As you probably noticed, this month we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to unmistakablecreative.com/lifepurpose. Expand the way you work and think with "Claud" by Anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with a team, "Claud" is AI built for you. It's perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages, and solving complex problems. Plus, "Claud" is incredibly secure, trustworthy, and reliable, so you can focus on what matters. Curious? Visit "Claud.AI" and see how "Claud" can elevate your work. 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In spite of all our communication technology, no invention is as effective as the sound of the human voice. Even when the speaker is searching for the right words to say, that's because the human voice resonates differently from everything else in the world. This is the unmistakable creative podcast. Listen in on candid conversations with creative entrepreneurs and insanely interesting people. Good morning everybody. I hope you're having a fantastic Friday. This Friday we decided to do a little something different because Greg is a bit under the weather so there's no backstage episode but I wanted to give you guys a podcast and take you back to an episode that we actually had to pull down because of some sort of denial of service attack that we had. In this episode of the podcast, I catch up with somebody that a lot of you guys absolutely had requested and some of you didn't even get to finish listening to it. It's a conversation with Simon Sinek who talks to me all about finding your purpose. It's a fascinating chat. I hope you enjoy it and will return to our regularly scheduled program next Friday. Today's episode of the unmistakable creative is sponsored by cells. That's SELZ.com. If you're looking for a PayPal alternative to sell digital, physical products and services, check out cells. Cells allows you to add your products and sell from any site in minutes without any complicated setup or hassle and they recently added the ability to give your customers a pay what you want option. Many of the unmistakable creative listeners are already using the product and absolutely love it. Our other sponsor for today's show is FreshBooks, the simple online accounting solution for the small business owners just like you who want to skip the headaches of tax time. No more hunting receipts, digging through invoices or going through records one at a time. When I started working as a freelancer, my process for invoicing clients was disorganized, manual and messy. Then I discovered FreshBooks. I tried it once and I was absolutely hooked. With the click of a button, I could generate invoices and send it right to my clients without having to track a million different attachments and documents and it allowed me to keep track of exactly how much revenue I was generating all in one place. If you're invoicing clients on a regular basis, FreshBooks saves you time and helps you get paid faster. It's kind of a no-brainer. For a limited time, you can try it completely free for 60 whole days, that's two months to try it and see just how much more efficient it will make your whole process for invoicing clients. Visit GetFreshBooks.com and make sure you enter the unmistakable creative in the "How Did You Hear About a" section and remember when you support our sponsors, you support our show. How's it going, Simon? Very well, thanks. How are you? Great. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. You're welcome. I like being called an instigator. Well, you know, it's funny. The reason I brought that up is I have numerous times had this question of, you know, how do you find your why? And I said, you know, we effectively can blame Simon Sinek for all of this and at some point we're going to get him here on the show to finally get this issue resolved. So I'm really glad you're here. Thank you. Nice to be here. Yeah. So Simon, I want to ask you my very first question, which I usually ask everybody. And that is, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background and how that eventually led to you doing the work that you do and the work that we know you're for today? Sure. I mean, I wake up every single day inspired to sort of inspire people to do what inspires them. There's a lot of inspires in there. You know, I believe in a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single day inspired to go to work and return home every single day fulfilled by the work that they do. And this is what I've committed my life to and all my work to. It wasn't always that way, however. You know, I reached a point in my light a few years ago where I couldn't articulate why I was getting out of bed in the morning and I was, you know, my story is the same as many other people. I thought success was defined by my bank account and how big my business would build and I had all of these stresses and even though all superficial standards said that I should have been happy, I made my, you know, I had my own business, I made a decent living. I didn't feel it waking up in the morning. And it was this loss of passion that set me on this new path. I made this discovery of this thing called the why and realized that if my life was to be in balance, I knew what I did and I knew how I did it, but I didn't know why. And so I became obsessed with it. I literally stopped talking about what I do and always started talking about what I believe. You know, when you make some, when you, when you discover something beautiful, you share it with people you love. That's what I did. I shared it with my friends and my friends invited me to share with their friends and invited me to, you know, and then the invitations kept coming and I just kept saying yes. So the growth of this and where I find myself in my life today has been completely organic. So a lot of, a lot of questions come from that for me, you know, especially given that, you know, what we're going through as a society is that, you know, we're experiencing career transitions like never before, we're seeing tremendous amount of career uncertainty. You know, I had Sean Acre here and he said job dissatisfaction is at an all time high. And you know, one of the things you said is that the, you want to, you envision a world where the vast majority of people wake up inspired to do what they do. And I don't think that we're quite at that point yet. I think there's a huge gap between where you want the world to be and where it currently is. And I'm, you know, wondering what can people do to start bridging that gap in their own lives and in their own work? Well, you know, we found ourselves in a place where we've accidentally created this problem. You know, and if you, if you, you know, the world is filled with danger, right, if you go back to caveman times, there are any number of things that we're trying to kill you. Nothing personal, but they were, you know, whether it was the weather or lack of resources or say Bluetooth tiger, nothing personal, but all of these things trying to kill you. And so we evolved into these social animals and realized that our survival had a better chance if we cooperated, you know, there's inherent value in living amongst a tribe of people we trust and love, which means I can fall asleep at night and trust that someone else will watch for danger. If we don't trust each other, then we can't fall asleep at night. So there's, there's inherent value in being together. Well, that hasn't changed, although our biology hasn't changed in 50,000 years, the thing that has changed is our environment, but the dangers are still there in a business environment. You know, there is still dangers outside, you know, the ups and downs and uncertainty of the stock market and our economy, a new emerging tech, emerging technology that might render a business model obsolete overnight. Your competition that sometimes is trying to kill you, but it's very often trying to steal your business or frustrate your growth, you know, nothing personal, but all of