How to Motivate People, Transform Business, and Be a True Leader | Simon Sinek on Impact Theory

To me, this is a flat world. The moment in which

people

who have learned to game the system, this discomfort that we feel, are actually right, as if they don't really understand the game they are in, is infinite. and when you play with a finite mindset, a lot of

people

suffer, including the companies they themselves are trying to build. That's the great irony. The great irony is that the way great companies are built is with an infinite mindset. The way you build great companies is by putting people over profits, the way you build great companies is will over resources, both are important, but there has to be this general inclination that we can feel when we come to work and feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, where we feel that our work and our effort are worth more than simply the money we earn.

Hello everyone, welcome to Impact Theory. Today's guest is a multi-bestselling author with one of the most viewed Ted Talks of all time. His talk popularized the notion of starting with It has been viewed approximately 45 million times and translated into 48 languages. The speech he gave about millennials the first time I interviewed him broke the Internet, garnering over 300 million views and making it the fifth most searched term on YouTube in all of 2017. His views have made him one of the most sought-after speakers on the planet and have seen him invited to meet with the

leader

s of some of today's most important companies and institutions, including Disney American Airlines, Microsoft, the United Nations, the United States Congress, and multiple branches of the US military. , describes himself as an unwavering optimist who has dedicated his life to making a world a reality where people feel fulfilled by their work.

He is truly helping to shape the minds of the next generation of

leader

s. He is also helping to shape public opinion. speech through continued contributions to such prestigious media outlets as the new york times wall street journal the washington post the huffington post msnbc and many others, so please help me welcome the man who has been described as a visionary thinker with uncommon intellect, the author of Start with Why Leaders Eat Last and Now the Infinite Game Cynic Simon, good to see you too, so the new book, my friend, is wicked. It's been really interesting to watch you take your babru shot, say you want to start a movement, and now be incredibly consistent with what bricks you would have to lay to get a mass of people to join a movement.

It was very exciting to read it. Thank you. Really interested to know to what extent your ideas are like mental viruses that get into people's heads and really echo through culture mate in a really cool way, it'll be interesting to see what happens with this one because I think you're right. into something incredibly powerful that defines for us an infinite game, so in the mid 1980s a theologian named james carsey wrote this little book called infinite finite games in which he defines these two types of games finite games that have known players, fixed rules and agreed objectives.

Football, there is always a beginning, a middle and an end, and the goal is to win. the game and then there are infinite games. Infinite games are defined as known and unknown players. You don't necessarily know who all the other players are. The rules can be changed. You can play however you want and the goal is to perpetuate the game to stay in it. I play as long as possible what I found fascinating about this idea when I first learned about it is that we are players in multiple infinite games every day of our lives there is simply no such thing as being the winner in your marriage you know there is no such thing thing like winning global politics and there is definitely no such thing as winning

business

business

is an infinite game um and yet when we hear the language of too many leaders, they talk about being number one, being the best and beating your competition based on on which there is no agreement.

Regarding the objectives, there are no agreed deadlines and what ends up happening is that there are people building organizations and leading with a finite mindset playing to win in a game where there is no such thing as winning and when we play with a finite mindset in an infinite world. There are some very predictable and consistent outcomes in the game, including decreased trust, decreased cooperation, decreased innovation, all of which contribute to the eventual demise of the organization itself, um, and That's why what I wrote is what it means We lead with an infinite mindset because we teach leadership as if it were a finite game.

You know, people start businesses with the goal of winning or being number one and that's a problem. Because that is impossible. So what I wrote in the infinite game is you're leading with an infinite mindset, so talk to me about why revenue is a mistake because as a business leader, when you come in, that actually seems like an agreed-upon metric, certainly, if you're playing with Wall Street, understanding your price per share that way. It means the value that you are adding to shareholders, as I think most people at that level of business would say, what do you mean, we all know what the score is, there is nothing wrong with revenue, there are two currencies in the infinite game, and resources resources are money, you need money to stay in the game but you also need the will of the people and the problem is that when we organize to win that means that the score is more important than the inspiration and motivation you have the people to do it. give blood, sweat and tears and when we prioritize resources before that, that is a problem.

I have never met a CEO who doesn't believe his people matter. The problem is where on the priority list do you know we have been in any number. of presentations where they put their priorities on the wall, you know, number one, growth, number two, shareholder value, number three, our customer, number four, our employees, there you see it, I care about our people, um, and the reality is that, as social animals, we want to work and we are willing to give our blood, sweat and tears to leaders who understand that the balance of those two essential currencies has to come before resources and that does not mean 90 10 when I speak of putting people before profits, you know people get scared, which is ridiculous, you need fuel to make the car run, money is fuel for the organization, of course, even if there is a tilt, it's 5149, There has to be a slight bias towards people because there will always be decisions that a company has to make in which those two cannot both be supplied and one will have to be sacrificed the question the question is which one will always prioritize let me give you a hypothetical example to clarify my point two CEOs the first CEO says our number one priority is growth and of course our people are important because if we take care of our people we will meet and exceed our financial goals.

