You want to know why we'relonely?
Because we've architected our lives to belonely.
We are socialanimals. Of course it's hurtingus.
And so the questionis, is what can youdo?
And this is the one thing that I learned that was the greatest lesson I ever learned in mylife.
The true skill that we've lost and everybody's guilty ofthis.
This is sopathetic! The best-sellingauthor, sold afterspeaker, andunshakable, Optimus isback!
With one solution that aims to solve some of the biggest issues we facetoday.
Everybody's looking for biohack for all the problems that we're facingtoday.
Risingsuicide, risinganxiety,depression,addiction, and mentalhealth.
And there's one biohack that's better than all of the things that we'retrying, which isfriendship.
But we are not good at making friends and we're not good at looking afterfriends.
There's an entire industry to help people become betterleaders.
They help us maintain betterrelationships.
And there's no industry to teach us how to be a betterfriend.
Andyet, people with close friendships arehealthier.
They livelonger. They better deal withstress.
Less likely to becomeaddicted.
Friendship is the thing that actually protectsus.
So why aren't we prioritizing ourfriendship?
It's because we actually don't know how to doit.
Masstransportation,technology, socialmedia, all of thesethings, they've interrupted our ability to makefriends.
Or sometimes we have old friends where the only bond istime.
But is it afriend? Simply because you've known somebody for a longtime.
They give you nojoy, give you noinspiration.
And if you have goodfriendship, you will not feellonely.
Soyes, friends are allowed to change and it's never too late to make afriend.
So how do I makefriends?
A guarantee you will make friends by learning out ofit.
That's all ittakes.Signing.
HiStephen, good to see youagain.
Good to see youagain. It's interesting because we've had a lot of conversations and ahead of the conversationtoday, I really asked myself what are the subjects and themes that are front of mind for me at the moment and subjects that I'm struggling to understand and grapple with and find solutions and answersto.
And the sort of macro picture that I have on my head at the moment is that there's quite a lot of struggle going on because the world has changed quiteprofoundly.
And the struggle is showing up in a variety ofways.
We're seeing it in our mentalhealth, which I know you referred to as mentalfitness.
We're seeing it insuicidality.
We're seeing it in the rise of Islam and the rise ofreligiosity.
We're seeing it in the rise inloneliness, which is something we talked about lasttime.
But also now there's these other forces at play like artificialintelligence, which feels like athreat, an increase in digitalization and a fallingconnection.
What is your take on this moment intime?
The times we're livingin?
These are complicatedtimes.
And complextimes. And I think they are moreimportant, leaderlesstimes.
We're seeing the rise of populist movements and strongmenleaders, not necessarily because they are the great leaders of theday, but because I think people are desperately lacking for meaning and purpose and to feel like we're goingsomewhere.
We want to beled. People want to beled.
Whether it's young people who are protesting on their school campuses or whether during COVID it was anti-vaxxers oranti-maskers, whether it was Brexit or I think they're all very much thesame, whether it's the left side of politics or the right side ofpolitics, which is they're all basically anti-establishmentmovements.
And you usually see anti-establishment when people feel forgotten and left out by whatever the establishment isdoing.
In otherwords, they perceive that the establishment is looking afterthemselves.
So I think we live in visionless and leaderlesstimes.
That's the big challenge of theday.
And so we find ourselves reactive to each other and againstthings, but few people can say what they'refor.
So many of my guests have come here and then after the conversation I've turned to me and said they're concerned about their youngerchild, often they reference their youngerson, because they talk about the rise in the sort of toxic male influencesonline.
And it kind of coincides with what you just said about looking forleaders.
And now some of those leaders that were looking for are offering us a blueprint of what it is to be aresponsible, stable human that involves buying alambigini, having multiple wives and showing up in a certainway.
And I've had so manyconversations.
Infact, one of my guests the other week brought me a dossier called heroicmasculinity.
And it was a woman and shesays, please can you have more conversations about this subject and past it tome?
And the reason she's saying that is because she's concerned her son is growing up in a world where he's not going to know what it means to be a goodman.
Well, who are the rolemodels?
Like who are the strong male or female rolemodels?
Who are teaching usvalues?
Who are teaching usservice?
Who's teaching us kindness andempathy?
And in leaderless times and losttimes, we will follow things that make us feelgood.
Right? Wealth makes us feelgood.
Conspicuous consumption makes us feelgood.
Because you get that hit of serotonin anddopamine.
This is the reason why I've become really fascinated by the concept offriendship.
I haven't written a book in manyyears.
And so I've started writingagain.
And I'm writing a book with afriend, my friendWilgadera, who wrote unreasonablehospitality.
And we've decided to write aboutfriendship.
Because when you think about all of the problems that we're facingtoday, mentalfitness, mentalhealth, risingsuicide, risinganxiety,depression,addiction, Imean, take yourlist, even people's obsession withlongevity.
And everybody's looking for a biohack for all thosethings.
And there's one biohack that's better than all ofthose, all of the things that we'retrying, which isfriendship.
People with close friendships arehealthier.
They livelonger. But they have better copingmechanisms, which means they better deal withstress.
And I'll give you one amazingthing.
So there's a very famous experiment that'sdone, I think in the like the60s, all of our sort of understanding of addiction is based on thestudies.
Basically, they put a rat in acage, and they gave it plainwater, or they gave it water-laced withdrugs.
And it tastedboth. It's got addicted to the water-laced with drugs and eventually drank that water until itdied.
And so this became our understanding ofaddiction.
Many yearslater, not that longago, another scientistsaid, holdon, there's a problem with thisexperiment.
Arat, like aperson, is a socialanimal.
And you took this social animal and you put it by itself and then offered itdrugs.
So you created loneliness and then you offered thedrug.
If you want to make it a goodexperiment, you have to create the rightcontext.
So what itdid, they created something called ratpark.
Where basically what they did is they created a newcage, filled with things todo, andmases, andwheels, and otherrats, and there weresocial.
And the rats tasted bothwaters.
The one laced withmorphine, and the one that was justplain.
Theytasted, and they drank enough of the morphine laced with one to getaddicted.
And then theystopped. It diminishes how much theydrank, and they only drank the plainwater.
Sobasically, when you have healthyrelationships, we are less likely to becomeaddicted.
When we arelonely, we are more likely to createaddiction.
Friendship is the thing that actually protectsus.
And then if you lookat, even if you do becomeaddicted,right, let's take the worst casescenario.
So let's look atalcoholism.
Alcoholism, we knowthat, to beatalcoholism, you joinAA.
Community. And everybody talks about the importance of community and finding yourcommunity.
But alcoholics anonymous knows that there's these 12steps.
And if you master 11 of the 12steps, the disease is probably going to getyou.
But if you master the 12thstep, the finalstep, you're more likely to overcome thedisease.
So what's the 12thstep?
The 12th step is to help anotheralcoholic, to become someone'ssponsor.
In otherwords, to become afriend.
In otherwords,community, you findcommunity.
But then the final step of beating the disease is afriend, where you replace the community with afriend.
And you haveboth. And we think community is thething, but it's notenough.
Yes, you can create belonging withcommunity.
And people where we started talking aboutit, where people are latching on to these these anti-establishment populistmovements.
It's giving them a sense ofcommunity.
It's giving them a sense of shared purpose with a group ofpeople.
But it's also providing new socialconnections.
One of the things we don't do is we are not good at making friends and we're not good at looking afterfriends.
There's an entire industry to help people like us become betterleaders.
I'm a part ofit. I write books aboutit.
There's an entire industry to help people be betterparents.
And if you're going to have achild, if you've got achild, you've got a child withproblems, you read all the books about how to be a betterparent.
There are no books or precious few books to teachus.
And there's no industry to teach us how to be a betterfriend.
Like, are you a goodfriend?
Are you a good friend to yourfriends?
Are your friends good toyou?
Do you call people when you are stuck anddown?
Or do you make TikTok videos byyourself?
Which, youknow, and youget...
Imean,literally, people who are depressed make TikTok videos bythemselves.
I don't know how many times they reshoot thateither.
To postit, to get the validation for theirfeelings.
But to call a friend and say the same thing you're struggling with is actually moredifficult.
Why doesn't the industryexist?
Becausetypically... And we take it forgranted.
Yeah, so the demand isn't there for those kinds ofthings.
But that's theproblem, which is I think the demand isthere.
We don't realizeit.Right?
Like, we know that our relationships fail and our marriagesfail.
So there's an entire industry to help us maintain betterrelationships.
Well, friendshipsfail.
And we think we have friends yet we still struggle and feellonely.
If you have goodfriendship, you will not feellonely.
You may have moments ofloneliness.
And in thoseperiods, you will pick up the phone and say to yourfriend, I needyou, I'mlonely.
And your friends will bethere.
You will feel notalone.
Right? And you and I have talked about this about you will feel that someone will get in the mud withyou.
And I think the problemis, is we don't give intention tofriendship.
So think aboutit. And you and I are both guilty ofthis.
Infact, I would argue that everybody's guilty ofthis.
Whichis, we've got plans booked with afriend.
Let's call it alunch. A work thing comesup.
We call up thefriend, I got a workthing.
And the reason we keep bumping our friends is because they'll understand they're ourfriends.
So why aren't we prioritizing ourfriendships?
Why aren't we saying to the workthing, I'msorry, I've got athing.
If we had anothermeeting, we wouldsay,sorry, I've got anappointment, I can't makeit.
So why don't we treat our friends with the same intentionality that we treat any othermeeting?
So one of the things that Will did for a friend that I thought wasgenius,brilliant,beautiful, WillGuderra, who I'm writing the bookwith.
Will's friends daddied.
Will texted him andsaid, I feel foryou.
I know what you're goingthrough.
I lost my mom at an earlyage.
I'm sure you've been inundated with calls andtexts.
So I'm not going to call youtoday.
But what I will do is I will call you every single day at9.45am.
Do not feel obligated to pickup.
I don't mind if youdon't.
But when you'reready, know that I'm callingyou.
And for thenext, I think it was threemonths, eightmonths, something he called every single day at9.45am.
And for the first week his friend didn't pick up atall.
And then after the first week he picked up every day and they talked every day formonths.
Think about the intentionality that someone who loves and cares about you so much that they will call you every single day at9.45.
Just so that you can see their name pop up in the caller ID to know that you're notalone.
It brings me to tears just thinking aboutit.
How many of us are that good afriend?
I want friends likethat.
Here's a goodquestion.
What's afriend? What makes a goodfriend?
I don't even know if we have a definition ofthat.
I've been asking people and somebody said tome, well somebody who's there for you to support you in the hardtimes, that's a realfriend.
And I got thinking and I talked to somebodyelse.
She has a friend who she callsMr.
Shaddon Freud because he seems to love when things gowrong.
So in hard times he's alwaysthere.
He's always there in hardtimes.
He gives the shoulder to leanon.
He's givingadvice. But in good times he's nowhere to beseen.
And so what happens is it creates this horrible sort of co-dependent relationship that you want to keep the hard times because that wonderful human being is alwaysthere.
So you never want to let go and you becomeco-dependent.
And so you realize that there's something called a fair-weathered friend who's only there in the goodtimes.
But be equally cynical and suspicious of the foul-weathered friends who's only there in the hard times because somehow it makes them feel good aboutthemselves.
But they're not there for the goodtimes.
And so you realize what's the value of good time versus badtime.
Soyes,yes, you and I have friends that in hard times we would callthem.
But I would bet money that you have even fewer friends that you want to text out of the blue andsay, I want anaward.
Right? Think aboutthat.
Like if something goeswrong, I've got a group of friendsprobably, I've probably gota, youknow, a dozen people I could say andsay, I need yourhelp.
Things have gone horriblywrong.
I need youradvice. But if something amazing happens tome, that number probably shrinks down tofour.
That I'm going to text out of the blue andgo, something amazing happened today and not feel like I'mbragging, not feel like I'm trying to overwhelm them or prove them that I'm better thanthem.
But knowing that they will be so happy forme.
And so I've started thinking that maybe a friend isn't just the person who's there for you in the hardtimes, but the person you can go to in the greattimes.
Think aboutthat. I have fewer friends that I can go to when things go perfectly than I would go to when things gowrong.
So are those my truefriends?
So this is on thejourney.
I'm trying to understand what friendmeans.
And I'm trying to understand the responsibility we have to look after thosefriends.
You look at all the longevitystudies, all the blue zonework.
Sure they eathealthy, sure they walk alot.
But they also eat with eachother.
Whereas you look at some of the people who are promoting longevity in all of those biohacks and how you have to exercise the certain way and eat the certainway, you'll find a lot of them are pretty unhappy people and pretty lonelypeople.
I don't think they're going to live verylong.
So here's acrazy, crazyone.
Physiologically,right?
What are the most important organs to keep strong forlongevity?