these things are out there trying to do, trying to, you know, frustrate growth and survival. And so once again, the only way in which we can take it all on is if we cooperate, and quite accidentally, most of the cultures in America, most of the corporate cultures have created environments which do not foster trust and cooperation. That's the problem. If you look at the best functioning organizations, the most innovative organizations, every single one of them, their cultures eerily harken back to this time 50,000 years ago. And if you create an environment in which you make people feel safe, in other words, if we don't fear our leaders, if we don't fear our colleagues, if we don't fear that we're going to lose our jobs, if the company simply doesn't make its numbers, if we don't fear that if we make mistakes, you know, we're going to, we might be at risk, if we don't have to fear the dangers inside our company. What starts to happen is we naturally cooperate, trust each other, work together to face the dangers outside the company and seize the opportunities. Unfortunately, too many, too many people work in companies where that's not the case. And so we have to, we're forced to invest more of our time and energy to protect ourselves and the dangers inside, which ultimately makes the whole organization more susceptible to the dangers outside. So now to answer your question, what can we do? We, I get this question a lot, like I'm only in middle management, you know, my CEO would rather save the number and sacrifice the people rather than sacrifice the number than save the people. What do I do? Well, believe it or not, you don't worry about them, you ignore them. You worry about the people right next to you. The people whose names you know, whose faces you recognize, the people you talk to every day and you commit yourself to service, you commit yourself to looking after the people around you and hoping that they will feel safe. And the safer we make the people around us feel, that we would do something, you know, we would help them when they need it, not just ask them, but get up from our chair and go help them. That we would maybe even give a credit to ensure that they get credit for what they deserve as opposed to stealing credit, you know, little things like that, the more we work to make those around us feel that they're safe, the more that they will commit to do the same for us. And so really, the sea change begins with us. It begins with the risks that we have to take and the sacrifices that we need to make to look after those around us. So a lot of stuff there, but I want to go back to something else that you said earlier, you know, that you kind of woke up one day and you realized that you weren't passionate or you didn't really, you weren't really clear on sort of your why. And sometimes I think that we sleep walk through life, I know I did. And I'm curious, you know, one of the things, and this is a really weird question I realized is, how do you know that you've reached that point, that breaking point or that moment when something has to change or how do you know you're headed towards sort of a dangerous breakdown where something is going to have to change? I mean, you know, everybody knows how they feel. You know, we mistake the highs of winning a piece of business or we mistake the highs of an exciting event at work with being fulfilled and happy with our work. You know, the question is, do you want to wake up and do it all over again? And do you feel like you belong wherever you work? And if the answer is no, then something's wrong. And everybody knows when it's uncomfortable and we have a choice. We can either make a change now, change the way we do things, or we wait until the depression or the collapse or, you know, the watershed event of which we have no control over and then it'll be forced upon us. But it will happen. The collapse always happens. You know, imbalance cannot last very long. And whether it's the destruction of our relationships, the destruction of our egos, whether it's, you know, our sense of self-confidence, our sense of vulnerability, our own fear, our own ability to solve problems or invent new things, you know, it'll eventually collapse. So we can choose to take the risk now, we can choose to wait to have it thrust upon us. Well, you know, it's interesting to bring that up. I had Eric Wall, who's a graffiti artist here, and I remember one very, one part of our conversation very distinctly when he said, you know, there's this quote by Sir Ron Kierkegaard that all change is preceded by crisis, even though we'd like that not to be true. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Well, I don't necessarily think that's true, but if you don't make change to a... I mean, it's not an easy thing to prove, right, because if you make a change before the crisis, then the crisis will be averted. You know, it's when you don't make, it's when you refuse to make the change that yes, that crisis will enforce the change. You know, we like to think we're in control of our lives, and we are to some degree, but like I said, there are outside factors that we have no control over that have an impact on us. And sometimes those outside factors are as simple as our bosses, you know, or the organization's leadership itself. Yeah, I mean, crisis is pretty good at forcing change. That doesn't mean change is always good, but, you know, we react to crisis, you know, and sometimes reaction is not the thing you need. You know, if somebody comes up to you and, you know, everybody's had the situation where you're driving in a car, minding your own business, and some guy sort of cuts you off and then curses you out. Now, we, what we tend to do is curse them back, right? Well, that's because we reacted to whatever mini crisis it was. As opposed to thinking to ourselves, hold on, I don't need to waste the energy. It's only going to escalate the problem. I think I'm just going to say nothing or just maybe put my hand up and say, sorry, even though it wasn't my fault, just to just to deescalate, right? But we don't do that. So, you know, I guess the problem with waiting for crisis is the reaction isn't necessarily a constructive one. So, you know, I want to ask you about one other thing that you said, you know, you talked about sort of concepts of creating trust, cooperation, safety, and helping those around us. Yeah. And we're talking about it in the context of our working lives or organization, and a lot of people listening to this are creative entrepreneurs or solo entrepreneurs are doing things in the online world. And what I'm curious about is how we connect those concepts to the work that we do online and create that kind of environment for the tribe that we're building and let that play out in our messaging, our branding, our products, our services, and everything that we do. Well, it's still the same. I mean, an online community is still a community. And although there's a lot of virtualness to it, there's an sort of sort of artifice to it, it obeys some of the rules of all normal communities. In other words, you still have to serve the community, right? If you try and take advantage of the community, the community will leave you. I mean, we've seen this played out a number of times, you know, Rupert Murdoch bought Myspace and tried to use it as a platform to sell other products of newscorp. In other words, he saw dollar signs in these people. So instead of serving them, he tried to take from them and look what happened to Myspace. You know, it's a shadow, but it's former self, you know? So whenever an organization sees an online community as something of a, you know, they think it's fish in a barrel that can be profited of, the success will be short-lived, if at all. So you still have to serve the community. It still has to be about them. So let's go back to one other thing that you said, you know, after you reached this point where it became very clear, you know, one of the things you said is that you redefined what success