The second CEO says our number one priority is our people and if we take care of our people we will always meet and exceed. our financial goals which one would you rather work towards I don't want the price I mean it's obvious right it's obvious um so this is what it means to prioritize the will of the resources you have of course, of course, money matters, um, but people matter. more, yeah, it's one of those things when you get into a business that probably intellectually feels obvious if you said that to people, they'd say, yeah, I get that, but I think it plays out very often the way you explained it. .

The first time we want growth, yes of course, taking care of people, we're really going to feel the growth, all that and speaking from experience, it's very easy to fall into that mindset and it's incredibly difficult to execute at the level of no. No, my people really come first, they are going to be first, not only in what I say, they are going to be first in the policies we write, they are going to be first and the actions we take and one thing that I What I what I really liked about the book is that you are implying and sometimes you just outright say that it is also the best way to run a business if secretly what you really want is profits, why is that

true

?

The best way to own a business. when you secretly want the profits no, it's the opposite, it's the opposite, do you think that's

true

? because in reality I have seen as I and maybe I saw in your book what I wanted to see, what it seemed like you were telling me was, hey don You don't run your business for profit, you don't even have it in mind, take care of your people, but The irony of ironies is when you take care of your people and they trust each other, yes, the prophets will come, oh, yes, yes.

Yes, yes, of course, yes, of course, people who are willing to give their blood, sweat and tears make companies better and more profitable. People who are only there for their own selfish needs and who would be willing to jump ship as soon as they got a better situation. We offer that they are not the best people to help build a company for the long term, we can invest money in people that will last for a while and you can make a company look successful for a while, but that doesn't mean it can last. We can't judge a boat by how well the crew performs in calm waters, we judge a boat by how well the crew performs in rough waters and the problem is that in good times we don't use all that extra money to take care of the people. people, you know we use it to distribute and distribute and then when hard times come, sometimes there isn't enough filler and the culture hasn't been fostered during that time, but that's the irony when we lead with an infinite mindset. and leaders who lead with an infinite mindset have disproportionately more successful companies, more innovative companies, more profitable companies, all of which are strong enough to last a long, long time, um uh, and not because they simply have the financial wealth to resist. storms, but the company continues to grow, innovate and reinvent itself, making it relevant in the face of new technologies and changing tastes and policies in the world.

That's the great irony, but it has to be a genuine meaning to say that I care. about my people because they are a means to an end it's like we only like you because you help us make money uh not only does it make us feel used but we are a mechanism for someone else's success when we say caring about our people and money is the mechanism by which we can take care of people, you know, the more money we make, the more we can take care of our people and serve our customers. It has a profound

impact

on our desire to give. more yeah, it's something that underpins

impact

theory

, so I really learned in the mission that you're only as good as what you write when you start scaling and you really have to crystallize it and leave something behind, it really makes your values ​​incredibly clear. and I started thinking a lot about security and trust, which are two of the big thrusts of your book and I would love to know what the difference is between the way security is used now and the safe space.

Compared to the way you talk about security in the book, are they the same? Are they different from a safe space? How do you think about security? It has all those definitions. I mean, we want to feel safe at work, which means that feeling like we can be ourselves means that we feel safe enough to raise our hand and say I made a mistake or I don't feel qualified for the position you've given me I need. more training or I'm struggling at home is affecting my work I'm afraid I need help and say any of those things with the confidence that our boss or any of our colleagues would rush to support us because if we don't create those psychologically and sometimes physically safe spaces but those psychological spaces safe spaces what we end up with is a group of people who come to work every day lying hiding and pretending that they are hiding mistakes that they are not admitting if they don't know how to do their job they will never admit it They don't know something, for fear that that makes them vulnerable, for fear that maybe it makes them the weak link and they find themselves on a short list in the next round of layoffs, and the problem is how you apply. a successful organization that is supposed to sustain itself in the long term, thrive in the long term if people literally hide things that are going wrong, don't admit that they don't know how to do their jobs, and never admit that they need help that doesn't last. that doesn't last and the problem is that when someone leads with a finite mindset where they try to incentivize performance and by the way you can't incentivize performance you can only incentivize behavior then eventually bad things happen, that's interesting , tell me more. about why performance cannot be incentivized and how incentives end up influencing behavior.

Well, you can'tincentivize performance because someone has to do something to achieve that performance. There is a cause and an effect. You know you can't incentivize an effect, you can only incentivize the cause that would hopefully produce that effect, which is behavior, so if I tell you, I'll give you a huge bonus if you hit a certain goal at the end of the year, regardless. whatever you are encouraging. It's that I will do certain things to achieve the goal you've set for me, but the problem is that when we apply excessive pressure and it's at all costs as if my livelihood depends on it, it can accidentally incentivize some pretty unseemly behavior.

