Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D46zvJI-njU
When my friends are struggling, I don't say, "Take your time." When my friends are struggling, I say, "Go on." When my friends are crying, I say, "Go on." I live my life by that code. He's back. Cynic, leadership and communication expert, author, TED speaker. His unconventional views have made him one of the most sought-after speakers on the planet. There's no one quite like him. Simon, how are you doing? I'm actually feeling quite lonely. I'm struggling to communicate or present myself in a way that people will get who I am. Feel like nobody can help you. And the first thing that a lot of us should do is reach out to a friend and say, "I'm struggling." You should never cry alone. We live in a world where most people are illquipped on how to be there for a friend who's struggling. The first mistake people make is they try and fix. Don't need them to fix me. I just need him to sit in the mud with me so I don't feel alone when I'm sitting in the mud. The fact that it's such a loud conversation about mental health is a spotlight on the fact that we do not know how to build deep meaningful relationships. But the way I manage it, which is different than most is I, you know, I wish I had these skills 10 years ago. Is the design of the modern world making it more difficult for us to find love and to keep it? The problem with it is is it's grass is always greener because it's so easy to just go swiping. Something's out of balance. And as I I'm going to say this over and over and over again, which is successful relationships are [Music] Simon, congratulations. You are the D of record holder. You've been invited back more than any other guest. And it's not for it's for a very very good reason, which is that your episodes are always the most adored that we have on this on this podcast. They are um the two episodes of the conversations we've had are both in the top 10 of all time on the show and I always feel after our conversations end that they could have gone on longer. So here we are. Well, thanks for having me back. I enjoy coming. My first question for you today is and I
you know this question is often asked quite flippantly but I want to I'd really like the real answer which is how are you doing? Um, you know, I think when somebody says fine, they're lying. And so my instinct is to say I'm fine. Um, I am going through uh I'm going through some ups and downs. Um, I'm in a period of uh flux, which doesn't which is fine. That that genuinely is good. Um, I like a little bit of chaos in my life. It's where creativity comes from. And if I look back at my career, you know, I would take a job, I'd have a fastmoving career, it would get to a a great point, it would plateau, and then I'd quit. And I'm sort of at that point, you know, um I love a steep learning curve. I love a difficult situation and I like trying something new and building something. And um so there's I'm I'm shifting away from inerson public speaking which I think surprises a lot of people. Um but recognize that I never considered myself a public speaker in the first place. It's just something I did to advance my cause. It was never my chosen career. So not doing it as much as I enjoy it and and I know uh is is not that difficult. So what next is a little bit of an unknown. I have some ideas and I'm testing some things out, but I don't actually know where I'm going to go. Why are you shifting away from public speaking? Give me the context as to why this is a sort of a pivotal moment. Um, there are multiple reasons. Um, you know, I I consider myself a preacher. And when I set out on my journey many years ago, I was espousing a vision of what business could look like and what the world could look like, what our careers could look like that was different than the world that we lived in. You know, talking about purpose at work was some hippie-dippy stuff, you know, and now it's a completely normal conversation. And I'm really proud to have been a part of that movement. And so when I would stand on a stage, I was preaching to people who had never heard of my my work, who had never heard of these concepts, at least not explained the way I explained them. And and I was converting audiences, you know, that was and the good news is the
movement is is a is has its own momentum. And um I don't know how many I'm converting vastly fewer people now when I walk into the room. Now they're looking for tools. Now they're looking for, you know, which is great. Um, and so I want to now pivot myself so that I can start having significant impact again. So that I can start affecting greater change, not not just maintenance, not just reinforcing, not just affirming change, impact is what I'm looking at. So that's a huge part. Um, co in some respects was a gift. It created a marketplace for online and so you know I can do things that I could never do before which is I can be in Chicago in the morning and Koala Lumpur in the evening. that that was impossible before. Um I have the energy to give to more people. Um so I'm doing that which is great. Um and at the end of the day um I I'm I want to learn. I want to be in a situation where I'm actually not familiar, where I'm not very comfortable. You know, I'm good on the stage now. I've I've honed my craft and I want to be uncomfortable again. Right? the personal side is different. Uh, you know, I know that mental health is a is a is a an big and important topic right now. And had a conversation with somebody recently and I've realized I actually don't like the term mental health, you know. Um, it sounds like a fixed destination. It sounds like, you know, if you if you don't have health, like if you're not perfect, there's something wrong with you. So any kind of divergence or sadness means you're imperfect, right? And that's not true. And I think it's an unfair standard to call it mental health. And I think because at the end of the day, like think about your body when you go to the gym, right? Um we call that fitness. And some days you have good days at the gym and some days you have bad at the gym, bad days at the gym. Some days your body feels amazing. You can lift huge weights. and someday for whatever reason you got enough sleep, you ate, you're eating well, you're hydrated, you just your body's just not working that day. And we're all familiar with that and it doesn't really bother us. You're like, h bad day today. And you move on and you allow that to happen. But we don't treat our our mental fitness the same way. You