Like we know thedata,right?
So I'll tell you what theyare,right?
Numberone,heart.Obviously.
That makes perfectsense,right?
You've got to have a healthy heart if you want to live a longtime,right?
Secondone,lungs. Got to have healthy lungs to live a longtime.
Cardione, all the rest ofit,right?
Don'tsmoke. Like we know that makes perfectsense.
Do you know what the third most important organis?
I didn't know how it's going to say thebrain,but...
Thethighs. Thighmuscles.
So if you have a healthyheart, healthy lungs and healthythighs, statistically you're more likely to livelonger.
Iknow. I said the samething.
Thighs. Do you want to knowwhy?
Becausehistorically, thighs are the most important muscle responsible forwhat?
Motion,walking,right?
Notexercise,social, going to visit yourfriends.
Before there werecars, before there weretrains.
We had to walk to go visit ourfriends.
And so people who aremobile, if you're moremobile, you're more likely to maintainfriendships, which means you're likely to livelonger.
So the three most important organs to keephealthy,historically, as humanbeings.
Heart,lungs, and thighs formobility.
Thighs forsociability, which I think is amazing that we never thoughtabout.
So all of these things that technology isinterrupted.
Masstransportation,cars, socialmedia, all of thesethings.
They've interrupted our ability to makefriends, properfriends, where you can look each other in theeye.
You and I could do this overZoom.
They wouldn't feel thesame.
But themacro, so the remote workculture, the risein, as yousay, screens andphones, optimizing interaction out of ourlives.
Imean,like, youknow, if you think about social networking or Ubereats, or I don'tknow,delivery, you're living your life behind a screen in white wallsnow.
And it feels like it's becoming harder and harder and harder to makefriends.
Also to find someone toremember,yeah, but up to makefriends.
Infact, what's interesting thing is sometimes when I come offstage, I'llhave, it's always young men come up tome, and I get right up in my personal space and I get thisstrange.
And then they'll say something to melike, how do I makefriends?
Andthey, and I respect them so much for saying it because I can see how difficult it is for them to utter thosewords.
And I reflect on I was doing something at Canary Wharf in a kid in the frontrow.
In a crowd of 500people, they're all wearing suits because they're working in the corporateworld.
He's surrounded by 500 of hispeers, hisage.
In the frontrow, pass themicrophone.
His question to me on stageis, how do I makefriends?
Yeah. There's 499 people sat next tohim.
That is hisage. And he's asking in the frontrow, how do I makefriends?
Yeah. And it was so movingbecause, youknow, looking down on that individual surrounded bypeople, I'mlike,well, youknow, thebrain, the simple braingets, we'll just turn to the personnext, you'll introduceyourself.
Butclearly, that wasnot, not theanswer.
Because if it was sosimple, he would just dothat.
And you said something interesting aswell, which I think maybe overlays withthat, which is that we've kind of lost the art or the skill of makingfriends.
What would you have said to thatkid?
So I'll tell you by way of astory.
Oh, I wouldn't answerthat.
So a friend of mine wasstruggling.
Hercareer, it wasn't going as well as she hadwanted, and her marriage was in a badplace.
So in otherwords, when itrains, it pours like she couldn't get abreak,right?
And she was in a really badplace.
And so she knows what I do for aliving.
So shesaid, she askedme, can youhelp?
Can I come and talk to you and get someadvice?
And Isaid, ofcourse. And so we had a standing Wednesdaymeeting, gettogether.
We got together every Wednesday for 90minutes.
And she would tell me what was going on in herlife.
I gave her someadvice. She felt amazing when she leftme.
It lasted about twodays.
And then she'd go back into herslump.
And then we'd get together the nextWednesday.
She'd feel amazing for about twodays.
And she'd go back into aslump.
And this went on formonths.
This was ourpattern,right?
So I thought I was doing goodwork.
And then it just rinsed andrepeat,right?
Then I remembered my ownwork.
And I remembered alcoholicsanonymous, which is the finalstep.
The 12 step isservice, helping somebody who's struggling with the problem you're strugglingwith,right?
Is the way to actually help you overcome yourproblem.
So I havestruggles. I haveneeds.
I haveinsecurities. And I don't have a safe outlet to talkto.
SoI, she's one of my closest friends in theworld.
I trust herimplicitly.
So I said toher, can I need the coaching aswell?
Can we split ourtime? 45 minutes forme, 45 minutes foryou.
Sheagreed. And itwas, I knew what I wasdoing,right?
There was kind of an experimenthappening, which I didn't leton, which is I wanted her to help me as a way of helpingherself.
And so what ended up happeningwas, itwould, it would cease to be45,45.
I, we gottogether. And for 90minutes, we talked aboutme.
And then the nextWednesday, we gottogether.
And for 90minutes, we talked aboutme.
And then we gottogether.
And for 90minutes, we talked aboutme.
And within about three or fourweeks, her life was full-on back ontrack.
Fully back ontrack. Because when you help someone with the thing that you were strugglingwith, you actually end up solving your ownproblems.
And so what I would say to that kidis, find somebody who's struggling to make a friend and help them make afriend.
Make it an act ofservice.
Becausefundamentally, we dig downdeep.
The true skill that we've lost isservice.
We've overemphasized taking overgiving.
We've overemphasizedselfish, overselfless.
Selfish isimportant. Taking isimportant, but not at the expense of giving and not at the expense ofserving.
Right? We'velost, we're out ofbalance.
And I think we've lost the ability to servesociety.
We've lost the ability to serve eachother.
Youknow, the Prime Minister ofcourse, for national service and literally the whole country erupts andsays, are you trying not to getreelected?
Youknow? What did you thinkabout?
I thought it wasbrilliant.
I do believe inservice.
It doesn't have to be militaryservice.
Youknow, when we say nationalservice, go be a teacher in the inner city for ayear.
Youknow, go work on a one day a month in ahospital.
Go work for oneweekend, one day per month in a in hospice and palliativecare.
Right? Serve other human beings who are underserved orforgotten.
Serve your nation in someway, show up in theform.
Put, youknow, let the government give you a list of 20 or 30 options of things you can do and say that if you do thesethings, it makes you eligiblefor, youknow,scholarships, it makes you eligible forwhatever, youknow?
I'm a great believer init.
Just like you can get in at least the UnitedStates,very, very generous packages for education if you serve in themilitary.
Give very generous packages for education if you do any of these otherthings,teaching.
Youknow, like we haveproblems, youknow, we're losingteachers.
Okay,well, we can fill thosegaps.
What, whyis, do you think that would help our society at large over the comingyears?
Because I think the skills that people learn when theyserve,A, they learn hardwork.
But they learn to be a part of something largerthemselves.
And you talk to anybody who goesoften, does volunteer work or takes a gap year where they go and do service or anyone who's gone tocombat,right?
And you talkto, if you talk to soldiers or Marines who have been in theshit, none of them want to go tocombat.
It's notfun. There'svery,very, very few combat-relatedsuicides.
In otherwords, suicides don't happen in a combatsituation.
Theycome, they happen when they come backhome,right?
And they all weirdly have warm feelings about their time incombat.
And it's not the shooting and thefear.
It's the intense responsibility and awesome feeling to be there to look after eachother.
Not just a feel lookedafter, but to look afteranother.
I talk to Navy SEALs and I talk to SEAL Team6.
And I wanted to understand the why of the SEALteams.
This is one of the highest performing organizations on theplanet,right?
And you think it's going to be about brawn andcourage.
And all the stupid things that the outside world thinks that the commandos and the special operatorshave, it's actually not that atall.
Which is they care for each other more than othersthink, more than others thinkpossible.
It's their love of each other that makes them specialoperators.
And their courage doesn't come from rawcourage.
I've askedmany, I've talked tomany,many, many SEALs and special operators aboutthis.
They don't have just raw courage to run into danger and all of thisstuff.
It's that they fear letting down their comrades more thandying.
And we saw it happen recently where a SEALmission, one of the SEALs fell into the water and another SEAL dived in to catch him and they bothdied.
Right? Theyfeel, they fear letting each other down more thandying.
That cannot be described anythingelse.
There's no other word to capture that feeling thanlove.
That is love at a level that few of us will everunderstand.
And that love is so deep that a lot of them have failed marriages because when they'rewives, say tothem, it's either me or your fellowSEALs, they choose their fellowSEALs.
That'slove. That'slove.
And even in myworld, like you and I have colleagues andco-workers.
In themilitary, they have brothers andsisters.
Those relationships arereal.
And I remember the first time a friend of mine in uniform called mebrother.
We're on the phone and hesaid, heybrother, there's the first time he called mebrother.
And I feltit. You don't use that termloosely.
It's not just a generic term ofendearment.
You earn to be called brother orsister.
And I remember when he called mebrother, that it meantsomething.
And thisguy, thisguy, this friend ofmine, he's still activeduty.
He's a combathero. He's risked hislife.
He's put himself in harmway.
He saved the lives ofpeople.
He's an absolutewarrior.
He is by any definition of frickin badass fuckingwarrior.
And he was the first man who said tome, I loveyou.
We got off the phone and hegoes, we're just saying goodbye to eachother.
We had a nice longconversation.
We got off the phone and hegoes, I loveyou.
He didn'tsay, loveya. He didn'tsay, loveyou.
Hesaid, I loveyou. That'sreal.
And we hedge because we're afraid of ouremotions.
We're afraid of expressing ourselves to eachother.
We say things likethat.
Wesay, loveya. Even loveyou.
Say those three words tosomebody.
They are excruciatingly difficult unless you actually meanit.
I loveyou. And it was so powerful that now every time he and Italk, and we talk politics and we talk global stuff and we talkleadership, and then at the end of ourcalls, I'llsay, I'll talk to you realsoon.
I love you because I love youtoo.
That's how we end our phonecalls.
And I startedexperimenting.
I started saying those words tothe, especially the men in my life that I love and care aboutdesperately.
My malefriends. It's easier to say to awoman.
There's less of astigma,right?
And guys whoare, some of my guy friends whoare, if you metthem, you would describe them as not verywarm.
You would describe them as distant or cold orguarded.
And theyare. And I remember taking therisk, saying tothem, when we got off the phone or when I said goodbye to them when I was hanging out withthem, Isaid, I loveyou.
And in very shortorder, they started saying itback.
And we would hugdifferently.
And we would kiss each other in thecheek.
And one of my friendswho, he's a coldguy, he's notwarm.
He's lovely and smart and fantastic andfunny, but he's notwarm.
It took him a long time and I always said it tohim.
I loveyou. I loveyou. Hegoes,yeah,huh?
Okay. And I would like hug him because I'm in the cheek ofbye.
He'slike,okay. And then he startedsaying, I love youback.
And this is what I've learned from the highest performing teams on theplanet.
This is what I've learned from people who understandservice.
That you cannot have service without developing some sort oflove.
And so I think to go all the way back to the question from the kid in the frontrow, how do I makefriends?
You can't make a friend until you learn how toserve.
Because friendship is fundamentallyservice.
Friendship is an activeservice.
And if you don't know the skill ofservice, then you probably don't know how to be afriend, let alone make afriend.
I think you have to learn to be a friend before you can make afriend.
Because only people only want to be your friend if you know how to be theirfriend.
Right? Which is not like havingfun, which is not like going out and get pissed with yourmates.
That'sfun. Those aremates.
Are those friends that youlove?
Maybesometimes. Sometimes there'soverlap.
That's the otherproblem.
And I live in America where you meet somebody once and they call youfriend.
And the problem is I think we overuse the wordfriend.
Right? Like if you have a mild melanoma and you have stage for livercancer, we call both those thingscancer.
Clearly they're not the samething.
And I think we have the same problem with the wordfriend.
Like somebody who hang out withcasually, it's alaugh.
Youknow, we call that personfriend.
But then somebody who we have deep love for and we would be there for them no matterwhat.
We call that personfriend.
Best friend doesn't seem to capture iteither.
And so I think we need morewords.
Like I've started using the wordacquaintance.
I've started using the word work friend or dealfriend.
That's like infinance.
Right? I likethem. I get along withthem.
I enjoythem. But if we weren'tworking, if our companies weren't workingtogether, what I hang out with them is probablynot.
Probably would make less of aneffort.
Are youreligious? I believe inbelief.
What does thatmean? I believe in the importance of believing insomething.
And so for those who choosefaith, traditionalfaith, as the thing to believe in and offerguidance, I think that'sgood.
For people who findcause, whether it's socialcause, or some type of other cause to feel a partof, I think it is essential that we believe insomething.
I believe inbelief. It's funny because all the subjects we're talking about then about community and other subjects that intersect with that service andpurpose, these all came inherent withinreligion.
Yeah. Religion gave us all of these once upon atime.
Now in the absence ofreligion, and the rise indigitalization, we're struggling to find those things and we're trying to makethem.