looked like for you. Yeah. And I want to dig into this process in a bit more detail because one of the things I think we do is we hear that and it sounds sexy and we think we're redefining success. But what we're doing is we're taking somebody like Chris Gillabow's definition of success and saying, okay, well, now that's my definition of success. And then we become disillusioned with it. So I'm curious, you know, with your guiding people on sitting down and really evaluating their life and redefining what success looks like for them, truly for them, not based on what somebody else thinks, their parents or somebody who is an online celebrity thinks, how do you do that and how did your previous background and career sort of influence and shape your views around all of this? Well, there are objective standards to this stuff, you know, which is success is defined by the thing that makes you feel safe and happy, right? Like when you feel calm and you don't feel threats, you know, you feel good, you know, you feel like you could do this and you don't feel the pressures that you are successful. And the way that happens is with strong relationships, you know, money comes and goes, famous, fleeting, the only thing that lasts are the relationships we have. We live in a very materialistic society that chooses to find success based on numbers alone. And that is one kind of success. But I very often met very, very rich people who are not happy. And people say, and I say, well, you know, how great is it if they're not happy? And somebody will always say, well, they seem to be doing something right as if being rich and unhappy is right. But like if you had $50,000 a year salary and you were very happy, then you'd be doing something wrong, you know? So the fact of the matter is there are objective sort of anthropological standards to this, which is always defined by the quality of our relationships. And so if you can maintain strong relationships where you're committed to others and they're committed to you and you would sacrifice to see them succeed and they would sacrifice to see you succeed, then go up and make as much money, fame, fortune as you want. There's a stable foundation. But to do it in the other order is it doesn't feel successful after a while. I can concur. I can tell you that, you know, I mean, I have struggled at times to make money, but the most fulfilling part of what I've gotten to do in building an online community is hands down the relationships. And I look at that and I always, you know, I say, you know what, you can't take your numbers or your metrics or with you, but your friendships, they last forever, your relationships, they last like long beyond. Maybe my show won't be here for 10 years from now, but the people I've met will still be. Without it out. And I mean, and for anybody who sort of questions this working definition, then I would ask them this, you know, what do you want on your tombstone? You know, do you want on your tombstone, the number, the last number that was in your bank account? Do you want on your tombstone, the number of sort of, you know, the JD Powers Awards you got or, you know, do you want on your tombstone that you're an Inc 5000 company? You know, or do you want on your tombstone, you know, what do you, we always want on our tombstone what, what, what, what we did for others. He gave, he believed, he loved, you know, he served, you know, we want on our tombstones the way others will remember us. And so why not, why not use our careers and use our businesses to, to start to create, to create that? Because this is what midlife crises are and this is what happens, you know, people wake up later in life and they go, oh shit, now I have less time to do that. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, you know, so we got to this point where you've redefined things. You've discovered how important this message is to you and you said that it kind of grew organically and I'm not going to let you off the hook that easily because I don't do that to anybody. I want to start digging into, into this in a bit more detail because a lot of people might hear that and say, you know, Simon woke up one day, had a religious experience in the next, you know, he's a New York Times best-selling author. But you and I both know there's a lot more that goes into that. So talk to me about the evolution of Simon Sinek as we know him as the guy who came up with the start with Y concept. I mean, from, you know, sort of passing it on to your first friends, I mean, the way I was thinking about it when you were describing it is I'm a surfer, so I can relate everything to that. I was thinking about it as writing a wave and adjusting to what the wave is doing as you went along and got feedback and I'd love for you to dissect that in a bit more detail. You know, the, so I'll equate it, I'll equate it to speaking, right? So people ask me, how did I get good at speaking? And one of the, one of the things that I've learned is that when I, when I show up to take, it doesn't go very well. But when I show up to give, it's entirely different. And if you look at a lot of speakers who stand on a stage, you know, they can't resist at the end, you know, saying, if you want more, please visit my website or if you want to buy my product or here, please follow me on Twitter or, you know, there's a, at the whole time there's their name and website behind them. And I learned to, to let go of that. I don't want anything from anybody in an audience. I don't want them to, I'm not showing up to, to get them to buy a book or watch a TED talk or follow me on Twitter, you know, I'm, I'm there to give, I'm there to share. And the amazing thing is those, the rapport that you can create with someone when you have that disposition is dramatic. And so I, that's sort of been a guiding principle for me in a lot of the things that I've done. And, and when I say it's organic, what I mean is there was no fancy marketing plan behind it. And there, you know, I didn't hire anybody in Bangladesh to like my book on Amazon, you know, there's no, there's no tricks, there's no gimmicks, you know, the reason that my book sold or that, that people saw the TED talk is because other people talked about it because other people recommended it. And the reason that happened is because the ideas that I tried to present and try to share, I genuinely believe in, I had to suffer to learn them and I don't think, I don't want anybody to, to have to go through what I went through because it was awful, you know, it was like sort of depression and, and if I can share those ideas in a simple and compelling way that you don't have to go through what I went through, then all the better. And that's why those ideas are resonant. And if somebody believes in them and wants to share them with a friend who believes would find them inspiring and then they share them, there's, that's the reason. And so I hate to cop out of the answer, but the reason it spread was not because of me. The reason it spread was because of the generosity of others. Well, I, you know, I can tell you firsthand, any success I've had, I, you know, I wrote a book recently called The Smarmy Strategy and I can tell you that entirely was based on the, the generosity of others, the success of it. There's no question in my mind that it was, I sent it to 20 people and they sent it to a lot more people. Yeah. And if you show up to take, you know, if you show up to, you know, sell books, sell books, sell books, then you're, there's a, there's a push and people resistant to push because it makes them feel pressured and it doesn't make them feel safe, where when there's a sort of a little more of a sort of selfless approach, it's a non threatening and it allows people to embrace the idea rather than reject the person. Well, let me ask you this, you know, I think that some people are going to hear that and one of the thoughts that will probably come to mind is say, okay, well, Trini and Simon, it's easy for you guys to talk about generosity