squander all of that opportunity all of those advantages that they've been afforded you know and make a mess so I question whether mindset is a privilege there are a lot of privileges in in in life mindset I think is one of the ones that is is there for the taking

I think about so I was 18 years old dropped out of university shoplifting food to feed myself and in that moment I was entirely convinced that I was going to be a millionaire what did I do what did I what did I actively do you just you just counting your own point that mindset is not a privilege no I'm saying because I think that I have the privilege that that mindset was given to me by my

experiences and maybe by my biology I'm wondering why in that situation if you put me and my best friend that I talked about with a subway example in the same situation one of us would have catastrophized and me I just saw it as this wonderful stepping stone to the point that I went around my house

videoing my despair videoing my dire situation opening the fridge there's nothing in it my first page of my dire on Facebook nice which I kept says keeping this diary because a TV production company of us need to push it I like my diary because I and I look back and go this kid was sure yeah that he was getting out of here well I mean I played tricks and games with myself as well you know I mean I remember I mean some of them are hilarious but I did the same thing you know and

I said I go back to the concept of why which is which is it's the experiences we had when we were young that formed us into who we are it wasn't the shoplifting alone it was your parents it was your friends it was your teachers like is that privilege I mean at what point everybody has a why and everybody's why is affirmative you know and and so like I told you about the abuse story you know something really positive and someone

really positive and someone really positive came out of that trauma so you know I'm struggling to use the word privilege to mindset because what you're saying is anyone that anyone who's had any kind of luck or turnaround or has privilege where anyone who hasn't and has failed it's because

of their lack of privilege like there's too many other factors involved in that in those in those in those comparisons to to oversimplify it and call it privilege I'm sure there are privileged components sometimes involved in that for sure but you know when we're if we're strictly talking about

mindset I I think it's it's I'm not sure I don't think so that it doesn't because the control of our minds is the one thing that we own it's the one thing that is not like we can change the way we view ourselves and how we treat others and I think what's important

and it's a hard conversation right I think one of the things that's important is I think we have to have love in our lives it's from someone you know like even people who like I have a friend who came from a very abusive household he found his grandmother stabbed to death and the

knife was so deep that she was attached to the bed like that's how bad it was right and yet he had a coach who believed in him and so I think I think to have someone believe in us to have one person see a spark in us helps us recognize that helps us see the spark in ourselves you know

it just I think it takes one only one person whether it's a friend or a coach or a parent boss sometimes you know who says who takes a liking to us and almost all of us almost all of us can remember one person in our lives where it's a coach or a teacher who took us under their wing

and saw something that we didn't see and every single successful person on the planet has that person but I think most of us do most of us have somebody who who saw something in us and we are who we are in part because of that person having someone in our lives kind of links back to

something you were talking about earlier about trying to be less individualistic in our approach to our lives in our careers lots of your work and I was on your video subscription library and lots of your work has that as a through line about connection and people in teams and

in the backdrop of the remote working world we're living in I guess my first question would be how do you think that this post covid world has been impacted in times of connection community teams and that unity that should be on the bottom level of our Maslow and

hierarchy of needs well I mean obviously it took a step back you know though there are again I always think of things in terms of balance right and cost so it's not good or bad it's both right and so let's weigh both of course we have freedom of schedule now that we didn't have

we have freedom to live wherever we want which we didn't have we have freedom to pick our kids from school or go to the dentist where we used to have to ask permission or take time off we have that freedom now that we didn't have we have for people who are for people

who are introverted they like that they can get their work done in the privacy of their own home you know there are many advantages to remote working the sharing of ideas is much more difficult like a brainstorming like really really hard to do in a virtual scenario because it's hyper

polite right you kind of interrupt somebody is easily like when you have a real brainstorming it's messy it's loud you step on each other's words you interrupt each other you have it like no and nobody cares it's the it's the mess the joy of it right in an online scenario it gets you

literally kind of hear people if everybody's talking at once and you constantly apologizing and so your turn and you don't have that wonderful energy I and so I think brainstorming suffered and then the obvious one which is which is for a lot of people and I think it if it dramatically

affected younger people more but for all of us you know when you're done with work you go out with your friends for a bite to eat or the pub and you bitch about work and you bitch about your boss totally healthy and you and you do it in the with the friends that

whether it's a good job or a bad job it doesn't matter you have a you have a place separated from work that's your friends that you go and get it all out right super healthy and you feel supported and loved and heard and all that good stuff that went away completely completely and so what

ended up happening and again if you didn't have a family if you were living alone it's you all these things just get more and more exaggerated right so when it up happening was and again especially young people but for a lot of other people too is we started

looking to the people we spent more time with people now work on the on zoom with them all day and sometimes into the into the evening we now started spending more time with these people we didn't have somebody to go out with afterwards and so we started looking to work to be that

therapeutic outlet right and so what so many people did is first of all gossip starts to swirl a lot more because we're now venting and bitching to each other as opposed to our friends right so especially if somebody's young or susceptible like gossip can take off much quicker

which is very dangerous to a culture but what what I've seen is that we find one empathetic person the good listener on the team right and we call them up and we bitch about our job we bitch about our boss but then it keeps going like I don't know what I do don't want I don't want

to do with my life you know I hate my boyfriend I hate my girlfriend I don't know if I should break and all of a sudden you're dumping all of your life's problems on somebody from work who just happens to be a good listener and what we're doing is we're increasing the stress

on that person so we suffered it in our company and I've heard it from many other companies which is those people those empaths they're quitting and if you ask them why you're quitting they go because I'm burnt out and you're looking at their workload and be like I don't understand

like how you burnt out they're burnt out from taking on all of everyone else's stress because they're empathetic everybody else's stress becomes their stress right that's the problem with this which is and it's good that some of like as COVID eases up like going out with our friends

and having that that safe space to vent away from work is really important so in a cultural standpoint it's very hard to control for that like I can't interrupt it I can't tell them they can't you know they don't want to go to their boss to talk about this things but what what it's again

particularly young people but others as well but particularly young people they're they're recognized that there are boundaries at work and you by dumping on one person that they should make on all your problems and they listen and they listen and they listen and they listen

and sometimes they give bad advice but they listen and they listen we're doing a great disservice to that other person to make herself feel better for a few minutes I've it's one of the first times in my life that I've started to think again about culture design

and it's funny because I ran a business post-COVID for seven years we had almost a thousand people I then left in the middle of COVID and I'm launching businesses after COVID and it seems that not all of the rules apply and a lot of that's because of comparison now

so that a modern employee is comparing the working culture that they're seeing on TikTok right and LinkedIn right to their own and it's almost as an employer we're competing with a false TikTok social media narrative that is and people never really know what they actually want

