The Secrets to Make Friends and Find Your Purpose with Simon Sinek

00:00:00.000 | What gets you out of bed in the morning?

00:00:01.680 | Is it a paycheck, a to-do list, or something bigger?

00:00:04.560 | As Simon Sinek puts it,

00:00:06.080 | "People who have a clear sense of purpose

00:00:08.000 | tend to live more inspired, more fulfilled, and more joyful lives."

00:00:11.200 | In today's episode, we'll dive deep into the power of purpose,

00:00:14.240 | why friendship is the ultimate biohack,

00:00:16.480 | and the fundamental human skills we should all be working on but probably aren't.

00:00:20.560 | We're talking about what really drives us, how friendships shape our lives,

00:00:24.160 | and the simple but often overlooked skills that make relationships stronger.

00:00:28.000 | I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoy this episode,

00:00:30.080 | please share with a friend or leave a comment or review.

00:00:32.560 | And if you want to keep upgrading your life, money, and travel,

00:00:35.200 | click follow or subscribe.

00:00:36.640 | Simon, it's been a long time since you wrote Start With Why,

00:00:42.000 | but it's how I first got connected with you.

00:00:44.240 | So I just want to ask,

00:00:45.600 | why is it important for someone to figure out their purpose and their why?

00:00:49.200 | I mean, why did you get out of bed this morning?

00:00:53.520 | And why should anyone care?

00:00:56.560 | And that's sort of what purpose is.

00:00:58.400 | It's a reason to get out of bed beyond I have to,

00:01:01.200 | I got to make a living, or the kids are screaming downstairs.

00:01:04.320 | You know, it's a reason to take on the day.

00:01:07.200 | It's a filter for decisions we make.

00:01:08.720 | And what all the science shows, I'm not unique here,

00:01:14.400 | for millennia past and all the way into the future,

00:01:18.160 | is that people who have a clear sense of purpose

00:01:20.080 | tend to live more inspired, more fulfilled, and more joyful lives.

00:01:24.880 | What percent of people do you think don't ever figure that out?

00:01:28.480 | If you had to guess?

00:01:29.200 | The vast majority.

00:01:31.040 | I think most people go through life like it's a lottery.

00:01:37.520 | You know, like you sort of like playing the numbers, doing the thing.

00:01:41.760 | And hopefully, every now and then,

00:01:45.520 | you get a little burst of something.

00:01:46.960 | And it feels great.

00:01:48.560 | You're in flow or whatever it is.

00:01:50.000 | And then you go back to sort of playing the numbers every day

00:01:51.840 | and hope tomorrow.

00:01:53.680 | Whereas I think when people start with why,

00:01:56.560 | when people live with a sense of purpose, cause, or belief,

00:01:58.800 | it's not a lottery.

00:01:59.600 | It's more of a jigsaw puzzle.

00:02:00.720 | I live in Silicon Valley.

00:02:01.840 | And I think there's a lot of people I know who have their why.

00:02:04.880 | And they're like, "I want to change the world.

00:02:06.320 | I want to build a plane that goes supersonic speeds,"

00:02:08.640 | which happened last week.

00:02:10.080 | How important is it that that purpose someone has

00:02:13.280 | is to advance humanity versus something more related to family or friends

00:02:19.280 | and enjoying life or hiking or something?

00:02:22.320 | So a why is not making a supersonic plane.

00:02:24.880 | That's not a purpose, right?

00:02:26.560 | That's a goal.

00:02:27.120 | That's wonderful.

00:02:28.960 | But people have a clear sense of purpose.

00:02:31.280 | It's the reason your friends love you.

00:02:33.120 | It's the reason your clients like you.

00:02:35.840 | And the tangible things that they may do,

00:02:38.480 | call it your job, your career,

00:02:40.480 | those are the tangible things that bring your purpose to life.

00:02:43.440 | So I wrote a bunch of books, right?

00:02:45.680 | Why?

00:02:46.960 | Because it brings my purpose to life.

00:02:48.720 | I wrote about things that manifest,

00:02:50.480 | that give tangibility to what I believe,

00:02:52.800 | which is my purpose is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them.

00:02:56.240 | So together, each of us can change our worlds for the better.

00:02:58.960 | And everything I do breathes life into that purpose.

00:03:03.040 | Purpose is the foundation.

00:03:04.400 | And so I get a huge kick out of, especially Silicon Valley,

00:03:09.280 | when they're like, "Simon, I know my why.

00:03:11.520 | I'm going to change the world," as you said,

00:03:13.600 | "with my pizza delivery app."

00:03:16.720 | I'm like, "Okay, let's go with that."

00:03:19.360 | Is that the reason your friends love you?

00:03:20.560 | Or my other favorite one is like,

00:03:21.600 | "I have a why for work and I have a why for home."

00:03:23.200 | I'm like, "Well, in one of those two places, you're lying."

00:03:25.440 | Because you are you,

00:03:28.160 | whether you change your clothes or change your desk, you know?

00:03:31.200 | So you only have one why.

00:03:33.440 | It's fully formed by the mid to late teens.

00:03:36.400 | And you are who you are.

00:03:37.920 | We are all products of how we were raised.

00:03:40.160 | The experiences we had when we were young made you who you are.

00:03:43.120 | And now the opportunity is,

00:03:44.320 | are you living to the max potential of who you are?

00:03:46.480 | Are you operating at your natural best?

00:03:48.400 | And people who learn their why, they have an unfair advantage.

00:03:53.760 | I've heard you multiple times reference,

00:03:55.360 | you know, "It's why your friends love you."

00:03:57.920 | Are friends the easiest way for us to identify what that is?

00:04:02.640 | It's a way.

00:04:03.360 | I mean, I do this little thing called a friends exercise

00:04:07.520 | that absolutely leverages the love of your friends.

00:04:10.640 | Really quickly, you know,

00:04:11.920 | find a friend who loves you and you love your friend.

00:04:14.080 | You'd be there for them till three o'clock in the morning,

00:04:15.840 | and they'd be there for you.

00:04:16.960 | Do not do this with a sibling.

00:04:18.160 | Do not do this with a parent.

00:04:19.280 | Do not do this with one of your kids.

00:04:20.640 | Those relationships are too close.

00:04:22.160 | Best friend.

00:04:23.280 | You want a best friend.

00:04:24.480 | And you ask them the simple question,

00:04:25.680 | "Why are we friends?"

00:04:27.040 | And they're going to look at you like you're insane.

00:04:29.200 | Because the part of the brain that controls our feelings,

00:04:32.640 | like love, doesn't control language.

00:04:34.720 | It's very hard to put our feelings into words,

00:04:36.320 | which is why we speak in metaphors and analogies

00:04:38.160 | when we talk about our feelings.

00:04:39.760 | And so they're going to hem and haw and be like,

00:04:41.440 | "I don't know."

00:04:42.000 | Well, of course they know.

00:04:43.760 | They just can't put it into words.

00:04:44.960 | And then, interestingly, you stop asking the question, "Why?"

00:04:48.080 | And you ask the question, "What?"

00:04:49.200 | Come on, "What specifically is it about me

00:04:52.000 | that I know you would be there for me no matter what?"

00:04:54.320 | And they will start to try and describe you.

00:04:56.880 | "I don't know.

00:04:57.680 | You're loyal.

00:04:59.280 | You're honest.

00:05:00.000 | I trust you.

00:05:01.360 | And you play devil's advocate."

00:05:03.600 | Good.

00:05:03.840 | You get that from a lot of people.

00:05:05.600 | That's just the definition of a friend.

00:05:07.200 | What specifically is about me that I know you'd be there for me no matter what?

00:05:10.960 | And they're going to go through a few rounds of this.

00:05:13.600 | Don't help them.

00:05:14.240 | Don't let anybody else help them.

00:05:15.840 | And eventually, they will give up.

00:05:17.200 | And they will start describing themselves.

00:05:19.600 | And this is what my friend said to me.

00:05:21.600 | "Look, Simon, I don't know.

00:05:22.720 | All I know is I can sit in a room with you.

00:05:25.200 | I don't even have to talk to you when I feel inspired."

00:05:27.600 | And I got goosebumps.

00:05:28.960 | I had an emotional response to what they were telling me.

00:05:32.160 | In other words, that's when they tapped my why.

00:05:34.240 | That's when they pinpointed.

00:05:35.680 | And so when you do this exercise with people,

00:05:37.440 | and I did it with multiple friends, and you can do it with multiple friends,

00:05:40.000 | they will say very similar, if not the exact same thing,

00:05:42.160 | because the thing that I admit, the thing that I give to the world,

00:05:44.800 | my purpose, my cause, my belief, my why is the space I fill in their lives,

00:05:49.120 | which is why they'll say consistent things.

00:05:50.800 | And when they say that, you will well up with tears or have goosebumps

00:05:54.480 | or some reaction, and that's how you know you've hit it.

00:05:56.800 | To inspire people to do the things that inspire them.

00:05:58.720 | Yeah, that's the greatest compliment you can pay me is,

00:06:01.440 | "Simon, thank you.

00:06:02.000 | That was inspiring."

00:06:02.800 | It's the thing that makes me feel like I'm on the right path.

00:06:07.360 | By asking yourself similar questions?

00:06:09.280 | Or would you say having a friend to talk to is probably the better way to figure it out?

00:06:15.200 | Because like you said, a lot of questions.

00:06:16.480 | None of us have objectivity about ourselves.

00:06:18.880 | That's the problem.

00:06:19.520 | We have dreams, we have aspirations, we have egos, we have insecurities.

00:06:24.240 | But it's very hard for us to know how the world sees us and perceives us and needs us.

00:06:28.320 | We just don't know.

00:06:30.720 | We have a little bit of self-awareness, but we don't have total self-awareness.

00:06:35.280 | We definitely don't have objectivity.

00:06:37.120 | Some of us are too good to ourselves and some of us are too mean to ourselves.