It's such a goodquestion,right?
Which is religion provided acode, and arguably a code thatyou...
So here's theexample,right?
So take theVictorians.
There was some incredibly wealthy Victorians who gave tremendous amounts of their wealth back tosociety.
They establishedcharities, they builthospitals.
Infact, many of the institutions that exist today were established by wealthyVictorians.
The same is true in the UnitedStates, the Carnegie's and theRockefellers,right?
And I went and looked thisup.
I went and looked up the tax code from the Carnegie and Rockefellerdays, or the George Eastmandays.
And I went and looked up the tax code in the UK aswell.
And there was no sophisticated taxcode.
In otherwords, there was no refund or rebate or deduction for giving tocharity.
Zero.Zero. There was no tax benefit in the UK or the US for giving tocharity.
And in the conversations with theCarnegie's, the Rockefellers and some of the wealthyVictorians, they all said that they believed that they hada, quoteunquote, moral obligation to give back tosociety.
And it was born out of religion without adoubt.
They were God fearing without adoubt,right?
But they believed in moral obligations to return their wealth and give something back tosocieties, establishinguniversities, hospitals and the rest ofit,right?
Now, it seems that people give charity if they can get a tax benefit fromit.
And the questionis, where is the moral obligation comingfrom?
And so when we talk about the fact that people are less religioustoday, but I think your assertion iscorrect, people are abandoning the traditional church membership isdown.
And I would argue that because the churches have lostrelevance,right?
Like take the Catholicchurch, forexample.
Like you're trying to appeal to young people by wearing 400-year-old clothes and speaking inLatin.
Maybe we're jeans and speaking English or whatever the local languageis.
Like if you want to be quote unquoterelevant, you're not changing thefaith, abandoning thefaith, you're not blasphemous by changing what you're wearing and the language you're speakingin, you're still preaching thefaith, but you'll find yourself moreattractive.
I had the opportunity to go to Kanye Sunday service back when he was okay to do anything withKanye.
I just was invited as a friend of a friend and I went to the Sundayservice,right?
And itwas, I don't care if you're religious ornot, that was a religiousexperience.
Did you evergo? Idid,yeah.
It isunbelievable. And forthose, when I say for those who haven'tgone, like anybody couldgo, you just get on the sign-upsheet.
Like you could just sign anyone couldgo, it was open to the generalpublic, it just sold outquick.
Imean, it wasfree, but the list filled upquickly.
And basically what happened was there's a band acquire in the middle and the parishioners sat all the way in a circle around theoutside.
You satthere, your body was consumed by song andmusic.
And itwas, and youknow, there's like Sufi tradition where music becomes thething, the way you findspirituality, the way you findmeditation, or like the whirling dervishes who spin around in themusic.
And it's therepetition.
And it was sitting in this beautiful place consumed by songs that went on for 10 minuteseach, that you foundspirituality, whether you had traditional religion in your life ornot.
And there was community and I for one went with afriend.
And I think that's what traditional church doesn'trealize, which is you can modernize oldbeliefs.
And if you dothat, you will find relevance amongst youngpeople.
But young people are looking forsomething.
There's something calledHillsong, which is an Americanchurch, but the joke is it's like where all the pretty people go topray.
It's young and it'srelevant.
And like the pastors like got a beard and earring and youknow, jeans and youknow, duck martens and there's a rockband.
But they preach thegospel.
And ithas, and it fills up entirearenas.
So people are looking to belong to something and they're looking to believe in something and they're looking to beled.
And they're looking for community and they're looking for codes of conduct and values that they can keep alive in their own lives and their owntraditions.
And there are precious few of those placesleft, which is why I think people are desperately looking forthem.
And latching onto kind of the first thing that showsup.
I think it's one of the biggest business opportunities of our time aswell.
I say this at multiplelevels.
I'm talkingabout, if I'm an entrepreneur thinking about where to start abusiness, but also if I'm an entrepreneur and I'm thinking about how to run my company and myculture.
It'sfunny,this, I've got one particular opinion that went out of fashion and now has come into fashion over the course of thepandemic, which is I always believed in doing things in person and having peopletogether, even thispodcast, never did it over Zoom even through thepandemic.
We just two meter distance and get if someone couldn't come in and we weren't going torelease.
I just didn't wantto, because it's what's thepoint,right?
But also in terms of companyculture, I think companies now thatoffer, I'm in so manyinterviews, I don't think people wouldbelieve.
Imean, so many interviews where the candidate asks me to check that they're going togoing, I was in one yesterday with a young 25 year oldlady.
She checked that people were going to come in the office and betogether.
It was almost like she wasn't going to take the job unless we were acommunity.
She was talking about runningclubs.
She was talking about reformerplateaus.
She was talking about that she likes to do climbingwalls.
And she wanted to check that we were in the officetogether.
And Ithink, youknow, good forher.
You know what Imean? But the narrative through thepandemic, especially led by the West Coast ofAmerica, was that remote forever and all that kind ofthing.
But I've always believed that the fundamental needs of human being will mean that connection and being together willprevail.
Yeah, I agree withthat.
But how much damage has to be done until we getthere?
Youknow, and I think we have a responsibility to helppeople,like, to bring peopletogether.
So one of the trends that I'm seeing in theStates, atleast, is youngpeople, especially those who started their careers in the pandemic or slightly before thispandemic, who kind of fell in love with the wholeroom, the romance ofthe, youknow, remote workthing.
And,um, arestruggling, a lot of them are struggling with mental healthchallenges, mental fitnesschallenges.
And when they're forced to come intowork, which is actually anantidote, once they getthere, they freakout.
And they think that it'sthe, the workspace that's making it morestressful, but it'snot.
It's that you've been at home and alone so much that it's like a shock to the system to come backin.
Youknow, it'slike, it's like when you're out of shape and you go to thegym, it reallyhurts.
You have to stick withit.
Youknow, it's like when you get off drugs and you go through with thedraw, you make sure you want to go back to thedrug.
Right. And so my fear is that the connection that it's the being at home in a remote work environment is the thing that's making me mentallyunfit.
And it's not the coming back intowork, even though it hurts and it's a shock when I come in and I run away fromit, I haveto, I have to stick withit.
I have to keep going to thegym.
I have to stay off thejuice.
Like, youknow,um, do you think this is in part because the office isoutdated.
It was a concept that was designedlike, youknow, multiple decadesago.
And the needs of the human being in the modernworld, if we're saying it's much more about connection andcommunity, like the office itself should beredesigned.
It shouldbe, it should serve more as a community likecenter.
Imean, versus just a placeto, Imean, the office has changed multiple times to reflect thetimes.
Imean, it used tobe, youknow, the executives had the corner offices with windows and the rest of ushad, youknow, cubes in themiddle.
At somepoint, we started giving the nice offices tothe, to the younger people on the outside and then we made the outsideoffices, the conference rooms and then we went to openplan.
Imean, like the offices have taken multiple different cultural changes rightfully so the office should reflect the times you'reright.
Youknow, one of my favorite ones is if you visit the Pixaroffices, the way Steve Jobs helped design the Pixar office is they put the bathrooms in themiddle.
Most, most offices have the bathrooms on the outside and they put the bathrooms in themiddle.
So no matter where youworked, you had to walk past other people to go to theLou.
And at some point in theday, everyone has to go to theLou.
And so that was done on purpose to force you to interact and haveserendipity.
But little things likethat, communalleading, I'm a huge fan of communaleating, I'm a huge fan oflike, let'sgo, let's eattogether.
Youknow, I built my office to feel like a livingroom.
There's like different living roomareas.
You can sit uphere, you can sit overthere, but it's justcouches.
And people sit wherever they wantand, youknow, people havetheir, quoteunquote, theirdesk, youknow, where they like tosit.
And there's a lot of bathrooms if you need to makecalls, but it's all justcouches.
It's all supercomfy. It feels like it feels like ahome.
If people want to work athome,great.
Here's ahome.Literally, you walk into myoffice.
Imean, you've beenthere.
It's ahome. It's ahome.
It's ahome. And because I want people to have that homeexperience, we've got a fridge and a kitchen and youcan, youknow, I can imagine a rebuttal to a lot of people who are listening tous.
Where theygenuinely, they have an hour commute to go into some horrible littlecubicle.
So they have to wear asuit.
They get nofreedom. So my bias is that obviously I'm the CEO of thecompany.
So Ihave, youknow, these freedoms and our culture is much more relaxed andfree.
But there's a lot of people that their relationship with workis, it'sawful.
It's like an awful place tobe.
Yeah. And I thinkso. The question isgreat.
Okay. So instead of rejectingit, how would you redesign it to make you want to comein?
Okay, you don't want to wear asuit?
Don't wearsuit. Maybe you only have to wear a suit if you have a meeting with aclient.
Thatseems, if you're in that kind ofbusiness.
Yeah. Youknow, I live in Los Angeles where everybody dresses like 16 yearolds.
But youknow, that seemsfair.
Where a suit only when you're meeting with aclient, ifthat, if your business requiresthat, otherwise wearwhatever.
Youknow, soagain, it goes back toservice, which is I think that people have to earn the right tocomplain.
Right. And you earn the right to complain by trying in some small way to fix the problemyourself, not exhausting everypossibility.
Like you're not allowed to complain aboutpolitics, unless you've at leastvoted.
Right. You don't have to join themovement.
You don't have to campaign just theminimum, theminimum, then you can complain about anything youlike.
And so if you've tried to fix theoffice, then you can complain about theoffice.
If you just sit at home and whine aboutit, maybe like getinvolved.
And don't do it foryourself.
Here's we go back toservice.
Don't do it foryourself.
Do it for the other people who hate coming to work with an hour long commute to sit in a little cubicle and wear a suit that they don't want towear.
Do it for the people youlove.
Do it for the people you careabout.
Do it for the person to the left and to theright.
Don't do it foryourself.
You selfishbastard.Right.
Do it for someone else to make their feeling of coming to workbetter.
How can you make it feel better for somebody else you work with to come towork?
And that's what we'remissing.
We're all aboutourselves.
And yet we've forgottenemails.
Anotherone. You know why you get so manyemails?
Because you send so manyemails.
Stop BCCingeverybody.
Stop CCEingeverybody.
Like when somebody says what times the meeting and you reply all and write three o'clock or what do you want for lunch and you reply and write chickenplease.
Like you made everybody open thatemail.
You thoughtlessbastard.
Right. Why don't you help everybody else get to inbox zero instead of worrying about you getting to inboxzero.
So in other words pick up the phone whenpossible.
You know send feweremails.
Take people off the CCElist.
Like I get anemail. It's got five peopleCCE.
I realize that my reply only really matters to two people and I take people off the CCElist.
Youknow, because I want them to have feweremails.
Because why is everybody hitting reply all and then we're all suffering from emailbankruptcy.
Anyway, acts ofservice, acts ofservice.
I mean there's so many littlethings.
There's so many littlethings.
Stupidthings. Stupidthings.
I was walking on the streets of New York and a guy was parking hiscar.
And it happened to be a huge space big enough for twocars.
Right. And he parked right in themiddle.
And it wasn't like it was his brand newcut.
He's afraid of getting it bumped into just just acar.
Right. And I said tohim,Hey, I sort of like tapped on the sort of like wave down his window like a wave andlike,Hey, just so you know there's a ton of room behind you or in front ofyou.
If you move your car up orback, you'll make room for anothercar.
And hegoes, there's noroom.
I'mlike,no,no,no, I'm standing outhere.
You got like five feet in front ofyou.
Like this plenty ofroom.
I'll guide you if youwant.
Youknow, it's being super nice aboutit.
And hegoes, I think it's justfine.
I'mlike,no,no,no,no.
Like you anothercar. Are you trying to park yourcar?
He says tome. Isaid,no, but I've tried to park in New Yorkbefore.
And I know it's hard to find aspace.
So, youknow, maybe maybe nice to pull your car up and let another guy would hear nothing ofit.
Turn his car off and got out of the car and walkedaway.
Andlike, that's what Imean, youknow, whichis, youknow, here's the advice I wanted to tellhim.
I didn't saythis. But I wanted to belike,Hey, just can I offer you anobservation.
You live in theworld. There are other people in theworld.
And I'm not asking you to give up your weekends and work inhospitals.
I'm not asking you to join themilitary.
I'm not asking you to give up your salary and become ateacher.
I'm not asking you to do any of thosethings.
I'm asking you to consider that somebody else might want topark.
And it's an active service to like move your car to make a little room for somebody who wants topark.
And make a little room for somebody who you don'tknow.
Do you think that individualism is hurtingus?
Yes. Ofcourse, you want to know why we're lonely becausewe've, we've architected our lives to belonely.
Ofcourse, it's hurtingus.
We are social animals who've over indexed on ruggedindividualism.