I think as a relates to culture even me so when if you ask someone what they want from their working culture would it meet their fundamental needs probably not yeah so my question to you is how are you on a practical level what changes have you practically made

or believe or necessary in a post-COVID world that you wouldn't have maybe stated in a pre-COVID world if any let me come at it let me come at it from a slight leave so if you go back a bunch of years our lives look very different than they do now obviously

we got our sense of purpose from church we got our sense of community from you know whatever bowling league we hung out with our neighbors they came over on the weekends and had barbecues with us and work was a place that we went to make money to pay for our lives

pay our bills and it was also a different time where we were super loyal to the company and the company was super loyal to us right and that was life and then church attendance started to decline bowling leagues basically are gone they've disappeared we don't go to community centers anymore we don't have our neighbors over on a weekland basis and so we've our sense so all of those things we started to look to work to replace so now we say to work you have to give me a sense of purpose

you have to give me my social life you have to give me a sense of community and belonging and now it's we've added things to that list now since Covid is like and you have to agree with all of my politics and by the way you also have to be my therapy now you have to be my place for therapy which is what we're just talking about right and it is an impossible standard to put on any culture that they can do all those things for you just like we've put impossible standards on romantic partners

that they have to be my intellectual equal they have to be my they have to be sexually compatible with me they have to be emotionally compatible with me they have to share all of my interests all of my politics you know we have to vote it for all the same like these are impossible standards to put on the human being and we're literally setting people up to fail we're setting up business cultures up to fail as well like literally no culture can can can live up to that standard

and so in pursuit of that the grass is always greener do you have people who are going from relationship to relationship to relationship worse from job to job to job to job and when I was younger you know if you didn't like your job

or if you didn't like your boss the bad news was you had to stay there for a year because if you left in anything less than a year you would hurt your CV they would be like why did you leave under a year you know and now young again particularly young people there's no there's no stigma to quitting

and it happens sometimes too quickly like if you're a confrontation avoidant and I've seen it happen confrontation avoidant I'm too afraid to ask my boss for a raise or just quit I've seen it happen right or I've been here for four months I don't like the culture I quit

right or I got in trouble at work I hate my boss I quit like and so people are quitting so much my fear my fear like I don't mind if something super toxic get the heck out of there most places are not super toxic imperfect yes but toxicity is like a like there's a standard

you know that's a high bar and or this doesn't fit my values or this doesn't agree with my politics I quit my fear is that if you go if we flash forward five years there's going to be a disproportionately high number of people who have eight jobs in five years and what's going to happen

is an employer is going to look at them be like I can't take the risk that you're going to stick around I'm not hiring you you're you sound like an amazing candidate but you're too high risk for me or or and because you've had so many jobs over such a short period of time you actually haven't stuck around long enough to build up a skill set or know what it's like to manage a storm because you've stuck around in the good times and bailed on the bad times

and so you have now been in the workforce for five years but you don't have five years of work experience you have four months of work experience and so I don't want you either because you don't you've never been through a battle you know and I and I see it happening a young person who's been at a company for eight months goes to their boss and says I want to raise I want a significant raise because I'm doing the same job as those people

those people have been in the workforce for ten years I know but I'm doing the same work as them and I'm doing good work that's true you are doing the same work as them and you are doing good work the difference is I'm not paying them just because they've obliquely been in the workforce for ten years I'm paying them because you know how to hoist the main sale and calm orders and you can hoist the main sale and calm orders as well as they can hoist the main sale and calm orders

the difference is they also not a hoist the main sale and a storm I don't know if you can hoist the main sale and a storm I don't know if you can hoist the main sale and a storm I pay them more because I know that if we run into hard times I know that they know what to do

and I can trust that we can navigate and I also know that they will teach you how to hoist the main sale in a storm it's like the same reason I buy insurance I don't expect my house to burn down but I pay just in case I'm paying them more for skillset that I hope they never have to use that's why they get more no one of my fears at the moment which is perfectly linked to what you're saying is I have a fear and I've never expressed this openly

so this is the first time so don't all come for me at once I have a fear that Gen Z are the least resilient generation that I've ever seen and a lot of it and this is sounds so stupid and not evidence-based but if you look at what tick tock is telling this generation work is

and there was a video that went viral on 20th of the other day out in Silicon Valley where it shows like a Facebook employee one of the big tech companies she arrives at work in the morning she takes a photo of a latte all this free muffins she goes over and has the free muffin it shows her in a tick tock literally doing like 30 seconds of work then she's out doing some like pottery making class that work of put on she comes back to the desk doesn't have 30 seconds of work

then she's off to her work social and I reflect on the storms that my father went through at work and I just know so deep inside of me that there's no way some of these younger Gen Z people could weather such a storm without quitting, doing a long LinkedIn post to criticize their employee then quitting, employer then quitting and I just fear that Gen Z when I'm hiring people that are in that generation

I almost need to go to an extra length just to check that they can cope with a high intensity culture where demands might come on a Saturday because the world doesn't stop on Saturdays and Sundays so I wanted to get you a take on that so let's examine both sides right let's again let's think of what's the balance and what are the costs it is a generation that already was starting to ask these questions but COVID forced the rest of us to ask these questions too

which is what is the definition of work right like what is a full-time job mean and these are unanswered questions so I don't have an answer as to what the future of work is because it's right now everything's in flux and we don't things are I have not landed yet right so what is the definition of a full-time job if I don't come to work the definition used to being I come in at eight or nine and I leave it five or six

that was the full-time job now how much work I did between those hours you know it was it was face time and we know that because we've all had jobs and we stuck around until seven so we got face times our bus like this right we've all done it right but face time is not a thing anymore and so I have a full-time job and I'm offered another full-time job and I took it and we've seen we see this like employees who have like have productivity issues

and then they say they're burnt out and like I know how much work you have you shouldn't be burned out how do they have a second job and why shouldn't they have a second job well we pay them benefits so what like as long as they're getting their work done do we care when people all have side hustles

even people who've got full-time come to work everybody's got some sort of little side hustle so the definition of what full-time employment is is up for is up for debate and I think young people feel in particular that why shouldn't I it's my time I can do what I want with it

or I only work 40 hours because those are my those are my limits respect my boundaries right and the problem is is I think all of it is so literal which is yes boundaries are important but the edges of the boundaries are fuzzy right and it's not like I don't work on Saturdays

well I I agree with you I don't want you working on weekends this one weekend I really need your help to finish this project so we can get it out the door or you know you just I don't take meetings after five o'clock I agree with you I think we should have that life balance

but today I just need you to work till six to get this one project done to recognize that you know so one of the things they're getting right is that we're married to work and we take our phones on holiday you know we take our computers on holiday with us and that work has ultimate say on our time I agree that should be we should that should go the way of the dodo but the extreme is not to put these hard lines everywhere and say I don't do this as an aside

the irony is you know they demand that we respect their boundaries and yet they seem to step on every other boundary about bringing you know emotional professionalism at work and dumping all of my problems on my colleagues which is emotionally unprofessional and it's like that's a boundary you can't cross but there is good evidence to your assertion that this young generation seems less capable to deal with stress than previous generation

that is true they are good at curating you know they've grown up in an Instagram Facebook you know TikTok world where I'm really good at showing you the life I want you to think that I lead and so they're really good at presenting a confidence that they don't have they sound like they have all the answers when they don't but then I see you presenting that life to me if you're a fellow Gen Z and I go what my life stressful and difficult

and I have to work really late and you're having a frappuccacolato latte whatever at 3 a.m. doing poetry lessons I need to quit it raises the question what do you want from your life and what do you want from your work like why do you have this job you know if it's just to pay the bills I mean I hope we've I know that is the case for a lot of people that I have to have a job to pay the bills and I hope that employers are good enough that even survival jobs are a nice place to work

you know a trader Joe's great company where people who have survival jobs still a nice place to work you know but I think the question is what is the life that you're trying to build and if you want a job simply to pay your bills

and you know this this concept of quiet quitting if you heard this one quiet quitting I've had this time but I've maybe a high school you know this this concept of quiet quitting if you heard this one quiet quitting I've had this time but I've maybe a high school talk about it