00:06:40.960 | As you're saying this, I'm thinking of little moments in my life

00:06:43.920 | where I get tremendous joy doing something that I don't know why.

00:06:47.280 | If a friend asked me for a restaurant recommendation,

00:06:51.440 | all I want to do is have this person be delighted in a way they've never imagined.

00:06:56.080 | Sometimes it just falls so hard on its face and I'm kind of let down.

00:07:02.080 | I remember this one time where Uber had just launched in the Bay Area many years ago.

00:07:07.200 | My in-laws grew up in Wisconsin, live in Colorado.

00:07:11.360 | They came out and I was like, "I have all this credit from the company I worked at.

00:07:14.720 | I'm going to pick them up in a town car."

00:07:16.640 | It was like a limo.

00:07:17.440 | They came home and I was like, "What do they think?"

00:07:20.560 | My father-in-law says, "It was so nice of you to get us a cab from the airport."

00:07:24.560 | And I was like, "Ugh!"

00:07:26.720 | Trying to create experiences to delight people

00:07:29.520 | and show them things they've never seen before is something I love doing.

00:07:34.880 | Is that even relevant or is that just a thing I love

00:07:37.600 | or do I need to go deeper to figure it out?

00:07:39.920 | Definitely relevant.

00:07:41.200 | The fact that you said, "I love," that's an emotional word.

00:07:44.000 | Like is rational, love is emotional.

00:07:47.520 | Do you love your wife?

00:07:49.280 | I like her a lot.

00:07:50.160 | Those are not the same.

00:07:54.400 | When somebody says, "I love doing that," yeah, it's not necessarily the answer,

00:07:57.520 | but it's definitely something that I pay attention to.

00:08:00.480 | It's definitely a flag when I'm helping somebody find their wife, for sure.

00:08:02.960 | You've written a lot about friendship lately.

00:08:04.560 | What fascinates you about friendship?

00:08:07.440 | First of all, we're social animals, so we all need them.

00:08:10.000 | You're not going to get through this thing called life without them,

00:08:13.600 | at least not successfully.

00:08:14.880 | If you look at the world we live in right now,

00:08:16.880 | with rising rates of depression and anxiety,

00:08:21.920 | inability to cope with stress,

00:08:23.680 | and the worst case scenario, suicide,

00:08:25.600 | what you find is that friendship fixes all those things.

00:08:28.000 | It's the ultimate biohack.

00:08:30.400 | Even the obsession with longevity.

00:08:33.200 | You've got everybody talking about diets and exercises and supplements,

00:08:38.720 | and yet nobody's talking about friends.

00:08:42.320 | If you look at all the blue zones and all of those things,

00:08:44.320 | yes, they're eating these Mediterranean diets.

00:08:45.920 | Yes, they walk a lot, but they also commune.

00:08:48.320 | They also eat with friends.

00:08:49.440 | They also walk with friends.

00:08:51.520 | I've met so many people who've lived to old age

00:08:54.000 | who didn't do any of the things that the biohackers in Hollywood do,

00:08:57.440 | and they're in their 90s, and they're happy, and they're healthy,

00:08:59.360 | and they're walking around,

00:09:00.400 | and you hear them laugh and talk about their friends.

00:09:03.920 | I think that we forget about friendship because it's a little more amorphous.

00:09:10.160 | You can't measure it as easily.

00:09:12.640 | We live in a metrics-obsessed world.

00:09:14.560 | You've got your sleep aids and your Fitbits and your Oura rings,

00:09:18.160 | and we're so metrics-obsessed,

00:09:19.680 | we forget that some of the harder-to-measure,

00:09:21.920 | more qualitative, beautiful things in life

00:09:26.480 | actually contribute to our health more than we realize.

00:09:29.360 | It's funny because my grandparents moved to a retirement community when they were 52

00:09:34.000 | and lived there for 40 years till their mid-90s.

00:09:37.840 | I look at the other side of the family, totally the opposite.

00:09:42.000 | Health wasn't as strong.

00:09:43.120 | Gosh, I just look at that.

00:09:44.880 | I'm like, "They just had more friends than I do."

00:09:47.440 | And they ate chocolate cake.

00:09:49.120 | Yeah, they lived in Kansas.

00:09:51.120 | And they ate fried chicken and barbecue.

00:09:53.520 | Three Dr. Peppers a day.

00:09:56.000 | Three Dr. Peppers a day.

00:09:57.600 | Maybe they took some supplements that the doctor told them to take.

00:09:59.760 | But they went through life because one of the things that friends do

00:10:05.120 | is they reduce our stress, right?

00:10:07.520 | The cortisol goes down.

00:10:09.200 | And there's data on this, right?

00:10:10.640 | Which is people who stress about having chocolate cake,

00:10:14.000 | that the cortisol, the stress releases, is worse for us than the chocolate cake.

00:10:18.480 | That doesn't mean you eat chocolate cake with every meal.

00:10:20.160 | And it means have a few bites, not a whole freaking cake.

00:10:22.960 | There is a thing called moderation.

00:10:24.640 | But just enjoy yourself.

00:10:26.800 | One thing I noticed amongst at least my peers and friends and colleagues is

00:10:31.040 | somewhere in the mid to late 30s range,

00:10:34.720 | between the fact that we feel super connected because we're all online,

00:10:39.280 | but it's never been easier to move, and we've all had children.

00:10:43.440 | It feels like a lot of people I know have a lot of friends.

00:10:47.200 | And I put myself in this bucket.

00:10:48.400 | I'll be a little vulnerable.

00:10:49.440 | I don't feel like I have the friends that we're talking about here, right?

00:10:53.120 | I have lots of people I can give a phone call to,

00:10:54.880 | I can have dinner with, I can go out with.

00:10:56.320 | But growing up, I had three friends in the neighborhood.

00:11:00.320 | We'd hang out all the time.

00:11:01.520 | We didn't need to plan, and everything just worked.

00:11:04.160 | I feel like in a post-children world where we're all online and all connected,

00:11:11.280 | I just don't know if that happens as much.

00:11:13.760 | And it kind of all falls apart when you move and have kids and everyone's spread out.

00:11:18.880 | Well, friendship takes work, takes effort, takes time for it to work well.

00:11:24.000 | And kids, like everything, take more work.

00:11:27.840 | And there's only X many hours in the day and X much energy you have.

00:11:31.440 | And so you take things away to focus on family.

00:11:34.560 | This is very common.

00:11:35.280 | I hear this all the time.

00:11:36.320 | Since they had kids, not all cases, but in many cases,

00:11:38.720 | you'll have a partner that I hope is your friend in raising the family.

00:11:44.960 | It's much more difficult without that partner.

00:11:48.880 | And at the end of the day, friendship requires a little effort.

00:11:53.280 | It requires a little time.

00:11:54.400 | And I think for people who have kids, then the question is,

00:11:58.160 | how do you reorganize and find, if you live in Los Angeles,

00:12:01.520 | sitting in the car, sitting in traffic is a great time to connect with friends.

00:12:04.640 | There are ways.

00:12:05.520 | One of the things I've learned, and I'm guilty of this,

00:12:08.400 | which is there's a friend I haven't connected with for a while.

00:12:10.960 | I've been so busy.

00:12:11.680 | I got to connect with them.

00:12:13.280 | And I'm like, okay, I only have like 15 minutes now.

00:12:16.400 | I'll wait till I have more time.

00:12:17.680 | Okay, I don't have like 30 minutes now.

00:12:19.840 | You know, I want to talk to him for an hour.

00:12:21.440 | Okay, I'm going to wait.

00:12:22.240 | And before I know it, a month has gone by.

00:12:23.680 | And I didn't call him, you know?

00:12:26.640 | And so one of the things I've started doing is just using small amounts of time.

00:12:30.240 | Like a text that says, I'm thinking of you.

00:12:33.280 | You can do that from the toilet, you know?

00:12:36.080 | Why you're thinking about them in the toilet is a different conversation.

00:12:38.400 | Or I'll call somebody like, hey, listen, I've got 10 minutes between meetings.

00:12:42.160 | I've been talking a while.

00:12:43.120 | Just a little kind of quick check in, right?

00:12:46.080 | And it's amazing how much those things actually work.

00:12:49.200 | Do the kind of good relationships that you need for friendship to,

00:12:52.960 | you know, for a lot of the benefits you talked about,

00:12:55.280 | can that happen in a virtual world?

00:12:56.960 | Or can you have those great relationships from afar?

00:13:00.640 | We know the answer, which is in person is always better.

00:13:03.920 | You can hug someone.

00:13:05.440 | You can put your hand on their shoulder when they're struggling, right?

00:13:08.880 | One level down for that.

00:13:09.920 | I think the phone is way better than a video conference, you know?

00:13:14.960 | I find that people are way more present on the phone, right?

00:13:19.920 | Because you can tell when somebody wanders off on the phone,

00:13:22.240 | you'd be like, dude, are you listening?

00:13:24.000 | You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right?

00:13:25.440 | Or when somebody wanders off on a video, it's where they start typing.

00:13:29.200 | It's like this weird rudeness that you can't say anything.

00:13:32.480 | And most of the time you're looking at yourself anyway.

00:13:34.880 | You're not even looking at them, you know?

00:13:38.320 | And if you are looking at them, it's fake eye contact.

00:13:40.560 | It's like, I'm looking at the camera.

00:13:42.080 | You think I'm looking at you, but I'm looking at a green dot.

00:13:44.720 | It's all slightly artificial, literally and figuratively.

00:13:49.040 | And so I find the phone is actually a fantastic way to connect with people.

00:13:52.480 | Yeah, I am notorious for randomly just calling people.

00:13:56.080 | Walking the dog, call someone.

00:13:57.200 | Go for a drive, call someone.

00:13:58.240 | But what I find missing more and more now is that all those people that I want to call,

00:14:03.360 | the close friends that I would call in the exercise at the beginning,

00:14:06.480 | none of them live nearby.