I like to hoard information because this is what gives me value and I don't want to share information or things I have learned with my colleagues and co-workers, which is crazy or unethical behavior to stab other people in the back and this is one of the problems that I think our modern business today, which is made up of too many businesses, is being handled right now with an excessive amount of finite thinking, now there are always finite games within the infinite game. However, the infinite game provides the context and without that infinite mentality all you have is win win win win win which is unsustainable an infinite game is not a series of finite games um it is unsustainable because no one has that energy and there is no such thing perfect growth chart doesn't exist very quickly tell me why an infinite game isn't just a series of finite games for the same reason you can't keep eating chocolate cake every day because it feels good because just driving people driving people driving people driving people driving people driving people becomes exhausting it destroys the foundations of trust it destroys the foundations of cooperation and when we don't work well together we share information we admit mistakes there is no innovation and we know what it is it just drives a series of Finite games seem to be investment banking before 2008, which produced an artificial recession, a man-made recession, and a lot of the finite thinking that we have today is unfortunately a really reasonably modern invention, it's not like business always They will work like that.

The way that the thinking of Milton Friedman, the economist of the 1970s, has really dominated a kind of business

theory

, today he theorized that the responsibility of business, this is his definition, the responsibility of business is to maximize profits. profits within the limits of the law, right? What about ethics? I know how a pharmaceutical company increasing the price of essential medicines by 200 300 500 800 percent is not illegal, it is not ethical, true, it makes us feel uncomfortable and yet the law is not broken, that is not a standard that good enough to run a business and was his thought. that gave rise to the theory of shareholder supremacy, which was a theory proposed in the late 1970s in which we prioritize the needs and wants of a shareholder over the needs of the customer or the employee, which is like a coach that tries to build a great team by doing what the fans want versus what the players need, that's basically shareholder supremacy and like I said, it was just a theory proposed in the late 1970s that became popular during the boom years of the massive layoffs of the 80s and 90s where we used up our livelihoods. of human beings to meet arbitrary projections on an annualized basis at the end of the year did not exist did not exist as a standard business practice before the 1980s did not exist was popularized during the 1980s and 1990s the dismantling of Glass-Steagall which was a law passed after the great depression to prevent another great depression from happening and, by the way, it was extremely effective between the dismantling of Glass-Steagall in the 80s and 90s and the great depression, there were no total market crashes values ​​since then. then dismantling it all in the name of corporate profits, we've had three, we had the Black Monday of the dotcom boom in 2008.

In other words, when we simply play with a finite mindset, we actually cause long-term damage to our own system. . that's supposed to benefit us all um and and I find it annoying um we've seen the rise of Milton's thinking uh Friedman and like I said his theories dominate business today and we feel like not only have we had those those The stock market crashes, but Anyone going to work today has a general feeling of unease, especially if they work for a company that accepts annual or even quarterly layoffs to meet arbitrary projections. Keep in mind that many of the companies that employ mass layoffs are profitable just not as profitable as they would like it is not that they are losing money and had to do this to save the sinking ship that is something else entirely these are highly profitable companies that they didn't meet a projection and that's why they fired people in order to meet that projection there is something fundamentally wrong with that and we know it because we feel it at work we see this decline in trust we are no longer loyal to our companies why are we going to be?

They are not loyal to us and the leaders set the tone. When companies are loyal to us, we will return their loyalty. When they are not loyal to us, why will we be loyal to them? I'm tired of CEOs telling me that you know, millennials these days don't stick around for long. Well, why would they if you don't offer them any loyalty? And it's not for people to show you that they are loyal, it's the other way around, leaders set the tone and it's because of this general business theory. that we've seen a steady decline a steady erosion of loyalty in the business world today we don't want to work at a company for 20 or 30 years primarily because we're not sure we can do it, we're not sure about that. the company really cares about keeping us that long, so we constantly have our eyes open and constantly scanning, we come to work feeling uncomfortable because some of the decisions being made don't benefit the employee.

It really benefits this artificial electorate that we call shareholders, who are really just a group of institutional investors. This shareholder myth exists because there has been a steady decline in middle class participation in the stock market for years and the purpose of the stock market. was that we can all share in the wealth we helped build because it is on the backs of the average employees who produced the great wealth in the nation and the main purpose of the stock market the genius of the modern corporation the genius of the public company was that We can all share in the wealth that we are helping to produce, unfortunately over the course of the 80s and 90s we have seen systems produced where we see that the general population, the middle class, is actually less included in that success and the reason The reason I wrote The Infinite Game was because I myself got tired of people in positions of authority or people of extreme wealth telling me that I was naive, that I didn't understand how business works, and for many years I believed that maybe I'm the one. silly, right, we all feel that because they have the power, they have the authority, they have the money, they know more than us, but even so we go to work and we feel uncomfortable and it turns out that discomfort that feeling that says that there is something wrong here turns out to be that the majority really know something uh and to me this is a time when the world is flat in which the people who have learned to win the system that discomfort that we feel We're actually right, it's like they don't understand that the The game they play is an infinite game and when you play with a finite mindset, a lot of people suffer, including the companies they themselves are trying to build, that's the cool thing. irony, the great irony is that the way great companies are built is with an infinite mindset.