when you have achieved some level of success. And this is very counterintuitive. I think it's a radical mindset shift and it's one that took me a long time to make and to really understand that, you know, you get back what you give more than you could possibly imagine. But it's very, it's a weird sort of thing when you're, when you're starting out or there's nothing there and it feels like you're, you don't have anything to give. Yet for the fact that I've been doing it for many more years, you know, than I have now. So yes, the cynic would say of me, well, also we'll find it good for you, Simon, you can afford to do that. Well, I've been doing it long before that. I do, I did it when I couldn't afford it. I would remember looking at my business bank account, we had $10,000 in the bank account. You know, we would be lucky to be able to make payroll and pay our expenses the next month. And this went on for a very long time, many years, and we would have people offer us money, but they were bad fits, and we would take a deep breath and say, it's not right. We can't do it. We have to say no. And so it sucked. And it was hard, but I made the decision a long time ago that I would rather work with people who can help me advance this, this, you know, this idea of spreading this cause and make less money than, than take the money, but be really unhappy, be bossed around by some, some client that I, that I sort of have made myself dependent on is like an unhealthy dependent relationship, right? And eventually, it paid off. I still do it to this day, meaning I could probably make more money than I do. I think people think I'm richer than I am, but, but like I said, for me, the importance is, is to work with people that inspire me, as much as, as much as I'm willing to pay. You know, I hadn't, I had an experience when I went to Afghanistan with the Air Force that profoundly underscored that, you know, I mean, I'll give you the short version, but I went there in August of 2011, and sort of everything went wrong, and I found myself stuck there without a flight to get home. And I never told my parents that I was going because I didn't want them to worry. And I was there with two other officers who were looking after me, and, you know, we were stuck there and didn't know how we were going to get out of the country because there were no more flights. And I remember just sort of getting depressed and regretting it, saying yes to this trip and didn't want to wish I wasn't there, and became paranoid because the base came under a rocket attack the night before, and I was convinced there was going to be another one that was going to land on me, and it just was a really sort of uncomfortable, bad, sort of really depressing experience. And I gave up. I was like, well, if I'm going to get stuck here, I might as well make myself useful. So I'll volunteer to speak if they want me to, I'll volunteer to carry boxes, sweep floors, whatever. And as soon as I made that decision to serve others, to serve those who serve others, I felt fine. I felt relaxed. I felt calm. I even felt excited. It was the strangest thing. And at that moment, when I'd come to that realization, one of the officers I was traveling with comes back to the room, the door flies open, and he says, there's a flight that's been redirected. We've got to go. We've got to go. We've got to go. We've got to go now. So we grab our stuff. We rush out. We grab the other officers with us, and the three of us rush out to the flight line. And just as we get to the flight line, the security court in comes down, we're not allowed to the plane because there's a fallen soldier's ceremony. And out of respect, when that happens, everything stops out of respect. And so we waited, and finally, the security court went up, and we got on the plane. We would be the only three passengers aboard this plane, in addition to the crew, obviously. And the reason the plane was redirected is because we would be carrying home the soldier for whom they had the fallen soldier ceremony. So I flew on the flight for nine and a half hours with a flag-draped casket. And I lay there, because it was an overnight flight, we all sort of pulled our sleeping bags out and found a place to sleep on the floor of the cargo plane. And I lay there, I'm staring at this flag-draped casket. And I realized that this guy knew a lot more about service than I ever did, and I ever will. And it was a great honor. It was a great, great honor, I got to tell you. But when I got home, I remember being really short-tempered more often. I couldn't understand why I was really, you know, and something would go wrong and go off the handle. And I couldn't figure out why. And I realized that I would also do other things, like maybe I'd go speak on a military base or go do something with a sort of really forward-thinking company. And I had tons of energy. And if anything went wrong, I'd be totally relaxed. And I started to realize that when I worked with people who believed and looking after other people, I had endless amounts of energy and enjoyed myself. And when I worked with people who only wanted me so they could, you know, drive the bottom line and nothing else, even at the expense of other people, literally my buddy had a visceral sort of reaction to it where I got angry and upset and I didn't want to be there. And as soon as I realized what the pattern was, I stopped saying yes to those things and I don't get angry as much and I'm a happier person for it. So this idea of serving those who serve others is core. And there's biological and anthropological underpinnings for this stuff. You know, this stuff's not really my opinion. And this is core to the survival and thriving of the human animal, which is we're constantly looking to build relationships that can help and protect us, protect our families, and help us advance ourselves. And when we fear for our careers, simply because the company didn't make its numbers, why would we ever commit to giving anything more than the basics to our companies? It just doesn't happen. And in the online community of solo-preneurs, it's the same thing. It's very hard to be a solo-preneur because you're by yourself. But at the end of the day, it's the relationships, it's community that helps us survive. That's why what you do is important because there are other people who tune in and, you know, if they get to meet each other, you know, it's even better. But, you know, I don't believe in solo-preneurship. I think it's a fool's game. Sure you can make some money and sure you can sort of give me the sales pitch of I get to be my own boss. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I get it. But those days where things go wrong and you buy yourself, it's awful. It's horrible. It's depressing. It's sad. It's heart-wrenching. The energy that it is required to keep going at it when you don't think you can do it. And that's why partnership is important. To have someone close to you goes, "No, I believe in you. Let's do this. We can do this together." To have each other, to get through the hard things or to have a small team, but at least two people. And if you don't have that, really the burden of responsibility goes up to form a community of solopreneurs who can get together on a regular basis and be that support group to each other. I mean, think about every single crisis that ever happens in the world, every addiction that ever happens in the world. How do you beat it? There's some sort of community, there's some sort of help group, there's some sort of, you know, it's always human beings and human relationships that help us solve our problems because when we don't believe we can, but someone else does believe we can, it empowers us like nobody's business. And likewise we get the satisfaction of getting to tell somebody else, "I believe in you and I got your back." It's everything. All right, everybody, let's take a quick break and thank today's sponsor. As Greg and I have mentioned to you on previous blogcast FM backstage episodes, it's not enough just to bring money into your business. You have to learn how to put that money to work for you. Do you know whether you're making the right financial decisions? Well, our sponsor for today, LearnVest, has come up with a really innovative approach to help you make progress on your money. They've been featured in publications like LifeHacker, Forbes, the New York Times, and TechCrunch. And when you join LearnVest, you'll get unlimited access to money tips and lessons. You'll get access to their award-winning online money center, which is also available as an iPhone app, and you can connect your accounts, set up a budget, and track progress against your financial goals. 