We heroizeCEOs. I loveyou.
You'regreat. You'rewonderful.
But people consider you a hero and their business gurublah,blah,blah.
I know for a fact that you didn't do italone.
I know for a fact that you've got teams of people who make you lookgood.
What are you talkingabout?
I know for a fact that people took bets onyou, took risks onyou.
I know for a fact that people made introductions foryou.
I knew when you hadnothing.
Sure, you hadmoxies.Sure, you hadtalent.
But if it weren't for people whotried,supported,helped, youknow, opened adoor, there would be no StephenBartlett.
Ofcourse. Even myparents, the first people I think about is myparents.
I don't know why they can't so much aboutme.
I feellike, youknow, kids that feel they objectively look like such aburden.
Butyeah, I get the sameway.
I waslike,why, why would you dothat?
Why would my mom and dad care so much about this little bundle ofcells?
I don'tunderstand. They would just like killthemselves.
But itmatters. But we know parentingmatters.
We know parents that build up theirkids' confidence asreally, youknow, parents that are capable of building theirkids'confidence.
Really, reallymatters.
As opposed to telling a kid constantly that they do everythingwrong.
Like that will hurt the kid for the rest of theirlife.
And they're going to have to do a tremendous amount of work to overcomethat.
It'sinteresting, even onthis, overlaid with this is the idea that populations in the Western world are actually declining because of having less and lesskids.
We're actually making it more aboutourselves.
We want to worklonger. We want to achieve all careergoals.
And now havingkids. And that's what active service of parenting is now becomedeprioritized.
And it's a real problem for the Western world because of the agingpopulation.
And very often for selfishreasons, like I want to live mylife.
100%.Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.
Imean, I think to yourpoint, I think we have forgotten that we're socialanimals.
Imean, like just go back a fewyears, a fewdecades,right?
So second worldwar,right?
Thecamaraderie. Imean, think about what happened in America and in Britain during the Second WorldWar.
So during theBlitz, the number of people who sent their children to thecountryside.
And they stayed back to support the wareffort.
Okay. They didn't move to the countryside with theirchildren.
They couldhave. Theysent, they think about the insanity of that right now that parents sent their children to the country to besafe, to be raised by another family with the full expectation that theywould, that they may never see their kids again because they might die in theBlitz.
Right. Like that is incomprehensible to a modernday.
And yet that made total sense that we stayed back to support the war effort and to be a part ofit.
And we sent the kids to the country in the UnitedStates.
More people died by suicide who didn't get coal toaction.
The shame of not being called to serve was more of a warming than the coal toservice.
There were more suicides in the United States from people who didn't get coal toserve.
What does this say about the GenZ, the millennialnow?
That's trying to decide which direction to take their lifein.
But youknow, allthe, itsays, youknow, go be a lawyer as the clear incentive because I'll get paid more or my people be more proud of me onInstagram.
If you're saying that service and it also sounds like intertwined withinthere, a little bit of like challenge is so central to beinghappy.
How does like the young person decide like make build their life roadmap?
What dothey, what do they need to be adding to that roadmap?
What is kid in my head that is currently behind a video gamescreen.
He's spending all his time on the internet watching certain male influences that are telling him to beindividualistic.
He doesn't have a romantic relationship in theworld.
He doesn't have anyfriends.
He's not really leaving the housemuch, not going to the gym atall.
Often referred to these individuals as like being in cells on theinternet.
And the rise in that type of individual according to a lot of people I've spoken to is rising because of the nature of the world and disconnection and lack of friendship and all thesethings.
What do you say to thatperson?
He's probably a guy looking at thestatistics.
Well, you and you've talkedto, you've talked to ScottGaloway.
He's talked a lot aboutthis.
And I don't think we talk enough about this as it relates to extremism and terrorism and things likethat.
Youknow, where you take a24,25,26, 27 year old incell,virgin, with no sociallife.
There's a lot of pent up frustrationthere.
And that comes out in all kinds of screwed upways, usuallyanger, usuallyvictimization,addictions, youknow, vengefulbehavior, youknow, anti-socialbehavior.
And if you lookat, youknow, even just inthe, and this is not adiscursus, it's like this is decades and decades anddecades.
But you look at sort of the rise of a religious extremism in the MiddleEast.
Youknow, you take a shame-based society where you're24,25, 26 yearsold, you're living athome, you're avirgin.
The only way you can leave the house is if you like get a job and if you getit, you won't get a girlfriend and IE awife, IE have sex until you get a job and move out of thehouse.
And so there'sthe, and you're in a shame-basedsociety, like the pressures are extreme and the anger isextreme.
So Ithink,yeah, I think this idea of not knowing how to make friends and finding online community of people whoare, youknow, where we all support each other's victimhood isincendiary.
I could never imagine Simon Sinek and one of your books telling people that they werelosers, that they were losers and that theysuck.
But when I look at AndrewTates' approach in hisvideos, multiple videos andtweets, he really mocks the people that he's speakingto.
Hesays, your lifesucks, you're an absolute loser and then he tries to offer them a roadmap.
And it seems towork.Yeah, of course itworks.
Why? Because you're validating their feelings ofvictimhood, you're affirming it and then offering them a wayout.
Because if you simplysay, everyone can be awinner,like, and I don't feel like awinner, you're not talking tome.
But if I say you've beenforgotten,like,look, we do it in work all thetime.
It's like the corporation doesn't care aboutyou.
The corporation prioritizes profits overyou.
You'relike,yeah, like you'redisposable.
Yeah, it's kind of a rhetoricalclickbait,right?
Because what you're doing is you're validating someone'sfeelings, you make them feel not alone in their loneliness andvictimhood.
And then you offerthem, but you're not just beratingthem, you're offering them a validation and then a way out of thatfeeling.
And it's notwrong. It's toomuch.
Like, it's totally fine for you and I tosay,look, if you feel like your career isn't goinganywhere, and yet you have ideas that you think of how you can do itbetter, maybe an entrepreneur life is foryou.
Like, we're saying similarthings.
The difference is we're not beratingpeople,right?
But we definitely want people to feelseen,right?
I justthink, youknow, when you play in theextremes, you're playing in theextremes.
And so you're going to get extremebehaviors, extremereactions, youknow.
And you do the same thing to the same people without a riling themup.
Because emotions are a powerfulthing,right?
And so you're playing with theDelta.
I'm going to push you down evenharder, youknow, and then I'm going to show you that I can lift you evenhigher.
And Imust, youknow, that must make me the savior because the Delta is so muchbigger.
Youknow, if someone is listening now and theyare, they have no friends and they'relonely.
And they'realso, and they're someone else that's listening and they aresingle, romanticallysingle.
The first step to solving those twoconundrums, finding a friend and finding a romanticpartner, in terms of where Igo, like the physical location that I go to in a modern world where digitalization isjust, youknow, social networking exists in Tinderexists.
What is thatplace, thelocation?
Because I have so many conversations with people in my life that are struggling on both fronts to find a friend and to find apartner.
And I'm wondering where the location is thesedays,like, youknow, once upon a time it would be in thevillage, it would be maybe achurch, it would bea, youknow, somewhere inperson.
But with the declining skills of building friendships or romanticrelationships, it feels like both groups arestruggling.
And I've got a particular friend in mind that I don't know what to say to her about thissubject.
Because she's finding desperate to findsomeone, finding a partner is as difficult as finding afriend.
And it's different for introverts andextroverts,right?
So likeme, takeme, forexample, I am absolutely socially inept in socialplaces.
Parties,bars,clubs, networkingevents.
I am absolutely uncomfortable andinept.
I stand in a corner bymyself.
And the funny thing about mycareer, it's actually been helpful that some people recognizeme, because they'll come up to me and do all thetalking, which is like arelief,right?
One of my best friends makes fun ofme, because she says like when we go to aparty, like a party at someone's house hassomething, and it's like 100 people or whatever there is 50people, that all these conversations arehappening,that, youknow,these,like, little pockets ofconversations.
I don't know how to inject myself intocomfort.
I don't know how tolike, saunter up without feeling and looking really uncomfortable and weird and like ruining therelationship, ruining whatever dynamicexists.
And so she makes fun ofme, because I'll just stand by myself in the middle of the room with mydrink.
Perfectlycomfortable.
But like when she stands on the corner and looksaround, like she goes to like getsomething, she'll see all these little conversations and one person standing bythe, with their drink and it'sme.
So I'm useless in socialplaces.
It's the introvert inme.
In unsocialplaces, I'm morerelaxed.
So like put me in amuseum, and I'm looking at a piece ofart, and somebody next to me is looking at a piece ofart.
And I actually have no problem saying you likeit.
And I'm not trying to make afriend, but I do like making aconnection.
And sometimes I talk for them for 30 seconds about thepiece, and it's happened a couple times where we just kepttalking.
And then you end up having a cup of coffee and you ended up making afriend.
Like that's happened tome.
That because of the sharedinterest.
You fundamentally know that you're notmore.
I think there's a sharedinterest.
I alsothink, and this is a weirdthing.
I actually think it's easier to make a connection when you're standing next to somebody than when you're standing across fromsomebody.
So like in socialsituations, likebars,clubs, networkingevents, you face eachother, which I find adversarial andtense.
And you have to gauge the right amount of socialdistance.
Youknow, it's 18 inches is actually the rightamount.
Youknow, anything less than that is like tooclose.
Anything that then too far isweird.
Youknow, but I find standing next to somebody iseasier.
Ifyou, like going for a walk withsomebody, you're strolling withsomebody, you're standing next to somebody in amuseum, standing next to somebody in a buffetline, you can actually get really close without it beinguncomfortable.
So any place where I can stand next tosomebody, I find itless.
And being quiet is easier when you're next tosomebody.
Like when you go for a walk withsomebody, if you're standing next tosomebody, you can say a fewwords, and then you can go completelyquiet.
That's notawkward. When you're facingsomebody, you go completelyquiet.
It's just flatout,uncomfortable.
So the way Idefine, youknow, socialversus, like social environments versus non-traditional social environments is am I standing next to someone or standing across fromsomeone.
Well, something that you're strugglingwith.
And when I ask thatquestion, I'm talkingabout, I feel like every time I've metyou, but also every time we'vemet, we've both been atcrossroads.
And those crossroads are professionalcrossroads, personalcrossroads,etc.
I'm at so many crossroads in mylife.
I think that'sjust...So,wait,wait, tellme.
So manycrossroads. So trying tounderstand, get a clearer idea on what my north star isprofessionally, and therefore what I should beprioritizing.
And this really relates tolike...
It's not evenprofessionally, it's just inlife.
It'slike... I've had a lot of thoughtsabout...
I've worried for a long time that the way I'm living my life is going to turn out tobe...
My priorities werewrong.
And that I allocated my time when I was young that I had the wrong set ofpriorities.
And those priorities that I allocated towards were like work and material success and all thosethings.
Andthat... Youknow, Ihad...
There's a story you've probably heard it before about thefisherman, who was downed by the head a little boat and he went out to see everyday, and he went out and caught two fish and came back bylunchtime.
He sold one fish to pay for theboat, the petrol and theservicing, and he gave the other fish to his family to feed hisfamily.
And in the evenings andafternoons, he spent the time at thebeach, relaxing with hisfamily.
And like a guy comes past and a sadist and islike,listen, I've got an idea foryou.
What we're going to do is we're going to keep you out on the boat allday.
You're going to catch fourfish.
Well, the extra two fish will get otherboats, will employpeople, will increase theflip-flip, or catch loads more fish with all these newboats.
We havethem, we'll take the companypublic, we'll sell it and then the fish man'slike, and thenwhat?
And hegoes, and then you can spend the day with yourfamily.
And I kind of look at how I've played mylife.
And I'mwondering, that's how I'm playing my life a littlebit.
There's obviously all these otherthings, like I made the face season of life where I'm thinking about fatherhood and becoming adad, and how do youknow?
31. So I'm right at that age and my partner's31.
So that'sa, youknow, across the road I'mat.
And so what doyou,what, what are you going to do aboutit?
I don'tknow.Well, what are you thinkingabout?
I'm, I think I'm collecting evidence to form aperspective.
That'sbullshit. You have aperspective.
You don't needevidence.
You have all theevidence.
You talkto, you do this podcast every day of yourlife.
Yeah. Youtalk, you do know it and another talking on yourpodcast.
You do all of thelistening.
I'm ontoyou. And we're going to go to an outbreaknow.
So that'snonsense. You have anopinion.
You have aperspective.
I'd like to know what that perspective is because you're at a crossroads where you saidyourself, I'm questioning the priorities Imade.
Yeah. So that means you have a point ofview.
And I'm worrying that I'm bullshit to myself about why I'mworking.
Sowhy, what is the bullshit line you're givingyourself?
Why are youworking? What's the bullshitline?