I mean it's been written about right it's not my concept but quiet quitting is this thing where I don't quit the job but I basically will dial back my effort and give you the minimum so you pay me to do this job and I will do the basic minimum to do the job

where you can't really fire me because I'm not really doing anything badly or wrong but I'm also not going above and beyond it all so there's this concept of quiet quitting where people are coming to work and they're just doing the minimum doing their hours doing their job not volunteering or raising their hands or going and that's it and and it raises the question is that bad you know and I am a great believer that it's all about expectation management

you know like I get asked about Amazon a lot like do I disagree with how Amazon is run and my answer is the same which is they never lied they didn't tell you it's an magical place to work where it's all come by on we all like you know we all hang out with you know unicorns every day it's really amazing they're very open about it that it's very very aggressive and very rough and very competitive

and even the people who love it only last two years because they burn out and so because they don't lie you know what you're going to get if you go work there and if you like that kind of culture then go work there if you don't like that kind of culture then don't work there but don't take the job and then say I didn't know because you did like apple you know people say well Steve jobs used to drive us people really hard like but you ask the people who loved working there

they will tell you yes it was hard and there was a lot of pressure but I did the best work of my life and I'm glad I worked there because I never would have been able to work to that standard if I didn't work at apple back in the day right so the important thing is that companies are honest about the kinds of cultures that they have right it's the lying it's the look how everything's combined and like and look no cultures perfect even good ones have problems

and even bad ones have advantages right but I think it's it's about managing expectations and I think it's okay for somebody to say of themselves look I'm not a careerist I am okay with the fact that I will never be an owner or a senior manager I want to be paid fairly I want to do decent work but I want work to fit neatly in my life and not overwhelming and I'm going to look for a job where that is possible and I don't think we're at the point where we have

total honesty on both sides yet I hope we can get to the point because there's still stigma because the old generations like you and me are looking at if somebody were to say to us I only want to work 40 hours I'm I'm willing to push my boundaries occasionally but really

this is just this we would be like well you're not working so you know so I it hasn't normalized yet but I think it's just a question of being honest with oneself and you're allowed to change your mind as well like I've decided I do want to be a little harder driving and I do want I do have more ambition than I thought you know or less but I think I think it's just about honesty and this this this point of view is is true in personal relationships as it is in our professional

relationships so I had a conversation with somebody recently and I found absolutely fascinating and she is polyamorous she is four boyfriends right and she is very open about it and one of the things that she's trying to do is that she's that she explains is you have to be very honest with everybody so that everybody knows what the deal is you know we're thinking I think what a lot of people do is they're dating somebody to knew its casual

and they're dating somebody else that's new and casual but they don't tell them about each other so they both think that they're more special than they are or they both are driving towards something that may or may not be true because you know you're dating two or three people and you're going to wait and see which one works out this in the poly world what I'm learning is you tell everybody everything's everybody knows

and it's very open and honest everybody knows where they're standing you can you can say I'm not into this I want to be the soul or I'm okay with this and maybe something will develop maybe it won't but the point is it's on the table and I admire the level of communication what I'm hoping is that we do the same thing in our professional lives so you sort of have poly work if you will you know I have two full time jobs you know I have I have three things going

or I only want this kind of relationship and it works if both parties are really open and honest because it's all about managing expectations hold on I thought that you were going to give me all of your attention and all of your effort and all of your ambition and you're telling me you only want to work you want to treat my job as a casual job like just replace relationship with job all the same rules seem to apply but if I knew that I would be fine with that

it would have given you different job and had different expectations and wouldn't have pushed you really hard would have given that work to someone else because I I'm assuming you're want to live your career like I live my career like I assume that I'm getting into this relationship and you're getting into it for the same reasons as me because we never had a conversation we are nowhere near that in terms of social acceptance for that kind of conversation

but I aspire for that that somebody sits down and says part of your CV and part of your interview says you know what kind of work life balance do you aspire for and how do you view work even if you change your mind and then as expectations are managed then what's the problem

you've answered one of the actual number one questions I wanted to ask you about today because when I read your book the Infinite Game one of the big things it changed in my life was I remember I was on a plane I read the book started writing some stuff came back to our office in the UK and I did a big presentation to all my teams about how we create a sustainable company because if what you know if what you're talking about in the book is is true then

and and we're not playing a finite game here how do we redesign the business from the ground up so that it is fundamentally sustainable I came up with this thing called www.work, welfare and world which is the three reasons why we exist we made 2020 goals so this was in 2019 20 goals before 2020 for each of these areas and I'm thinking about it again a lot now which is like if I was to design my business in a way where my team members would stay working here forever how would I go about that

you've just answered it by saying the point about honesty yeah expectations we're sitting them down and saying what do you want from your life because I've never asked that yeah I'm as you quite rightly identified I'm presuming they want what I want exactly

so honest I've wrote it here is a question to ask you how do I get my employees to stay forever okay so why should I get dictated that sounds awful I understand that yeah but why should a it's you want to create a place in which if people want to stay it'll be an enjoyable place

that they can make a career and and grow within the organization right like and for some people who don't have aspirations for leadership that they can come and do good work every day and sort of get fair raises on a on a on a regular basis so that they would you know with cost of living adjustments etc. that they want to stay there even if it's a middle level like not everybody aspires to like be a hard driving you know owner you know and I think it's about making it a conversation

we never treated work like a conversation you know we treated it like a like a speech this is how it's going to be and I think so one of the good things that's coming out of you know covid and young people is there they're asking questions about why does work have to be that way

and employers are rebelling against it because it doesn't fit the way we grew up and doesn't fit our understanding of relationships you know and it's just a conversation that's all it is and by being honest upfront then you can say I don't think

this is going to be a good fit for us I don't think you will enjoy working here and so if I employ you knowing what I know now we will both get frustrated and I will either ask you to leave or you will tell me you're going to leave that's how this will end you know because of misaligned expectations

and so I think being honest about what you want and who you are and what your ambitions are even if they change in the middle you can knock on the door and say I've changed my mind I think I want to stay here forever I told you I didn't but I really love it here you know and I know this from the military you know some people join the military because it's a steady job in a bad economy or because the military will pay for you to get a college education

and they didn't have the money to get it without it so they join the military and then when they're they fall in love with it they never came in for service they discovered the service and the brotherhood and the sister decided to stay you know and some people might have come in for the service and realized this isn't for me work should be the same but I think I think there needs to be honest conversation about and like I said I

