How to Be A Great Leader According to Simon Sinek

Hi, I'm Marie Forleo and you're watching MarieTV, the place to build the business and life you love. If you've ever wondered what it takes to inspire

great

ness not only in yourself but in those around you, then you need to watch today's show. Simon Sinek believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as a visionary thinker with a rare intellect, Simon's goal is to help build a world in which the vast majority of people go home every day feeling satisfied with his work. He is the author of two best-selling books: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Act and Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Come Together and Others Don't.

He is best known for popularizing the concept of why, which is the third most viewed TED talk of all time. He speaks around the world and has commented for local and national press, including the New York Times, Inc. Magazine, NPR, and Businessweek. Simon, thank you very much for being here. You are welcome. Thanks for inviting me. We've known each other for years and I just want to thank you for your work because I've shared Start With Why countless times on MarieTV before and with our B-Schoolers, so it's

great

to finally have you in the chair. Thank you.

I really appreciate you making me spread the word. Yes of course. That's why I want to remind you of when you had your own business and you lost the passion for what you did. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how that experience led you to understand the whole concept of starting with why. A lot of people think that this concept of why was some kind of academic exercise where I went out and studied it, and I didn't. That's not how it started. Like you said, it started out of pain. I owned my own small business, it was a strategic marketing consultancy, and on the surface my life seemed pretty good.

I had my own business, I made a decent living, we had amazing clients and we did amazing work. Except after a few years of doing that, I lost the passion for it. I didn't want to wake up and do it again and I actually felt really embarrassed because there are people who have real problems. Like, poor me. Know? So I kept it to myself and pretended. All my energy went into pretending I was more successful, happier, and more in control than I felt. And it wasn't until a friend of mine came to me and expressed his concern to me, like, “You're different.

Is everything okay?" And it wasn't until I had that kind of safety net of someone close that I had the courage to not just face the problem but actually face it. And that's when this concept of why was born. There was a confluence of events. And I realized that every organization, including my own career, worked on 3 levels: what I did, how I did it and why I knew what I did, that was easy to explain too. well. I was good at explaining what made me different or special than others. But I couldn't tell you why I was doing it, and it was that missing piece that I became obsessed with.

And once I discovered my why, my passion not only. It was restored to levels that I had never experienced before, but it put me on a trajectory that I couldn't have been on without it. And I learned a lot from that experience. Well, I know that every time I mention your work or, already. you know, you spoke at one of our live events and we often share your TED talk, it literally makes people cry because there is such a sense of alignment. And then, of course, they naturally want to focus their energy on why am I doing it?

And I think it's very important and I feel like it was the perfect starting point for his latest book. You know, and I know you've spent a lot of time with men and women in uniform, traveled to military bases, and had deep experience in Afghanistan. I was wondering if you could share some of that and how it led to Leaders Eat Last. Yeah, I thought I was a one-trick pony. You know, I thought this why... was a good trick, I mean, don't get me wrong, but... it's... are you kidding me? It's an amazing trick. But even I love that you said that, I just want to interrupt that for a second because a lot of people have a great idea or we hear people in our audience say, “That's it.

I've finished. I don't have any other good ideas. My creativity, out the window.” That's, you know, I was at peace with that. You know, people always asked me what's next and I was like, "I don't know." You know, it's like the first thing was born from pain. I thought, "I have no idea what will happen next." And it was okay, like I said, it was… it's a good trick. But it was an experience I had in Afghanistan that set in motion what became Leaders Eat Last. I worked a lot with the mobility forces, which is a branch of the Air Force responsible for all the large aircraft, like tankers and cargo planes, even Air Force One.

And the general who was leading the mobility forces at the time said : You know, you've gotten to know us pretty well. Would you be willing to go to Iraq or Afghanistan to see our men and women do their duty in the theater? So I accepted and they decided to send me to Afghanistan. I didn't tell my family because I didn't want them to worry. I told them I was going to Germany, it's true. I told them I wouldn't be in contact, that's true. I told you I would be on a lot of planes, it's true. I just didn't tell them I was going to Afghanistan.