The way great companies are built is by putting people before profits. The way great companies are built is with will before resources. Both things are important, but there has to be this general inclination. where we can feel when we come to work and feel part of something bigger than ourselves where we feel that our work and our effort is worth more than simply the money we earn, we know it well and that is why for me I got tired of being told that I was naive I got tired of being told that I don't understand how business works and it turns out that I and most people actually understand more, maybe we don't understand the mechanics, but we understand that what is happening is It's not right, it doesn't feel well, did you have a turning point?

What was it that made you go? Actually, I'm not wrong. Well, you know, the discovery of this definition of the infinite game. It was a big part because I recognized that business is an infinite game and that almost all leadership in business today has a finite mindset, so you literally can't show up to a basketball game ready to play. football as if he wasn't going to do it. Well, we overuse sports analogies in business, but sports have a beginning, a middle and an end, there's actually a finish line, right, we overuse analogies, they're wrong analogies, you know, running a business is The same as being healthy, it is a lifestyle, leadership is a lifestyle. an infinite mindset is a lifestyle, so for example you can't be healthy by going to the gym for nine hours, it doesn't work well, but if you go every day for 20 minutes, you will definitely get 100% fit, but I don't know when and it's different times for different people, right and leading is the same thing, you absolutely can have fitness goals, you absolutely can have finite goals within the infinite context of being healthy, but there is a practice you have to do. to get enough sleep you have to go to the gym you have to eat well you have to protect your relationships you know why healthy relationships really matter for our health and you have to do all those things mindfully and if you don't reach your health goal, it's okay you keep working in it and you know that you will achieve it.

The business is the same one that says you have to reach this goal by this arbitrary date. Now it helps to drive and it's good to have incentives and we are very goal oriented species. that's okay, but if we miss something, that's okay, we just keep working towards it, as if their guidance isn't absolute because it's arbitrary dates and arbitrary numbers, and even if you reach your fitness goal, you can't stop working. You shouldn't just move on for the rest of your life, right? And this is what it means to lead with an infinite mindset. Here you have an example.

This is a normal scenario in business. We'll give a team, um, an objective, a goal to affect for a certain period of time, usually a year, because that's usually when we pay taxes correctly, that's the only reason things get done correctly in years, If we pay taxes every 18 months, all targets would be 18 months correct, so we usually give people a financial target. and there are two teams, one of them driven solely by reaching that goal because all they care about is getting their bonus at the end of that goal. Morale goes up and down if they have a good month.

Morale goes up if they have a bad month. morale is low retention is terrible they can't retain employees no one really trusts each other the boss is toxic and just before the end of the financial year they have a crazy push where they are lowering prices everywhere and we manage to boost revenue and hit the target correctly. The problem is we bonus that team, we bonus that leader so, for the goal that they hit correctly, and basically what we're doing is spreading a message to the rest of the company that says we don't care how you get there we don't care. if you trample on your people we don't care if you act unethically if you hit your number you will do very well in this company versus another team that is doing extremely well, it's good, steady, slow growth, really, very on target, you don't know the ups and downs, the peaks and the valleys, morale is super high, retention is incredible, it's a model team, they trust each other, they share information and they don't hit their target in the agreed upon deal. date right at the end of the year, they are below it, but you can clearly see in the trend data that they will reach it in 13 or 14 months, the problem is that we do not give that person anything that we give them.

I don't do any good for that team and this is part of the problem when you have an infinite mindset, you absolutely have the goals, but the trend matters more, how you get there matters just as much, if not more, and we pay attention to that, so Even if I hit my fitness goal I'm eating better I'm sleeping better My relationships are great I go to the gym Yes, I miss my goal but I know if I keep going I'll get there I'm getting healthier, right? I just got the timing wrong and this is what we need to incorporatein business that infinite mentality yes, we have the goals, yes, the ambitions, yes, we have the annual objectives, if we fail to meet them, as long as we do the right things, we have the right lifestyle. to get us there, that's a much healthier way to live a life and a much healthier way to build an organization, so let's talk about that recipe, you break it down quite eloquently.