I've had debates even with my my partners my work partners you know you know when they say well if we're paying them a full salary and giving them benefits they shouldn't have another job and my question is why not as long as our work product doesn't suffer as a result like if they're phoning it in missing all the meetings then yes absolutely right like we're paying for certain expectation of performance but not necessarily of when they get it done and so why shouldn't they have two jobs

but I think again there has to be honesty which is we have an expectation that that of X and if somebody says I don't want to meet that expectation because I want to have two jobs and you can adjust for salary that way you can be like all right then how about we pay you less and you can have all the freedom you want and again it's a conversation we don't make these things conversations we make them one way come and by the way that's from the employee to the employer too I demand X

you know somebody asked me recently how do I you know I want to ask my boss for a raise how do I do it and I said the problem the way most people ask for a raise is like I want a 20% raise I did my research and my job the average salary on my job you know is X my friend gets paid X my friend gets pay X I know somebody who I work with you know I'm doing the same work as them so I want to be compensated equally and I want a 20% raise right and so they're positioning the question

that leaves the employer no choice but to say yes or no right it's and even if it's I can help you get that but this is how it's going to be like you're going to have to have certain targets it still comes across as a no right because the the request was binary right and so the advice that I gave to this person was stop thinking of your job as an event and think of your job as a career think of your job as a continuum

and go to your boss in the middle of this continuum I've worked here for two and a half years I've been here through high times and low times you know I'm loyal and my aspirations to stay here and grow with the organization can you help me figure out a path that gets me to this salary

it's not a yes or no now now it's like absolutely I can I can give it you today yeah no path necessary or absolutely I can we're going to set some target goals that I want you to hit and if you can hit them then you'll absolutely work to that salary

but again it's giving it's allowing for conversation and it's allowing somebody to recognize that you view your own career with your organization as a continuum that I've been here and I want to continue to be here so can you invest in me take bet can you take a bet on me rather than meet my demands

and so I think a lot of these things fail because they're poorly presented and this goes once again to you know this younger generation who seem to lack the skills for coping with stress not very good at asking for help very confrontation avoidant like I said so afraid sometimes to have the question

the boss can I have a raise that they would rather just quit and it's often with an email it says you don't appreciate me you don't pay me enough it was like what you just have to ask me I would have given you a raise you know and I think part of it is also that you know when somebody is anxious about something they do poorly present they do make things binary because there's fear or anxiety or stress or fear of rejection what if my boss says no

right can I handle that like all of these things that come into these very sort of binary aggressive things and I always equate all of these challenges at work to personal relationships like you can't go to the person you love in your relationship and say I demand this it's just not going to go well right but you present a situation you say I I want us to move through this and how do we work through this together and I think that's how these difficult work conversations need to happen

they work a work relationship is a relationship like any other relationship you know there's there's trust there's anger there is care there is good days and bad days and all of the same nonsense messiness in our personal relationships

or work as well you know there's slightly different standards of professionalism and emotional professionalism things like that but but in terms of it's a relationship like any other relationships you have to treat it like a relationship and in fact go read relationship books

if you want to fix things at work when I read about our history as sapiens or home sapiens or whatever it appears that we weren't with one partner we were with multiple partners we've now live in the society where we're in ours yeah I just want to be with one partner is that natural is a human does it work?

the stats seem to suggest it's not really working so well I mean if I bought a TV and 50% and they said oh by the way there's a 50% of these are going to break yeah I wouldn't buy the TV right I'd maybe you know rent one right that's funny Esther Parell who's wonderful if you don't know her work

you know she talks about the changing definition of monogamy monogamous used to me and I'm in one relationship for my whole life now monogamy means I'm in one relationship at a time right so even that definition has changed where monogamy and people who consider themselves strictly monogamous

have 15 monogamous relationships right oh of course about 10 how many close I've had six close you know relationships they were all monogamous right so these these definitions are evolving anyway right that's number one number two I

like that we are having conversations about the health of relationships like we're having conversation about the health of work and these things have always existed the differences is now the stigma of talking about them seems to have dissipated at least in the United States where I live

like it's amazing how many people are talking about open marriages open relationships polyamorous relationships consensual nogma nogamy like I don't even know what all the differences of all these words are if I'm honest like they it's there's so many words that seem to

mean similar things I don't understand the nuances but the point is like it's amazing to me how many people are raising the question of what is a healthy relationship and I think one of the things that boils down for me is it goes right back to what we're talking about which is

it's based on both parties and they both get a say and so if you say I want to live this kind of lifestyle and you're upfront about it and somebody says I'm cool with that then great but if you lie and say I want to have this kind of I want to be strictly monogamous but you don't really

because you like the person a lot and you think that if you tell them that you want a different kind of relationship you're going to lose them like we're it's the relationship the conversation we have are largely born out of fear you know if I tell her what I really want she won't like me and then

I won't get another date that's true that is that is a possibility but if I tell her exactly who I am and what I want and she likes me for who I am then isn't that better and I think it's the same thing that we're just talking about work so I don't think it's right for us to say

we should be strictly anything because some people want one kind of relationship let's rephrase that both people in that relationship want that kind of relationship and both people in the other kind of relationship both want that kind of relationship then we just have to respect that we have different points of view about what brings happiness as long as you're happy and it's kind of and it's consensual I think we're done and usually the problems arise

when somebody had most of these decisions most of these problems are born out of fear fear of loss right insecurity in a relationship jealousy for example this is the other thing that friend has telling you about who who super open and honest about her her life I was talking to the other day and she says I'm jealous she says I'm having jealousy and I'm trying to figure out where it's coming from and what I found so fascinating about it is she treated

jealousy as a feeling like happy sad angry where in most monogamous traditional relationships jealousy is usually an accusation right I saw you look at the barista that way right and jealousy is born usually out of fear and hyper protective you know possessive is born out of fear fear of loss right

and what I found so fascinating was she didn't blame her partner for her feeling of jealousy she wanted to understand where her feeling of jealousy was coming from it was a feeling right and not an accusation and so I think the same is it I what we're to all of this whether we're talking about work or personal relationships everything we're talking about today comes right back to those human skills that we are lacking and I hate the term soft skills

hard skills and soft skills we talk about right hard and soft are opposites right I their hard skills and human skills these are the hard skills you need to learn to do your job and these are the human skills you need to learn to be a better human being we're really good at teaching hard skills we're junk at teaching human skills and human skills include things like how to listen how to have a difficult conversation how to give and receive feedback how to

have an effective confrontation these are skills that most people lack we saw it after the murder of George Floyd the number of leaders who after George Floyd was killed did nothing they said nothing to their teams not because

they're bad people it's because they weren't taught how to have a difficult conversation and so they were so afraid there's that fear again of saying something wrong that they would accidentally offend someone or inflame the situation that they chose nothing and I think the same goes in our

relationships we make too many decisions out of fear right now as entrepreneurs we understand risk right we understand risk right and that big reward comes with big risk small reward comes a small risk no risk you leaving it up to somebody else and to get over the fact that if I tell somebody who I really am that they may not like me well don't you want to find that out sooner rather than later because they're going to find out they're going to the truth

is always revealed sometimes quickly sometimes slowly the truth is always revealed eventually but think about the magic of being able to say the kind of job you want to have and the kind of life you want to live in the kind of relationship you want to have at the risk that they may not hire you or they may not go to second or third date with you but think about the opportunity if you do take that risk I'm thinking about all the people listening to this

right now who are in a relationship they've been there for 15 years it's become loveless maybe they're not having sex anymore yeah and they're driving on the motorway now listening to us speak and they're thinking I really want to have sex with someone else and if I go home and tell Jane or