So I had 2 escorts, it was me and 2 officers who went with me, all three of them. And we left as basically strangers and came back as brothers. It was…basically everything on our trip went wrong. Ten minutes after landing at Bagram, in the middle of the night, the base came under rocket attack. 3 rockets… I heard the first one arrive. 3 rockets landed about 100 meters from our nose. Then the sirens blare and, you know, the calls for everyone to get to safety. I mean, that's how my journey started. Curiously, he was relaxed. I mean, anyone who's ever been in a war zone knows that you have all the feelings you'd hope to have, but you don't have them at the right time.

Anyway, the go-ahead was finally given and, you know, we went to bed. The goal was to do an airdrop and we found out there was an early airdrop, early the next morning. And so we slept for about 2 and a half hours, 3 hours, woke up and went to do this airdrop mission, which was incredible. Basically, we got on a big C17 cargo plane, flew about an hour and a half, 2 hours to the center of the country, descended to 2 thousand feet, the rear cargo compartment door opened and we sat there and watched everything This cargo slid out the rear and was parachuted to resupply an Army forward operating base.

Incredible experience. Then we came back. Now the objective is to get out of the dodge. Now the goal is to find a flight home. Nothing is regularly scheduled and any plane you get on is at the discretion of the pilots anyway. So we found an aeromedical egress mission, which is getting wounded warriors out of theater. And we asked the pilots if we could go up, and they said yes. And we waited and waited and waited and waited. And we were all tied up about 5 minutes before takeoff, and they came up to us and said, "We need to get you off the plane because we need more room for the stretchers." And if there's ever a good reason to get off a plane, this is it.

That's when we went to look for another flight and found out there weren't any and there weren't going to be any until Tuesday. It was only Saturday. So at the very least I'll be home 4 days late, my parents... I have no way to contact my family, they don't know where I am and there's no guarantee we'll get on that plane. . And I remember that every fiber of my being sank. I remember all the energy leaving me and I remember becoming completely obsessed with one thing, which was myself. I became obsessed with my safety, my happiness, my security, and I didn't care who had to go to great lengths to get me what I wanted.

There was a public affairs officer there who said to me, "I can put you on a flight to Kyrgyzstan, but you don't have the right visa," to which I said, "You put me on that plane." I don't talk to people that way and I could feel myself turning into that person I hated, turning into that boss we've all worked for at some point, who just wants his own promotion and doesn't care who has to squirm. knots so they can get what they want. Now I was becoming that person. We returned to… to our home, to our room, and I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes but I couldn't sleep, my mind was racing.

I also became paranoid. I was convinced that there was going to be another rocket attack and I was convinced, absolutely convinced, that it was going to fall on me. I was convinced that this way my parents would find out that I was in Afghanistan. One of the officers said he was going to find another flight and left. And the other one said, “Well, then I'm going to the gym,” and he left. And when he came out, since he had his eyes closed, he thought he was sleeping and turned off the light. I was alone in this room in the dark, my mind racing, completely paranoid.

And I realized that what I was experiencing was an unfulfilled career or an unfulfilled life compressed and exaggerated into a 24-hour period. Because I had an amazing day. I had an incredibly exciting experience. I didn't want to wake up and do it again. I was full of regret, no… I regretted saying yes to this, I didn't want to be there, I felt totally out of control. And I realized that many people confused excitement with joy or confused happiness with satisfaction. You know, our careers and our jobs can be exciting and fun, gaining new clients and making a big sale, but that doesn't mean we're satisfied, that doesn't mean we're inspired, that doesn't mean we have joy in our lives.

And I realized that this was the mistake I had made. And so I'm in the purpose business, you know? I realize I felt this way because I didn't have a sense of purpose. And then I try to invent one. You're here to tell your story and come back and it worked for a minute and then it was gone. And I had… I ran out of solutions. I was paranoid, I was afraid, I was depressed, I was out of control and I had no solution. And then I laid down in that bed and gave up. I just… gave up.