I would say that the book is actually organized around the five elements that seem like Yeah, the same things that you're talking about now, what are they and ultimately where do I want to go? Maybe not right now, but ultimately what I want people at home to be able to do is if they're not a business owner, they understand what to look for. because in that and understanding how they can play a role in shaping it, then there are five practices to leading with an infinite mindset, you must have a just cause, you must have reliable teams, you must have a worthy rival.

You have to have the capacity for existential flexibility and you have to have the courage to lead a cause so just that we have to give our people something to advance a cause so just that they are willing to sacrifice their interests to achieve it, in other words, become achieved. a better paying job or frequent business trips or working late and even though I may not like those things, I do them because I feel like it's worth it because I believe in what I'm a part of here because I feel like I'm helping move forward. because there is no achievement in the infinite game the goal is not a final achievement the goal is to move forward to progress in the infinite game and to have that vision of an idealized state of the world um that um all men are created with the same right it is an ideal that a The nation strives to achieve it.

In reality, we will never get there, but we will die trying. That's the point and we can offer people the same thing within an organization. In fact, we have to give them something to move forward. How is this different from why it comes? from the past is an origin story each of us has our own unique why it is our birthright comes from the sum total of how we were raised as children it is goal you have one and you have one for the rest of your life life It is the only right one and the rest of our lives are about making decisions that help us maintain balance with our why a just cause does not come from the past, it only causes about the future, it is about where we are going. you can have multiple just causes you can have one professionally you can have one personally you can have one for your family you can have one for your church and we are involved in all of them there is enormous pressure on people, especially young people, for what your vision is, Well, we're not all Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, we're not all visionaries, we don't have to have a vision, but we do have to find a vision so that we can find someone else's vision and we are so obligated to it. that we want to make it our own that is what it means to work for a company with a visionary leader that we believe in that vision so clearly that we take his vision and make it our own and we will happily contribute our work and our effort to advance what is now my vision , Martin Luther King had a vision, he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and told us his vision, but his vision became ours, so I may not have thought of that vision, but I found it. and I would like to dedicate time and energy to help advance even beyond it we have to give our people a just cause we have to have trusted teams we have to create environments within our organizations where people feel psychologically safe enough safe enough to raise their hands and say I made a mistake or I need help the absence of trusted teams means we have groups of people who lie by hiding and pretending and that comes from good old-fashioned leadership leadership is not about being in charge but to take care of those in Our position and the very responsibility of a leader is not to drive performance.

Leaders are not responsible for results. Leaders are responsible for people who are responsible for results and the problem is that we don't teach people how to lead correctly when you do. You're very, very young, we give people tons of training on how to do their jobs. Some people get advanced degrees in how to do their job so that they are good at it and if you are really good at your job you will get promoted and eventually promoted to a position where you are now responsible for the people who do the job that you used to do. do and we don't teach you how to do it, so how can we expect people to be good at their jobs if we don't?

Don't train them to do it, for example, would you go see a doctor who didn't go to medical school? No, so why would we work for a leader who has no training to be a leader? That's why we have managers, that's why we have micromanagers. The reason we have toxicity is not because they are bad people, it is because they don't know what they are doing and they make it up as they go along, and those lucky moments where we work for a great leader, well, they were lucky that They probably had a great leader before them or they learned it somewhere else or maybe they had a terrible leader and they committed to doing the complete opposite of everything, the point is that they learned it well, we have to teach leadership so that leaders can create environments where we can all work at our natural best, which produces confident teams, I don't want to derail because I know we have three more, but I think this is very important, in a crash course format like, what does that do? type of leadership seems like how you create the environment where people are going to thrive and create those results that you're talking about, what does it mean, you're asking me the question, um, uh, what does it mean to be healthy?

I ask the question: What does it mean to be a great father? Like me, I don't have five things to be a great father. It's really a lifestyle and it comes number one with the commitment that I am responsible for the life of another human being, the growth of another human being. the closest thing to leadership is parenting you have to be an infinite student of parenting you know you want to be a parent you ask your friends you ask your own parents you join groups you read magazines you watch talks whatever you want We are constantly consuming how dealing with this ever-changing challenge of being a parent and its ups and downs, successes and failures, you know, and that's what leadership is, it's the leaders themselves, great leaders are students of leadership, no matter how accomplished they may be.

They are still learning and it is a lifestyle, it is the lifestyle of what I need to do to care for people, which includes things like listening, learning to give and receive feedback, learning how to have effective confrontations, how to discipline when necessary. in a constructive way. um, walking the halls, meeting people, learning what it means to ask someone questions, how do you ask questions? You know some people are naturally good at being curious about other human beings and others are uncomfortable because they're introverted or whatever socially. awkward but we can learn you know how you learn to remember people's names oh I'm bad with names no you just decided you're bad with names we can learn to be good with names so that when we walk down the hall and say hi tom Oh my gosh, remember my name, it's a good feeling, it's a lifestyle, it's a lifestyle, there are many things that we have to do and that we have to constantly work on to be a great leader and create that environment that it's pretty good.