John whoever it is I don't want to be gender specific that I just want to have sex with someone else and I also want to keep them around yeah they're going to leave so I can't be honest car I'm in right so once again it goes like asking for a raise right if you make it binary you're giving you're backing someone into a corner I realize our marriages like is loveless so I want to start seeing other people and you can too you know and what you're doing is you're

making a binary you're forcing someone into a binary yes or no which is unfair to somebody and you're setting yourself up for probably failure right as opposed to saying I love you you're my life partner you're my best friend I never ever want to lose you at the same time our relationship is loveless and I'm struggling because I crave love and I crave that kind of affection and we don't have it and so I'm struggling and don't know what to do and I want

to know how you feel and I want to work on this together so you're making it's just like the raise it's like let's let's make this no if you hate the marriage and get out of the marriage you know like if you try the counseling and it's it's broken then that's a different conversation but if there is the desire to stay in the loving relationship in some way shape or form but you're looking for to fill a place that's missing then that's a conversation but it's

not a demand or a request it's a difficult honey I need to have an uncomfortable difficult conversation and we may not get it resolved today but I want us to promise to stick through each other stick this stick through this with each other so we can figure it out together it might take us a day might take us a week it might take us six months but I I'm going to be here throughout and want to go through this with you because I am struggling in this

relationship somebody else has the right to know that their partner is struggling in the relationship and odds are I've only one person is struggling no there's no scenario we're only one person struggling it's like when we have a problem with an employee like if we really can't they hate their job too like it's not a shocker you know and like to start the conversation like listen I'm struggling with you I know you hate it here because it can't be one way right

that doesn't exist I'm pretty sure most of the issues I've had in my life stem from the fact that I didn't have an on this conversation sooner me too of course me too and I made the mistake in my life that I didn't and I was it was well intentioned I didn't want to hurt their feelings I didn't want to offend them or upset them and so I dealt with the difficult thing in my head and tried to come up with the solution that I thought best looked after my

needs and your needs because I wanted but if I told you this I would burden you with the stress of having to figure this out so I'll figure it out and then I'll make the decision that I think is best for it failed every time because the mistake that I made is I treated the relationship as an individual when it's not it's two people and the problem with a relationship with two people is I'm not in total control of the relationship remember a member of a group a

member of a tribe a member of a team I'm not in total control of everything and I have to relinquish some control and the thing we have to deal with more than anything is fear it's fear that is the underlying thing why we don't have honest conversations it's why we are hyper aggressive or make things binary it's because we fear rejection we fear loss we fear whatever it is and it's it's and we can ask for somebody to reassure us and we can deal with the fear first

and by saying I'm going to stay here and an employer or a lover can say I promise you I will stick this stick through this with you as well I will not abandon you will get through this together that takes the fear down a notch right that that that we will do this together and in in my own

relationships you know COVID all the bad that came with COVID again you know how I see the world I see the world as balanced is bad there's good and bad and everything right all of the struggle and bad that happened in COVID there was tremendous good also and in my own in my own life I had the opportunity like my name is to stop get off the hamster wheel and then look backwards and saying do you want to get back on the hamster wheel you know or look at all

my relationships like why weren't they working like where's my accountability in this you know what was I doing wrong and I realized that one of the things I had to do was I had to not I had to be a better listener and so you know my girlfriend you know and when we first started dating she's terrible listener terrible right I mean we joke about it where I would say babe I need to have an uncomfortable conversation with you there's something I'm struggling

with something you said or did that it's making me uncomfortable I need to work it through with you and she would start telling me a problem she had with me right and so what I would do is just hold space for that in the conversation would just change entirely you know but I had to learn what I learned about listening that's holding space to learn to hold space for someone you know to learn to hold to as if as if holding a baby you know like to let someone

feel safe telling you what they need to say without you trying to fix something or just agree with something or correct something right go on tell me more what else was the most valuable thing I learned in COVID and the nice thing is is when you give that to someone weirdly they buy some weird osmosis they gain the capability to give it back to you because you've done it if you do it enough times you can say it this what came later which is I hear what

you're saying and I want to talk about that but for now I want to finish the thing that I started talking about can you can we just start with that and you can say it politely and they recognize that you've held space for them so many times that they'll offer you that service and they know how to do it because they've seen it modeled really interesting thing about that I was thinking about my own relationship with my with my partner is the reason why that's so

true for me is because most of the time when someone is talking and talking and repeating themselves is because they don't feel like they've been heard correct so in my relationship with my partner the fact that we do exactly what you've described where we literally go give me a safe space and then I talk means she only feels like she has to say it once because she feels like it was heard the first time right in my previous relationship my I'm in the

being I'm going to be honest I was in the the wardrobe one day and I've locked myself in there my girlfriend is banging on the door repeating herself and I've I'm not proud of this but it's the truth I long context I said I'm going for New Year's Eve me in a client are going out to Singapore it's their birthday it's the biggest client in the world they've asked me to come it's their birthday she goes I want to spend New Year's with the Eve with you and I go yeah I

I've told them that I'm going to Singapore she goes I want to spend New Year's Eve with you yeah and that just went on and I and one point she's like screaming at me so I just like go hide in the wardrobe yeah she spends all night banging on the bloody door like repeating the same thing over and over in my new relationship we we communicate with more context and we actually listen when the other person speaking so it only needs to be said once yeah and then she can speak

and then I listen and I repeat it back to and then I speak so what are the things that same right so this was ten years ago by the way I'm not trapping myself so you know the thing that I learned about being in a relationship I used to come home and do the same thing like hey babe you know I got a thing on Friday with a client right or I'll give you an even simpler one the Jones is invited us over for dinner on Friday I know that you're free on Friday so I so

I said yes I'll go for dinner the Jones is on Friday and hell ensues you know and I was like but I know you're I know we have no plans you know and so now what I've learned is when the Jones is coming so you want to come for dinner on Friday go my God I'd love to let me check and I come home and say hey the Jones is invited at for dinner on Friday but I want to check with you first oh my God I'd love to great I'll call them in confirm and I've made that again instead

of me well intention making all the decisions even though I know I know exactly what it'll be yes is I know the answer is going to be yes what I'm doing is including the other person in the relationship that's all it is it's making everyone feel seen and heard and included and it and like I said there's so many great lessons we can learn from our personal relationships which we can apply at work because again easy way to understand how I view how I approach

all these things I view it all as just human beings interacting with human beings that's all it is and all the anxieties and fears and egos and all it's applies everywhere what's the most difficult conversation you've had to have

with someone when we're talking about that honesty and communicating is authentic openly as we can as soon as possible one of those difficult conversations you've had to have or a conversation you had maybe too late down the line and you thought I wish I'd had this conversation sooner I mean

they're not different from anybody else I mean as you know talking about George Floyd to my team talking to George Floyd with my black friends that was really hard and I made mistakes you know like I remember with one of my friends one of my black friends I was crying you know as we were talking

about it and I said to him why aren't you crying and he said because it's new for you it's not new for me he says I'm exhausted I'm like I'm glad you're having your experience but it's not my experience that you're you're you're

seeing this for the first time I've seen this my whole life you know like that was that was hard you know to have that being told at me to to me it's true too but my conversations are the same as I mean the difficult conversations you know it's about it's about honesty and relations with honesty

with with you know with somebody on a team you know if something's not working out or if you give somebody really hard feedback somebody who you are really close with it doesn't mean you're letting them go but like there's really hard feedback you need to give to someone and learning to deliver it

with love learning to be matter of fact you know one of the mistakes I would always make you know there's you know these all these theories about give somebody the you know the compliment sandwich tell them something good tell them to tell them to tell them tell them something good doesn't work

because it's bullshit generic something good really specific something bad in bullshit generic something good you know seven good things one bad thing bullshit generic generic generic very specific, so it doesn't work it doesn't work like if it's really you know I like you show up to work with And there's one other thing I need to talk about, you know? But what I've learned is when delivering good news, be very emotional and when delivering bad news, remove the emotion.