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People like you who are willing to come and talk to me even if there might not be anything in it for them, you know, or it might not be anything in it for you. As you were talking about this whole story, it reminded me of a conversation I was having with a friend at lunch the other day. She said, "It makes complete sense why you do this." She said, "Your deepest need is that you crave connection with people and there's nothing better for you to do than to do this because you get it every single day when you do it." Correct, and don't pay me so much credit. It's not so, you know, there's nothing in it for you. Of course, there's something in it for me. As much as it may appear altruistic, there's something deeply selfish going on here as well, which is I have an ideal, which I articulated before, of a world that I imagine that I'm committed to helping to build, and my role in that, because it's a jigsaw puzzle, right? There's a big jigsaw puzzle, and as you know, whenever you do a jigsaw puzzle, the first thing you do is you lean the box up against something, and you have to look at the picture while you build the jigsaw puzzle, where we all represent a piece of the picture, each one of us, and my piece of the puzzle is to get everybody to keep looking at the picture. So we don't walk around aimlessly holding our puzzle pieces, you know, not sure where they fit, but my job, I'm the preacher. My job is to keep reminding people what the picture looks like, so if you have a piece of the puzzle that can help build that picture, then let's build this world together, and each of us, each of us, have a role to help build that. Some people, you know, run companies where they get to literally inspire the people who show up to work every day and build an environment in which trust and cooperation will survive. That's their role. Some people are in, you know, building online communities where they have committed themselves to serving these people online, or some of these people are sort of the big brothers of the other solo printers. They may not be the most successful solo printer, but my goodness, they're the backbone for all the other successful ones. Like we each have a role. My role is to keep articulating and describing the picture on the box so that we can build it. That's my job. And so the selfish drive for me to do something like this is you have a lot of people who can help build this world that I imagine, and if I can articulate it in terms clear and compelling enough, maybe they'll help build it. Totally selfish. Mm-hmm. I love this. It's genius. So I don't even want to touch it, but I think that it makes the perfect setup to finally get to the bottom of why you're here. Like I said, I blame you for all of this, and I've blamed you for this for a very long time. I said, finally, we're going to get to talk to Simon Sinek today and get to this question of why we do what we do. And you know, it's interesting because you kind of talked about it, but what I want to do is get into a tactical framework, because I've asked this question to so many people, Simon, and I figured, you know, you're the root of it, for sure. And it seems like once people have it figured out, something dramatic happens in their life. And the closer I get to it, the more I feel like my life is changing for the better. So what I'm curious about is how you discovered it in your own journey and sort of providing this with a framework for how we can figure out why we do what we do. It's a pattern, right? If you look at the jobs you've loved the most in your life, the times you've been your happiest when you've absolutely loved what you've been a part of, if you go throughout your life, the patterns that you will find is consistent, which is there's always a reason, there's something behind, even though the work may not have been easy, but the thing that fulfilled you was always the same. We're all different. And so there's many ways to do that. You can literally sit down and go through your whole life and articulate the best things you've ever done, the things you've loved, and you'll find that pattern. And this is what we do. We have this, you know, this is what we do when I sort of do why discoveries with people. But if you want, I can show you, I can take you through like a quick version of it. That would be fantastic. Thank you. For you and your listeners to hear it. So why don't you tell me of all the things you've done in your career, tell me a project you worked on or something you did, even if it wasn't commercially successful, that you absolutely loved being a part of it. Every project you could do is just like this one, you'd be the happiest person alive. I'm doing it right now. Tell me something, I want to know something specific. As for like, so running vlog test FM and building this show has hands down been the most fulfilling thing I've done to date. Okay, so what specifically is it about this? That is something that you love so much. I love the fact that I get to connect with people. I love the fact that my relationships, I'll tell you what it is. Somebody asked me once, so what is it that draws you to people so much? I said the idea that there would be a point in my life in which I stopped making friends absolutely terrified me. And somebody asked me about college, you know, college is not the only place to get drunk and get laid, although it's a damn good place to do both. But the idea that I would have no social outlet, the moment I left an environment that was naturally conducive to it was one of the most terrifying things to me, which is why I love this because my connection to human beings and the group of people I know continually expands, like I thought the idea that we stopped making friends and adult life was ridiculous. I was like, why would anybody say you have enough friends? So, give me a specific example of you doing the show that helps me understand that idea. So, give me a somebody you may have met or a friendship you may have formed, like give me a specific example. Well, I'll give you a – so, actually, this is coincidentally the day the show launched, I met a woman named Maria Brophy who ended up having a very profound impact on my life. I met her at Seth Godin's event when Lynchpin came out in Orange County, and, you know, I'd literally – the show had started that day. She appeared as a guest probably a year later. And when I moved to Costa Rica in 2011, because she and her husband are both surfers and her husband is an avid surfer, I said, hey, I'm moving to Costa Rica, I'm selling everything I own, she ended up setting me up with a free place to live. I mean, she's always been one of those people that I kind of fall back on and count on when things have gotten rough, she's always provided guidance in very difficult times. So that's the most specific example I could think of. So – and how did that relationship form? We met at a networking event in Orange County when Seth Godin was speaking about Lynchpin, and I just formed – literally, a just-launched vlogcast FM that morning. And what was it about – what was it about her? Like, what did you talk about that made it – that made you connect with her? Well, there was – the common bond of surfing was definitely the one thing that we had. I mean, her husband is actually a real – you know, I thought I was like a big time surfer at the time, and then she showed me pictures of her husband surfing the bonsai pipeline, which is like 60-foot waves, and he's just like a hardcore big wave surfer. Got it. Got it. Okay. Tell me your earliest specific happy childhood memory. Wow. Not like – we went to the – you know, the fun – the park every Thursday, you know, like specific, something that you can – you can describe, and I can relive the memory with you. Hey there. Looking to level up your shopping experience? Let me introduce you to Amazon Live. If you haven't heard, it's a shoppable video experience where influencers and creators showcase the latest must-haves all while you shop in real time. And for those who love some celeb gossip, reality stars like Kyle Richards, Lala Kent, and friend of the pod, Paige Disorbo. 