Take it right, so they were two confident teams, yes, worthy rivals, this one is fun, this one, this one, in fact I get more questions than any of the others, believe it or not, I love the way you implemented it in the book. So I'll tell the story, so there's another guy who does what I do. He is extremely respected. He does an extremely good job. I hate it. I have not done it. You don't know that he has always been very kind to me. when I've seen him professionally I just have an irrational hatred towards him and every time his name comes up I like it, it drives me crazy, people bring him up like we hired him and I was like uh and and because I'm because I hate him, uh, I'm very competitive with him, so I'll go online and look at my book rankings and I'll immediately check his and, of course, I don't look at anyone else's, just his, and uh, if I'm ahead I get this smug feeling and if he's ahead I get very angry, you know, so anyway we had the opportunity to speak at the same event, I don't mean me in the morning, in the afternoon, like we.

They were interviewed together on stage and the interviewer thought it would be funny if we introduced ourselves, so I went first and then I looked at him and said, "You make me feel really insecure." All your strengths are all my weaknesses and when your name comes up it makes me feel very uncomfortable and he looked at me and said funny I feel the same way about you the reason I had such an irrational hatred towards him had nothing to do with him it had to see with me he is my worthy rival, his strengths revealed to me my own weaknesses and instead of confronting myself and looking at myself closely and evaluating those weaknesses and working on those weaknesses, it was much easier to take all that negative energy and direct it towards him, in other words , being competitive wanting to beat him well was a very cathartic experience since then we have become very close friends we have worked together I no longer check the rankings of his books and because we share the same cause we can work together and that and that I recognized It was so common In the business we sometimes have these competitors on our own teams that we want to beat them.

We've all had the experience where one of our colleagues got a promotion and we got angry, angry, angry about someone else's success. We talked about it for a second, why can't we share the joy? What do they have that is being revealed in us? That's the problem, right? Having worthy rivals instead of competitors, competitors are other players that we set out to beat, but the problem with that is, there is no finish line and therefore we are obsessed with beating the other company and then, At some point, we are sure that you are ahead on whatever metric you choose, until when, at what cost, at what cost, that is not sustainable, but rather the other players within. our industry outside our industry in our own teams we can choose our own worthy rivals, their strengths reveal our weaknesses and having our weaknesses revealed to us means we have the opportunity to grow and improve and the infinite game at its core is basically a game of constant improvement and that is why our worthy rivals reveal to us our weaknesses and our opportunities to improve, yes, that is one of the areas where changing your way of thinking really has a powerful impact and starting to change the way you think that and I mean . oh god, these are all pretty powerful next one, the existential um flexibility flexibility this one perhaps has the most intoxicating title what it is and how we monitor it existential flexibility is the willingness to make profound strategic changes to advance your cause 180 Degrees right, this one is not It's the daily flexibility needed in business.

A leader or even we as individuals may never have to perform an existential flex um and, at most, may have to do it in their entire career once or never, but it is the responsibility of The goal of any leader is to prepare their organizations for an existential bending if necessary. So what is an existential flex? So the best case scenario is really Steve Jobs and the just cause of him. Jobs and Wozniak had a very clear just cause. which is empowering people to take on big brother, of course, they are revolutionaries at heart and they saw the personal computer as a brilliant tool to help them advance that, empowering people to take on big brother and steve wozniak envisioned a time when an individual could compete in business against a corporation thanks to a personal computer print, right, Apple was already successful with Apple One, Apple II, it's already a big company, Steve Jobs is already a CEO famous and in December 1979, Jobs and a bunch of his top executives go to visit the xerox park, which was the research and development division of xerox, and xerox shows them a new invention of his called a graphical user interface that allows the user clicking the mouse on a desktop to move icons and folders to use the computer instead of having to learn an entire computer language, now jobs that believe in empowering people see this technology and tell their team we have to invest in this GUI and the voice of reason, I guess, on the computer says, Steve, we can't, we can't.

If we don't, we've already invested millions of dollars in countless hours of work in a different strategic direction, if we suddenly change direction, we're going to blow up our own company, which Jobs actually said we betterWe should do it than someone else. and that decision led to the Macintosh, the first computer with a proper graphical user interface that had mass market appeal, which was so deep that the entire Windows platform Windows 2.0 was basically designed to act like a Macintosh, you know, and The reason we all have computers on our desks today The reason it's an appliance The reason any of us can compete against a corporation is because of this profound change I was willing to make That's what I now call resiliency existential because it's not the shiny object syndrome that you know a lot of entrepreneurs are subject to, you know, this is, this is, guys, you know, flavor of the moment, um, uh, it's done for the very specific reason of advancing the cause.