00:14:07.760 | And so I've got to almost rebuild my network of friends that I could go to

00:14:12.400 | for a hug and have dinner with.

00:14:13.840 | And I had this crazy idea that my wife didn't veto but kind of poked fun at,

00:14:19.440 | which is when we moved to this new neighborhood.

00:14:21.040 | I was like, what if we wrote a note and introduced ourselves to 100 people

00:14:25.360 | and put it in all their mailboxes?

00:14:27.040 | And this is my analytical side.

00:14:29.440 | I was like, and then we can go from not just being friends with

00:14:32.160 | the person that lives next to us,

00:14:33.440 | but maybe there's an amazing family that we'd be best friends with,

00:14:36.560 | but they live three blocks away.

00:14:37.760 | How are we ever going to find them?

00:14:39.040 | What if we just drop all these notes and we go on like a speed dating process

00:14:42.720 | and we try to find these people?

00:14:44.720 | Because I thought it'd be really cool if we had these great close friends,

00:14:47.520 | but it would take time.

00:14:48.640 | What's your reaction?

00:14:49.280 | Is that crazy idea or is that like great?

00:14:51.280 | Well, let's reverse it.

00:14:53.760 | What if you got the note?

00:14:55.040 | How would you react?

00:14:57.920 | Hey, we just moved in three blocks away.

00:15:00.640 | Want to be friends?

00:15:02.320 | It's hard for me to imagine a world where I don't already have this idea,

00:15:06.480 | because if I got this note at this point,

00:15:08.080 | I'd be like, these are my people.

00:15:09.520 | They didn't think that.

00:15:10.560 | That's true.

00:15:11.280 | And your poor wife would be like, just can you go and let me know how it is?

00:15:15.840 | That might be a personality thing.

00:15:17.040 | But at the very minimum, I think we should know our neighbors.

00:15:19.440 | You know, I think it's very important if you do move into a neighborhood

00:15:22.080 | or if somebody moves into your neighborhood,

00:15:23.440 | you can knock on the door and say, welcome, bring my cake.

00:15:25.760 | Or you go knock on the door and be like, hey, I just moved in next door.

00:15:27.760 | I just wanted to introduce myself.

00:15:29.120 | You know, neighbors, to know your neighbors, I think is a part of it.

00:15:31.680 | Look, at the end of the day, this is one of the struggles with urban centers, right?

00:15:35.280 | Which is we left our families and we left our friends and you said we had to rebuild.

00:15:38.240 | And now you live in these very densely populated, but very lonely places.

00:15:43.440 | And our networks are gone and we have to rebuild our networks.

00:15:46.080 | And the networks are loose because people are constantly moving,

00:15:49.520 | even within the city, you know?

00:15:52.480 | Whereas if you grew up in Kansas, the people who stay, stay.

00:15:57.760 | And the people next door, that's it, you know?

00:16:01.280 | Trevor Noah talks about this quite beautifully,

00:16:03.680 | which is when you're forced to live with people, you actually learn to live with people.

00:16:06.880 | You know who people are.

00:16:08.080 | There's the good guy, the bad guy, but you learn to live together.

00:16:11.440 | Where when you have a very itinerant sort of lifestyle like we do in city,

00:16:17.280 | you can up and leave whenever you want and everybody can move.

00:16:19.120 | And we become less tolerant of each other.

00:16:21.680 | And I think he's right.

00:16:22.560 | I like that.

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00:18:45.760 | Is there a number of close friends you think is important to invest in?

00:18:50.640 | Again, it depends on the people, right?

00:18:53.040 | Like some people, they have their three ride or dies

00:18:56.160 | from junior high school till the day they die, and that's it.

00:19:01.120 | Great.

00:19:01.600 | Some people, you know, had them and they outgrew them,

00:19:04.400 | and they've got a new couple of really close friends.

00:19:07.040 | You know, some people have a slightly larger network.

00:19:09.280 | I think it's more about the quality of the relationships that makes you feel

00:19:13.520 | seen, heard, and understood, that makes you feel safe,

00:19:15.680 | that makes you feel you've got people to turn to.

00:19:18.240 | Whatever the number is, that number can be one.

00:19:21.280 | And there's a funny thing about friendship, which I, you know, we all, I hope,

00:19:25.280 | as many of us as possible, have a few people that we could call in hard times, right?

00:19:33.040 | Like the shit hits the fan, and there's a couple people I'll open up to when I'm struggling, right?

00:19:39.360 | Hopefully, we have that network.

00:19:41.440 | And if we, I think one of the reasons that this conversation is important,

00:19:44.480 | I think too many don't have that network, right?

00:19:47.200 | I've talked to, particularly, a lot of young people.

00:19:49.520 | They like their friends, they have fun with their friends,

00:19:51.040 | but they don't really deeply trust their friends,

00:19:52.400 | and they would never call their friends in really hard times.

00:19:55.520 | That's, I think, part of the challenge, which is why we see a younger generation,

00:19:58.800 | in particular, struggling with stress and suffering with depression,

00:20:01.920 | of anxiety at higher levels, of higher numbers.

00:20:04.720 | But I find it really interesting is,

00:20:08.480 | whatever the number of people you have that you could call in hard times,

00:20:11.440 | it's an even smaller number of people that you can call in really good times.

00:20:15.440 | The ones you can call and brag.

00:20:17.600 | You'd be like, "I just won this. I just did this. I just accomplished this."

00:20:22.640 | And they just share in your joy without judgment or jealousy.

00:20:25.440 | And that number, I find so interesting that good,

00:20:28.000 | good news is an even smaller number of people you can call the bad news.

00:20:31.680 | I'm like thinking through my friend network, and then when you said rider dies,

00:20:35.040 | I think my wife has a few friends she describes in that way.

00:20:38.080 | It actually makes me wonder, are the types of friends,

00:20:40.480 | are women or men, is there a difference in how they have friendships?

00:20:44.400 | And I think my wife, based on how you describe it, is better at being a friend.

00:20:48.240 | I think women, on balance, yes, women are better.

00:20:52.880 | I think because they're just more comfortable being vulnerable.

00:20:58.000 | Men struggle to say, "I love you," to other men.

00:21:05.520 | "I love you," not "love ya," not "love ya, dude."

00:21:07.920 | "I love you."

00:21:10.560 | Really hard to say it, even if you mean it, right?

00:21:14.000 | I'll tell you a story.

00:21:15.840 | So a buddy of mine, he's remarkable.

00:21:19.760 | He's active duty military.

00:21:21.280 | He's a freaking national hero, warrior.

00:21:24.960 | He's hardcore.

00:21:25.920 | He's amazing, right?

00:21:26.960 | And over the years, we've become super close.

00:21:30.080 | And we were on the phone catching up about what doesn't matter, you know?

00:21:34.320 | And after about an hour, we got off the phone.

00:21:37.520 | And as we're about to hang up, he says, "I love you."

00:21:39.360 | And I remember feeling that.

00:21:41.680 | "I love you," he said.

00:21:44.160 | And I said, "I love you, too."

00:21:46.960 | And we hung up.

00:21:47.600 | And I remember what it felt like.

00:21:50.800 | And so I decided to do an experiment.

00:21:53.200 | I had two friends in particular.

00:21:54.640 | I was over at one of their, one friend's house.

00:21:58.240 | He's an amazing guy.

00:21:59.920 | But if you met him, you wouldn't describe him as warm, right?

00:22:02.800 | He's a little distant.

00:22:04.000 | That's how most people would describe him.

00:22:05.600 | And I was getting ready to leave his house.

00:22:08.240 | And I turned to him.

00:22:08.720 | I'm like, "Hey, I'll talk to you soon."

00:22:10.400 | He's like, "Yeah, yeah, I'll talk to you soon."

00:22:11.440 | I'm like, "I love you."

00:22:12.240 | And I watched him, you know?

00:22:16.000 | And our friendship is even closer, even closer now.

00:22:21.440 | And I have another friend who is, again, super close,

00:22:25.440 | not very emotionally available, but amazing human being.

00:22:28.800 | And I remember I did the same experiment.

00:22:30.960 | I was like, "Hey, I love you."

00:22:33.520 | He's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

00:22:34.800 | You know, try to like deflect, deflect.

00:22:36.560 | But I did it again.

00:22:37.360 | The next time I saw him, I was like, "I love you."

00:22:39.440 | And he hugged me like I was his child.

00:22:42.720 | And I gave him a kiss on the cheek.

00:22:45.840 | And my friendships with these guys are even closer

00:22:50.800 | because we've taken first my one friend,

00:22:54.160 | but then I took the risk to express an emotion

00:22:58.080 | that I think a lot of men don't have the courage to express.

00:23:00.880 | Wow.

00:23:02.240 | Start there.

00:23:03.040 | You mentioned being a friend in hard times.

00:23:05.360 | I think one thing that I struggle with,

00:23:08.560 | I'm such a try to solve the problems

00:23:11.280 | that when someone's in a hard time,

00:23:13.200 | I know if you ask me outside, "What should I do?"

00:23:16.240 | I should just sit and listen.

00:23:17.600 | But I just struggle so hard.

00:23:19.120 | You acknowledged it as if this is not an uncommon thing.

00:23:22.000 | Take a listening class.

00:23:23.040 | There's a difference between listening

00:23:25.040 | and waiting for your turn to speak, right?

00:23:27.120 | You want to help.

00:23:27.760 | You want to be there.

00:23:28.560 | Good instincts, but your instinct is to fix.

00:23:31.200 | Again, I think this is more male than female.

00:23:33.920 | Women are much better at holding space.

00:23:35.600 | Men want to fix in general, not as a rule.

00:23:37.680 | But when somebody is struggling,

00:23:39.040 | they don't have the mental capacity

00:23:42.400 | to even take in the stuff you're telling them, right?

00:23:45.680 | All they need is to not feel alone.

00:23:48.720 | And the funny thing is people can take instructions.