What's the bullshit answer tothat?
It's like the fish in theminutes.
And thenI'll, and then I'll make more boats and then for what reason to whatend?
Like why is it important for you to keep having all those boats and thewater?
So I wonder whether it's about the end or if it's about just the fun of thejourney.
And that's whatI'm, that's kind of what I'm notsure.
Is it about theend? Is itabout, youknow, being able todo, have it even greater levels of freedom in thefuture, which sounds like bullshit because I've got so much freedomnow?
Or is it life is just about theclimb?
Not, not getting to the top and having this incredibleview, but I just have to keep myself sufficiently challenged in mylife.
That's why I'm giving myself moreresponsibly, setting myself biggergoals, biggerchallenges, because the joy of life is waking up in the morning and feeling a little bit scared abouttoday.
And, youknow,okay, so if that's theanswer, then you wouldn't be at acrossroads.
Youwould, this wouldn't be aconversation.
So, so here's the bluntquestion.
Yeah, I think what in your life isoff?
I think it's probably the balance of my romanticrelationship.
I feel like I'mdeferring.
I feel like I'm telling myself that I'llhave, I'll really focus in the way that I need to on my romanticrelationship, which is also going to then become my family in thefuture.
And I'vebeen, especially thisyear, I've been doing that allyear.
I think that I'll have time for my relationship in three years when I saw the business orsomething.
That's what I've been tellingmyself.
And I thinkI'm, I feel thatdisconnection, not just in my romanticrelationships, but I just feel that disconnection because I've told myself now that I'll figure it out in threeyears.
That's when I'llfocus.
I'll sell thisbusiness, then I'll focuson, youknow.
What's so funny is that if it was a businessproblem, if you and I were talking about a business problem and I was telling you about a business challenge I'mhaving, I'mhaving.
And if I said toyou, you knowwhat,whatever, I'll figure it out in threeyears, you wouldsay,no, you figured that outnow.
Because that problem will not goaway.
And three years fromnow, you'll default it to for another three years or newproblems.
Like if this was a businessproblem, you would never let yourself defer that problem for threeyears.
So how are you giving yourself a different standard for your romantic relationship of something that is of utmost importance to you that desire to start a family oneday?
Why the different standard for your personalrelationship, then your professionalwork?
I think sometimes our romantic relationships becomes the residualbeneficiary.
I get whatever'sleft. It's kind of what you were saying aboutfriendships.
When you was talking aboutfriendships, I wasthinking, that's that term residualbeneficiary.
Like you get whatever'sleft.
It's not allocated in thecalendar.
So if there's nothing in thecalendar, it gets nothing thatday.
But the business meeting getspriority.
The thing I think relationships are become the residual beneficiary because it's unclear in the near term the impact of neglectingthem.
So like brushing not brushing your teethtoday, you ain't really sicktoday.
You won't see the paintoday.
There'll be no dentalvisit.
Don't brush it every day thisweek.
You also won't see theimpact.
Don't do it for fiveyears.
Duvoss. You're in the dentalcheck, having the molars pulledout.
And these things in life where they're easy to do and they're what easy not todo.
And the impact isdelayed.
They always become residualbeneficiary.
And like that's that's the nature of mylife, likefriendships,family,relationships.
I've got this meeting today and I can quantify thereturn.
The meeting is going to make me a million orwhatever.
But the relationship not missing the date today or not checking yourfriend.
You're trading consistency forintensity.
You're trading brushing your teeth every day for going to thedentist.
So intensity easy toquantify, easy tomeasure.
Immediateresult.Yeah,yeah,yeah.
Consistency,slow, no easy way tocalculate.
Have to believe howlong.
Yeah. Like how long does it take to get intoshape?
I don'tknow. Neither does anydoctor.
How many days do I have to brush my teeth everyday?
What if I take a dayoff? That'sfine.
How many days can takeoff?
I don'tknow. I need to knowexactly.
Yeah,exactly. So consistency going to thegym.
Like you don't treat your relationship like going to thegym.
Yeah.Right? Which is basically you're out of shape and you'relike, I'll go to the gym when I havetime.
And then you're surprised that you're out of shape and out ofbreath.
So you recognizethis. And so the questionis, is what can youdo?
And by theway, you can also just discover the results all byyourself.
No, I don't wantto.Right?
Because I've got friends that I met when it's short at Chelsea the day and hesaid, I don't know how ithappened.
Hegoes, my wife was focusing on herbusiness.
I was focusing onmine. We got 13 yearsin.
And the relationship had justvanished.
And I don't really know when ithappened.
By theway, the opposite is true when things goright, which is if you invest in therelationship, just like you invest in anexercise, you'relike, I don't even know when I got into such greatshape.
But look atthis.Right?
And what I have found is that what makes greatfriendships, what makes greatrelationships, what makes great businesses is not just the bigthings.
It's the countless littlethings, like a corporateculture, saying good morning toeverybody.
Right? Just on a dailybasis.
Like, it's the countless little things that add up to buildtrust, to buildfoundation.
And I think this is one of the great tragedies ofentrepreneurship, which is entrepreneurs have a unique gift to excel at the things that are easy tomeasure.
But how many of them are really good at the things that are hard tomeasure?
Youknow, because what drives you is the ability tosay, look how much effort Igot, but look at the return I got for thateffort.
And if I can't show you areturn, I can only say trustme, havefaith, it goes back to the question offaith, I need you to havefaith.
You'll belike, I don'tknow.
But you knowintellectually.
So I'm going togo, so you're a man ofaction.
I'm going to go intoyou, by theway.
You're a man ofaction. You'rebest.
You're a man ofaction. If you know that you're not prioritizing your relationship and you're over emphasizing work to the sacrifice of your relationship and that your relationship is getting the residualbenefits, Imean, I'm sure that makes your partner feel sospecial.
Honey, I loveyou. I want you to have all my residualbenefits.
Imean,look. But you knowwhat, I have tosay, she's running her ownbusiness.
She's flying around the world doing her ownthing.
And there she's got a studioupstairs, which is herbusiness, her breathworkstudio.
So are you forcing her to take a breath and for herself and taketime?
What I'm trying todo, do you have decades ofexperience?
Do you havedecades?Yes.
And are you obedient to those datenights?
Yeah. These days Iam. And isshe?
Yes. But they're not frequentenough.
And this is a new thing we'retrying.
So I remember the first time I had the conversation with her about putting her in thecalendar.
And when people hearthat, this idea of scheduling time with eachother, there's this sort of initial visceral negative reaction because what you think I'm like your work orwhatever, she wasn't like this a littlebit.
But when I explain the whole residual beneficiarything, which is everything else is being scheduled and our relationshipisn't.
So I want our relationship to be equally more important than all these other things that are taking mydiary.
Then we bought into it a littlebit.
And that's helped our relationship a littlebit.
But then I don'tknow, this year I really fucked it up likethis.
I justover, I saidyes, there's too many things and she's got her business and I felt like we'retoo, is it like passing ships in thenight?
Are you good at takingholiday?
No.Oh, holiday with thehell.
No.No. You work on aholiday?
Yeah. My old teamnow. I went to a house in SouthAfrica, so I went overthere.
But Iwas, I know it was a lot ofthings.
So you doknow,right, that nothing undermines trust more than telling your team you're taking a holiday and then checking in everyday.
Yeah. Because basically what we're saying is I don't trust you to do this withoutme, which I know is nottrue.
But that's what you'recommunicating.
That I can't even take a holiday without having to double check everybody's work and make everydecision.
As opposed to saying I'm going onholiday, if there's an emergency deal withit, I'll see you in twoweeks.
Bye. And what you will find is everybody will work to higher level because you letthem.
Do you know what it is that I was onholiday, which was about two weeksago.
I woke up every day wanting to do thework.
Of course youdid. I didaction.
Soaddiction.Yeah,probably.
I need to get ahit.Yeah, I wantedto, it's how you get yourvalidation.
I'll play paddling themorning, but then I wanted to come home and get stuckin.
Yeah, but you talked about prioritizing yourrelationship.
Honey, I'll be there in twohours.
I'm just going to spend some time checkingemail.
Then we'll go fordinner.
He was on a bloody laptop aswell.
Not saying it'shealthy.
You just soundlike,well, I can be an addict if she's anaddict.
Yeah. It takes one of you to break the addiction and bring the other one alongwith.
I dare you to take aholiday.
I just start with oneday.
I'm not even saying twoweeks.
One day you both leave your phones in thehotel.
What do you think is going to happen if I dothat?
I think you'll actually get along really well and have a greattime.
You might have a little stress tostart.
There's always awithdrawal.
You might need to do it for two or three days in arow.
Because the first day might beexcruciating.
The secondday, not toobad.
The third day you will bond like you've never bonded in yourlife.
Actually, with her of plan day retreat to this weekend for threedays.
And the deal we have is nophones.
What does no phones mean when it's a glass and breathe this weekendalone?
Does that mean you won't check yourphones?
Does it mean you turn your phonesoff?
Do you put your phones in airplanemode?
If I'm going to be honest withyou, I think that's reallyimportant.
It means that I'm still going to check myphones, but not when we're doing theactivities.
If, forexample, if I likeevening's, if she's gettingchanged, then I'll just quickly check myphone.
So can I make arecommendation?
Yeah. You hold her phone and she holds your phone for the wholetime.
So if you need to take a picture of food orwhatever, take a picture with each other'sphone.
You can turn a phone on without somebody'spassword.
And at no point do yousay, can I have yourphone?
If she goes to thetoilet, she takes your phone with her and viceversa.
And if you're in a restaurant byyourself, God forbid you should have to just look around for a littlebit.
Okay. I'll dothat. Tryit.
Well, my team are listeningnow, so they'll know that from Friday tillMonday, if you needme, I'm aglasim- I'm really going to callMal.
Yeah.Yeah. So it's agift, don't think of it as a selfishthing.
Think of it as an act ofservice.
And it's an act of service to two differentpeople.
It's an act of service to yourrelationship, but it's also an act of service to yourteam.
Give them abreak,right?
And let them solve difficultproblems.
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What are you strugglingwith?
Well, I'm writing abook, and writing a book is always personalconundrums.
I'm actually in a really good place rightnow.
I think we've talked aboutthis.
My big struggle is I've taken a hugebreak, a big step back from publicspeaking.
And it was so much of my life for so long that to somedegree, I'm trying to reconfigure what I want to do with mylife.
I feel like I just sort of leftuniversity, and I'mlike,okay, now what do Ido?
So I'm on ajourney, but I likeit.
You left a lot of money off thetable,many,many, many millions by making thatdecision.
Sure. Sowhat? Idon't, that's not mycalculation.
I'm the person who I'm okay making less and lying on thebeach.
Like, I don'thave, youknow, I want a comfortable life like anybody wants a comfortablelife.
But I don't need to be thebiggest,richest, mostpowerful.
I don't have that inme, youknow?
I want to be reallyhappy.
And I want my friends to loveme, and I want to love myfriends.
And I don'tcare. Like my tombstone won't have my bank balance onit.
You want to besuccessful,right, in the things that you commit yourselfto?
Ofcourse. But how I definesuccess, youknow,money,money, I believe money isfuel.
Right? So it's not thatI'm, this is not somehippie, youknow,commune, you knowthing.
I view money asfuel, and justlike, I don't own a car just to buypetrol.
I own a car to goplaces. And I know the value of petrolis, it'll help me goplaces.
But I have to want to go places and I have to havedestinations.
And so I view my life and my career as acar.
My career is a car to help me goplaces.
And money is the fuel to make that thinghappen.
But I still have to have adestination, and I still have to look after the career and look after the machine to make it well-oiled so it can get from A toB.
But forme, the joy is the journey that I take on thecareer, not how much petrol Ihave.
But if you did the speakingstill, if you did allthis, youknow, flying around the worldspeaking, you'd have more fuel for themission.
Now I've heard thatargument, which is if you just doubled down for twoyears, and likesaid, yes to absolutelyeverything, and hated your life for twoyears, you'd befine.
And the answeris,yeah, but what about those twoyears?
And by theway, it's the same mentality I want to work with people I like workingwith.
Youknow, I sometimes turn down and work from people who I just don't likethem.
Or I don't trustthem, eventhough, and people have accusedme, it'slike,well, you can afford to turn workdown.
I waslike, I've been turning work down since before I could affordit.
And I've been saying no to things before I could affordit.
And when I was living hand to fist and had no money in my bankaccount, I still lived a very similarphilosophy.
Because forme, my career was not just aboutadvancing.
It was about the joy along theway.
Because I recognized when I worked with people who I didn't like workingwith, I literally found myselfsaying, think of themoney, think of themoney, think of themoney, think of themoney, think of themoney.
And I would leaveexhausted.
And yet I would work with people who I loved workingwith.