know, being a human, you are 100% mentally fit if you have sadness and have if you have joy and if you have doubt and uncertainty and insecurity. That that's what it is to be human. like your body sometimes has pain. There's nothing wrong with your body. And so I I I like to call it mental fitness rather than mental health, right? I'm always working on my mental fitness. Mhm. And I allow for periods of darkness. So right now when you said, "How are you?" The space that I'm sitting in is I'm actually feeling quite lonely. And uh and I learned about how to manage mental fitness during COVID more than I ever had prior because we had to deal with so much [ __ ] right? And so prior I would have been embarrassed by saying I'm feeling lonely. I would have um hid at it or suppressed it. Don't like negative feelings. Um whereas now I'm just sitting in it, not worried about it. Um I'm allowing it to go through me. like I'm allowing myself to have a bad day at the gym and weirdly even though it's not necessarily fun um weirdly appreciative of it um because it's makes me human. It just reminds me of a story um earlier on in my career I was invited to speak at an event which is the Association of Meeting Planners. So there's an American meeting planners association whatever it is. Literally everybody who hires speakers from every big company and association has their own association and they come and have their own event. So to get hired to get invited to speak at this event is like if you nail it your career is set for the rest of your life and if you blow it your career is over, right? Because like literally everybody who hires all the speakers for all the big events is in this room and I got invited. Huge honor, right? And I'm this back in the start with Y days. And I'm good at start with Y. Like I've done this thing probably thousands of times. I know my stuff. So I get up there. I'm doing start with Y and I lose my train of thought. It's okay. I'm a professional. I know how to deal with losing your train of thought. You go quiet. You relax. You get your thoughts back. And you pick up where you left off. It's happened before. No problem. So I do
what I I know how to do. I go quiet and nothing comes in. And now the panic starts. Now the heart starts pounding. Now my life is flashing before my eyes. Now I'm recognizing, oh my god, I've my career is over, you know, and I look at my my pad and I look at the audience. I cannot I cannot remember what I was saying. I don't know what to say next. I don't have a joke. I've got nothing. I've just got panic. So I turn to the audience and I say, "Do you ever have that feeling, that sinking feeling when you lose your train of thought, where your heart starts pounding and your hands get clammy and your life flashes before your eyes?" I said, "I'm having that right now." And I'll tell you, I am so grateful for that feeling right now because it makes me feel alive. And the audience exploded with applause. I said, "Right now, if somebody could please just tell me what I was saying so I could pick up where I left off." And somebody screamed something out and went, "Thank you." And I picked up and I finished. The point was I could have I could have suppressed the panic, but I was open about the way I was feeling. And what I learned was everybody was there to support me because I I acknowledge that I'm human and it's relatable. And so that's how I feel right now. I'm more open about being in a darker space in in a in the shadows right now because because it makes me feel it makes me feel quite frankly normal. It makes me feel human and it's part of mental fitness, you know, and and if I didn't have off days or off weeks, then how would I know what to work on, you know? How would I know what good good looks like? How would I know how to appreciate the happy days if I didn't have some days that were down? So I'm I'm I'm weirdly grateful for what I'm going through right now. I very long answer to your very question. Absolutely perfect. Obviously we always do long answers here as you know but I I um the context is so incredibly important and the subject matter is even more important. I know this because I've done a few talks over the last couple of years or whatever and when I talk about the subject matter of loneliness, what will happen afterwards is I will have a young man who will come up to me, you know, when
people are asking questions at the afterwards when you're taking pictures or whatever and he'll get very very close because he's scared of anybody hearing him on his right, right, and his left. And I remember I have this vision in my head of it happening recently. And he'll whisper to me a a message of thanks for talking about my own loneliness in my life. Yeah. But also asking for some kind of path through the jungle of loneliness, some kind of solution. And then when I look at the the statistics around loneliness in the UK and in the US, it's absolutely incredible. I've often cited that Theresa May was the first prime minister in our country to appoint a loneliness for the country. Um, I think the the statistic which I've often quoted is that the medium American used to say they had three people they could turn to in a time of crisis and now that answer is zero. And we're and we're heading in that direction at a very sort of um global often western world level. So I think the subject matter of loneliness is incredibly important one. My first question on that on that topic then is what is the symptom of loneliness? How does one know if they are lonely? And because it's