00:23:51.840 | I called a friend.

00:23:54.240 | I was in a dark time.

00:23:55.760 | I was struggling.

00:23:56.800 | I called her up and was like, "Hey, could you have a minute?

00:23:58.560 | I just need to talk."

00:23:59.360 | And I started telling her how I was feeling.

00:24:01.200 | And she went into fix it mode.

00:24:02.800 | And I said to her, "I don't need you to fix anything.

00:24:06.000 | I just need you to listen.

00:24:06.960 | I can give the instruction."

00:24:09.040 | And she goes, "Okay."

00:24:10.080 | And she can adjust.

00:24:12.000 | And the thing about somebody who's struggling

00:24:14.800 | or depressed or down or whatever it is,

00:24:16.400 | is they can't see the obvious.

00:24:19.360 | That's why they're depressed or down or anxious.

00:24:21.520 | You are not depressed, down or anxious in that moment,

00:24:24.800 | which is why you can see the obvious.

00:24:26.400 | So sometimes trying to fix it and tell them

00:24:28.560 | will make them feel worse.

00:24:30.480 | You're basically calling them stupid.

00:24:33.280 | And so to be a good friend, you have to be good at knowing

00:24:37.280 | what people need in the moment.

00:24:38.320 | And you don't even have to be intuitive.

00:24:40.160 | You can ask, "Do you want me to try and offer you a solution?

00:24:43.760 | Or do you want me to listen?"

00:24:45.200 | They'll tell you, "I need you to just listen."

00:24:47.120 | Just ask for instructions.

00:24:49.360 | And so if a friend is depressed, they're sitting in mud,

00:24:53.440 | get in the mud with them.

00:24:55.040 | Nobody wants to be in mud, the person who's depressed

00:24:57.920 | or the person who's helping.

00:24:58.960 | It's not fun to be around depressed people,

00:25:01.120 | but that's what it means to be a friend.

00:25:02.880 | It means you get in the mud.

00:25:04.080 | If somebody's struggling to get out of bed,

00:25:05.840 | don't tell them all the reasons they should get out of bed.

00:25:07.840 | Go over to their house, get in bed with them,

00:25:10.320 | and eat ice cream with them and watch movies all day

00:25:12.480 | and sit in the mud with them.

00:25:14.000 | And when they are ready, they will turn to you and say,

00:25:15.920 | "I think I'm ready to get out now."

00:25:17.840 | And you're like, "Good, now let me help you.

00:25:19.840 | Now I'll go into fix-it mode and try and pull you out of the mud."

00:25:22.800 | But the most important thing is when someone is going

00:25:27.360 | through hard times, make sure they know they're not alone.

00:25:32.640 | Make them feel not alone.

00:25:34.880 | The fixing will happen, they will get through it,

00:25:37.920 | but they will struggle to get through it if they feel alone.

00:25:40.560 | And if all you do is go into fix-it mode,

00:25:42.400 | you will make them feel even more alone.

00:25:44.320 | I feel like as you describe this, I'm going back to basics.

00:25:48.320 | You talked about longevity.

00:25:49.280 | It's like people are trying to diet supplement this,

00:25:51.200 | but they're not actually just like being with people.

00:25:53.520 | Are there other fundamental human skills that people just are bad at

00:25:57.680 | that life would be so much better if we could improve

00:26:00.640 | that we aren't thinking about because they're so obvious?

00:26:02.800 | It's such a good question because the answer is all of it, right?

00:26:08.160 | Like cats don't have to work hard to be good at being a cat.

00:26:11.680 | They're just naturally good at being cats.

00:26:14.160 | But to be human takes work.

00:26:16.240 | Like without work, we all suck at being human.

00:26:20.000 | We do.

00:26:22.080 | And the reason is the annoying neocortex.

00:26:24.480 | We're the only animal with a neocortex,

00:26:26.320 | this rational analytical brain that can drive us nuts

00:26:28.960 | and overthink and do all those things.

00:26:31.120 | And we think that thinking and measuring and analyzing

00:26:35.440 | is the solution to everything, but all it does is screw things up.

00:26:39.360 | And so, yeah, we have to learn to reconnect

00:26:41.520 | and leverage and manage and all those human skills.

00:26:45.120 | Like if somebody calls them soft skills,

00:26:46.480 | again, I'm going to freaking punch them.

00:26:48.000 | They're human skills.

00:26:49.200 | Hard skills are the skills I need to do my job.

00:26:50.960 | And soft and human skills are the skills I need to be a better human being.

00:26:54.000 | And I need both.

00:26:54.880 | Because hard and soft are opposites, but hard and human are not.

00:26:59.120 | And so the simple answer is yes, you have to work on all of it.

00:27:03.280 | You have to work on listening.

00:27:05.200 | You have to work on empathy.

00:27:07.200 | You have to work on how to give trust, not just how to receive it.

00:27:10.880 | You have to learn how to show love.

00:27:14.320 | You have to learn how to receive love.

00:27:15.760 | You have to learn how to have an uncomfortable conversation.

00:27:20.000 | You have to learn how to give feedback.

00:27:21.520 | You have to learn how to receive feedback.

00:27:23.040 | And annoyingly, the way you like things,

00:27:25.280 | the way you like loving and giving love,

00:27:27.040 | the way you like giving feedback or receiving feedback

00:27:29.600 | may not work for somebody else,

00:27:30.640 | which means now you have to learn to be flexible

00:27:32.400 | with all the stuff you're learning.

00:27:33.440 | It's so freaking hard.

00:27:36.240 | And no one is ever going to be an expert human.

00:27:40.400 | We're all shitty at it.

00:27:42.320 | Some are slightly better than others.

00:27:44.000 | But most people are pretty shitty at being humans.

00:27:47.520 | And here's even worse.

00:27:48.720 | You get a bad night's sleep, you suck at all of it.

00:27:50.960 | So it takes energy.

00:27:53.360 | Oh, come on.

00:27:54.480 | Yeah, being human is hard work.

00:27:56.320 | And the humans I like the most

00:27:57.840 | are the ones who wake up in the morning and say,

00:28:00.400 | "Today, I'm going to work to be a slightly better human."

00:28:04.160 | I can't work on all of it at the same time.

00:28:06.000 | It's like being healthy, right?

00:28:07.440 | We have to exercise.

00:28:08.400 | We have to eat right.

00:28:09.280 | You have to sleep right.

00:28:10.080 | You can't do it all well every day.

00:28:12.000 | You kind of like pick a couple and those that you're not focusing on

00:28:15.840 | and drop and you go over there.

00:28:18.320 | That's life too.

00:28:19.760 | That's being human too.

00:28:20.800 | You pick up one, you drop another, but it's also a muscle.

00:28:23.600 | If you practice listening, you get good at it.

00:28:25.280 | If you stop doing it, it will atrophy.

00:28:27.040 | And if you know what good listening sounds like,

00:28:28.560 | have a fight with your wife.

00:28:29.600 | Tell me how well it goes, right?

00:28:31.280 | And if you're a good listener, it's hard,

00:28:33.840 | but you'll hug each other and love each other more at the end of that fight.

00:28:37.440 | If you suck at it, if you suck at listening,

00:28:40.960 | it'll escalate and escalate.

00:28:42.080 | And one of you will storm out of the room.

00:28:43.360 | If you want to know if you're a good listener or a bad listener,

00:28:45.040 | just find conflict anywhere or find someone who's struggling.

00:28:48.720 | And at the end, ask them, how do you feel?

00:28:52.480 | Do you feel heard?

00:28:54.640 | And they'll tell you yes or no.

00:28:55.760 | You'll get a kick out of this one.

00:28:57.200 | I was at this meeting and I was sitting next to this woman

00:29:01.120 | who supposedly was some fancy yoga instructor.

00:29:03.200 | And the entire meeting, she was on her phone underneath the table

00:29:07.440 | and I could see what she was doing.

00:29:09.520 | I'm sitting right next to her.

00:29:10.320 | And it's not like she had a family member in the hospital

00:29:13.200 | and she was checking in or something.

00:29:14.560 | She was on her socials.

00:29:15.520 | I could see I'm just sitting next to her.

00:29:17.040 | And at one point, the conversation at the table

00:29:21.040 | while she's looking down turned to being present.

00:29:23.600 | We talked about being present.

00:29:24.720 | Her head pops up and she says,

00:29:26.560 | that's why I love yoga because it helps me be present.

00:29:28.720 | And I thought to myself, here's what she doesn't understand.

00:29:31.280 | Being present is not something you do in a yoga class.

00:29:35.200 | I think you missed the whole point of this thing, right?

00:29:37.600 | You don't know you're present until somebody else says you are.

00:29:42.000 | Because being present is a deeply cooperative thing.

00:29:45.600 | Now you can practice being present.

00:29:47.040 | Yes, all the benefits of meditation.

00:29:48.800 | So think about what meditation is, right?

00:29:50.800 | If you know how to meditate, you're supposed to be still.

00:29:53.840 | You're supposed to focus on one thing.

00:29:56.720 | Could be your breath.

00:29:57.760 | Could be a sound.

00:29:58.640 | Could be a mantra.

00:29:59.760 | You could be look at something.

00:30:00.720 | It doesn't matter.

00:30:01.280 | You focus on one thing.

00:30:02.800 | And when you get distracted from that one thing,

00:30:05.360 | a thought pops in your head, you're supposed to label it.

00:30:07.760 | Push it out of your mind.

00:30:09.200 | Say, I'll deal with it later.

00:30:10.240 | And go back to focusing on that one thing.

00:30:12.160 | And at some point when it works, it just kind of clicks.

00:30:14.240 | And you're like, all there.

00:30:16.320 | Now we know all the medical benefits.

00:30:18.800 | And much has been written, spoken already about

00:30:21.040 | all the magical personal benefits to meditation.

00:30:24.800 | We don't talk about are the social benefits to meditation, right?

00:30:28.640 | Which are the reason to practice meditation is for someone else.