And sometimes I literally madezero,like, because I would like do volunteerstuff.
And I had so much fun and I leftsupercharged, I'mlike, with moreinspiration, moreideas, and more friends than when Istarted.
And so I just came to the realization that if it's got nothing to do with how hard Iwork, I work really hard forboth.
And then it fills me withenergy, the other one saps me ofenergy.
And so no amount of money is worth having myenergy, myideas, and my inspirationsapped.
And yet money cannot buy theenergy,ideas, and inspiration Iget.
And so I try veryhard, it'simperfect.
But I try very hard to say yes to the things that fill meup.
And some of them make good money and some of themdon't.
And that'sokay. And the reason I keep writing books and the reason I keep havingideas, it's not because I'msmart.
It's not because I'm somehow more creative than otherpeople.
It's because I'm surrounding myself with people who fill meup, give meenergy, and give meideas.
But it's more than that because it's got to be more than that because you're someone who is so remarkably good at articulation and ideas and thinking through fast principles and really coming up with original perspectives onthings.
One of the things I've always really wanted to ask youis, ishow?
What is theprocess? What is the inspiration comefrom?
What is that comefrom? If people are satthere, creativepeople, or they just want to advance their ownknowledge, they want to be wise like youare.
What would you recommend theydid?
So, and you talk about firstprinciples.
First ofall, I hate the term firstprinciples.
It's socondescending.
Let's just call it beginner'smindset.
Because that's what youare.
You're basically pretending that you're a beginner and you knownothing.
What I like to callit, it's a studentmindset.
I'm not anexpert. I'm astudent.
I've always viewed myself as astudent.
Andso, my favorite people are the ones who ask the questions that other people are embarrassed to ask because they don't want to be seen asdumb.
Students, if you're in aclassroom, nobody minds raising their hand and asking theteacher, how does thatwork?
Because we're thestudents.
So, I treat myself as a student in everymeeting.
I don't mind asking the questions that I don't know the answersto.
Even if it makes me look like afool.
I don't mindsaying, I don't understandthat.
I never try and be an expert in somebody else'sbusiness.
They're the expert in theirbusiness.
Andso, when yousay,like, where does the first principles comefrom?
Where does the beginner'smindset?
I'm not curious abouteverything.
I'm curious about the things that I'm curiousabout.
And I ask a ton of questions and I don't mind not knowinganswers.
I have strong opinions looselyheld.
Somebody just told me that the day when I think they liked aboutme, which islike, I'll come out swinging and I will argue hard forsomething.
But the minute you give me a good argument or a piece of evidence that proves mewrong, I'mlike,yep, that's your totallyright.
I'mcompletely, likeagain, strong opinions looselyheld.
Is there apractice,though?
This is an impossible line ofthinking,right?
And I'll tell youwhy. That's like me asking MichaelJordan, how do I become a great basketballplayer?
It'slike,well, you need some naturalcapacity.
Like, I'm way tooshort, so I lost thatone.
And I can work my brainsout.
But I don't have any talentwhatsoever.
So, work ethic is definitely part ofit.
And I can follow all of Michael Jordan'sroutines.
And there's nochance,zero, that I will become a great basketballplayer.
Not to mention the fact that he started when he was akid, and Ididn't.
Right?So, I thinkthat, youknow, people come up to me sometimes andsay, I want to be a publicspeaker.
How do I get into thebusiness?
I'mlike,well, what do you want to talkabout?
They'relike, I don't knowyet.
I'mlike, you've completely missed thepoint.
Like, I never wanted to be a publicspeaker.
I just had a thing that I wanted to talkabout.
Right? Andso, you have to have a passion forsomething.
And then you figure out a way to bring it tolife.
You either become an entrepreneur or you bring it to life in a corporate environment oryou,like, you find athing.
And then you find the way to bring that thing tolife.
So, number oneis,like, I don't think somebody can just choose to becomeme.
Like, they can't choose to becomeyou.
Are there things that you could practice that I've learned that will help you hone some particularskillseture?
The courage tosay, I don'tknow.
That one was a hard learnedlesson.
That was the greatest lesson I ever learned in mylife.
Give me something technical in terms of how to deliver ideas and tospeak.
That istransferable.Okay.
That'stotally, I can totally dothat.
Yeah. I totally give youthat.
Number oneis, what's the motivation of why you're walking up on the stage or standing up in front of the room to give a presentationor, youknow, giving apitch?
Right? What's themotivation?
Is it to get or is it togive?
Most people present to getsomething, to getfunding, to get aclient, to get anapplause, to get a booksale, to get afollower.
Right? It's a takersmentality.
And I had learned to have a giversmentality.
And literally every single time I have a meeting or I give aspeech, I will say tomyself, under mybreath, outloud, you're here togive.
I have a point of view and I'm here to shareit.
And I don't want anything inreturn.
And that has profoundly helpedme.
I just heard a thing that Michael Keaton talkedabout, about how he reconfigured his mindset forauditions.
So the problem with anaudition, the problem with actors is actors come into an audition specifically to getsomething.
I want the role so that I can be anactor.
Right? I'm going to audition so that you can give me the role so that I can be anactor.
I don't want totake,take,take.
Right? And it'sbrutal.
And what Michael Keaton did is he stopped treating the audition as an act ofselfishness,gimme.
And he started treating it as an act ofservice, which is thatis, I'm anactor, my parttoday, whether it's for two minutes or ten minutes or 15minutes, and though I don't getpaid, my role today is to play this part for my audience of three peoplehere.
He still hurt sometimes if he didn't get the part that he's still a humanbeing, but his mentality of he treated the audition like the role and the joy he got from being anactor.
So he was a hard working actor because he went to a lot ofauditions, not because he got a lot ofparts.
Right? And it's thesame, which is to treat everything as an act ofservice, as an act ofgiving, that the joy comes from being in theroom, from having themeeting.
Like I give goodmeeting,right?
Because I enjoy meetings because Igive, I give the people on the other sideeverything.
And sometimes we do business together and sometimes wedon't, but I often find meetings that go nowhere reallyenjoyable.
So one thing that everybody can learn is if you have a point ofview, or if you have aproduct, if you have a service that you think has value in theworld, then show up with the joy ofgiving.
So number one is showing up togive.
And if you want like real technique for standing onstage, I can give you thattoo.
Let's doboth. So on the first point about showing up togive, if I show up with that mentality of I'm going to givetoday, does that also changes the content and the way thatI...
Everythingchanges. Everythingchanges.
Your tone of voicechanges.
Like we've all experienced somebody who takes versus somebody whogives,right?
Go to a shop where the employee is paid by commission and tell me if you can feelit.
Yeah,yeah,yeah. Now go to a shop where the employee is given a salary and there's no commission for every sale and tell me if you can feel thedifference.
Night andday. Night andday,right?
So it's the samething. People aresmart.
People can feel when you're a taker and people can feel when you're agiver.
I see it all the time onstages.
It's really easy when somebody's on thestage.
When they walk up on the stage and the first thing they tell you is put your phone'sway, give me an hour of yourtime.
Show me somepoliteness.
Okay,asshole. That's yourjob.
It's to hold myattention.
When they stand up and they tell you theircredentials.
Oh, it's just the logo being on thescreen.
When they stand up and the screen behind them has theirlogo, theirURL, their QRcode, all the QRcode, all the handouts for all theirsocials.
When you ask them a question and theysay,well, if you read mybook, my onlinecourse, they kind of helpthemselves.
They'redripping. People hate that on thispodcast.
In one of our recentepisodes, a certain guest reference their book every threesentences.
Andhonestly, the amount of comments in the commentssection.
Thathonestly, I waslike,wait, let's have a chat about it as ateam.
Because so many of thecomments, even though it was a greatconversation, it's done millions of downloads andviews, that people in the comments werelike, really not tackled with the fact that they mentioned theirbook.
Let's say 20 times in a through ourconversation.
But in theirdefense, especially first timeauthors, but even multiple timeauthors, the publishers give them badadvice.
The publisherssay, push thebook, push thebook.
And I always tell people who have a newbook.
Just come on and have a conversation with me about what I want to talkabout.
I'll make youshine, don'tworry, it'll be a wonderfulconversation.
And if people likeyou, they will go find out and they will buy your book and let me plugit.
You just answered myquestions.
I had a guest oncewho, the samething,every, my Netflixspecial, my new Netflixspecial, my next Netflixspecial, my first Netflixspecial, my third Netflixspecial, my upcoming Netflixspecial, it was sogross, and I shouldn't say thison, but we editedit.
I was soannoyed, we edited itout, every singlemention.
And so the total mentions of Netflix specials in that episode iszero.
I really did them a favor because I took them allout.
But it wasgross. He wasn't showing up togive, he was showing up totake.
And theconversation, he never engaged withme.
He had anagenda. And I was simply someplatform.
The thing that I like about the podcast and youlook, you have guests that you like more thanothers, not because they're nicepeople.
It's because you realize that you're having a nice conversation or you realizethey're, they have anagenda.
Agenda is a takingmentality.
So ifthere's, so going back to techniques that I'velearned, youknow, like even when I talk about mywork, I'm talking about it in a way thatI,like, I've discovered something where I'm on a journey of something and I really want people to come on the journey withme.
So let me tell you what I'm learning as opposed to look at Smarty and look at the stuff that you should buy mybook.
Youknow, what isthat? The core of a human though that appreciates someone that walks up on that stage or is in that presentation room doing the pitch when they can just feel in their bones that this person came to give versus take what is it like the humanlevel.
Oh, it's supersimple,right?
Because we're highly attuned social animals are survival depends on our ability to trust eachother.
Right. Think about where we camefrom.
We lived with tribal animals that have I fell asleep atnight.
I need you to watch for danger and I need to do the same foryou.
So we werevery, very good atassessing.
Are you looking at forme?
Are you looking at foryou?
And so it's deep seated intoour, youknow, our caveman brain that advice sense that you're ataker.
I'm not sure I want to fall asleep atnight.
So we're advice sense that you have a giver's heartlike,yeah, I'll fall asleep at night and let you watch for saber twotigers.
Yeah. So we'revery, veryattuned.
We can betricked. We can absolutely betricked.
But for the mostpart, we'repretty, we're pretty good atassessing.
We're pretty good at being attuned to when someone's a giver or ataker.
But like Isaid, I amsympathetic.
I'm not judgy because I know some people it's born out of insecurity or incredibly bad advice that they're given by their publishersor, youknow,push,push,push,push,push,push, which is the wrongadvice.
Just tell thestory. Just tell thestory.
Born out ofinsecurity.
It'sfunny. I was watching a conversation with you thismorning, someone you spoke to and you were asking them abouttheir, they asked you how did how they find theirwhy.
Yeah. And you're basically coaching them through thatexercise.
And one ofthe, you asked them about an early memory in theirchildhood, or that they can remember from theircareer.
And you're using that as a way to kind of track theirwhy.
And theanswer, the first answer they gave you was actually just aboutvalidation.
It was about their school teachers to say they couldn't do something and then the moment they proved theycould.
And as I was listening tothat, Ithought,God, that's not a why that'sinsecurity.
And so many ofus, probably includingme.
We've confused the confusethem.
I sometimes validation can feel likepurpose.
Well, that's aninteresting.
That's aninteresting.
I was watching the conversationgoing, oh myGod, this becauseI, because the person who's speaking to I knowthem.
Yeah. And I know how they'revery, verycomplicated,very,very, they've said itpublicly.
They're veryinsecure.
And he was talking about his response was all about I proved my teacherwrong.
And I was stood there having this great career moment and look atme.
I finally doneit.Yeah.
And as I waswatching, I waslike, that's notpurpose.
That'sinsecurity. And it's even for me in mylife, I thinkI, Iconfused.
If you look at the first page of my diary when I'm18, it says four goals before I'm25, numberone, sixpack, numbertwo,girlfriend, numberthree, RangeRover,sport, number fourmillion, ever from25.
That wasn'tpurpose. This was all the things that made meinsecure.
I think people confuse goals andpurpose.
But these were all four things made me feel insecure and I was akid.
Yeah. I had a girlfriendskinny, smallest kid offour, no money in our household and never could drive youngest in the eight bit ofmoney.
This was a list of my insecurities inreverse.
Yeah. That makessense.
I think they were my goal missions inlife.
But I think that'snormal.
Youknow, I think we're all a jumble of who is it who saidit.
It was reallynice, whichis, youknow, we're all seeking validation fromothers.
Andyet, ifyou're, if you'veforgotten, said it wasbrilliant, but we're all seeking validation from others and hoping people likeus.
Andyet, if we can just remember to validate somebodyelse, you're ahead of thegame.
Youknow, we're all worried about what people think about us and whether I made the wrong joke or with ice at the wrongthing.
And the reality is nobody's thinking aboutyou.