so easy to confuse it with another feeling. Yeah. H what's you what's your sort of symptoms? So when I when I say I feel lonely and I think when people say they feel lonely, I think what it is is that you know we're social animals who want to feel um included but also feel like um people see, hear, and understand us. And I think my symptoms of of loneliness are feeling misunderstood or like people don't get me or or worse, I'm struggling to communicate or present myself in a way that people will get who I am. You've heard me say this. You know, there's an entire section in the bookshop called self-help and there's no section on the bookshop called help others. And what we're desperately needing more than anything is is is a help others industry. Like we do not teach people how to help each other. We we do podcasts and write books about how you know how you can find love and how you can build your business and how you
can become a millionaire and you know how you can find the job that you love. It's all about me me and there's not enough about how can you help somebody else find love. How can you else how can you help somebody else you know find commercial success or how we don't do that. We don't teach it. And those are the skills that are desperately needed for each of us to find mental fitness because we can't do it alone. You know, when you find darkness, you you whatever however you want to define your darkness, you know, you feel alone. You feel like nobody can help you. You feel like you have no agency. You feel like you lack of control. And the first thing that a lot of us should do is reach out to a friend and say, "I'm struggling or I need help or I'm lonely or I'm depressed or I'm sad." Whatever your whatever the feeling is. and that person, do your friends, do your colleagues, do your teachers have the skills to know how to hold space? So, the first mistake people make is they try and fix. Don't try and fix. It's not it's not a fixing thing, you know? Um it's like, I had a bad day at the gym. Nothing to fix, you know, nothing to fix. Um but then do you know how to listen? Do you know how to hold space? Um and and and I think one of the reasons more of us are struggling with mental fitness is because we ourselves lack the skills to help our friends who are struggling with mental fitness. And the more that we as a society are equipped to help each other, the more that there are other people there to help us. So, you know, if if and I have a rule with my friends um my rule is no crying alone. My my close friends all know this and we all obey it. Like I'll get a call from somebody who's a somebody who's a significant person in the world that people know who they are and they'll call me and say I do you have a minute? I'll be like yeah what's what's up? They're like I just I think I need to cry. I'm like go what have you what's on your mind? And they'll tell me what's on their mind and they will cry. And that's my rule. My rule with my friends is no crying alone. Because if you're at the point of absolute frustration, exhaustion, whatever it is that you you can't hold it in, I'd rather you call me or one of us and you do it with
somebody. You should never cry alone. And and so I'm really good when I'm in a place like this of calling somebody and telling them because I don't want to go through this alone. And some of my friends do have the do have the skills where they can say, "How do you feel?" Oh, this is how I feel. That must be really frustrating. Yeah, it's really hard. Tell me more about that. Well, I'm sort of going through this and that. And they know how to hold space. That's all I need. I need to somebody to sit in the mud with me. Don't need them to fix me or clean me off or give me a towel. I just need him to sit in the mud with me so I don't feel alone when I'm sitting in the mud. And it's I think it's our responsibility to be able to have that skills, that skill set to do it for our friends and the people we love or our colleagues. Um we don't teach listening. We don't teach difficult conversations. The fact that there's so much conversation about mental health right now is not is of course in part because we've just come through this crazy ass thing called COVID and lockdowns and exaggerated politics and you know uh and divisions in our countries and etc etc social media sure you can pile that on if you want but I think really what it is the fact there's such a loud conversation about mental health is a spotlight light on the fact that we are we do not know how to build deep meaningful relationships. I think it is an indictment on our current state of affairs that not only do we not have the skills to be there for our friends but we're we're the way we're reacting to it is by trying to seek resources to help me rather than teach me how to help my friends. I think we're going about it halfass. I was really surprised when you gave the answer regarding that when I said the symptoms that that have indicated to you that you are feeling lonely. Um I think even in my head I was expecting it to sound more like an absence of other humans around you and that's the whole distinction between being alone and being lonely. Your answer was about how you you feel like you're not understood by who? Is this friends or is this the world or is it