00:30:33.680 | So when you sit down with somebody and you go, I'm struggling.

00:30:36.480 | You're like, I'm focusing on that.

00:30:39.200 | And there could be a car screeching behind you.

00:30:41.680 | You won't even turn around.

00:30:42.720 | And you have a thought of something you want to contribute to what they're saying.

00:30:46.400 | But you don't.

00:30:46.880 | You put out of your mind.

00:30:47.600 | You say, I'll deal with that lady right now.

00:30:48.800 | The only thing that matters is this.

00:30:50.000 | And this whole meditation practice was valuable for this one moment.

00:30:54.480 | And at the end, your friend will say to you, thank you for listening.

00:30:57.120 | Thank you.

00:30:58.320 | I really appreciate you being present here.

00:31:00.720 | I feel so heard.

00:31:01.840 | Thank you.

00:31:02.720 | Thank you.

00:31:03.220 | Because you've been practicing and practicing and practicing

00:31:06.240 | that magical skill for the benefit of another.

00:31:08.960 | And I think that's one of the things we've completely neglected

00:31:11.760 | in our modern Western society.

00:31:13.440 | We've taken all these Eastern practices and we've made them selfish.

00:31:17.120 | Yoga is something I do for myself.

00:31:19.200 | Why don't you do yoga for other people?

00:31:20.560 | Meditation is what I do for me.

00:31:22.560 | Or you could meditate for the benefit of others.

00:31:25.440 | And the benefits to you are just the lucky strike extra.

00:31:27.680 | There's an entire section in the bookshop called self-help.

00:31:30.000 | And there's no section in the bookshop called help others.

00:31:32.000 | And I think if you look at why we're depressed and why we're

00:31:36.320 | anxious and why we're stressed, it's because we feel alone.

00:31:39.280 | And all of the incentive structures around us and our parents

00:31:42.240 | and our guidance counselors are constantly telling us to focus on us.

00:31:45.280 | Your career, your happiness, your marriage, your partner, your money.

00:31:50.000 | You're this, you're that.

00:31:51.120 | Me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

00:31:52.720 | We're all obsessed with me.

00:31:54.000 | And yet to be a happy, successful, thriving, long-living human being.

00:31:59.520 | It's us.

00:32:01.200 | It's we.

00:32:02.000 | Every time, every day.

00:32:04.720 | And we forget that we are legacy machines.

00:32:06.880 | The human animal is tens of thousands of years old.

00:32:09.920 | And this technology hasn't changed in tens of thousands of years at all.

00:32:14.160 | It's a legacy machine in a modern world.

00:32:16.640 | And the modern world has hijacked a lot of our internal systems to our own detriment.

00:32:22.480 | There's nothing wrong with dopamine.

00:32:23.840 | Dopamine exists for very good biological reasons.

00:32:26.640 | Now, the way that gaming companies and search firms and YouTubes and Instagrams and TikToks

00:32:36.720 | have hijacked that reward structure for their benefit, not ours.

00:32:40.880 | Not good.

00:32:41.440 | Very unhealthy.

00:32:42.800 | Detrimental.

00:32:44.080 | And all of these systems can be hijacked and faked.

00:32:47.840 | Right?

00:32:49.440 | And we can feel like we have these warm, loving relationships that aren't really there.

00:32:52.960 | And so I think to do the hard work of going back to basics of the legacy machine and understanding

00:32:57.200 | why the machine was built the way it was, and it was that we have to cooperate and look

00:33:00.640 | after each other for our very survival.

00:33:02.400 | You put a human being by themselves in the woods, they die.

00:33:06.000 | They die.

00:33:06.560 | That's what happens.

00:33:08.160 | They die.

00:33:08.640 | Most of the time.

00:33:11.280 | You put a group of people in the woods by themselves, they'll do okay.

00:33:14.400 | We are cooperative animals.

00:33:15.600 | Our very survival depends on how much we love and trust each other.

00:33:19.680 | Because if I trust you, I'll go to sleep at night and know that you watched it for danger

00:33:23.200 | for me.

00:33:23.600 | And I know you'd do the same for me.

00:33:24.880 | I don't trust you.

00:33:25.760 | I can't sleep at night.

00:33:26.720 | Can't sleep.

00:33:28.000 | And these are basic things.

00:33:30.240 | And I think we've over, we've over indexed.

00:33:34.080 | I'm trying to measure everything and modernize everything and systematize everything and

00:33:40.960 | spreadsheet everything and app everything.

00:33:43.440 | There's no app for love.

00:33:46.560 | There's no app for friendship.

00:33:49.360 | There's no app to help you listen.

00:33:50.880 | Hold on, honey.

00:33:52.640 | Let me get my app out while we're having this fight.

00:33:54.560 | Can you imagine holding up like a Google Translate while you're fighting with your

00:33:57.600 | wife?

00:33:58.400 | That's not going to go well.

00:33:59.520 | Right?

00:34:01.280 | This is just old fashioned shit.

00:34:03.200 | And when I say old fashioned, I mean, like, really old fashioned.

00:34:05.840 | Well, you said human skills.

00:34:08.720 | My brain immediately goes to think like, oh, I need to learn how to do things.

00:34:12.960 | And then I'm trying to remember all the things you said.

00:34:15.120 | It was like listening, confrontation, conversation, feedback, empathy.

00:34:19.280 | All of them involve other people.

00:34:21.200 | So they're human skills, but they're multi-human skills.

00:34:25.680 | Like you need other people to practice them and use them.

00:34:29.440 | And those seem to be what we've lost.

00:34:30.960 | It's not the skill of sharpening a knife.

00:34:33.360 | Correct.

00:34:33.680 | They're pro-social behaviors where a lot of the things we are really good at practicing,

00:34:38.000 | I would argue, are at worst anti-social behaviors or at minimum unsocial behavior.

00:34:42.480 | Right?

00:34:43.840 | High performing individuals that are addicted to dopamine do really well.

00:34:48.400 | Not a lot of level of trust around them.

00:34:52.000 | You know?

00:34:53.200 | What's the school for human skills?

00:34:55.200 | The good news is there's bunches of stuff to do.

00:34:57.280 | I mean, like, I try and put stuff out in the world to help.

00:34:59.600 | There's no one size fits all.

00:35:01.600 | If you want to learn listening, go read a book called How to Talk to Kids

00:35:03.920 | So Kids Will Listen to Listen So Kids Will Talk.

00:35:05.680 | It's a parenting book.

00:35:06.800 | Right?

00:35:07.280 | Turns out adults are like children.

00:35:09.040 | So, for example, one of the things you'll learn in this book is when your kids have

00:35:12.080 | feelings, you don't deny them the feelings, you affirm their feelings.

00:35:14.640 | So when your kid is angry at something stupid, right?

00:35:18.480 | Or upset at something ridiculous, you don't have to be angry over that.

00:35:21.680 | That's ridiculous.

00:35:22.640 | You would never say that to a child.

00:35:24.240 | You say things like, "Wow, yeah, if that happened to me, I'd be angry too."

00:35:30.400 | You affirm their feelings.

00:35:31.520 | And then they feel good and they feel seen and they feel heard.

00:35:34.400 | You know this.

00:35:34.800 | You're a parent.

00:35:35.520 | Yeah, I'm like, "This sounds like a conversation I had yesterday."

00:35:38.160 | Yeah, you've learned this.

00:35:39.520 | Not do that with an adult.

00:35:40.640 | Your friend's upset, don't be like, "Dude, what are you talking about?

00:35:44.880 | Your life's freaking amazing.

00:35:46.560 | Shut up."

00:35:47.040 | Go like, "Dude, yeah, if I was in your shoes, I'd feel the same way."

00:35:52.640 | Affirm the feelings.

00:35:55.120 | Same thing.

00:35:55.760 | You don't have to agree with it.

00:35:56.640 | You don't have to like it.

00:35:57.280 | Just affirm it.

00:35:58.000 | What is it about our brains that make it so easy to do that?

00:36:02.640 | Like with my children, that's exactly what happens.

00:36:04.800 | But by default, that's not what happens with other people.

00:36:07.280 | Is it practice?

00:36:08.160 | I think kids are vulnerable.

00:36:09.200 | And we really work hard to take care of kids so that they can grow up to be the best, most

00:36:16.160 | confident version of themselves.

00:36:17.440 | Now, imagine if we applied that same mentality to our friends.

00:36:20.560 | They're vulnerable.

00:36:22.320 | And I'm going to do everything I can so that they will grow up to be the best, most confident

00:36:27.200 | version of themselves.

00:36:28.080 | I mean, if I had a friend that said, "My job to be Simon's friend is to see him as a vulnerable

00:36:37.680 | human, offer him all the care and protection as he try and muddles through life.

00:36:42.080 | And I want to help him build his confidence so he can be the best version of himself."

00:36:44.960 | I'm going to turn to that person and be like, "Be my friend forever.

00:36:47.600 | Please, please, please."

00:36:48.480 | We treat friends as the lowest rung on the hierarchy, right?

00:36:52.960 | Like, would you cancel on a meeting for a friend?

00:36:56.080 | Would you cancel on a friend for a meeting?

00:36:58.240 | "Oh, but my friends will understand."

00:37:00.080 | Okay.

00:37:00.560 | Just saying.

00:37:01.120 | Low on the hierarchy.

00:37:02.080 | If you have struggles in your marriage, what do you do?

00:37:06.800 | You suffer, you go through it, you talk to friends, maybe get some therapy together,

00:37:12.640 | get some couples therapy.

00:37:14.160 | You work really hard to try and make it work.

00:37:17.440 | And divorce is going to be the last resort, not the first choice, but we're going to try.

00:37:22.480 | And it's been shit for the past six months, but we're in it.

00:37:27.440 | You have issues with a friend.

00:37:30.000 | Maybe there's a violation of trust.

00:37:31.760 | What do you do?