Yeah, they're thinking aboutthemselves.
And if you can just validate otherpeople.
Andagain, this goes to the skill ofservice.
Youknow, which is you have to have a friend you have to learn to be afriend.
The one thing that I've learned of the course of a career and I'm now in middle age is the people in my life matter more than I thought theydid.
Learning to be a human being matters more than I thought itdid.
Beingsmart, beingsuccessful, having the sexpack, having the Range Rover or any of those things isfun.
But the people with whom I share those things mattersmore.
Like going to the gym with someone matters more than the sexpack.
Going on the adventure with someone in the Range Rover matters more than the RangeRover.
Who I get to share money with and spend money on and give money away to matters more than the money Imake.
What I do with recognition and how I use it to make other people feel seeing or heard matters more than how many people see or hearme.
And I think that's the single most important lesson I've learned in acareer.
I think that answers the question about the difference in insecurity and purpose because insecurity is about me and purpose becomes who can I give thismuch?
What's the answerto?Exactly.
Because none of those things are fun unless I get like and I have some friends who are insanely generous and when I say insanely generous you just realize the joy that they get from sharing whatever they've accomplishedwith.
And by theway, I'm not just talking about financialsuccess.
Like a friend who's an incredible artist and loves to share herart.
And if you're one of herfriends, you will get one of her pieces ofart.
I want to go back to the public speaking advice because I really want to get that fromyou.
But this kind of made me think about corporations and business leaders and how they can introduce service into their companies as a way to create betterbusinesses.
Well, a lot of companies have misunderstood what servicemeans.
They thinkservices, the company gives money to charity or we have a giving day where we all go take a day off work and work for Habitat for Humanity or something likethat.
Weall, like the company sponsors a fun run and run that raise money for charity orsomething.
And we give our people a day off to go to the run and we allvolunteer.
Like those things aregood.
That's charitable giving and you should dothat.
But that's notpurpose.
That's just do thatanyway.
That's justgiving. Realpurpose, real serviceis, and we've talked about this a little bitbefore, which is in a day and age where coming to work or staying home has controversy and mental fitness issuesattached.
How do I help redesign work so that the people I go to work with feelsafe,heard, seen when they come to work everyday?
Like what can I do at the office to make somebody else feel seen and heard and validated to protect somebody else's mentalfitness?
That'sservice. Teach peoplethat.
And this is one of the reasons why you know I work so hard and like built a whole company to teach humanskills.
Because the skills to do those things are not well understood and their skills remember cats don't have to work very hard to becats, but it takes a lot of work to be a humanbeing.
And most of us actually lack the skills to be a good human being and client things likelistening, activelistening.
Like do you know how to hold space for somebody who'sstruggling?
Do you know how to dothat?
Do you not have a difficultconversation?
Can you have a conversation about race in yourcompany?
Do you know how to have how to give somebody incredibly difficult feedback in a way that they can hear it without beingdefensive?
Do you know how to have an effective confrontation to go up to somebody who is your level higher or lower than you in the corporate hierarchy and confront them because they did something that upset you in a way that they will hearyou?
Like do you have any of thoseskills?
Most people including people in positions of leadership lack thoseskills.
Now the best part is those skills areteachable, learnable andpracticable.
Every single one of them can be learned by absolutely100% ofpeople.
Just like every single person on the planet can learn to write abicycle.
Everybody can learn to write abicycle.
You just have to do a little bit of the work and you're going to wobble and you're going to scrape your knees a fewtimes.
But I guarantee you you'll get to the point where it becomes secondnature.
And so if you want to build a company that builds service and purpose into thecompany,please, please teach people humanskills.
And don't ask me what the ROIis.
Right? Let's like what Gary Vaynerchuksays.
Like what's the ROI of yourmother?
Right? Like it's everything you and I've talkedabout.
What's the ROI of what's the ROI of going to the gym oneday?
Nothing. The answer is zero unless you do it everyday.
And so if you have a company filled with people who are brilliantlisteners, brilliant atconfrontation, brilliant at expressing theirfeelings, brilliant at having difficult conversations with eachother, watch whathappens, toproductivity, toengagement, toinnovation, toloyalty, to customerservice, just every metric on theplanet.
And the most importantone, the joy of the people who come towork.
Where peoplesay, I love myjob.
I feel like I'm a part of something bigger than myself and it's nothing to do with the product or service wesell.
I get the ultimate joy of taking care of the people I work with and I feel taken care of by the people I workwith.
And thatis, that's about the greatest gift you can give to acompany.
That's goodleadership, by theway.
And that service tosociety.
And the reason that service to society is for a very simplereason.
Because if you learn all these skills and my company teaches me theseskills, even if it's selfish because they want to make their officebetter, they want more innovation and more productivity and moreengagement.
Fine.Great. Somebody who is a better listener and better atconfrontation.
Once you have thatskill, you have thatskill, which means you go home with thatskill.
And you now are better able to hold space for your spouse or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or yourchildren, which means you have now improved yourrelationships, which means they feel seen and heard and understood better than they ever havebefore.
And because they now know what it feelslike, they in turn instinctively do it for their friends and theirneighbors.
And those people do it for their friends and theirneighbors.
And before you knowit, the ripple effect you have worldpeace.
Becauseremember, world peace is not the absence ofconflict.
That's not what world peacemeans.
World peace is the ability to resolve our conflictspeacefully.
There's no such thing as a marriage or a relationship withoutconflict.
Successful relationships are able to resolve their conflictspeacefully.
World peace doesn't mean we allagree.
World peace doesn't mean we all like eachother.
There's something about this idea of being able to have those difficultconversations, which is so central to the health and trust of anorganization.
And I've really been learning this recently over the last couple of years that you can probably predict the amount of quiet dissatisfaction in any team organization family relationship based on their ability and capacity to have uncomfortableconversations.
Yeah. Because so many companies so many founders so many leaders that are listening right now will relate to this idea of quietdissatisfaction.
It is when some of your expectations are being unmet by yourcolleagues, yourco-workers, youremployer,whatever.
And for whatever reason because of theculture, you've not felt or maybe you don't have the skills to addressit.
And it's nowgrowing. And then eventually you'll leave aleave, something willbreak, the company willdie.
But we now need to start teachingus, I think especially in thisgeneration, how to have those uncomfortable conversations for ourrelationships.
It's been a game changer in myrelationship.
It's been a game changer in mybusinesses.
And it's something that I'm trying to get even betterat.
What advice do I need to get better atit, but also to drag my teams up and to make sure that all of us collectively as a culture are creating that culture of like having a difficult conversationtoday.
Well, numberone, like Isaid, teachit.
Right?Teachers. Which islike, youknow,the, Imean, Isaid, like I saidbefore, which is I recognized that I didn't have theskills.
I recognized that I wasn't able to teach people theskills.
I recognized my teammates didn't have theskills.
And so we started to look for thepeople, thebooks, the TEDtalks, so that we couldlearn, so that we could be better to eachother.
And it was so valuable that wesaid,okay,well, what if we taught this to other people aswell?
Because I would just be at a dinner table talking about how I'd learned the skill and how it benefited my relationships and mywork.
And somebodysays, oh myGod, can you teach that tome?
Youknow, I waslike, I guess that was a lot of what drove the early stuff fromthe, from the optimismcompany, youknow, that where we teach humanskills, it was the skills that Ilacked.
It was the skills that Ineeded.
And I sought themout. I went and took them from otherplaces, wherever I could getthem.
And realized there was a distinct lack of these skills in the world and the best place to get them would be atwork.
Again, because that's where the peopleare.
Because if you turned around today and you're working in abusiness, either at any level in a company and yousaid,listen, and you just started giving like a difficult feedback or you started exhibiting that behavior on yourown, you would be so unusual in the culture that people wouldn't understandit.
So you can't just listen to us have this conversation and go into it and just like being radically transparent withpeople.
No, youcan't, don't dothat.
Don't dothat. But what you cansay, and I've donethis, as what I'vesaid, even to myteam, I've said outloud, I realize that one of the skills that I'm lacking in isX.
I am going on a journey to hone thatskill.
I'm going to bepracticing.
I might fumble it and get it wrongsometimes.
I might start acting in a way that you will perceive asweird.
Bear withme. I'm just practicing a newskill.
I just want you to know that I'm on thisjourney.
So when I start acting weirderdifferently, you'll knowwhy.
And the journey is I'm going to start trying to accept difficult conversations and feedbackbetter.
And I'm going to try and give it more honestly andopenly.
Is that the essence of thejourney?
Imean, if that's the one you're workingon, youknow, youknow, because Imean, I took a listening class many yearsago.
And here's what Ilearned.
I learned that I am an absolutelyfantastic, brilliantlistener.
With people I will never speak to again for the rest of mylife.
But with my friends andcolleagues, a frickingdisaster.
And so when I would have arguments with friends and colleagues and they wouldsay, you are such a badlistener, I wouldsay,seriously,like, do you know what I did for aliving?
I think I'm doing justfine,right?
And I wasright. But in a different context with people who I will literally never see or talk to again for the rest of mylife.
And so when I took thisclass, I waslike,shit.
And Iremember,oh, and I was done with theclass.
I picked up the phone and like called a bunch ofpeople.
Isaid, I think I owe you anapology.
I just took this class and I realized I'm a terriblelistener.
And they werelike,yeah, weknow.
Youknow, and yet they stuck with mestill.
Youknow, why would they dothat?
Right? But I fully ownedit.
And then like even in myrelationship, like Isaid, I'm learning how to be a betterboyfriend.
I'm learning how to be a betterlistener.
I'm learning how to resolve conflictbetter.
Like bear withme. But I can't do italone.
Like I need you to point itout.
Youknow, I need you to tell me when I get it wrong or I need you to tellme, youknow, and so my girlfriend andI, we got really good at sort of like pointing it out to each other like when we slippedup.
So like when one ofus, we were having a difficultconversation, we're having an argument and I'm saying my feelings and she would correct myfacts.
And I'd belike,babe, don't correct myfacts.
I just tell you my feelings and she'd belike, you'reright, you'reright.
Like, so we both took theeducation.
So we couldlike, we both knew thecurriculum.
So we could bothlike, wenever, we didn't take it personally if the other person just helped block and tackle it in the middle of anargument.
And this led to all kinds of remarkablecreativity.
So I'll give you one example of creativity because what happens when you learn theskills.
You become hyper aware of how people are speaking and how you're speaking in thesituation.
You're not justarguing.
You're not just trying to beright.
You're not just trying to defend or prove the other personwrong.
You actually become hyper aware and you gain a situational awareness like it's kind ofamazing.
So my girlfriend and I were having a pretty bad argument and it went something likethis.
Here's what I did right and here's what you didwrong.
The responsewas,well, here's what I did right and here's what you didwrong.
The responsewas,well, here's what I didright.
Infact, here's two things I did right and here's four things you didwrong.
And this went on and on clearly goingnowhere.
It's getting moreheated.
It's getting moreaggressive.
It's getting morepersonal.
And I had the situational awareness to realize thisis, this is a lose losesituation.
And I literallyinterrupted.
Isaid,okay,hey, I've been interrupting our argument and I'm making newrules.
Okay, currently what we're doing is I'm telling you the things I did right and I'm telling you the things you did wrong and you're doing thesame.
I'm changing therules, newrules.
I'm going to tell you the things that I did wrong and I'm going to tell you the things that you didright.
I'm going to go first and then you're going togo.
Okay, here's what I got wrong and here's what you gotright.
And shegoes,well,yeah,well, here's what I got wrong and here's what you gotright.
And I waslike,well, here's what I got wrong and in four minutes we were joking and laughing and hugging and realizing that we were contributing to thetension, but also the other person was reallytrying.
Interesting. It's a nicereverse.
And literally it was only from all of these classes and skills and practice and practice that I at least had the sensibility to recognize the situation I wasin, to change the rulesmidway.
Because I think part of the problem is even if you have theskills, sometimes we forget to deploythem.
That's how to be a remarkablelistener.
I always reflect on this conversation I had with Julian Treasure who's theTed,Ted, I talk that did a famous speech about how to be a greatspeaker.
And he said he also dida, he said that talk on how to be a great speaker did like30, 40 million views and then he did a talk on how to be a great listener and it did like three millionviews.
Yeah, nobody wanted to listen tothat.
Ironic, isn'tit? It's soironic, but that's how to be a great listener to just to close off on this idea of then how to be a greatspeaker.
We touched on a couple of pointsthere.
Is there any more technical things you would give me as an advice if I was going up on stage and I wanted to be able to connect withpeople, influence them and youknow, share mymessage.
Value narrativestories,right?
Imean,it's, Imean, it's so hackneyed to even talk aboutit,right?
But nobody wants to be explainedto,right?
People will listen to stories and rememberstories.