um the I'm a middle-aged man who hasn't been married. That not not that I care about marriage, but I haven't even had like a 10-year relationship. And I'm realizing some of it is self-inflicted. You know, I chose a career path that made me pretty undatable. You know, I was on the road so much. It was difficult to have a relationship. But some of it is also managing the effects or the the symptoms of ADHD which wasn't a thing when I was a kid. So I couldn't be diagnosed which I'm glad for quite frankly because I had to learn to manage certain things myself which became strengths as adult as strengths as an adult. So not not not bitter about that. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 32. So pretty much in life you know like and one of the things that I've and I've learned how to manage it really well professionally. Like I know how to manage my ADHD in a professional context really well. I'm only now learning some of the symptoms, how it affects personal relationships and how I show up in relationships that I didn't even realize. So my whole life I'd be in relationships and and women would tell me, "You're so hard to read." And I was like, "I'm an open book. What do you mean I'm so hard to read? I'll tell you anything you want to know." You know, like and and what I've learned is people with ADHD, not all of them, but some of them do something called stonewalling, which is an accident. It's not something conscious where you're telling me something about your day, whatever it is, or about our relationship. And I have I'm I have nothing to add. And so what on my face, you see nothing. And I I've acknowledged, oh, this is fantastic and wonderful. This is great. But I have nothing substantive to add. So I just add nothing. And so the accidental effect is, did I say something wrong? Did I offend him? Does he not agree? And so I know that about myself now. So I can say to somebody, if you're not getting the reaction that you need, if you need any reaction, just ask me for a reaction. How does that make you feel? Is that okay? Like, oh my god, that's fantastic. Right? And I'll I'll give it to you. Um or I'm really blunt and forward with questions. For example, I
have a friend, she's an entrepreneur, she's a soloreneur, she offers services to people, and I think she's priced too low. And I I was having this conversation with her, and she I said, "What what do you charge?" She told me the price. And I said, "Why do you charge that?" That's how I asked the question. Why do you charge that? And she was telling me about this just a few about a week ago. It was really funny. And in in my mind, I that's perfectly legitimate question. In her mind, it was such an aggressive affront. Like, what do you Why do I charge that? And I'm like, you're worth more. Why do you charge that? You know, I said, well, how should I have asked that question? And I guess normal people would have said, oh my god, you're worth so much more than that. Why do you charge that? You know, but I don't. I'm just like this. So, I recognize that in a professional context, it's one thing. People can deal with questions like that delivered like that in a meeting, but in a relationship, not so much. And so like sitting in this space, I'm like going through all of these mistakes or things that I've done over the course of years and I'm a little annoyed by myself. You know, now I know don't want to live life in a rearview mirror, but I mean I can still take account and I'm annoyed, you know, I wish I had these skills 10 years ago, you know. So, I'm just sitting in a period of my life where I just, you know, I would have liked to have had some of the experiences that I haven't had yet. And you know, my my friends who are in fix it mode, they're like, "But think of it as an opportunity. Now you have these skills and you thank you. I know that. But allow me to mourn the past. That's my loneliness. I'm just mourning. I'm in a period of mourning. I have I can I can mourn loss, can't I? Like if I if I lose a friend or a loved one, you know, allow me to just like mourn and then I'll move forwards. Like I'm okay. I I I will move forwards, but allow me to mourn loss and and that's all I'm doing is just allow me to mourn the loss and I'll be fine. Just hold space for me. Come and sit in the mud with me. Ask me how I'm feeling. Ask me how I'm doing. Just let me vent. Just sit in the mud
with me. And you know, again, I think to your point, I think we just live in a world where most people are ill equipped on how to be there for a friend who's struggling. Can you give I learned this term the other day, which I love. I learned it from Lex Freedman. Can you give the steelman argument for your friends that are telling you to trying to offer advice in your morning process and trying to get you to be more future orientated as the steelman argument I mean is can you give the argument for why they're doing that and why it's a good thing emotions are good it means you're human like I said I believe in mental fitness not mental health you know that it's a that like your body you have to work out you have to eat well, you have to sleep all the time. It's not something you do and then you're done. You know, we've used that analogy before, you and I, which is which is what the infinite game is, which is it's like it's like I want to be healthy. Okay. Well, it's you're going to have to do it for the rest of your life. It's not an event. And our mental health, our mental fitness is exactly the same, which is it's it's constant and it's ups and downs. And it's only um um a challenge or or you need to start involving professionals if you get stuck. You know, like if you get stuck in sadness and you cannot get out of it, that's a different that's a different conversation. If you get stuck in depression and you cannot get out of it, if you get stuck in loneliness and you cannot get out of it, and by the way, the thing that I love about human beings is we can have multiple conflicting feelings simultaneously. I am lonely and optimistic simultaneously. My optimism, you know, I'm I I'm I'm a I'm I pride myself on my optimism. My optimism has not diminished in the least. Optimism doesn't mean I can't sit in a dark tunnel. Optimism means that I believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Even if that light is far away, I'm I have an undying belief that the future is bright. This this too will pass, right? That doesn't mean I enjoy it. It doesn't mean I want to be here and I can be excited and I can hang out with my friends and I can have an amazing time with my friends and then go home and still feel lonely.