I had… I didn't have anything else. And after I had given up, I decided that if I was going to be stuck here, I might as well be useful. So I would volunteer to speak anywhere and as often as they wanted to help some of the amazing people I had met. I didn't care if I had to carry heavy boxes or sweep floors. No matter how humble he was, he wanted to serve those who served others. And as I made that decision, an amazing calm, even excitement, came over me. I was excited to be there now and couldn't wait to get to work.

As if it were a movie, the moment was disturbing, as I reached this conclusion, the door bursts open, it's Major Throckmorton, one of the guys I'm flying with. And he says, “There has been a flight that has been rerouted. We can address it if we leave now. We have to go now. If we don't leave now we will miss it, they will leave without us. We have to go now. Where's Matt? I say: "He's in the gym." So we run to the gym, we get Matt off the treadmill, he comes back, no time to shower, he puts his uniform back on, we grab all our stuff and run to the flight line.

As soon as we get to the flight line we can see the plane we are going to board, it's a big C17 again, and as soon as we get there there is a security curtain that goes down and doesn't let us out to the plane. And the reason is that somewhere else on the base they are having a ceremony for fallen soldiers, and out of respect, when that happens, everything stops on the base. So we sat on the sidewalk and waited, and I told the guys what I went through a few moments ago, and I cried like a baby while I told them the story.

And one thing most people don't know about the military is that crying is okay. Finally the security curtain was raised and we walked out to our plane, we climbed aboard, we would be the only 3 passengers on board this plane. What I haven't told you is that the reason this flight was rerouted is so that we would bring home the soldier for whom they had just held the fallen soldier ceremony. Then, at the right moment, when the Army brought the coffin, we all stood at attention at the end of the plane and the soldiers brought the flag-draped coffin, placed it in the middle of the plane, gave a slow salute counting to 8, They got off. from the plane and we could see them crying and hugging each other as they walked away out of sight while the Air Force crew got to work strapping down our precious cargo.

It would be a 9 and a half hour night flight back to Germany. We all sat there, the coffin was there as we sat on the side of the plane taking off. As soon as we took off, we all placed a piece of ground somewhere on the ground and took out our sleeping bags to try to get some sleep. On all the other flights we talked, we joked.Barely a word was spoken in about 10 hours. On every other flight, he would hang out in the flight deck and talk to the crew. I didn't visit the cabin even once on this flight.

And I will tell you that it was one of the most rewarding and profound experiences of my life. That having gone through what I went through in the field just before in the course of those 24 hours, I had now had the opportunity to bring home someone who knows a lot more about service than I do. Our last flight home was in... we were bringing wounded warriors from Germany to the United States, there were about 30 wounded. And there was a Marine in what they call CCAT in the back of the plane. His injuries were very serious and kept him in an artificial coma.

I finally worked up the courage to go talk to the doctors assigned to care for him. He had 2 broken legs, 2 broken arms, shrapnel in his chest, a broken eye socket, a punctured eyeball. He was in bad shape. And they explained to me his injuries and all the innovations that are happening in trauma care and that are coming to civilian hospitals, which is amazing in itself because even when they are injured they are still giving something back to us. Know? And the doctor was a reservist from Austin, Texas, who works in an emergency room back home. And I asked him a question that I don't think he would have ever asked if he hadn't gone through what I just went through.

I said, “On these missions, do you have a greater sense of accomplishment than at home?” I said, "You're a good guy, you're... you save lives for a living." And he looked at me and said, "There's no comparison." He said 90 to 95 percent of people in the ER are drunks or idiots. That's what brings them to the emergency room. He says: "There is not a single drunk or idiot here." So when I got home, he shook me for a moment and I really started to question the environments in which we work. You know, we work with people we call colleagues or co-workers.

They work with people they call brother and sister. There's a deep sense of trust and love that they have for each other that we just don't have, and I want to work with people like that. So my original conclusion was that they are just better people, but I wanted to learn where trust and cooperation come from, mainly because I want to work with people in environments like that. And I learned that it's not the people, it's the environment. And that's why

leader

ship is so important, because

leader

ship will create an environment that can create relationships like that, and that's where Leaders Eat Last came from.