And so like bad news at work especially, you know, when we sit with Thomas and we're like, oh, so I don't want to belabor this. You've been with us for a long time. I need to, it's really hard. I need to give you some difficult feedback. I'm infusing all of the emotion into this, right? But to be dispassionate about it is like, hey, I need to give you some difficult news.

I need to just have a really blunt conversation with you about something that's going on at work and it's going to be really hard for you to hear. But I need to tell you, boom, here it is. People appreciate it when we're just straight with them and, you know, not infuse all the extra emotion. You know, yeah, I think the same as, again, same as true in all relationships. I've always found that I struggle to use the word employees and you just went to use the word then and you changed it to team.

Is that something that you also, the reason why, the reason why, so I use whatever I'm on the podcast, I talk about it. But my team will never hear me, and if they might not have noticed this, but this has been the same for about 10 years. I will never in a chat, set, call them, call people that work in my company, employees. It seems to be some of a violation of my values somehow. And I just noticed you went to say the word, you went to team, someone on my team. That's what you did.

Yeah, I mean, I did the same. I mean, when I showed up to a group called my K team and like, yeah, it did, you know, employee to me is a technical word, you know? Yeah, I don't mind talking about employees when we're talking about generic company stuff. I don't mind referring to employees when I'm talking to an insurance, when I'm talking about insurance, you know, or benefits, you know, it's a technical term that I think is totally fine to use in technical times.

But when I'm referring to people and those people have names and faces, then they're the team. Do you know, this Andrew Tate thing, this Andrew Tate guy has been in a lot of the headlines you know, he is probably a good thing. You don't. He's been in, it's this guy that kind of came out with this kind of pro, you know, pseudo weird kind of strange masculine approach.

This basis, I guess, is saying that men, young men and men generally are missing something in their lives that the modern world hasn't given them. Jordan Peterson has alluded to similar things. Jordan Peterson's been on this podcast a few times. It's got me thinking about gender differences in our needs in the world.

A lot of people, there's a lot of people in like YouTube in the self-help space that are saying men have these unmet needs because the world is becoming more equal and they are lacking the sense of purpose and men are meant to be, I don't know, tribe leaders and all these kinds of things. And when you look at the suicide rates in our country, the single biggest killer of men under the age of 40 is themselves, it's suicide. And so I've been, I've been mulling this.

Is, is there, is there gender differences in your view? These are all very difficult topics I understand, but and is our men in particular having certain needs go unmet because of a changing world in your view? Everybody has unmet needs because of a changing world. Fact. Are there gender differences? Of course there are gender differences. And how we respond to men versus how we respond to women is different.

A friend of mine who was, she was, she, three things happened to her simil, she's in the military, three things happened to her simultaneously. Any one of them would be difficult, but all three of them happened to her at the same time. She was promoted to senior management, she became Lieutenant Colonel. She was deployed for 13 months, 12 months, and she was given her very first command. Okay? So any one of those things is a, is a, is a trial and all three happened to once, right?

And she took over a job where the previous five leaders had all been fired. It was a poorly run group. She would be working with people from different forces or she's in the Air Force, she'd have Air Force and Army reporting to her, some of whom were much older than her and much more experienced than her. And she is a hard driving, you know, passionate young officer who said, I'm going to turn this group around and I'm going to prove to everybody that I can turn it around.

I've been practicing leadership, I've been studying leadership, I want to be a great leader. And it was a failure. Like it was, people weren't, they were ignoring her, then we're taking her seriously. And no matter how she powered up, it didn't work. And every night she started, she would cry herself to sleep and started regretting being in the military. All she wanted to do was go home. She didn't want to be stuck on deployment anymore. What was something really exciting now became a regret.

And she didn't know what to do. She was failing, which was hard for her to deal with alone, I mean, as it was. And so she decided to give up. And she said, I will not turn this group around. So if I'm going to fail at my job, then I might as, and I'm stuck here for another six months and so is everybody else, I'm going to change my mandate. Then instead of turning this group around, I'm just going to ensure that the rest of their time here, they really enjoy it.

I'm just going to make it more fun for them to come to work every day because they're also away from their families and stuck. And then something strange really started to happen. They started to listen to her, take her seriously. They started to respect her more. And she ended up being very, very high performing at the end and the group completely turned around. Because on her way in, she made it about herself and she made it about the metrics and she made it about the performance.

The lesson she learned was if you make it about the people, then the people will take care of everything else. And I remember I sat down with her a week or two after she got back and she's telling me this whole story for the first time after she got back. And she started crying. When she said to me, I have never felt a joy so deep as seeing someone discover that they are capable of more than they thought they were. Which is very different than I'm going to turn this around.

So in her telling me this, she said one of the big lessons she learned is there is such things female leadership. And she had a conversation with one of the soldiers. And why didn't you listen to me? Why was it so difficult? Why did we struggle? And he said point blank because when a male officer yells at me, I take it, I hear it, I move on. It's fine. When you yelled at me, I felt like my mother was yelling at me. And it was more difficult.

So there are gender differences in how we respond to each other. Because it is a mom-dad thing, right? We respond differently. And men are sometimes, not always, but men are sometimes better at just being told blank by another guy to do this. And you're going, I'll just do it. But when you create gender, it creates all kinds of other interpretations and associations, like our mothers.

So I think we cannot discount those and traditional male leadership qualities or things like decisiveness, aggression, those kinds of things. Traditional female qualities or things like patience, maternal instinct, empathy. And I think the mistake we've made across all leadership is we teach male leadership, we teach decisiveness and we teach aggression. And these are the things we teach. We teach that to everybody. The reality is, is what makes great leaders is they have a balance.

And what we should be teaching is more of female leadership. And all leaders should take on the qualities of patience and empathy. This is the irony. And so I think we do need to teach those skills. Those goes back to what we're saying before. These are those human skills. Women get my work a lot quicker than men. When I was starting my career, women would just not have to be like, yeah, yeah, what do you, of course? And men would be like, what are your case studies?

And what case studies you have to prove your model? Logic. You know, men would fight with me on some of the details. And women just inherently intuitively understood that the humanity of the work that I was preaching just made sense. And there's space for that. And so yeah, I think female leadership and those qualities are just necessary everywhere. Yes, there are differences. And they cannot be discounted. It's difficult to talk about them though, isn't it? It feels like a minefield.

Even when I talk about gender differences, it feels like I'm going to step on a mine somewhere. Because you're entirely correct. My previous company was, I'm managing director was a woman. And I think the business was more successful because of those qualities you suggested, empathy, care, patience. She was much more honest about forecasts and how the business was going to perform versus a male leader. And this is such a narrow example, so it's not necessarily truth.

But a male managing director we had who was extremely exaggerating and very, very, very ambitious about forecasts that we never realized. That makes sense. That's consistent. And I think there's lots of data on this. When they apply for a job and they say we need these 10 things, and if they have 6 out of the 10, they apply for the job. Women won't apply for the job unless they have 9 or 10 of the qualities.