Like, you can have simultaneous and conflicting feelings. That's allowed. In fact, it's it's it's normal. But I I I cannot stress I think that the way that I manage this differently than most. I don't usually talk about it on podcasts, but whatever. Um uh but the way I manage it, which is different than most, is I I I I don't wait for the phone to ring. I call a friend and say, "Do you have a minute? Can I can I talk?" And if a friend is illquipped, if they start fixing, I'll interrupt the conversation, say, "Listen, I love you. this is not what I need right now. I love you. I love you. I'm going to get off the phone right now. Okay? Because when they go into fix it mode, it actually makes me feel worse sometimes. The friends that are some of the best equipped people um are folks in the military, you know. Um they know how to manage [ __ ] better than almost anybody I know. Uh I've cried with more people in uniform than I've ever cried with people in suits. Um and the way that we talk to each other, like I have a friend who's a general. I've known him for a million years. So, it's fun been fun to watch his career. He's now a general. And when we say goodbye to each other, we say, "I love you." And when we get on the phone with each other, if it's been a long gap, he'll say to me, "Hey, man." He, first of all, he calls me brother. "Hey, brother." Right? Which means something. Hey, brother. I really miss you. And he says things that a lot of guys don't say to each other, you know? Um, he talks to me like sometimes I talk to my female friends. Mhm. There's it's full of emotion. It's full of honesty and there's no machismo whatsoever. And yet he's a warrior. He's a combat veteran, you know. Um and he'll say, "Hey man, I I miss you. It's been a while." I go, "Yeah, I miss you, too." And then we'll get off the phone. He'll say, "Hey, I love you. I love you, too. I'll talk to you soon." And um though he will I would I mean he and there a small group like him. Um, you know, I I would call him in my most in my darkest times and I know he would call me. Um, um, I have another friend and he's going through some [ __ ] and I'm honored that when I called him up and said, "Hey, I haven't talked to you. What you been going through?" You know,
I just realized I haven't talked to him in a while. And I, "Hey, what you've been going through?" And he just let it all out. And I could hear the frustration. I could hear the pain. And I didn't try and fix it. I just encouraged him to keep talking. What else? Go on. Tell me more. What else? Oh my god, that must that's really Go on. Yeah. What else? And just sat in the mud with him. And it was an it was an honor. I'll tell you, it was an honor that he felt comfortable enough to do that because I guarantee it. He, like so many, are really good at hiding it, faking it, suppressing it. He's a pro. In fact, I'm sure he is where he is partially because he's a pro. And you know, if you have the skill set to hold space for someone, you will have an amazing sense of gratitude that your friends trusted you and loved you enough that they would go there in front of you. And I think that's a standard that we should strive for. Like I said, we're also preoccupied with ourselves, you know. Um, there's no greater honor there's no great honor than being able to serve a friend in need. When I see, you know, a friend sees you sat in the mud, a friend sees me sat in the mud, their ill-informed love reaction is to try and get me out of the mud. Right. Of course, you know, well-intentioned. I don't knock it. I know it's well intentioned. How do I get out the mud? The reason I asked that question is because I know there's someone listening to this right now who is sat in the mud. In many respects in my life, I'm sat in the mud. Um the the thing we're all looking for is we want empathy in the fact that we're sat in the mud, of course. But we're desperate for a way out of the mud, right? That's understandable. Where do where does the plan come from? Where does how do we get out of the mud? So I if it were a prescription, you and I wouldn't have to work anymore. Um uh on the subject matter of loneliness because it's easier to focus on,
right? So I I I I think in large part like any cooperative effort, like any relationship and a friendship is a relationship, right? Um uh having colleagues is a relationship. Um, in some part it's it's it's it's um co-created, right? You know, you want to show up in any kind of relationship, professional or personal, and make it a co-creation. And, you know, I think when somebody first calls you, I I don't think they're looking for solutions. They're looking for companionship and and catharsis. They're just looking not to feel like overwhelmed. And at some point, um, you can either ask, "Can I offer some pointers? You're not ready for that yet?" "No, I'm not ready for that yet." versus, "Yeah, yeah, go ahead." Or the person will ask themselves, you know, what do you think is what do you think? How do I like what do I do? you know, or I'll know what to do, but I don't want to do it. Like, I know what to do. I just need to do this. And the person can just say, I'll do it with you and just offer again companionship. Most of us, believe it or not, have more knowledge about how to get out of it than we think because we've dispenseed the advice in the past probably. You know, I think most of us have a sense like it's again I think part of part of it is is allowing ourselves to feel the feels. You know, I think if I suppress the feelings, they would last longer. But allowing myself to feel the feels I know is part of the solution. You know, it's like if you try and suppress feelings, it makes it just it's not good. Yeah. You know what I mean? They're signals, right? They're signals. They're just sign that's all they are. And and maybe they're telling you other things like maybe it's maybe all of my loneliness is telling me is like Simon you idiot just get some sleep. Maybe that's all it's telling me. Maybe I'm feeling lonely is because I'm just freaking exhausted. Turns out I've been sleeping better and turns out I feel better. You know, maybe I've been eating crap, you know? Maybe I'm full of freaking sugar and fat.