I found a better way to advance the cause and they have to do it. have the right cause, otherwise how do you know what to change and you have to have teams that trust because you will put the organization through hell in the short term and that and the numbers will probably go down in the short term and the team has to be we are willing to say we agree, we understand why you're making the change, let's do this and it's going to suck, but we're in and they hunker down and realize if you don't have a just cause, you're literally on your own.

Pursuing something and if you don't have trusting teams, this happens a lot, where sometimes the leader has the right cause but the team doesn't know it and if you don't have trusting teams, then people will think you've lost. your mind and they will start abandoning Shep or you will respond to pressure from Wall Street or from outside because the numbers start to go down, but existential flexibility like I said, if you don't have to, you have to prepare the organization for your success, so that your successor can do it, which means keeping the cause alive and keeping the teams confident.

Yes, existential flexibility for me is where the brilliance of what you're talking about comes into crystalline focus. because it's where all things come together, you have to have the trust of your team, which is something I think about a lot, I think about it a lot because storms inevitably come and I think if you can invest in your employees before asking them to invest in you the moment you need them to show up for you, they will. I think if people are you, you have a quick three-word phrase that you use, but basically people keep their heads down because they're afraid of being punished, it's like you never left.

To get these revolutionary ideas, a lot of it points to courage. What are your thoughts on courage? How do people get the courage to play the long game and not the long game? It's the infinite game because a long game could last five years, right? Yes, this is forever. How do people construct that everything we talk about in the infinite game is really very very difficult? It's much easier to build a company based on short-term ambitions than infinite ones because it's just right. It's also fun until it's no less inspiring, but sometimes it's fun, reaching a goal feels good.

It's much easier to just hire and fire people often hire fast, hire fast and fire slowly because we try to take. We take care of our people the best we can. It's difficult to form teams. All those things we talk about about leadership, like what am I supposed to do to build a trusting team? Well, I wish I could give you a list of five things that are really important. It's hard to be a father, it's much easier to be an uncle or an ad or not have kids, right, it's hard, right? So why do it?

You know it's fun and exciting to try to beat our competitors, you know that, but you have to face it. our own weaknesses every day oh that's exhausting you know existential flexibility I'd rather not I'd just rather not know so the reason this takes courage to completely change our way of thinking about the game in which we really we are players and how If we want to approach these things and we want to change our thinking and our organizations to prepare for the infinite game, organizing for the infinite game takes courage because we are going to swim against the current in a world that is very finite.

We know that the pressures on us are overwhelming from Wall Street or our own egos or internal incentive structures or our bosses, whatever it is, the pressures are overwhelming for us to play the finite game and then how do we play the finite game? Can you cope with massive external pressure? courage and courage is something that comes from relationships, you know, it's external. A world-famous trapeze artist would never attempt a new death-defying act for the first time without a net, they never would, so why do we think we could do something difficult without something external? support I have also had the opportunity to meet real heroes, people who have risked their lives to save the lives of others with the belief that they were going to die and they didn't and when asked why they did it, they all say something similar, that is that they would have done it for me, it is external, so we have to take the time to nurture and care for the people around us to nurture our relationships because when we are going to do something difficult, when we are going to swim against the current when we are going to innovate and and and and do something different there are days when we will doubt ourselves there are days when we will get hit on the butt there are days when the storms are going to come and we have to have people to say I got you back you have to do this we need you the world needs this is moving forward I believe in you know um and so courage courage comes not only from our willingness to do that for others, but then their willingness to do it for us and if we commit to a just cause and we're willing to do those things So the great thing is that we take a lot of people with us and we change the world for the better and isn't that the goal of an infinite life to leave this world in better condition than when we found it, to leave the companies we work for in better condition That when we start to leave our families stronger and better? capable of what they can do without us, you know, isn't that what it means to live an infinite life that we can literally live beyond our own lives, so now when people have that and take that mantle and have the ecosystem to around them that gives them that powerful support that they need to be really brave and I'm going to assume for a second that the people watching this have something that I imagine a lot of people feel unable to do is influence. the culture of the company they're already in, so what's your advice to someone who's in a company, who doesn't have an infinite mindset culture, no, don't be there, don't try to influence. what you can't influence you don't control what you can't control you know, an infinite mindset means it's something I can't do, but I can influence and care for the people to my left and to my right.

I can take care of the people who work for me. I can even take care of the person I work for. Sometimes we have a toxic boss, not because he is bad but because we don't understand the pressure he is sometimes under simply to show off. empathy with our boss you know, hey boss, you were very hard on us today, everything is fine, what's going on, I'm worried about you, you know, I'm here as we can, we can be successful together, we're here to help. You know, if no matter where we are within an organization, leadership is not about rank or authority, leadership is taking responsibility for the people around us and therefore anyone on any team, at any rank. and at any level, you can be a leader first.