Men are a little, I've seen it happen in meetings where there's a male entrepreneur and the client is saying, we'd love to have this. And they kind of have it. And the guy goes, we can totally do that. And they'll sell it. They'll sell it right there and then figure it out later. And I've sat in meetings with a female entrepreneur who has almost that. They're really close. And somebody's saying, we would love this. And I'm like, you have that. They're like, it's not, we haven't tested it yet.

I'm like, you have it. Tell them you have it. They're like, what's not perfect yet? So yeah, I mean, some of it is cultural as well. I have a female entrepreneur friend who has a theory. I have to stress this as her theory. Exactly, exactly. She believes men make better entrepreneurs than women. She believes men make better entrepreneurs than women. Yes. And the logic is that as when we're young, traditional roles for the most part still exist.

That if you want to go to the prom, generally, the boy asks the girl, right? I think it's softening, but traditional roles are still there, which means from a young age, boys learn to muster up courage, take a risk, and get rejected. And then they have to do it again. And then they have to do it again, right? And so you flash forward to adulthood and men who learn that skill of taking a risk, facing rejection, being rejected, and then trying again makes them resilient entrepreneurs.

Where for, again, assuming traditional roles are played, you know, if a woman who hasn't learned the skill of risk rejection is more afraid of the risk as an adult. Now we could argue that with online dating, you know, swiping left and right, that everybody's losing the skill. You know, we could argue that nobody has to take a risk because you just swipe right. You don't know that they swipe left on you. They think maybe they just didn't see you.

So you only get the, oh, we, it connected, but nobody ever gets rejected. So are we building that goes back to the original conversation of a young generation that's less capable of dealing with stress than older generations? Like much, there are fewer opportunities to risk, reject, have to try again, right? And the things that we learn as kids, these social interactions, they do become skills as adults. And so, you know, is it a softening of a generation?

Should not we be asking both, you know, you know, boys and girls, you know, shouldn't we not be asking them to go to the, to both have to learn to take risk as both taking the risk away from everybody? I don't know. You know what, the, what I will say is I've had two very successful women on, you know, on this podcast, who said the same sentence, which is as women in the, in the workplace, we typically don't ask for raises as much as our male counterparts.

And that kind of supports what you're saying now, which is men have at some point learned to just ask for the things that they, they, they want, whether it's a raise, whether it's a job, whatever it is, you know? But I think, I think, you know, the theory here that my friend posed is that it, does it come from our experiences of dating when we're younger, that we build these skillsets that benefit us later in life as entrepreneurs. The whole, it's not risk reward, it's risk rejection.

Whenever I speak to someone that does a lot of interviews and conversations and talks, you know, online a lot, I always, I always try and think of questions that I would ask them that they've never been asked before. And one dare remember, it was actually after you left it when we're in the studio in L.A. I thought to myself, if I was going to interview myself, it would probably be the most interesting interview in the world, because I know all of the bullshit.

And I know all of the stuff that no one's ever asked me that I've maybe skirted away from or whatever. If you were sat in my chair and you were interviewing Simon today, what is, what are some of the questions you would have asked you to get up to, to get the most interesting stuff out of you? You just give me one question. I think you've done a pretty good job. I mean, I think the best interviews are conversations.

I think the best interviews have no agenda, but the interviewer has genuine curiosity. I think the best interviews are open-ended questions that are difficult. And in this case of your interviews, you know, you are pretty blunt with a question that doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room, you know, a lot of questions I can wiggle out of and yours less so. But they give an opportunity to me to think out loud.

You know, I think a lot of the questions you asked today, I haven't thought about it or if I haven't sort of codified it. And what you heard were not answers, but you heard me thinking. You know, and if you go back and listen to them, I probably, they're probably sort of, like, sort of bounce around a little bit because you hear me trying to get to an answer. They're not answers. I'm trying to get to an answer.

And those are from you the best because I walk away feeling enlightened because I got to think where usually the answers, the questions are, I've heard them all before, they're very focused on my work when you wrote this, when you wrote that, you know, what were you thinking? And I don't learn anything. So when you ask me about my work, I know the answer is, when you ask me not about my work, you ask me about life and you ask me about challenges that the world is facing, that's what I love.

So, you know, I think you've done that. And so the questions that I ask myself are the questions you ask me. Okay, I'm going to ask you the question. And I'm not cupping out. No, no, if I'm genuinely, you're very good at what you do. I will ask you the question that I would ask myself. Okay. Which is, what is the greatest, I was just thinking about it then, what is the greatest fear you have about how you're currently living your life?

What is the greatest fear I have about how I'm currently living my life? That I'm not 100% honest with myself. Because I'm not honest with myself. I won't be honest to others. You know, and when somebody asks me a question that I'm afraid of the answer, not because I'm afraid of offending them. But I'm afraid of how I feel about the answer myself. You know, I think that would be it. Have you got a suspicion that you're not being completely honest with yourself?

I think that all of us have a capacity to rationalize. It's one of the genius things about being a human being. We can rationalize anything. Yeah. You know, I can make any decision, the right decision, you know. And I can convince somebody of it as well. You know, like this is definitely the right decision. And I think it's that gut that deep down inside to be truly honest, even if the answer is I don't know. Or I'm scared. Or I'm uncertain. Or I want this and I feel like I shouldn't want it.

Do you have a suspicion that you're not being honest with yourself and is that an error of your life? Do I have a suspicion that I'm not being honest with myself? Because I don't think it's a suspicion. I think it's confirmed. I don't think I suspect it. I think I think I'm I like every human being have elements of self-doubt and insecurity of course, you know, and and and can convince myself of anything. You have self-doubt in certain areas of course. That's not your business.

But that's a good enough answer. Yeah. Those are my those are my that's like not I'm pretty open, but there are things that I want to resolve myself. I want to resolve with myself before I'm able to share them because if I share them it has to benefit others. Yeah. And you have to have done I guess work on that. I have to do work because I'm happy to share stuff that's in my life. If I believe that that conversation, even if it's unresolved, has benefit to others. Maybe it does.

I find it really interesting is, you know, as I do this podcast where my line is, what won't I share? And there is things I won't share. Yeah. It feels like a maybe I'm bullshitting myself. Maybe it's quite a lot of stuff I don't share or I twist it to make myself look better. Yeah. People have to be a hero, you know? I mean, or or like I think we live in a world that we have confused vulnerability with broadcasting our feelings. Right?

And going on a podcast or worse, sitting in your bedroom with your phone on self-view and broadcasting your breakup or your anger or whatever it is on TikTok or whatever your medium of choices, you know, is not vulnerability, even if you're crying. Have that exact same conversation with those exact same words with somebody you love and see how difficult that is. That's vulnerability.

And I just the idea of broadcasting everything, I think it's, you know, putting pictures of me as a baby and my dad holding me and happy Father's Day, dad, I love you. My dad's not on freaking Instagram. What am I, what am I just call my dad and say that happy Father's Day, I love you as opposed to like, I think it's hilarious that I need to broadcast everything and we think that's vulnerability and it's not. It's broadcasting our emotions which are different.

So I think, you know, those conversations that you're struggling to have and like the ones that I'm, the ones that I won't share, it's not that I won't share them with anybody, it's that I won't share them with you. Because I like you, but we're not, you're not my soul mate, you're not the person that I confide in.