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All that and a whole lot more, it's called Got Your Answers, it's available anywhere you get your books right now. You know, I guess it happened as late as junior high. I played the tuba for 13 years, and I was never good at certain things. I was never good at sports. I was never a standout in any way at all, in any of the things I did, and the day I picked up the instrument, I remember the band director distinctly telling me, he said, "You're going to be really, really good. Someday you're going to be an all-state band," and I didn't even know what that meant, but it set a context from that point forward that everything I did fell under that, and eventually I did make all-state band, but I guess the idea of being that good at something to be a standout drove me in a lot of ways. And so, okay, and so you see the pattern between the two stories, right? Kind of. It's about finding the one thing that you're good at, right? Yeah. And it's that one thing that you can find that you're good at, that if you make it yours, if you find somebody else who's good at the same thing, you'll form the relationship because you're not trying to be good at everything, you're not trying to be good at the things that other people are good at, you're trying to be good at the thing that you're good at. And sometimes you discover it easily, and sometimes it takes a little more effort, it's a little harder, but in your case, you were lucky enough to stumble upon it in what did you say, junior high, in junior high, probably because somebody took you under their wing and said, "You should try this." And so, it's all about finding the thing that you're good at, especially if it's something unusual, surfing is not a common thing, playing the tuba is not a common thing. And so, when you find other people who are good at these unusual things, a bundle form, how does that feel so far? It's interesting you say that because somebody asked me, what is it? I always look for common threads between the people who are on the show, and you know what? They're people who are good at unusual things. They're artists, they're misfits, they're instigators, they're ordinary people who do extraordinary things. They're common thread. There you go. And you are enamored by them because they have found the one thing that they're good at that they have focused on and made a career out of or built a business out of or whatever they've chosen to do with it, but become experts, become whatever, fishinatos, but they found this one thing that they've loved. And I'm hesitant to call it find your passion because it's sort of that very unactionable. But it's an unfortunately, it's a bit of a trial and error game, you know? You kind of have to try stuff, and you have to be open-minded and willing to try stuff before you will find that one thing that for some reason, who knows why? Who knows why you took to the tuba, and who knows why you took to surfing, you know? But it's finding that one thing, and it happened to me, you know? I find that one thing that sort of suits me, you know, this want and desire to preach about a better world. I mean, it kind of suits me. You know? I kind of like it. I love it. You know? And I focus on it, and I would do it as much as I can, why? Because I like it, and I love it. And people who want to talk to me or draw to me is because I'm good at my one thing, just like people who want to talk to you are good at the one thing. And I'm going to guess that a lot of what you talk about in your show is going to be about, you know, these one things that they've found, and they've built upon it. They built something upon it. And they forced themselves to try and play the game by everybody else's rule. And if everybody else said, "You have to do it this way," but it didn't feel right to them, they didn't do it. And it's the courage, it's the courage that you preach, the courage not to do things the way everybody else says, just because it worked for them. It's the courage to find the thing that works for you, and then do that. Amazing. So that's where your Y lives. Your Y lives to inspire people or encourage people or help people to find that one thing, to help them find that one thing, then inspires them to make them stand out from everybody else, and then encourage them to keep doing it even if it's unpopular with others, because the tuba is not popular with others. I can tell you that from my parents' reaction to my admission to the USC School of Music, which I declined to attend. So that's your Y. And everything you do should be designed to help people find that one thing. I love it. It's interesting. Now that you've said it, I can see those threads in the event that we're planning. I mean, the instigator experience, I mean, it's about people bringing their bold ideas to life. There you go. And it's funny, I would have never made the connection between tuba playing, surfing, and doing this show. I mean, surfing and doing this show, I would have, but the tuba playing part, I would have never guessed. There you go. So let me ask you this. Let's say we were going to, you've done this for me. Let's say we extract it down to kind of a framework that people can apply to what they're doing in their life. How would you boil it down if we were to give them sort of the five-steps, Simon Sinex, five-step guide to finding your Y? Well, I mean, like I said, you want to find more data points. The only reason I'm good at it with a few data points is because I'm practiced and I've done it a lot. And so you can do the exact same experience with, you know, with, you can go through the periods of your life, junior high school, high school, early career, mid-career, current time, you know, whatever it is, and do the exact same thing, the exact same set of questions over and over it. I mean, this is what we do in our Y university, you know, which is we have this online, we have this online tool that one of the people of my team said, Hey, Simon, you should be sharing this with more people. And so God bless her. She built it. And it's this online university that guides people through the process to find these points in their life and guide them through the process of finding, you know, finding, being able to identify that pattern. But you know, you can do it yourselves as well, you know, whether you, you know, whether you do something like a formal course or not. So let me ask you one other thing. I don't know if you, you picked up on this. Did you notice that none of the things you mentioned were ever career related? Like I could have, because when you'd asked about jobs, I was about to tell you, I hated every single job I've ever had with the exception of one. Well, I mean, that's, that's just the way it worked out. I mean, for some people, you know, they may have found something in their careers that, that inspired them, but, you know, not in your case. Well, let's do this. Let's shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about a few more things, and I will come back to the book, but you know, you brought up something earlier about certain, so now that we've got some clarity around this why, you