00:37:32.640 | You'd be like, "Listen, I don't know if I can be in this friendship anymore.

00:37:35.520 | What you did, unacceptable."

00:37:37.040 | Really?

00:37:38.800 | You'll go for therapy with your wife, but you won't go for therapy with your friend

00:37:41.440 | that you've known longer than your wife?

00:37:42.640 | One violation of trust?

00:37:45.440 | Spouses violate trust all the time.

00:37:46.960 | It's not easy.

00:37:47.760 | It sucks.

00:37:49.600 | And so I think the ability to wrestle with discomfort.

00:37:53.200 | But with friends, we treat them like, "I can't be friends with you anymore."

00:37:57.280 | Like we're indignant when they screw up.

00:38:01.280 | God forbid we screw up.

00:38:02.480 | So yeah, I think we put a pretty low standard on friendship.

00:38:05.200 | We put much higher standards on work.

00:38:06.720 | We put much higher standards on our romantic relationships.

00:38:09.280 | But we tend to undervalue friendships when we don't work as hard on them.

00:38:11.920 | To our own detriment.

00:38:12.960 | Because when work fucks you and your wife says, "I want a divorce,"

00:38:16.960 | it's only friends you got left.

00:38:18.640 | You mentioned when you mess it up, what can we do better as humans

00:38:22.320 | when we acknowledge or realize our own faults?

00:38:25.840 | Say them out loud.

00:38:26.880 | It's accountability.

00:38:27.680 | Like at work, we talk about accountability, right?

00:38:29.680 | The best bosses are the ones who say, "I screwed up, on me, on me."

00:38:34.000 | The best bosses are the ones who demand accountability.

00:38:36.160 | "Hey, boss, this failed because it was on me.

00:38:39.440 | It wasn't market conditions, it was me.

00:38:42.320 | And if it was market conditions, I should have been better at tracking market conditions

00:38:45.280 | and be prepared for them if they went sideways and had no backup plan on me."

00:38:48.560 | And we go, "Okay, I gotcha.

00:38:52.160 | What do you need?"

00:38:52.720 | We can be frustrated.

00:38:54.320 | We can be upset.

00:38:54.880 | But as long as there's no negligence, we're like, "All right, this sucks.

00:38:58.640 | I'm here to help you."

00:38:59.760 | We do that all the time.

00:39:00.960 | So why not do that in friendship as well?

00:39:02.320 | Accountability.

00:39:03.680 | "I totally, I totally, that's on me.

00:39:07.600 | Oh, my God.

00:39:08.160 | I should do better.

00:39:10.480 | I know better.

00:39:11.200 | I am deeply sorry.

00:39:13.200 | Here's what I'm doing to fix it."

00:39:14.720 | What do you expect at work?

00:39:15.680 | "Hey, boss, I missed the deadline on me.

00:39:20.320 | Here's what I'm implementing so it doesn't happen again."

00:39:22.400 | Again, we work really hard to get it right at work.

00:39:25.360 | It's the same skills.

00:39:27.280 | "Honey, this is, or friend, this is what I'm going to do.

00:39:32.720 | This is where I need your help."

00:39:33.840 | So I ask for help, right?

00:39:36.640 | So for example, I said, "Listen, super absent-minded, super forgetful.

00:39:43.440 | Sometimes I'll say something, I'll even make a plan with you, and you won't hear from me,

00:39:47.840 | and you take it so personally because you think I've forgotten.

00:39:49.840 | I have forgotten.

00:39:50.560 | Please just ask me, and I'll tell you.

00:39:54.160 | I just need your help on this one."

00:39:55.680 | So I think it's all about communication.

00:39:59.920 | And it's just like at work.

00:40:01.200 | We know all these things at work.

00:40:02.800 | This is why it's not such a stretch for me from writing leadership books to writing a

00:40:05.680 | friendship book, right?

00:40:07.520 | Communication is lubrication.

00:40:08.640 | When there's a lot of communication at work, things run smoothly.

00:40:10.720 | When there's less communication, there's a lot of friction.

00:40:13.040 | It's the same in friendships.

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00:42:41.760 | on taxes.

00:42:42.640 | What seems like at work, we have these metrics of like, I get a promotion, I have a salary,

00:42:46.240 | I have an increase.

00:42:47.040 | So we want to learn all these skills to achieve this outcome of some level of growth.

00:42:52.080 | And in friendship, there's no real like, oh, I have deeper friendships.

00:42:55.040 | I've leveled up.

00:42:56.000 | So people kind of forget about it.

00:42:58.000 | But when I think about my grandparents and I think, oh, wow, the last 40 years of their

00:43:03.200 | life was made better by them being great at being friends, right?

00:43:07.840 | Like building friends, being there for people.

00:43:10.400 | It seems so obvious that we should focus on this, but it doesn't feel like it's been culturally

00:43:16.160 | obvious.

00:43:16.960 | I try and talk about these things in the here and now because it's such a trope to say that

00:43:22.000 | nobody is on their deathbed and wishes they worked harder and spent more time at work.

00:43:27.840 | People always wish they spent more time with their family and friends.

00:43:30.400 | Like, it's such a joke, you know?

00:43:34.160 | But it's like, nobody thinks the house is going to burn down when they buy insurance.

00:43:40.000 | Like, we're terrible long-term planners.

00:43:42.160 | People are terrible at saving money, right?

00:43:44.320 | Because nobody thinks they're going to need it until it's too late.

00:43:47.520 | We have to talk to people in the here and now, right?

00:43:50.080 | Let's get them where they are.

00:43:51.040 | Are you the happiest you can be?

00:43:53.920 | Do you feel like you've got someone who's got your back?

00:43:56.000 | Do you feel like you can call someone when you're not doing well and that they have the

00:44:00.560 | skill set to know how to hold space?

00:44:02.560 | Do you ever have people to call to brag about how freaking amazing you are and they share

00:44:08.880 | in the joy with you and big up you and make you feel even better?

00:44:11.600 | Or do you have to keep it to yourself because you're kind of embarrassed that you're going

00:44:14.560 | to be that guy to your friends?

00:44:16.640 | Just ask yourself these questions if you have any of these people in your life.

00:44:23.360 | If the answer is no to any of them, then maybe a little work is required.

00:44:27.520 | That's okay.

00:44:28.160 | One of the biggest questions I get is, "I don't know how to make friends."

00:44:32.240 | I hear it from young people.

00:44:33.440 | I hear it from older people.

00:44:34.640 | They lean into me and they go, "I don't know how to make friends.

00:44:37.680 | I don't know what I'm doing."

00:44:39.680 | This is part of the downside of the internet and television and all this stuff.

00:44:44.320 | There used to be bowling leagues.

00:44:46.960 | There's an old book written about it called Bowling Alone.

00:44:48.560 | There's no bowling leagues anymore.

00:44:50.000 | There's no place we go to on Thursday nights to hang out with people who have the same

00:44:55.760 | interests as us where we're more likely to make friends.

00:44:58.720 | The closest we can get is online gaming.

00:45:01.760 | You know that when you buy a video game, you get one controller.

00:45:04.560 | It doesn't even say, "Would you like to play with a friend?"

00:45:07.600 | In fact, most of the games you buy, it is impossible if you had two controllers to play

00:45:15.200 | the game with your friends sitting next to them.

00:45:17.040 | The only way to play is online.

00:45:20.000 | It is impossible to sit next to your friend and play a game.

00:45:23.120 | There's precious few numbers of games that allow it.

00:45:26.720 | All of the systems are telling us, "Stay away.

00:45:29.920 | Stay away."

00:45:30.800 | One of the most important things you can do as a parent, how old are your kids?

00:45:34.240 | Two and four.

00:45:35.360 | Okay, so they're a little young, but not the four-year-olds getting up there, right?

00:45:39.360 | Teach them how to be friends.

00:45:41.280 | They're young right now, but once they start hitting those teenage years, when they start

00:45:48.640 | prioritizing, they start caring more about what their friends think than what they think,

00:45:52.560 | even when they start having play dates at 8, 9, 10, 11, right?

00:45:55.920 | Kids come over, take all the phones away, call the parents.

00:46:00.160 | I mean, you made the play date and you say, "Hey, listen, you're bringing your kid over

00:46:03.440 | at four o'clock on Thursday.

00:46:04.240 | Just so you know, I'm going to take all the kids' phones away.

00:46:06.560 | If you need anything, just call me.

00:46:08.720 | I'll get your kid.

00:46:10.560 | They're going to be at the house anyway."

00:46:12.080 | Teach the kids how to make friends.

00:46:13.440 | Teach the kids how to resolve conflict.

00:46:16.400 | Teach the kids how to say what they need to their friends emotionally.

00:46:19.040 | Teach them how to make friends.

00:46:21.920 | Do not take it for granted.

00:46:24.640 | It should be a basic human skill.

00:46:27.520 | And if we were living tens of thousands of years ago, it probably would be.

00:46:30.880 | But all of the distractions and dopamine and devices, it interrupts this machine.

00:46:37.120 | And so we don't know how to make friends.

00:46:39.040 | We've forgotten the skill.

00:46:40.400 | We have to teach our children how to make friends.

00:46:43.920 | And so a lot of these human skills are great at helping build a friendship.

00:46:47.680 | Any advice for that little middle gap there?

00:46:50.960 | You said there's no bowling leagues, right?

00:46:52.800 | Even if I had all the human skills in the world, if there's not a person to be friends with,

00:46:56.320 | that's tough.

00:46:56.960 | Is there a modern version of that?

00:47:00.080 | So if someone listening is like, "I don't have a lot of friends.

00:47:02.000 | Where should they go to use these skills?"

00:47:04.160 | So the best thing you can do is an act of service.

00:47:07.600 | And what I mean by that is help somebody who's struggling with the same thing as you, right?

00:47:12.400 | So when I wrote "Leaders Eat Last," I went and looked at Alcoholics Anonymous.

00:47:16.960 | Amazing organization, right?