I will absolutely share those deep, those things that I'm struggling with, but I'll share with somebody who can hold space for me with love, not with the desire to make a good podcast, you know. Someone's an old fashioned perspective, you know, so the mistake people will make is to not share them with anyone. And when I say to know your business, it doesn't mean it's not none of anyone's business.

I absolutely do share those things because it would be unhealthy and not to, but I want to share those things in a really safe, really safe magical space with somebody who loves me no matter what, and cares me no matter what, and will stand by me no matter what. Interesting. No one has ever responded like that before, which I think is, which is amazing in and of itself, because it's really, it's really changed my perspective on a few things.

As you know, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest. Yes. They have no idea who they're asking it for. Correct. I wonder, I'd love to know how somebody answered my question last time. We could look at that. I'll tell you, yeah, after. It's a slightly interesting one because it feels like it's something we've discussed in many respects. What's one conversation?

What's one conversation you haven't had, which you know you need to and why haven't you had it? Are you willing to have it? Yeah, won't share the answer. And yes, I will. Because you'd rather have it with the person. I'd rather have it with the person. Like to me to broadcast it now. Before I've talked to the person, it seems unfair and disingenuous. And I think, you know, it's kind of like when there's a respect.

You know, it's like when you hear about, you know, there was a tragedy and people were killed and they don't release the names before they've told the families. They tell the families first and they release the names just out of respect. And I think the same goes for these kinds of conversations, which is I think we owe it to the people in our lives we love and care about to let them be the first to hear the thing that has to be said rather than the second or the last.

I think it's just, that's how I want to be treated to. I'd want to be the first to hear it if somebody has something to say to me. It's just respect. So yes, there are things and they will be said. I can think you're great. I really, it really ties in nicely with your earlier point about having a conversation as soon as possible and on as conversation as soon as possible. But also, I guess the adjacent point to that is having it with them first.

Making sure they don't find out by the great viner of podcasts. Can I, can I, yes, 100% and I've heard stories of like people hearing about things on television, you know, people losing their jobs they found out through somebody else, things like that. Can I just share one funny story about being honest before we close? Honesty always has to be honest, right? It's like honesty is really easy. You just tell the truth. But honesty doesn't have to happen in the moment.

And this is a lesson I've learned, right? So I went to see a friend of mine's play and it was easily the worst thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean, if she wasn't in it, I would have walked out. It was awful. And at the end of the performance, I hung around with the, you know, close friends and family in the, in the foyer and she eventually came out still in costume, still in makeup and she knows I'm an honest broker.

So after the thanks for coming, the first question was, what did you think, right? Now, I'm an honest person, but she's all jacked up on adrenaline. She's all jacked up on emotion. Now is not the time. But the problem is I can't lie. You know, we do it all, we lie all the time to protect other people's feelings. You know, you get given a gift. It's the ugliest sweater you've ever seen in your life. And they go, what do you think? You go, my God, I love it. Thank you. You don't love it. Right?

So don't say you love it to protect them, right? You don't have to be honest in the moment. So what I said was, oh my God, I'm so proud of you. It was so amazing to be here and watch you do your thing. I've never sat in the audience and seen you do your thing before. And it was so much joy to see one stage. All of that was true. And that was it.

Done. The next day when all the adrenaline had come down and there was no more emotion, I called her up and say, can I tell you what I thought of the play? She goes, yeah, and then I told her point by point why it sucked. But we had a, we had a rational conversation the next day.

And I think we make this mistake all the time in our relationships, which is we think we have to be honest in the moment, but we don't read the room and understand that there's too much emotion involved to have a rational conversation. You know, somebody's mad at us and we're good, this is not the time for rational feedback. You meet emotion with emotion, you meet rational with rational. You can't mix the two.

And sometimes we're rational, but they're emotional, which means we have to stand down. Right? So what I've learned about honesty is we have to be honest, but we can actually delay. You have to meet rational with rational and emotional with emotional. Let me give you some honesty then. I went, I went on your video subscription library, absolutely love it. I'm a member now. You'll see my name in the back end. Look to the live, the live course is coming out. Watch loads of the videos. Amazing.

It feels like it's too cheap to be honest, because they're not a value there around all of the things that are foundational to my life. My business is my relationships, everything. It feels like it's a little bit too cheap. It's like a couple of cups of coffee for a month. And I can just binge all of your content, all of the videos, and you've got all of these other instructors on there who are teaching lessons. It feels very cheap. That's not the thing.

The only thing I thought, I thought, oh, I don't know if this is the best, is the name? Go on. I, the word subscription, for me, is a bad thing. Give me another name. Simon's University, Simon's Library. Any of these things would have made me way more. So I was thinking about the name and I was thinking, video subscription library. Video, yeah, it's not really where I'm here. It's not a great word. It's not really the great word. Yeah. So I was just thinking, I said, no, this is a change.

But no, I have no emotional connection to any of these. And the reason why it's a technical thing, and we call it a technical thing. I watched your last episode and you talked about honesty in it. And I was thinking, this is way better than it sounds. You've got, and I have to say this because people have to check it out. Basically, you've distilled your books into actionable courses. There's live classes. There's all of your content on there. Everything you've ever done.

I'm like, I'm ripping you off by being a member. That's very nice of you. I genuinely think if I hung around them, my life would be better. If I hung around for an hour a day, my life would be better. So basically, we'll change the name, which will make people feel even more value. And then thanks to this conversation, we're going to charge people more. You should.

I mean, I've had this conversation with before with people, which is, I know that our wide discovery course, I know there are people who offer all kinds of purpose-finding courses that they charge 1,500 bucks for. And I know, because I've been told, that our course is like a thousand times better than a lot of things on the market. And yet we charge, I don't know, I kind of remember the prices. It's like 20 something dollars per month.

But if you take the wide discovery course, it's like 85 bucks or $125, I kind of remember. But it's low. And the reason is, because I believe I have a responsibility to let everyone who wants to learn their why, learn their why, and not those who can just afford $1,500. And the way we attempted to price that product was what would be slightly expensive for a college student. I've got a bloody college student. You know? I'm doing 150k debts to get a fraction of what you've done.

So that's my point, which is like $1,500 is exclusive. And I would rather try and make it up in volume, because I want more people to learn their why. So, you know, is that too low? I mean, it is a trial right now, just so you know, we just launched it. It's full of bugs. So, you know, I'm sure one of the mental things was like, you know, probably shouldn't like, we should probably like ease people into it. It's still a little buggy. I appreciate the feedback.

But it is important for me to keep prices relatively low, because it's more important to me that people learn the stuff than don't. The price, fine. I want it to be cheaper for my own selfish needs. It was actually the name I felt did it deserve it. Okay. I'm going to, that was it. Simon's library or Simon's university. I've done. Yeah. I know emotional attachment to it, once again. So, I'll make that change. Thank you very much for the feedback. Everything is written in pencil. Exactly.

Thank you for coming again, Simon, honestly. It's a huge, it's a joy. It's a joy. And I learn so much from these conversations that I wish I actually need to go back through this episode with my own notes so I can change my business and my life for the better. Thank you so much. It's a joy. I learn, I learn as much as not more than you do. So, I really appreciate you having me. It's a joy, I'll do it again sometime. I hope so. Thank you. Passion.