That's where that book came from. Which brings us perfectly to what I wanted to reveal and delve into next, which is the power of the environment. And you wrote in Leaders Eat Last, and I believe it with my heart. How when we get the environment right, humans will do extraordinary things. And that's really true: it's not just that they're better. That we all have that capacity and I was wondering if you could talk about that. Yes. It's a very basic idea, you know? We are social animals. Our happiness, our joy, our success, all depend on our relationships.

And we respond to the environments in which we find ourselves. You can take a good person and put them in a bad environment and they are capable of doing bad things. Likewise, you can take a person who the group or even society has given up on and put them in a good environment and they are able to change their life and make something extraordinary of themselves. We are social animals and we respond to the environments we find ourselves in and leaders are responsible for building that environment. If you create an environment where people feel safe with each other, we will naturally do that;

The natural human response to those conditions is trust and cooperation. Remember, trust and cooperation are feelings, not instructions. There's no PowerPoint or speech you can give at the end to make someone trust you. You can't tell someone, "Trust me." It doesn't work that way. They are feelings. Likewise, if you create an environment where we truly fear each other and the people we work with, the natural human reaction to that environment is paranoia, cynicism, distrust, and self-interest. That is what happens. There are enough dangers outside the organization, enough things happening outside, that we don't have to fear the people we work with or our own leaders.

And most leaders don't understand this. Most leaders think that leadership is about being in charge. No, it's not. It's about taking care of those in your care. Most leaders think that everyone works for them. No, you work for the people in your organization. It is your responsibility to take care of them, make them feel safe, and naturally they will want to cooperate and work hard and give you their blood, sweat, and tears to advance your vision. All they ask of you is that you take care of them, make them feel valued and valuable, and the rest takes care of itself.

He's like a father, he's like a coach. Teach them, train them, give them a chance to fall and try again. And if they fear the leader, then they will take measures to protect themselves from the leader. It is ubiquitous in our world today. If you work in an organization where it's standard practice for employees to feel the need to send a CYA email after every decision they make, that's a sign that they're taking time and energy out of their day, away from doing their job at work. to protect themselves from their own leaders. That is what it is.

You know, anyone who keeps a file of all the good things they've done in their career in case they need it, are people who take time and energy from doing their job to protect themselves from their own organization. Therefore, you cannot ask those people to give you their best thoughts and be more productive if you have created an environment where they are forced to protect themselves from you. Know? And this is what I learned. And so it's about this environment, this circle of safety. Yes, what I want to delve into and I felt like there was such a powerful question that you write for all of us to ask ourselves, whether we consider ourselves in a leadership role or not.

The question is, how safe do you feel where you work? And I thought it was amazing that we all reflected on it because for me as a business owner, it speaks volumes to how I'm being. How are we interacting? How have we set things up? I feel safe? Do my people feel safe? And I think that's a brilliant question that we can ask and then answer. And I'd love for you to maybe solve the circle of safety because I think it's cool. Well, let's be very clear about what I mean by insurance. It doesn't mean you can't get in trouble.

It doesn't mean there is no discipline. It doesn't mean it's a charity and everyone floats by. That's not what we're talking about here. What we mean is that there is enough pressure coming from the outside: the ups and downs of an economy, the uncertainty of the future, the vagaries of the stock market, your competition that sometimes tries to put you out of business, sometimes tries to kill you, but at the very least They are frustrating your growth. There is enough pressure that we have no control over. These things are a constant. The only variable within an organization is the environment.

That is totally under our control and is the responsibility of the leader. And if leaders make people feel like they have been educated on how to do their job, the opportunity to try again and again, the opportunity to develop their confidence and become their best selves, the opportunity to interact and build relationships solid. This is what I mean by feeling safe, that I love the people I work with, I love the place I work, I enjoy going there. Work-life imbalance has nothing to do with how much yoga we do. The work-life imbalance means I feel safe at home but not at work.