They will forget explanations and they won't learn fromexplanations.
The explanation and the facts and the figures can comeafterwards, but metaphorsstories, things that help people understand what you're trying tosay, thenit's, then it's so most people get itbackwards.
First, they tell you the explanation and they use the metaphor or the story to prove thefacts.
I've learned that the total total opposite is actually much moreeffective.
Thestory, suck peoplein.
They'll remember the story and then tell them the salientbits.
So, forexample, and all of my work I start withstory,right?
So, forexample, if I'm introducing finite infinitegames,right?
I will say something like doing the VietnamWar.
People don't realize that the United States actually won most of the battles atFord.
Not only did it win most of thebattles, if you look at thenumbers, America lost 58,000 troops of the course of 10 years offighting, the North Vietnamese lost 3 millionpeople.
Which raises a really interestingquestion, how do you win all the battles and decimate your enemy and lose thewar?
Clearly there's more than one definition of winning andlosing.
What are you doingthere?
You're making mecurious.
You're creating a curiositygap.
You're, youknow, I'm emotionally connected to thisnow.
Or I'll tell you the story of when I went toAfghanistan, youknow, and how I learned what true purposemeans.
Or I'll tell you the story ofthe, the A-10 pilot Johnny Bravo who risked his life for otherpeople.
And I ask the rhetorical question at the end of that amazingstory, youknow, in the military they give medals to people who willing to sacrifice themselves that others maygain.
And inbusiness, we give bonuses to people who willing to sacrifice others so that we maygain.
What are youdoing?Like, and so all of these things are ways of making people relate their experiences and their lives to mystories.
I want them togo,yeah, so it's no longer about me and my facts and my point ofview.
It's about us and our shared journey and our collectiveexperience.
People are interested in things that make them feelsomething.
Curious that he's afeeling.
Data isn't going to dothat.
Data is not going to dothat.
It'slike, try arguing with somebody withdata.
Try,try, try using facts to prove your girlfriend wrong when you're having an emotionalargument.
That's not going to gowell,right?
And I think we make this mistake all thetime.
Youknow, webring, webring, we bring data to an emotionalgunfight.
It's never going to gowell.
Data has to meet data and emotion has to meetemotion.
And good leaders and good presenters know how tomodulate.
And so I want people to be emotionally invested in whatever I have to tellthem.
And the easiest way to do that is with astory, a story that produces some sort ofemotion.
A story that allows people torelate.
And even if it's nothing todo, like I'm telling a story of an Air Forcepilot, at some point they'llgo,yeah, I want to work with people like thattoo, youknow?
Because I even saythat.
I want to work with people likethat.
How do I get that at work if I'm not in themilitary?
What about other things that you'redoing?
As you're speakingnow, I can see that you have like intonations in yourvoice.
You'rebeing, you're going low thanhigh.
These like technical body languagethings.
What else isit? What other advice would youuse?
When I tell people I'm anintrovert, theygo, that'simpossible.
You're a publicspeaker.
How can you be anintrovert?
And what they're misunderstand is that one thing is unrelated to theother.
But more important that being an introvert actually makes me a better publicspeaker.
Because I don't like holdingcourt.
I like talking to anindividual.
And so when I'm on astage, I look at one person in the eye and I give them an entire sentence or an entirethought.
And that'll go to somebody else and I'll give them an entire sentence or an entirethought.
And I just make sure to do something called painting theedges, which is I make sure that I'll get somebody in the upperleft, the lowerleft, the upperright, the lowerright, theback, themiddle, thefront, themiddle, not necessarily in anorder.
But I just make sure to make eye contact with somebody in each area of theaudience.
And I havean, like Isaid, and by theway, it works in meetingstoo.
If you're sitting in a meeting with half a dozenpeople, a dozenpeople, and you're telling them whatever it is you're tellingthem, I give them an entire sentence or an entirethought.
Andlook, you can feelit.
You can feel thatconnection.
So I did anexperiment. I was standing on astage, like a thousandpeople, whatever itwas.
And it was just doing Q&A and somebody was asking aboutspeaking.
And I was telling them about eye contact and giving an entire sentence or a entire thought to oneperson.
And I picked just a random person in the audience and I looked at them andsaid,okay, I'm going to keep talking toyou.
I'm going to look you in theeye.
I'm going to keep talking to you until you feel aconnection.
And all I want you to do is I will keep looking at you and talking toyou.
And I want you to raise your hand when you feel some sort ofconnection.
And about eight people around that person all raise theirhand.
And that's why itworks.
Because I'm actually connecting witheverybody, even though I'm only actually looking at afew.
So eyecontact, as opposed to scanning andpanning.
Like talk to aperson. Talk to aperson.
And the same in ameeting.
Talk to aperson. Make it feel like you're talking tothem.
Most of us are very bad atthat.
Wedon't, we sort of scare them pain the wholetime.
The other thing you saidearlier, which kind of have related withthat, which I've noticed inyou, is that vulnerability is another way to make your message really land and to feel connected to what you'resaying.
And you do that well because you're often bring it back to you and your feelings and you'll share things with people that others might notshare.
And that for some reason makes your message even morepowerful.
Well, I don't think of myself as special and even though I'm standing on astage, I don't think of myself as talking down topeople.
And so one of the big things that I do on purpose is I use we instead ofyou.
Unless there's a very specific reason why notto.
So forexample, I'llsay, I'llnever, I'll never say you need to do everything in your power to live a life ofservice.
Because until you learn to live a life ofservice, you will never findhappiness.
You will never hear those words come out of mymouth.
I'll say things we need to all learn how to do the things that give us a sense of service because none of us will ever find happiness until we learn to live lives ofservice.
I'm on the samejourney.
I'mon, I have the samestruggles.
I am imperfect and bumblingmyself.
And so how dare I stand on the stage and tell people what they need to do when I haven't got it all figured out myselfyet.
Right? I will share what I'm learning on myjourney, but we are going on this journey together shoulder to shoulder side byside.
And you will teach me things and I will teach youthings.
But I'm init. And soI, one of the reasons I think my work connects with people is I don't think that I'm aboveanyone.
I think I'm right in it withit.
And Ido. I comeup, I come as astudent.
And I share what I'm learning on my journey andI, andI, and I learn from questions and I learn from comments and I learn from people and I learn from the debates I have and I learn from the discussions I have and I loveit.
All of my works are incomplete andimperfect.
Butthey're, they're stepsforward.
So Imean, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to leave itfor.
And the question that has been left for youis, what area of your life do you still think you need some good adviceon?
Imean,it's, Imean, every area of mylife, I've gotten none of it figuredout.
I don't understandfinance.
Imean, I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to thatstuff.
And I sit in these meetings and people talking with the jargon and Iliterally, I feel sodumb.
Youknow, my mind justdoesn't, my brain just doesn't work thatway.
But, youknow, Imean, I'm learning to understand some of the stuff that I'm supposed toknow, youknow,literally.
Personal thingsor?No, Imean, work thingslike,like,like, dealmaking.
Like, I don't understand any ofit.
Like, you and I were talking before the camera startedrolling.
Like, about valuations and I kind ofunderstand.
Imean, this is one of the really interesting thingsis, I think our success kind of correlates to us even admitting that those things we don'tunderstand.
I think the greatest entrepreneurs that I've sat here with are great because they're very good at knowing what they absolutely don'tknow.
I remember Richard Branson telling me when he was on my podcast in NewYork, he wassaying, he built like thebiggest, one of the biggest groups in Europe called the VirginGroup.
And he was like 55 years old and sat in a meeting with hisdirectors.
And they looked at him andsaid,Richard, you don't know what profitis, doyou?
And hegoes,no,yeah, he didn't understand I read aP.L.
Yeah. And so they took him outside of aroom.
He said to me that they drew a picture of an ocean withcrayons.
Hesaid, use the wordcrayons.
And hesaid, they drew a net in the ocean and put fissies in the net andsaid,Richard, the fissies in thenet, you get to keep that that's your netprofit.
Richardgoes, gotit. And the fact that he'd been able to build such a mega business without knowing thebasics.
And hegoes, Igo,why? And hegoes,well, because in hisbusiness, because I'm a dyslexicthinker, hesaid, I've always just asked who nothow.
Yeah. I'vejust, I've always had todelegate.
Yeah. And a lot ofpeople, I'm thesame.
LikeI, I know what I don'tknow.
And I trust myself when I know things and I don't trust myself when I don't knowthings.
The mistakes I've made and I've made the same mistake over a fewtimes, which it causes me a bit ofself-loathing.
Which is when I didn't understand something and my insecurity about not knowing that thing made me overly trust somebody who claimed that they would guide me and help me and they did know the thing that I didn'tknow.
And the mistake that I made was I never really liked those people or trusted thosepeople, but because their skillset, youknow, bolsteredmine, I let them tell me what todo.
And I did what they told me and100% of those times I gotfucked.
And those people ended up taking advantage ofme.
What's thelesson? You'velearned.
The lesson is trust mygut,right, whichis, and I don't mean to make my own decisions abouteverything.
But if I believe the advice that I'm being given by somebody who knows more thanme, literally about something I don'tunderstand.
And if I feelwrong, it doesn't mean theadvice, isn'tit?
I just say thewrong, find a differentperson.
Yeah. And so the mistake I made was rejecting all advice that feltwrong.
No,no,no, you can't dothat.
But what I have learned is to reject the people who feelwrong.
And that's thelesson. And I wish I knew that then I wouldn't have made some of the worst mistakes I've made in mycareer.
Unfortunately, taught me thatlesson.
Sointeresting. And the thing that annoys me is I made it more thanonce.
I had a meeting yesterday where the guy presented something to me and he's so much more about that thanme, thesubject.
And I justdidn't, my body just didn't connect with him in someway.
And I found myself questioning something I didn'tknow.
I subject I didn'tknow.
But as I walked out of themeeting, Igo,no, it was the guy youdidn't, you didn't likethe, you didn't likethe, you did something aboutthat.
What does Warren Buffettsay?
You can't make good deals with badpeople.
Yeah. Youknow? And because I do deals with people who know alot, they could take advantage ofme.
I have people that I've worked with that absolutely could bamboozleme.
But theydidn't, youknow, because they're goodpeople.
Because they're goodpeople.
This is unfortunately why we have lawyers is because youneed, youknow, people will take advantage ofyou.
And it'ssad. You and I both knowthis, which is the best dealsyou,you, you go with the lawyers and you rumble and you go through all theterms.
But once the deal issigned, you'll never look at that contract again for the rest of yourlife.
And if youdid, I can guarantee you that both sides have breached that contract and violated the terms multipletimes.
But you don't care because you trust eachother.
You know that a relationship in a business deal has gone horribly sour if you refer to thecontract.
And I'msure.Well, according to thecontract, that deal isdone.
Yeah. Because great businessrelationships, you never pull the contractout.
Ever. And you break it all thetime.
Paylate, work too manyhours, take advantage of eachother, overusethings.
Nobodycares. Because there'strust.
Simon, thank you somuch.
Iam, if people haven't seen ityet, if people haven't checked itout, I highly recommend everybody go and check out the optimism company because you're all the things that you've talked abouttoday.
And all the skills that I think are deficient insociety.
And even the idea of how tolike, how to other winfriends, influencepeople, listenbetter, communicatebetter, so that we can resolve problems and move in the samedirection.
All of those things are taught and answered onthe, at the optimismcompany.
I kind of look at it as like a modern university that's filling the deficit of skills thatthe, all ofus, I was going to say the youngergenerations, but it's really all of us have started to either disregard or loose sightof.
And it's nice that in a world where education is teaching us so little about what it is to be a successful human being and friend and partner and colleague andleader, that you've created a business that endeavors to fill thatwhole, it'sremarkable, it's reallyactionable.
Great,very, very experienced teachers at the optimism company and it's delivered in such a friendlyway.
And when I sayfriendly, Imean, friendly to a brain likemine.
It's tremendouslypatient.
So I recommend everybodygo.
Thankyou. I'll link it below aswell.
And we're all very excited for your next bookabout.
Oh, that's very nice ofyou.
Thankyou. I love coming onhere.
I always learnsomething.
I love that we get to take an idea and wrestle withit.
And I always appreciate that youpush.
For the best reason ofall, which is because you're curious to understand more and in so doing you always teachme.
So thanks again for having meon.
It's always such ajoy. Thank you somuch,Simon.
Thankyou. How many of you started thinking about your long term health when you hit30?
Forme, this was a wake up moment of me thinking tomyself,okay, I probably need to start paying a little bit more attentionnow.
I already felt a change in myself when I hit 30 with things like mymetabolism, my energylevels.
So this year is nodifferent.
Zoe, which is a company I've investedin, but also a company that are a sponsor of thispodcast, helps me to make smarter foodchoices, all based on their world-leading science and my own testresults.
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