know, it seems like this should be the filter for every choice I make almost. When it comes to who I want to work with, the kind of products I build, the way my language comes across and my vision, and you brought up that whole story about this visceral feeling and the way you evaluate clients. And I'm wondering, you know, are there, are there criteria that you use to determine whether somebody is in line with, you know, your message and your mission, and how people can develop their own when they do it when they work with you? It's not so much that they're in line with mine is that we share the same. Right. I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, it's like, if I asked you to write an online profile for who you want to marry, and do you have any deal breakers, you're going to be like, yeah, there are a couple of deal breakers, you know, I've written them already. Yeah, like, you know, a heroin addict would be a deal breaker, you know. And it's the same thing. It's not as complicated as we make it sound, which is, you know, what are the deal breakers? What are the people that, you know, if you work with them, it'll either make you uncomfortable or it really will distract you from doing this one thing that you really get tremendous joy out of, and in my case, I am absolutely viscerally drawn to people who believe in putting people before numbers, and I'm viscerally offended by people who believe in putting numbers before people, you know, I like to work with people who would rather sacrifice the numbers to save the people than sacrifice the people to save the numbers. And so that doesn't mean that the organizations I work with will get it right. I've worked with some organizations of very large companies who really, they're terrible places to work. They really are, and they, and the people are treated terribly. However, the leadership really wants to do the right thing. They just don't know how to do it, you know. So it's not like I'm just preaching to the converted of people who are really good at it. I work with people who are terrible at it, but they have the deep, deep desire or a public, you know, a leader of a public company who's like, I have the pressure from Wall Street, it drives me crazy. I wish I could ignore them to do what's right by the people, you know. Those people I love working with. It's not that they have had success, it's where their hearts are, you know, where one guy I had a meeting with who told me that, you know, it was out of his control and he just had a fiduciary duty to serve his clients regardless of the impact it has on people's lives. I will never work with that person for the rest of my life unless he has some sort of conversion, you know. So you get the idea. Yeah. Yeah, I know that. Let's do this. I want to start getting into a bit more tactical things, a few more tactical things here, you know. And I love this. So what I'm curious about, you know, you talked about clients that you've worked with, some of them, you know, you've worked and I know having read your book, you've worked with some world-class organizations, you know, a lot of people are going to want to know once they've sort of got some clarity around this message, this mission and all of that, how they translate it into something tactical in terms of products, in terms of services, in terms of what they do with their online work. And then I want to talk briefly about the new book that you have coming out and you're writing process and we'll wrap things up from there. Again, sort of the, we already know the tactics, like everybody knows the things we have to do, like we have to come up with a plan and we have to come up with a product and we have to come up with a marketing message and like the tactics are pretty universal. It's the manner in which we perform those tactics. And so there's multiple ways of saying something, you know. Do you start with what or do you start with why? So for example, you said to me, hey Simon, so tell us what you're up to, you know, and I could say, well, I've got this new book coming out, I've got this coming out and I've got this new online university coming out, we've got this coming out and we've got this coming out and we've got this fantastic product that people help, you know, not compelling because I'm not starting with why. And so when you say Simon, what are you up to and I say, well, everything I do is devoted to this one idea, to build this world that I imagine and I explain that world that I imagine, then I go into the specific things that I'm doing to help advance that cause. So the tactics are not particularly new or exciting, it's the manner in which we do them. And sometimes, sometimes this is the hard part, sometimes it means not doing something because even though it might be profitable, it would put you off course. Those are the really hard ones. Yeah, I really appreciate that you pointed that out and I agree. Here's what I found, at least in my experience, and I'm guessing you've seen this too, is when we walk away from the things that aren't meant, that things like that, we make a space in our lives and I say when we let go of the expectation of the things that we, the way we think things are supposed to, we get the opportunity to experience the way they're meant to be. Right, yes. So, well, let's do this, you know, I know you have a new book coming out, I'd love for you to talk to us kind of about the seeds of the new book briefly, kind of your writing process, what goes into a book and how you get it to the level. I mean, I think you kind of touched on what has been the driving force behind the success of your books, which is the generosity of a lot of other people. So I'm not expecting some, you know, laid out Tim Ferriss style marketing plan. But I would love for you to talk about sort of what's gone into this next book. Yeah, and by the way, my books have not enjoyed the same success as Tim Ferriss, you know? So to his credit. So I can answer the question. So the new book is called Leaders Eat Last. And this is what I've learned, which is the people who deserve the position of leadership, the people who earn our trust, who we would volunteer to follow, to follow blindly to help them build their vision, when it matters, those people would sooner feed us than feed themselves, metaphorically speaking, sometimes literally, just like a parent, a parent when it matters would rather feed their children and feed themselves. There's an amazing photograph. You know, we just recently had this horrible thing going in Kenya with these terrorists that, you know, went into this shopping wall and started shooting. And in the New York Times, they ran a photograph from inside during the crisis. And this is one photograph that I'm absolutely captivated by. I've gone and looked at it so many times of a mother lying on top of her child, because that's what mothers do, they throw themselves on top of their children in times of danger. And quite frankly, this is leadership 101. In times of danger, this is what leaders do. They throw themselves on top of their people to protect their people. Sometimes at personal sacrifice. And unfortunately, we live in a world now where too many leaders would rather sacrifice their people to save themselves. And based on the all of the biology and anthropology and the history of Homo sapiens that violates everything about what it means to be a leader. It's a very rational, objective stand at what it means to be a leader. And so this is what I've been studying. I've been studying why some teams pull together and others don't, and this concept of feeling safe amongst our own tribe so that we can better organize and face the world and face the dangers and seize the opportunities together. And that's what the book is about, the new book. In terms of my writing process, you know, I have no romantic illusions about writing a book. It's horrible. It's an awful, horrible process that is stressful and difficult, and it's probably more stressful and more difficult because