Does social expectations play a role? I am this age and I should be this by now. Oh. Um, I think I think that I think we we have to say yes, right? And like the midlife crisis is a known thing and you sort of expect, you know, you hit middle life and you're like, "All right, you're going to start evaluating everything. You know, your receding hairline, your sagging body, you know, you're you and comedians joke about it. We joke about it." But I I think the new thing is the quarterlife crisis. You know, the number of friends that I have that are in their mid20s or or like barely pushing 30 and they are suffering all the things that somebody in their midlife would suffer. And their evaluation is different. It's not like, oh my god, I'm closer to the day I'm going to die than the day I was born. It's not that. It's more like, "Oh my god, I'm at this age and I haven't achieved all the things I said I was going to achieve or I'm just getting started or I'm and and they and I and I think now the quarter life crisis is like a real thing." Yeah. And unfortunately older generations scoff at it, you know, but I think it's based that is very much societal expectation. Like I'm supposed to be here. Like the number of young people I know who I say you're entry level. Don't worry if you're running the place yet. Just even if this is a bad job, if it's toxic, get out. But there's very few jobs that are super toxic. You know, if you just have a bad boss, like stick with this and learn. Like the learning you're going to get from a bad like my first boss was a bad boss and I was there for a year and a half and it was one of the best educations I got. And by the way, the camaraderie that I built in my team because we all shared the same bad boss was amazing, right? So I learned teamwork. I learned having each other's back. I learned people taking care of each other. We learned how to manage and how not to do things. I didn't just abandon it because my boss was bad. My point is is when I say stuff like that to young people, they immediately interpret that as the worst advice ever because I'm wasting time. Or take a gap year. I can't I'm wasting time. Like wasting time from what? Like
what race are you? Who are you comparing yourself to? What standard? like you know I won't achieve the thing by by by what like what imaginary scale are we working on here you know but there is this very clear imaginary scale by which younger people young people are pegging their life against and the only thing I can offer is my own is my own experience and I know it's the worst thing to do because you know when you're in it you're in it nobody can think that far ahead but I and it's fun to think about, right? Cuz I remember when I was young in my career and things were just starting to move, there was this one guy I used to go to for advice who was very much more successful than me. Um, really buttoned up, really sort of, you know, operationsoriented. And he would constantly give me advice that either he was basically either telling me I was an idiot or made me feel like an idiot by all the things I wasn't doing or wasn't doing right or should be doing or could be doing. But it never felt right to me. And he would say stupid things to me like, "I won't get out of bed for, you know, x amount of thousands of dollars." I'm like, "I do stuff for free all the time, you know." And and if I didn't have my sense of purpose and cause, if I didn't have my north star, my why, my my vision to guide me, I would have listened to him and it would have been to my detriment. um uh because he was very finite-minded and it was very sort of like hit this target, hit this target and thank goodness I ignored all the advice and flash forward my career has completely eclipsed his. It just took longer. Mhm. Um, and that's the point is the point is is that the reason people don't follow my my ideas, the people, the reason people reject my books is because they want my my advice or they want my perspective to work this year. And and I and you've and you'll hear I've used this analogy all the time like I will tell you how to get into shape. I will tell you have to exercise 20 minutes a day every day. You have to eat healthy and you can have you can only have sugar in days that start with S, you know. I I I like what Mark Heyman says, which is, you know, treat sugar like a recreational drug, you know. And if you do these things 100% you will
be in shape and you'll be healthy. 100%. Nobody wants that book, right? But the problem is you have to do it. And well, somebody will say, well, when will I be in shape? And the answer is I don't know. 100% it works. I don't know when. And when I discovered the why and I first articulated the why and this is also important. It wasn't just the why. I also discovered um uh EMTT Rogers work on the law of diffusion of innovations which I did write about also in start with Y. That combination of starting with Y and following the law of diffusion I realized that 100% it was going to work. by starting with why I was going to attract early adopters and early adopters would make the tipping point. I didn't know when. I just knew it would work and I just stuck with it. And I and I disconnected myself from any arbitrary timebased achievement, which freaks people out, especially if you're on a quarterly or annual financial schedule. But I disconnected. I knew it would work and I just stuck with it. Turns out it worked. Some of it worked quicker than I expected. Some of it worked slower than I expected. But it worked. And young people, myself included, when I was their age, I I'm not saying I had some like I was 100% the same. It had to be a discovery for me. And that discovery didn't come to my early 30s. So my 20s were me being that person going, "You're an idiot. I got I can't waste time." But there's something magical about being on the path and just sticking just sticking just being disciplined and just sticking to and a funny thing is as we're talking about this I don't even I don't think of myself as a disciplined person. I'm actually very undisiplined like I'm I don't have an exercise regime like like I go in and out. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And I'm just not a very disciplined person. And I have so much I have so much respect for people who are super disciplined. when they commit themselves to something, they're they do it and they're just really good at sticking to the plan. I'm useless at sticking to the plan, right? And but I'm realizing now the only discipline I had was I trusted in these two theories starting with why and law of diffusion.