00:47:18.880 | Alcoholics Anonymous has a 12-step program to help you beat your addiction.

00:47:23.120 | Most people will know the first step, admit you have a problem.

00:47:27.040 | "I don't have any friends.

00:47:28.880 | I don't know how to make friends."

00:47:29.760 | Okay, that's step one.

00:47:30.960 | But the magical thing about Alcoholics Anonymous and all of those 12-step programs is they

00:47:34.720 | know this.

00:47:35.520 | They have the data, which is if you master 11 steps but not the 12th, you're probably

00:47:39.280 | going to succumb to the disease.

00:47:40.800 | But if you master the 12th step, you're more likely to beat it.

00:47:43.200 | What's the 12th step?

00:47:44.400 | The 12th step is to help another alcoholic.

00:47:46.720 | Service.

00:47:47.920 | So don't worry about you.

00:47:50.160 | "I got it.

00:47:50.560 | You're struggling to make friends.

00:47:51.440 | You don't know how to make friends.

00:47:52.160 | I got it."

00:47:52.640 | Find somebody you know who's also struggling to make friends and wishes they could make

00:47:56.880 | friends and help them.

00:47:59.040 | And the act of service of helping them solve the problem that you're struggling with will

00:48:02.160 | solve your problem.

00:48:02.960 | And I've seen people starting to do these things.

00:48:07.280 | For example, they'll have a salon, old school salon, right?

00:48:11.040 | Going to have 10 people over for dinner.

00:48:13.200 | I only know two or three or four.

00:48:16.080 | And I'm going to ask them to invite someone who they think would enjoy the topic we're

00:48:21.360 | going to discuss.

00:48:22.000 | And sometimes it can be silly.

00:48:24.240 | And sometimes it can be intense.

00:48:26.160 | And you host a salon.

00:48:28.640 | And maybe you have a salon group where you each take turns.

00:48:32.720 | And everybody brings somebody new each time.

00:48:34.880 | So there's the core group.

00:48:35.840 | And maybe the group grows.

00:48:36.800 | Whatever, you can figure it out.

00:48:38.240 | Have a movie night.

00:48:39.520 | Dinner parties.

00:48:40.320 | All of these things are relatively simple.

00:48:43.280 | Pizza night, relatively inexpensive.

00:48:45.840 | You can make them as simple or as complicated as you want.

00:48:49.840 | But find a reason.

00:48:50.880 | And invite the people who...

00:48:53.840 | And be very clear.

00:48:55.200 | Be very clear why you're doing it.

00:48:56.320 | Like, "Look, I think we need to do better at making friends.

00:48:59.120 | I think we're not good at it.

00:49:01.040 | And so I'm going to start doing these things with the hope that we can meet new people.

00:49:05.840 | But more important, we can actually be better at doing it."

00:49:08.800 | And by the way, same with the kids.

00:49:10.240 | The rule is, phones go in the bowl by the front door.

00:49:14.400 | I do this little thing all the time.

00:49:16.720 | I'm going to show you, right?

00:49:17.680 | So here I am sitting with you on a podcast, right?

00:49:22.480 | And what if I was just like holding my phone?

00:49:24.880 | Not using it.

00:49:25.680 | Not answering it.

00:49:26.400 | Not texting.

00:49:27.040 | Nothing's buzzing.

00:49:28.480 | How does this make you feel?

00:49:29.440 | Not so great, right?

00:49:31.200 | And this is a totally artificial construction.

00:49:33.120 | And this is what happens.

00:49:34.640 | We go out with our friends and we hold our phones.

00:49:36.640 | Or we put it on the table.

00:49:37.680 | "Oh, let me be polite.

00:49:39.760 | Let me turn it upside down."

00:49:41.040 | Turning it upside down is not more polite.

00:49:42.400 | Because here's what happens.

00:49:43.120 | Here's what you do when you're out for dinner.

00:49:44.480 | Your phone's upside down.

00:49:45.440 | You go like this.

00:49:46.160 | Remember we talked about being present?

00:49:47.440 | That little thought that said, "Hmm, I wonder what's going on in the world.

00:49:53.040 | I wonder if there's other friends who are texting me.

00:49:55.680 | I wonder if something else is happening other than this conversation."

00:49:58.960 | Well, you know what I do?

00:49:59.680 | I put it in airplane mode.

00:50:01.200 | Because then I know nothing's coming in.

00:50:02.720 | So I'm not curious because I know nothing's coming in.

00:50:05.200 | And I put it away, out of sight, on a table, in a bag, in a jacket pocket, whatever.

00:50:09.840 | I get it away.

00:50:10.880 | Or I hand it to my friends and say, "Can you put this in your bag, please?"

00:50:13.040 | And if a friend puts their phone on the table,

00:50:15.920 | I'll be like, "Can you take your phone off the table, please?"

00:50:17.680 | Nobody's ever pushed back at me.

00:50:18.800 | They'll be like, "No!"

00:50:19.360 | Now, occasionally it's gonna be like, "Look, I'm waiting for a call."

00:50:22.640 | That's fine.

00:50:23.040 | There's always exceptions.

00:50:23.840 | No problem.

00:50:24.640 | Me too, sometimes.

00:50:25.360 | I'm like, "Hey, look, I'm really sorry.

00:50:26.480 | Just this one thing.

00:50:27.280 | But then I'll put it away."

00:50:28.160 | You know?

00:50:28.800 | That's okay.

00:50:29.520 | But I'll tell friends, "Hey, put it away.

00:50:31.440 | Let's be present."

00:50:32.240 | I feel like we started this conversation talking about your purpose

00:50:35.680 | and the thing that gets you out of bed.

00:50:37.120 | And I'm wondering if the energy you get from knowing that,

00:50:42.560 | which makes it even easier to get out of bed,

00:50:44.480 | does that help with all of this?

00:50:45.920 | How much of a prerequisite to try to improve your friendship,

00:50:50.000 | improve your life, improve your skills,

00:50:51.920 | is better if you know what your being is and what your purpose is?

00:50:57.040 | Great question.

00:50:57.840 | Um, I would venture to say yes.

00:51:01.280 | Because fundamentally, all purposes are acts of service.

00:51:04.160 | Right?

00:51:05.120 | Nobody has a purpose to be the richest person in the world.

00:51:08.640 | Like, that's not a purpose.

00:51:10.320 | And nobody's gonna go out of their way to help you achieve that.

00:51:14.000 | Right?

00:51:14.500 | A purpose, like we talked about with your friends,

00:51:18.640 | it's the thing you fill in others.

00:51:20.560 | And it's the way that you get fulfillment.

00:51:22.480 | So I like to give inspiration.

00:51:24.400 | I love to feel inspired.

00:51:25.760 | Right?

00:51:26.080 | The thing I give to the world is the thing I need the most.

00:51:28.240 | So yeah, I think that if you have a clear sense of purpose,

00:51:31.440 | it gives you a reason to get out of bed and be like,

00:51:33.120 | this is what I want to give to people.

00:51:34.960 | Whether they're my friends or whether they're strangers.

00:51:36.960 | I can do it for strangers through my work.

00:51:38.880 | I can do it for my friends through my acts of friendship.

00:51:42.560 | So yeah, I think having a clear sense of purpose

00:51:44.480 | absolutely amplifies that and gives you some clarity.

00:51:47.760 | Yes.

00:51:48.320 | And what can we do for anyone who's a parent

00:51:51.440 | in helping shape our children to, in any way?

00:51:55.440 | Or is that just a fool's errand?

00:51:57.360 | So there's data on this.

00:51:58.640 | Which is, you know, you have two kids,

00:52:04.320 | you raise them pretty much the same.

00:52:06.000 | They grow up really differently.

00:52:07.280 | And so what we've learned is like,

00:52:08.880 | as much as parents may try,

00:52:11.200 | your kids don't get all their values strictly from their parents.

00:52:15.360 | They get them from other places too.

00:52:18.160 | Right?

00:52:18.800 | But universally around the world,

00:52:20.240 | there's only two things that every single child

00:52:24.000 | learns exclusively from their parents.

00:52:25.920 | How to treat themselves and how to treat others.

00:52:29.760 | So teach them to love themselves

00:52:33.680 | and teach them to love others.

00:52:35.440 | Teach them to be there for their friends.

00:52:39.040 | Teach them to be there for their teachers.

00:52:40.640 | Teach them to be there for their bosses and their colleagues.

00:52:43.360 | And teach them to be there for each other if you have siblings.

00:52:47.040 | And teach them to look after themselves.

00:52:48.800 | You get those things right, the kids will be fine.

00:52:51.200 | And what about people who have these conversations with their friends

00:52:53.520 | and can't figure it out and they're still struggling?

00:52:55.360 | Go find the thing that resonates with you and do that.

00:52:57.840 | Like, you know, we're all a little different.

00:53:00.320 | I treat it like anything, which is if you want anything,

00:53:02.640 | you got to focus on it.

00:53:03.440 | You got to do the work, right?

00:53:04.880 | You want to get in shape?

00:53:05.600 | You got to work out every day.

00:53:07.200 | You want to eat healthy?

00:53:08.080 | You got to like eat broccoli and reduce the amount of sugar, right?

00:53:11.200 | Like, it's not like any of this stuff is difficult.

00:53:13.200 | Everybody knows everything you have to do.

00:53:14.800 | We just don't do it.

00:53:15.520 | And so friendships on the list.

00:53:18.560 | You said it yourself.

00:53:19.440 | You know, I want to fix them.

00:53:21.600 | But I know sometimes I have to listen.

00:53:23.040 | How did you know that?

00:53:24.160 | Probably because somebody yelled at you once.

00:53:25.600 | Can't you just damn listen?

00:53:26.720 | Stop fixing me.

00:53:27.440 | I mean, you know, because somebody told you.

00:53:29.760 | Or multiple people, yeah.

00:53:30.800 | Or multiple people, maybe everybody.