I don't have a process. Some people have the discipline to wake up every morning and write from nine to five or have the discipline to wake up every day and write 5,000 words a day. I unfortunately can't do that. I'm much more of an artist in my process, which is I kind of have to feel it. I can go days without writing a word, and I'm consumed by guilt, so I can't even go and join myself. You know, I'll sit at my computer and feel guilty, you know, or I'll watch TV and feel guilty. So I can't even like disconnect. I just feel guilt. And then I'll have this moment of inspiration to sit down and write 10,000 words. The problem is I don't know when those times happen. So it's a horribly stressful, awful experience, and this one was no different. This one was the worst, most difficult thing I've ever done in this last book. And frankly, the irony is everything that I wrote about, I experienced. In other words, the only reason I got through it is because some amazing people who stood by me believe to me, who suffered with me, who stayed up late with me, who went through the stress with me, who helped me out when I needed it most. The only reason this book exists is ironically because of the very concept that I wrote about. So one other question around the creation process, you mentioned some very, very big ideas, you know, ones that are very bold. And obviously, you've got to boil it down to the essence of fitting in a book. So two questions around this. One is, what goes into the research of it? And then how do you filter with such a vast subject matter? And I'm asking this for very selfish reasons because I have an idea of a book. Well, this is the trick of good book writing. And my publisher sort of taught me this, which is you can't write about everything. And most of our ideas, especially the stuff that I write about when you get into human behavior are gossamer. In other words, every door you open could be in a whole new book. And you kind of have to pick one of those themes and say this is the one I'm going to delve deeply into, and you have to have the discipline not to pursue the others. And you will always leave stuff out and you kind of just be okay with that. A book about everything is a book about nothing. You have to pick a book about something. And that's hard, to be honest. And for me, it's an iterative process. My mother dropped me on my head when I was a kid and now I can see patterns. Just like with the little why discovery thing we did, I can see patterns. And so my process starts up with an idea, a basic idea that I start to research. And the more that I read and the more I start to learn and the more I talk to people, the more I start to discover patterns. And those patterns, then I pursue one of the patterns. And if there's another pattern within that, then I pursue that pattern. It's kind of a bit chaos theory like, until I find the pattern that I think is the most beautiful and that's the one I'll write about. I love it. I think it's genius. I'm not even going to touch it because I don't really have anything to add to that. I could only taint it, I figured. So Simon, I know you got to get going here because we're close to about an hour. I'm going to ask you my final question but I'm going to change it up slightly. It's interesting. I've always asked people, we live in this world where there's an abundance of opportunity. Despite the fact that it's the most uncertain, most tumultuous time, career-wise in history, you're also seeing innovation and creativity just bursting like never before. I say it's like being back in a kindergarten classroom except for all adults. And I see this dichotomy of people only because so many of them have appeared on my show. I guess the people who have found their one thing. And there's people who achieve at a certain level, like the Daniella boards, the Seth Godens, who go out and really they just blow our minds and we look at that and we say, okay, well, that's what we set that as sort of our barometer, I guess, and maybe that's part of the problem. But what I'm curious about is what do you think it is? Do you think it's clarity of purpose that distinguishes the people who get everything they want from the ones who don't? I don't think anybody gets everything they want. And I think the ones that are distinguished are the ones that are really happy with the stuff they get and they don't feel like they're without. That doesn't mean that they don't have ambition to want more but they don't feel without. But I think the ones that are dissatisfied are never happy with what they get. We've all had this experience, I myself included, right? You go to an event and they have goodie bags at the end, right? And you get handed your bag and you get a bright pink sweatshirt with polka dots for free in your goodie bag. And somebody else gets the same sweatshirt in blue. And what do you do? You get jealous. You want what they have. You want the blue one because it's nicer. And yet you can't accept the fact that you just got a free sweatshirt. Ten minutes ago you had no sweatshirt. And now you have a free sweatshirt. Maybe you give it away to someone and make them happy. Like, you got a free sweatshirt. But we don't do that. We look at what we have, we compare it to what others have and we want what they have. And that's why we're unhappy. I love it. I think it's genius. It's funny because that's what my entire Facebook update today was about is that the only thing worth comparing, or the only people worth comparing yourself or the only person worth comparing yourself to is the previous version of who you were and that is a delicate balancing act. Yeah. I mean, look, my, you know, so my TED Talk is the number two most West TED Talk on the website, right? Now, should I be angry and competitive and want to be number one? And I can tell you, there are other people whose TED Talks are growing fast and I'll very soon be number three and then four and then five and drop down. And it'll hurt my ego, you know? But at the end of the day, how cool is that that I made it to number two and like I didn't even do anything. I just put an idea out and people loved it. Like to take joy in what we achieve and not worry about whether I'm number one or number two and not worry about how long it'll last and that eventually it's going to go down, which by the way it will because this thing, these things don't last. But to take absolute joy in the accomplishment itself is a beautiful thing. And I think most of us don't take joy in the success that we have. We keep comparing ourselves to others wishing what they had, you know? Why can't I be a billionaire, you know? It's like, 'cause you're not. I don't know what to tell you, you know? So I think the ones that are actually most successful and ironically they continue to build their success are the ones that are so grateful for any success that they achieve at any point in time. Well, Simon, this has been absolutely epic as I expected it would be. And you're really honestly, I can't thank you enough for your generosity and your time and then sharing your insights with our listeners. I know people are going to get a ton out of this conversation. Well, thanks for giving me a form to share my ideas. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. And for those of you guys listening, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, visit the instigatorexperience.com and you'll be on the pre-launch list for our first in-person event and we'll close the show with that. This episode of the Unmistakable Creative has been brought to you by Sells. That's S-E-L-Z.com. If you're looking for a PayPal alternative to sell digital, physical products and services, check out Sells. Sells allows you to add your products and sell from any site in minutes without any complicated setup or hassle. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, a ton of unmistakable creative listeners are already using the product and absolutely love it. 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