So apply that to the topic of someone who is let's say 35 years old. Yeah. 36 years old. 37 years old. Yeah. And they are they're lonely. Yeah, I can't tell you how many friends I've got and how many conversations I have to the point that I I was think considering writing a book and going on the process of research who are saying to me right now that they are single, they are lonely. Um, their biological clock is ticking um and they and the pressure of them trying to find someone is so intense that it's causing them to maybe become less capable of finding someone. Yeah. So, I'm trying to figure out what what those people that are listening need to to help them get out of that. Well, look, there are people who are better equipped to answer these questions than me. Um, but, you know, I can wax philosophical like so many things, you know, and I I'll use another military analogy, right? which is these wonderful human beings who volunteer to wear that uniform are willing, many of them are willing to risk their lives to save the life of someone they don't even like but they love, right? Or they trust. And what people neglect or forget is that that deep intense trust that they have for each other does not show up when they arrive on the battlefield. They've been building it and the and the and the organizations for whom they work know how to build that trust that the trust exists by the time they get into combat. And this is when I talk about command and control. You know, like I talk about asking people and getting feedback and all these things, but the reality is is command and control also is a real thing. So, you know, if you're a Marine and you show up in combat, they talk about that as managing chaos. That's they they refer to combat as managing chaos. Sounds a lot like an entrepreneurial venture. That is managing chaos, right? And there are times where you have to be command and control. But the problem is is you can't be command and control before you've earned somebody's trust. So that you when you're back at home, you're building trust, building trust,
building trust, building trust, building trust. So that when we are in chaos and I yell an order at you, I don't have time to ask you your feelings. I don't want your feedback. I don't need your ideas. I need you to do as I'm telling you right now. And you have to trust that I'm making the best decision that I can. I'm not going to put your life recklessly at risk. And I even may make a mistake and people will die because of my mistakes. My mistakes and that's still okay. But you can't do command and control all the time. It's episodic and it's earned. And so when when COVID struck and we first went into lockdown, I went into command and control. I even made an announcement to my team like, "Hey, listen. I know we have a culture where there's a lot of feedback and if you're not if there's feelings hurt like we we have that mechanism and I want to hear all that stuff but I can't hear it for another two weeks save it up if I'm if I'm a bit of a if I'm a bit blunt in a meeting tell me in two weeks I just I don't have the bandwidth right now because what we're doing is survival and it worked fine that command and control because I built up the trust it worked fine the problem is leaders who believe they can be in command and control all the time right so what I'm so the reason I'm telling you this is you're asking two different questions. One which is more difficult which is we need to build these skills when we're healthy and in a good state of mind so that when we're in the mud we ourselves have some equipment and some tools and our friends that we're going to call have some equipment and some tools. Right? You're asking with no equipment and no tools and I'm sitting in mud. How do I get out? That is an entirely different conversation that I am probably the least equipped to answer. there are professionals who are much better equipped to answer that. And what I'm saying is is is um uh for so that we don't find ourselves in that situation right now with big smiles on our face. How's your day? Great. I'm great. Things are great. When are you taking that listening class? When are you going to practice
mindfulness and meditation? And have you have you tried meditation? Yeah. Yeah. My girlfriend Yeah. My girlfriend's like a yoga meditation. Okay. So, you're forced to do it. Yes. Exactly. Got it. I have to run away from it, right? Okay. So, for for if anyone has ever practiced meditation, you sit still and you focus on one thing. When they say clear your mind, that's not true. You don't clear your mind. That's impossible. But you do focus on one thing. Could be your breath. It could be your mantra. It could be a dot on the wall. It could be a sound. It doesn't matter. The point is you focus on one thing. And when you get distracted or you have another thought like, "Ooh, did I leave the oven on?" What you do is you label that a thought and you push it out of your mind and you say, "I'll deal with that later." And you go back to focusing on the one thing. And there are tremendous benefits to the self of uh of of being present and and calm and clearheaded by practicing meditation. But that is not the sole purpose of meditation. Just so you can be present. In fact, I believe that you are not present until someone else says you are. Right? So the reason you practice meditation is so that when you're sitting with a friend and they're telling you about their good day or their bad day, you are focused on one thing and one thing only, what they're telling you as opposed to waiting for your turn to speak. And you may have thoughts and you say, "That's a thought. I'm going to label that and deal with that later." and you remain so focused and there's a bang in the background but your eyes don't leave your friend because you're so present at the end of the conversation they will say to you thank you for listening they will say thank you for being present they'll say thank you I feel heard congratulations you were present congratulations all that meditation was worth it now the practice of meditation though it has benefits to yourself the reason to practice meditation is as a service to others the the ADHD point that you raised And you've talked a lot about exactly that, which is um being able to sit and listen and and and hear.
How did you because it almost sounded like you you self diagnosed that as being a playing a part in your your historic relationship challenges? How how do you how do you know? Because I you know what I mean? Cuz if you if you make that sort of self diagnosis and then you build a plan around that and it's the wrong self diagnosis, you know, you end up in in another unfortunate place if that makes sense. So if I if I had self diagnosed myself based on that experience with my parents um I could have been aiming at the wrong target. So it's about this question is about self-awareness. How does how does one develop the self awareness? Is it feedback? I think there's a difference between introspection and awareness with accountability versus victimization versus victimhood. Right. By the sound of it, you didn't say, "My parents did this to me." No. Right. Not useful. But that's victimization. It's the same It's the same thing. I can't have a relationship because my parents [ __ ] me. Yeah. because they didn't give me an effective model and they didn't love me enough and they didn't hug me enough and so the reason I can't have relationships is because of my parents. Dismpowering. It's disempowering. It's also victimhood, right? Uh whereas um okay well the cards that I was dealt um I got a lot of good cards for some things and in some places me maybe I got to work a little harder on this one. So the cards that I was dealt from family I hold no grudge. I'm not angry at them. They didn't have the tools. It's okay. And um I don't I don't curse them for it. They don't have the tools. But um I I'm gonna have to learn the tools. You know, other people learn it from their parents. I'm going to have to learn it from other sources. And I could say the same thing about listening skills. You know, some parents are really good at holding space for their kids, and those kids will learn how to hold space for their friends because it was modeled by their parents. And some parents don't have the tools to hold space for their kids. Or maybe they