00:53:32.240 | Or the same person multiple times.

00:53:34.720 | Or the same person every time, exactly.

00:53:36.480 | Yes, that's one where I didn't want to go down the path of,

00:53:41.280 | oh, for each of these human skills,

00:53:42.880 | let's walk through the lessons on how to do them.

00:53:44.720 | There's probably a video you've made or a post you've made

00:53:47.280 | or an episode you've done.

00:53:48.400 | But there's one that I'll come back to,

00:53:49.680 | which is I feel like the constant criticism I get from my wife

00:53:52.720 | is like, I feel like you just don't have any EQ.

00:53:56.000 | Or when someone says that, I hear empathy.

00:53:58.560 | So I feel like that's a blind spot for me.

00:54:00.720 | Is there something I should be doing to get better

00:54:03.040 | other than just practicing listening?

00:54:04.960 | Yes, I mean, so first of all, if she keeps saying it

00:54:07.760 | and you are now aware of it,

00:54:10.880 | now you can't say it's a blind spot.

00:54:12.320 | Now you have to say, it's something I know,

00:54:13.840 | but I've chosen not to work on

00:54:15.440 | because that's actually more accurate.

00:54:16.880 | So your wife has higher EQ, it sounds like, than you do?

00:54:21.360 | Yeah, she's going to laugh when she hears this.

00:54:23.600 | Why don't you start by asking her, I want to do this.

00:54:26.000 | I need to do this for myself.

00:54:28.560 | I need to do this for you.

00:54:29.840 | I don't know where to start.

00:54:30.960 | How do you have empathy?

00:54:33.360 | How do you do it?

00:54:35.200 | Show me, teach me, guide me.

00:54:36.400 | Because I want to do it and I'll be totally honest with you,

00:54:39.200 | I'm stuck, I do not know.

00:54:40.960 | And she'll say, easy, here's how you can start.

00:54:43.760 | I guarantee she's got a good answer.

00:54:45.280 | And maybe she'll say, you're a shit listener.

00:54:48.240 | Okay, you can take a listening class.

00:54:50.480 | So like, if that's what she says, then go do that.

00:54:52.480 | That's a great question.

00:54:53.360 | There aren't enough.

00:54:54.400 | I only know it because I took one.

00:54:55.840 | I've taught them loosely before, but I really should make one.

00:54:58.640 | That's a good idea.

00:54:59.360 | You could also read a book about it.

00:55:00.320 | Like I said, read the book, the kid's book,

00:55:01.840 | How to Talk to Kids So Kids Will Listen to Listeners So Kids Will Talk.

00:55:03.920 | It's a bright yellow book, you can buy it on Amazon for like a dollar.

00:55:05.920 | I sold more of that book probably than anyone else.

00:55:09.440 | But like, it's a silly little book.

00:55:11.760 | It's easy to read.

00:55:12.240 | It's got a bunch of pictures, right?

00:55:13.280 | Like, start there.

00:55:16.320 | It's something that's really basic.

00:55:18.720 | So empathy is about grace.

00:55:21.600 | So here's a couple little tricks for empathy, right?

00:55:24.400 | Because we're judgmental.

00:55:26.080 | That's what we are.

00:55:26.880 | Well, most of us, right?

00:55:28.560 | Even the ones who aren't judgy are a little bit judgy, right?

00:55:31.840 | So here's what happens.

00:55:33.040 | Let's take a work scenario just to make it easy, right?

00:55:36.320 | This is very common, right?

00:55:39.040 | Sitting in a meeting, somebody's name comes up and somebody goes, oh, they're so lazy.

00:55:43.360 | Okay, now we have passed judgment and everybody's impression of them is now tainted by one person's

00:55:51.440 | judgment or opinion of them.

00:55:52.640 | Oh, death of the party, right?

00:55:56.480 | So what you have to do is interrupt that.

00:55:58.960 | Just requires one person to say, hold on, I'd like to interject.

00:56:03.040 | They may be lazy.

00:56:04.720 | It's true.

00:56:05.840 | Or they're tired.

00:56:08.480 | Or we have them in the wrong job.

00:56:10.480 | Or they've got a huge amount of stress going on.

00:56:13.280 | At home that we don't know about.

00:56:14.800 | Or they don't know, or they've got a bad boss.

00:56:18.400 | They've been given bad direction.

00:56:19.840 | You just go down the list of all the things that could be.

00:56:21.920 | Lazy's on the list.

00:56:22.880 | But the minute you realize that there's a bunch of things on the list, it gives grace.

00:56:28.160 | That's empathy.

00:56:29.680 | Okay?

00:56:31.280 | For example, he's an asshole.

00:56:33.120 | Or he's struggling.

00:56:36.080 | Or he's stuck.

00:56:37.680 | Or he's unsure.

00:56:39.200 | He might be an asshole.

00:56:40.880 | That might be the reason.

00:56:41.600 | Yeah.

00:56:42.400 | And it just gives grace.

00:56:43.600 | That's empathy.

00:56:44.960 | So when somebody's struggling at work, we say, hey, listen, your numbers are down for

00:56:49.600 | the third quarter in a row.

00:56:50.640 | We've had this conversation before.

00:56:52.880 | If you don't pick up your numbers in the fourth quarter, I don't know what's going to happen.

00:56:55.200 | Fairly normal scenario.

00:56:57.280 | Now let's replay that with empathy.

00:56:59.520 | Hey, your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row.

00:57:01.760 | We've had this conversation before.

00:57:04.080 | What's going on?

00:57:06.720 | I'm worried about you.

00:57:07.520 | That's empathy.

00:57:09.600 | It's not assuming.

00:57:11.040 | It's giving grace.

00:57:12.400 | It's assuming that there's something that we don't know about.

00:57:14.960 | That's all it is.

00:57:15.840 | Right?

00:57:16.640 | You know, we talk about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes.

00:57:18.800 | It's hard to do.

00:57:19.680 | I think that's true, but it oversimplifies it.

00:57:21.840 | And I think the easiest way to have empathy is just have grace, assume good, and add to

00:57:27.840 | that list of possibilities.

00:57:29.120 | And that's a good way to practice it.

00:57:32.160 | Super helpful.

00:57:32.800 | I'm going to ask my wife this question tonight.

00:57:34.320 | We'll see how it goes.

00:57:35.120 | It'll go well.

00:57:35.760 | You know why?

00:57:36.320 | Because if you're serious about wanting to take yourself on, and if you're serious about

00:57:40.640 | asking for advice to do it, it will go well.

00:57:42.960 | It's funny because as you describe empathy, I wonder if there's actually something my

00:57:46.400 | wife describes that I'm missing that's not that.

00:57:48.720 | Because in the workplace, in a lot of places, I kind of have that, I'm going to call it

00:57:52.160 | optimism because I know you like that word, but it's like, oh, well, maybe this other

00:57:54.880 | thing could be at play.

00:57:56.320 | Like seeing that someone that's not doing well or struggling or missing the boat could

00:58:01.280 | have another reason behind that, I feel like I'm actually pretty good at.

00:58:05.200 | But there's something that I'm obviously not good at because it gets brought up a lot.

00:58:08.880 | No, but I think you're also making the point, which is like, would you prioritize a meeting

00:58:13.040 | over a friend or prioritize a friend over a meeting?

00:58:15.040 | Anybody who cares about their leadership skills works on this stuff at work because they want

00:58:19.920 | work to go better.

00:58:20.800 | And we work on these human things because we know what teamwork is, and we know what

00:58:24.640 | camaraderie is and morale.

00:58:26.160 | We know all of these things, and we work hard to be good leaders so that we can boost morale

00:58:30.560 | in order to increase engagement, productivity, and innovation, blah, blah, blah.

00:58:34.800 | Like we do it.

00:58:36.480 | And then we turn it off and we come home.

00:58:38.320 | For years, girls I dated, friends, they'd say to me, "Simon, you are the worst listener."

00:58:43.680 | This was honestly my response.

00:58:44.880 | I'd be like, "Do you know what I do for a living?

00:58:47.680 | Like, what do you mean?

00:58:50.000 | I'm a phenomenal listener.

00:58:52.800 | Are you kidding me?"

00:58:55.040 | That would be my honest answer.

00:58:56.400 | Then I took the listening class, and I called up all of those friends one by one.

00:59:00.560 | I'd be like, "Hey, I just took a class, and I'm a shit listener."

00:59:06.320 | And they're like, "Newsflash."

00:59:08.240 | And I said, "I learned that I am a fantastic listener with people I will never see again

00:59:15.040 | for the rest of my life.

00:59:15.920 | But people who I love to read my life on a daily basis, terrible.

00:59:20.240 | So you might be brilliant at all of these things at work.

00:59:22.480 | The question is, can you bring them home?"

00:59:24.080 | It sounds like you made that change.

00:59:25.360 | So there's hope.

00:59:26.000 | I'm a work in progress.

00:59:27.200 | But yes, I did.

00:59:28.160 | And I think I'm proud to say that my friends would say of me now that I'm a much better

00:59:32.480 | listener.

00:59:33.120 | Well, my big action item is to go find a listening class, because I feel like that's

00:59:37.520 | something that I'm incredibly interested in.

00:59:39.360 | So thank you for sharing that.

00:59:40.480 | Where do we want to send people if they want to go check out everything you've been writing

00:59:43.520 | and talking about?

00:59:44.800 | All the usual places.

00:59:46.080 | The Instagram, the LinkedIn, YouTube.

00:59:48.880 | It's, you know, the bookshop.

00:59:51.840 | My rule is it's my job to find a way to get my message where people are, not tell them

00:59:58.160 | where I want them to go.

00:59:59.200 | So wherever you like to go, I'll try and be there.

01:00:01.600 | Love it.

01:00:02.740 | Thank you so much for doing this.

01:00:04.460 | You're welcome.

01:00:05.460 | Thanks, Chris.

The Secrets to Make Friends and Find Your Purpose with Simon Sinek

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