That is the imbalance. And no amount of yoga or free snacks at the cafeteria will fix that. You know, it's leadership. It's a leadership problem. And then, when you provide that... when you provide that circle of safety, two notable things happen. First, people feel safe, so they will work very hard to ensure that the leader's vision advances. But they, in turn, will also take care of their leader. So, if a leader does not feel safe from his own people, it is because he is not taking care of his people. Remember, we call someone a leader not because he is in charge but because he came first.

First into the unknown, first into danger, first to protect people. Because everyone stands there and says, "What are we going to do?" It is the leader who says, “I got it.” “I’ve got your back.” That's why we call you leader. I know many people in positions at the highest levels of organizations who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but we wouldn't follow them, we wouldn't work to keep them safe and advance their vision. And I know many people who sit at the lower levels of organizations who have no authority but who are absolutely leaders because they have made the decision to take care of the person on their left and take care of the person on their right. .

That's what it means to be a leader. Having a position of authority simply means that you can operate on a larger scale and influence more people, but a leader can never feel safe until people feel safe first. That is the leader's responsibility, to start, to go first. So one concept that you share in the book is the idea that trust comes from the top. And Bob Chapman, incredible human being… Spectacular human being. ...and I think I read in the acknowledgments someone you consider a mentor of yours. Yes, I have… he has become a friend. Yes. He I was wondering if you could share a little bit of his story for those who may not know him.

Bob Chapman is the CEO of a company called Barry-Wehmiller. It's a... it's a $2 billion company with about 7,000 employees. So it's not like, you know, "Oh, we're four people and we all love each other like family." No, this is... this is on a certain scale and spread across the country. And Bob realized a bunch of years ago that every person in his company is someone's son and daughter, and they've handed over their son and daughter in the hopes that their son and daughter will prosper and do well. good in the world. . And it is his responsibility to take care of his sons and his daughters.

And he realizes this and it completely and profoundly changed the way he ran his company. Because he used to run his company like anyone used to run his company, by the numbers. He saw people as a disposable resource and this profoundly changed his point of view. And I think it really came true in 2008. We now live in a world where the concept of layoffs has become so normal that we don't even perceive it as a bad thing. You know, that's like being a functional alcoholic. Sure, you can spend the day. It doesn't mean you're healthy. In other words, mass layoffs—that is, using people to balance the books—did not exist as a standard business practice in the United States before the 1980s.

It didn't. Good? Only as a last, last, maybe last resort to save a dying company. Good? But the way we use it now is we'll send you home to tell your family that you can't support them anymore because we didn't meet our projections. You know, I mean, that's crazy. So Bob, he started his company in 2008, and it's a big, old-fashioned, blue-collar manufacturing company. Good? And they lost 30% of their orders due to the 2008 stock market crash. And so not only was the business gone, but so was the pipeline. And then the board of directors met, they needed to save 10 million dollars, they could no longer afford to hire labor.

And then, as is normal these days, the board says, "We need layoffs." And Bob refused because Bob doesn't believe in head count, Bob believes in heart count and it's very difficult to just reduce the heart count. And so what they implemented was a leave program where every employee, regardless of their position in the company, had to take 4 weeks of unpaid vacation. They could take it whenever they wanted and they didn't have to take it consecutively. And it was the way Bob announced the show that was equally powerful. He said, “It is better that we all suffer a little than that any of us have to suffer a lot.” And morale rose.

And, unsurprisingly, when a circle of safety like that is provided, the natural human reaction is not selfishness. The natural human reaction is to take care of each other. Then behaviors began to appear that were not part of the program and that no one predicted. People who could afford it more began to trade with people who could afford it less. So someone would take 5 weeks and someone else would only have to take 3. And when the economy got better and business got better, everyone stayed. They paid off the entire 401k they had frozen and paid it back. You can't steal from your employees.