The choice is that we have to want to be a dear friend of mine. Lieutenant General George Flynn of the Marine Corps said that the first criterion for being a leader is that you have to want to be one in order for any of us to volunteer to be a leader. and that's what you do, you commit to seeing that the people we work with daily love coming to work, they feel like someone has their back, they feel supported, they feel like they have superior coverage, they feel like someone cares about them As a human being listens to them, they know that their history allows them to be themselves, we can be that leader and what you begin to see is that those teams become very high performing, those teams become very united and you begin to hear rumors in the entire company because everyone wants to know that. team because apparently it's a great team to work with and before you know it, one of those people goes and moves to another team and takes everything they learned because leadership learned and does it for another team and if we take That infinite mindset will eventually wag the tail at the dog and it doesn't matter if it's this CEO or another because we will outlive whoever is in charge right now and that's the goal.

We are doing this for the good of the organization. I'm doing this for the good of the cause and the tail can wag the dog. I love it. I think you have discovered something so important right now and I can feel this change. I can feel that there is a change happening, but they need the words to understand it and I feel like your book offers that and for me it was when you were explaining that the defining moment for you was when you read about infinite games and suddenly you had the lexicon with which conceptualize.

All of this and I feel like what your book offers is giving people the framework to understand it. I don't remember where I saw this, but there was something that said, "Oh, there's this color, a shade of blue that's been lost forever." not because it doesn't exist in light waveforms, but because we don't have a word to describe it, and since we don't have a word to describe it, we can't conceptualize it and therefore our brain just diverts it to one of the colors for which that we have a name I thought, wow, that's so powerful and so true and so accurate to the way the brain works and reading the book, that's how it felt now people will be able to talk about it in a way that allows them to conceptualize what it is. which can be a company culture, the way the company can be driven by something bigger than the profits it brings them, that organizing principle, I think it's incredibly powerful, thank you, I appreciate it and I agree and I want to say that that That's what happened to me, that is, I found words for the discomfort I had.

I had words for, you know, when people called me naive and told me you didn't understand how business works. I didn't have an answer. because I didn't have words I just had a feeling and they were more successful than me and they had more power than me so I didn't say anything you know, call me old fashioned I would like to work for a company that lasts longer I would like to work for a company where I can feel that I can be myself when I go to work I would like to work for a company where I feel like my boss really cares about me like I'm a human being instead of a you know just a number on a spreadsheet, I'm with you there , working people find out more about you, where they can participate in this movement, you know all the usual places, you know the Interwebs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. and all those things um, you know, I think the question is, you know?

When people say how do I join the movement, how can I be a part of it, I always ask people the same thing: Be the leader you wish you had become. a student of leadership study it read about it see things about it practice it every day you know how to be a parent you know how to join the movement it means I'm going to take care of my team sometimes I'm a leader leadership position and sometimes I'm not and it doesn't matter I'm going to practice leadership if I'm a salesperson you know if I am if I work at the if I work at uh the airline check meeting i I'm going to take care of the people I work with, I'm going to take care of the clients as if they were my family , you know, practicing leadership, learning about it, studying it, um, because I do these things because I recognize myself.

I'm just a piece of a puzzle. You know, it's one of the reasons I wanted to come talk to you on camera. It's because you know that when we do a puzzle, the first thing you do is lean the picture and the box against the wall. and then you start putting the pieces together to build that image my job in this movement I'm the guy pointing at the box, right? I'm the one pointing at the picture, pointing at the picture, maybe pointing at a couple of pieces. and where are they going but I need a lot of people to join me we need a lot of people to join us to say I have a piece of the puzzle I'm willing to lead this way I'm willing to abandon Milton Friedman's ideals and make it something bigger something else continue that you know live with an infinite mindset lead with an infinite mindset and leave your piece and say how can I help build that vision we need the army and then how people can participate in the movement is actually practicing all the things more than any another thing that is what we need what is the impact that you want this particular book to have I know that you are the mission of your life you have articulated it well but what do you hope the impact of this book to be the book is written for two reasons: one is bringing together those who know that we have to do things differently andgive them the words and some guidance on how to do things differently, how to play with an infinite mindset in the infinite game and the other reason is to help us recognize those finite players because we are going to have to work for them, buy from them and invest in them and it's okay if they have a finite mindset, but we have a right to know when companies say we are purpose-driven, but they don't actually make decisions to further their purpose.

You know we have a right to be able to try to figure out whether they're lying to us or not because we have to work for them and buy from them and invest in them um and and and so it's to help us not only do it ourselves but also recognize when others are doing it or not. I love that Simon. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me back, of course. Guys, if you haven't gotten so far into this man's world that you're missing out, it's absolutely extraordinary if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and until next time, my friends be legendary, take care, it was wonderful, looks amazing.

Tom's idea is just this vast collection of narratives that you've built around your own experiences and it's a layer on top of another layer, on top of another layer.