They are happy and fulfilled. I have met some of them. I have met people who cry when talking about their work. It's amazing. It is amazing what he built and wrote about his experience inhis book Everybody Matters, which really tells you some of the things he did. It's... it's really extraordinary. You have another line in the book that really touched my heart. “When we feel… we feel good when we take care of other people. "That's not an accident." And what I love about his work and, in particular, Leaders Eat Last is that, in my opinion, it seems that we are all designed to be leaders.

You're not giving us a prescription like, "Oh, I want you to go out and do this, this, and this, and then you'll be a leader." And he was wondering if you could explain a little bit more about the fact that we feel great when we take care of people and if we follow those instincts to take care of each other, the natural result is leadership. Yes. We are designed to take care of each other. As social animals, it is in our biology that we will take care of each other. That's why we feel so good when someone does something really good for us without expecting anything in return.

We've all had the experience of someone doing something nice and you're like, "Oh my gosh, thank you," and then you get picked on and you're like, "Ugh." It kind of ruins the whole experience. Good? Completely. It ruins it. But when they just do it and say, "No, no, no," and you say, "Please." "No no no. You're welcome." You know? Not only does it increase our esteem for them, but it just... feels good. Likewise, we feel good when we do something for another person without expecting anything in return. When we give our time and our Money doesn't really work, believe it or not.

If I told you that this morning I donated $500 to charity, you'd say, "Okay?" Last week I gave up my Saturday and went to paint schools downtown, you'd say, "Okay. That's really amazing." Now, the value of my work was worth a lot less than $500, and that's the point. Well? That's the point, that we are designed to take care of each other. And there is a chemical called oxytocin, which is the chemical responsible for our feelings of love, friendship and trust. Well, that's oxytocin. When someone touches you and says, "My God, it's good to see you." Touch creates oxytocin.

Good to see you. If you know? In fact, it makes us feel closer to each other. Know? When oxytocin is released in our body, not only does it make us feel good, not only does it boost our immune system, but the more oxytocin we have in our body, it actually makes us more generous because the human body is trying to get it. May we take care of each other. And there is something even better than that. The person who makes an act of generosity, giving time or energy without expecting anything in return, receives a shot of oxytocin.

The person receiving it receives an injection of oxytocin. And even witnessing an act of generosity or kindness releases oxytocin. It feels good to see someone do something good. And the more oxytocin we have in our body, like I said, means the more likely we are to do something nice for someone. This is the biology of payment. It is the human body's desperate attempt to get us to take care of each other. And so when we create environments where we allow that to flow, it does so naturally. It just takes care of itself. It's just biology. When we create environments where we restrict that, it actually does the opposite.

It releases a chemical called cortisol, which is the sensation of stress and anxiety. Cortisol actually inhibits oxytocin, which means that if we work in a poorly run organization, not only do we have a lot of stress, but it actually... it actually inhibits empathy. In other words, I am less likely to want to care about someone because of the bad leadership and bad environment I have been given to work in. TRUE? And the more cortisol we have in the body, it increases stress and anxiety, affecting our immune system. Happy people live longer. Happy people have lower rates of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, which means that when you're in a leadership position, you're actually medically responsible for these people's lives.

If you get the right environment, they will live longer, suffer fewer cases of disease, and will likely have happier families because of it. Whereas if you are a bad leader, over time you are killing the people who work with you. Our jobs are actually killing us. So leadership is this tremendous responsibility. It's not about the company, that's not about leadership. You can't lead a company, you can't. It is a human enterprise. You can run a company, you can manage a project, but you can only lead people. And anyone who is in a leadership position and says, "I am a leader," is a leader of people.

Is that how it works. And the problem is that we have to go through this transition. Some people achieve it quickly, some people achieve it slowly, and some people will never achieve it. When we are young, all we have to do is be good at our job. That's all. The company trains us on how to do our jobs, some of us get advanced degrees on how to do our jobs, accounting, engineering, whatever. And if you're really good at doing your job, you'll eventually get promoted and eventually you'll get promoted to a position where you're now responsible for the people who do the work you used to do.

But no one teaches us how to do that. So they put us in a leadership position and demand results, which is like standing in front of the machine and demanding results, even though we were never taught how to use the machine. And then we fumble our way and break things and we don't want anyone to know that we have no idea what we're doing. And, of course, we manage people, because I know how to do your job better than you. That's what got me promoted. We have to go through this transition where when you are in a leadership position, you are no longer responsible for the results.

You are now responsible for the people responsible for the results. I love talking to CEOs. I say, "What's your priority?" They say: "My client." You haven't spoken to a client in 10 years. There is no CEO anywhere on the planet who is responsible for the customer. You are responsible for the people responsible for the client. As a solopreneur, that's... I mean, you're the head chef and the bottle washer. It's hard work... it's hard work. And when you have a very small company, you have to balance this because you have a responsibility as a worker but you also have a responsibility as a leader, and they have to be separate.

So when you work, you are a worker, you do the best job you can do. Whether you're consulting, pitching or whatever you're doing. But when you're the leader, you're taking care of your people so they can be at their natural best, so they can thrive. And you know that their job is not your responsibility, they are your responsibility. Your job is your responsibility. And so it's... it's kind of a really difficult yin and yang when you're small, but as you get bigger and win, you start hiring some more people, the problem is we break free, we struggle.

Like I said, that transition is really difficult. It takes practice, it's hard work, it requires study. Just as we study how to learn to operate the machine, we must study how to learn to be a leader. All the great leaders I know are students of leadership. None of them consider themselves experts. We are all students of the subject and when we meet we talk about it because it really interests us. You know, golfers talk about golf, leaders talk about leadership if they're good. Because they are constantly in learning mode. So yes, it is a human endeavor and should be treated that way.

So this was just great. I'm wondering if there's anything you want to leave us with today because what I took away from your book, and I love this idea of ​​studying leadership and talking about it, but the simplistic idea that if we take care of the people around us, I feel like that's something anyone can do, whether you're running a business or looking out for your family or friends. Is there any final thought you want to leave us with, Simon? It… takes practice. And it is a daily practice. You won't be an expert tomorrow. Leadership is the practice of sometimes putting the lives of others before our interests.

So practicing leadership is like driving to work in the morning and someone wants to cut into your lane. Are you moving forward or backward? That's leadership. We don't know, maybe they are late for an important interview and have been unemployed for 6 months. Maybe their boss is an ogre and they left late because their kids, you know, had trouble getting to school today. I don't know why they're late, you know, I don't know why they intervene. Or maybe they're just bastards, I don't know. But we can sacrifice getting to work one car late, you know? That's leadership.

You're standing in the elevator, you're late for a meeting, the doors start closing. You see someone running towards the elevator, what do you do? I'm sorry. We've all done that. Know? No, lean forward and hold. That's leadership. You pour yourself a cup of coffee, it's the last cup, you put it back in its place. It's empty, the next person who wants a cup will prepare the next pot. Or when no one is looking, you make the next cup of coffee. This is leadership. And if you practice the little things, when someone... when you ask someone how you are, you actually care about the answer.

Good? If you don't mind, don't ask. So these are little things that if you practice and practice and practice, like exercise, the pain starts to go away, you start to get a little stronger, it starts to get a little easier, you start taking those kinds of risks more intensely. . and bigger things, and people start to recognize that you have changed or that the environment is changing, that it is different to work here. It is a daily practice. Don't be intimidated by the fact that it is a huge responsibility. Just do small things to improve the lives of people around you.

And if you practice a lot, you do it well. Thank you very much again, Simon. You are welcome. Thanks for inviting me. Now Simon and I would love to hear from you. What is the most important idea you take away from today's program? Now, as always, the best conversations happen after the episode on MarieForleo.com, so go there and leave a comment now. Did you like this video? I loved. If so, please consider subscribing to our channel and I would really appreciate it if you would share it with your friends. And if you want even more great resources for creating a business and a life you love, plus some personal ideas from me that I only talk about via email, visit MarieForleo.com and be sure to sign up for email updates.

Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time on MarieTV.