work in really really horrible jobs and so they come home and they're short-tempered. And so, you know, there's a chain of causation there. And um and the kids uh aren't learning those skills, they're going to have to learn it from somewhere else. That's why I say we have to teach it at work. We have to teach these skills at work because we or in universities because we cannot take for granted that people are learning these skills at home or with their friends. What if I just smell though? Like, and I totally [ __ ] miss the target and I just stink. Like, I just like I have really bad body odor, but I thought, do you know what what it is is I'm I'm just too picky. So, I'm trying to figure out how we become more self-aware as to what the real issue is. Now, you it sounded like you'd spoken to some of your exes or something or I I have great relationships with many of my exes and there's one ex I have in particular where we broke up. We got back together. We broke up properly and uh she hated me for a while. Uh I probably blamed her for the breakup. I'm sure we blamed each other. Then at some point we sort of like calmed down and we went out for dinner and we sat at the bar. I even remember the restaurant. We sat at the bar and we literally dissected the relationship. And we didn't do it with accusation. What we did was we didn't say we didn't sit down and say you did this, you did this, you did this, which is how we were for the previous, you know, whatever six months in our minds. We sat down and said, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I did this, I did this, and I did this." And sometimes the other person affirmed, "Yeah, you did that." You know, but we showed up with accountability rather than accusation. And at the end of dinner, we we hug each other with immense gratitude because it is so rare that you get to sit down with an ex and take not only take accountability for the things that you screwed up, but learn about other things you screwed up and learn about how you were received even if you thought you were doing things right. And you you know, in everything else, if you have a failed business venture, you sit down and you you have a hotwash. You sit down and you sort of like go back and see what went wrong so you don't make the same
mistakes. You do that in almost every respect of our lives professionally, but very rarely do you ever get the opportunity personally because usually the two people don't want to talk to each other anymore, right? But we sat and by the way, there was no expectation that a friendship was going to come out of this. We just sort of like I don't know why we showed up, but we both did and we would both admit that it was one of the greatest things we could ever have done. Um because we got to find out how we were in the relationship, which usually you never find out where you are. So to go back to your point, I think feedback is the thing, you know, um you know, the only common factor in all our failed relationships is us, you know, you could you you don't you know, it's their fault only lasts for a period. At some point, there's some accountability to be had. And if you don't know what it is, there's something to be said for picking up the phone and calling an ex. And I don't mean the one that just ended up like a week ago, but like give it a give it some time. calling an old ex and say I know you're probably surprised to hear from me and by the way you know it's it's been a long time I know and the reason I'm calling is because I'm really taking myself on and first of all I uh I probably owe you a bunch of apologies for how I showed up in the relationship but I really want to learn how I showed up. Are you willing to have a conversation and just tell just give me some some point of view that I don't have. Do you know if I did that with my ex, right? Yeah. Um, I I don't believe there's anything that they would say that would surprise me. However, I do think they'd say things that I've never acknowledged. Does that make sense? Um, at my core, I think I'd go, "Yeah, now you said it." Do you know what I mean? [ __ ] So, that's a real So, then it it gives you a space. Look, you can't screw up that relationship. It's screwed up. So, in that space, you can be like, "Yeah, I did that." And you're not risking anything. Even the most introspective people in the world don't have total objectivity on themselves
and can't see all the angles. Um you don't have to agree with things. That's the thing you know which is just because somebody says something doesn't mean that it's true. The the way the way we when we do 360deree uh feedback sessions in our company for example the the counsel we offer is you you know you have to listen to what the person is saying. The only thing you're allowed to say in response is thank you because they're giving you a gift by giving you this feedback that they would rather not give you because it's easier for them not to give it to you. So just say thank you. Don't argue. Don't give excuses. Don't explain. Just say thank you. And you don't have to agree with it. You can ignore it. However, we say if you have an emotional response to it like anger, it's probably true. Did you have an emotional response to some of it? Sure. Of course. And if you dis if you disagree, you just you say you listen to it and you go, "No, that's not true." Right? Um but if you have an emotional response to something where you start getting agitated or angry or wanting to defend yourself, that nerve that they touched, h maybe there's a there there. I wonder if you have a thought an opinion on this. One of the conversations that's adjacent to this I probably do. You probably do, which is great. Um, one of the kind of adjacent conversations that I've often had with my friends when we're talking about love and dating, I think when we go for dinner, we often have this as well, is is it becoming harder because of the design and the nature of the modern world for us to find love and to keep it because you know once upon a time my argument might assert that we lived in villages there was 20 people that I told a story the other day to my team that I worked in this call center in Manchester 20 of us in this call center many many years ago and first couple of days in didn't wasn't interested in anybody. I got 6 months in, fell in love with the girl next to me. And I I I almost equate that to like the village. We have a very small context, so it was easier to find love.
Is the design of the modern world making it more difficult, do you think, for us to find love? So I think well simple answer is it's definitely added a layer of complication because now love is treated like shopping. You know, we shop for partners like we shop for [ __ ] on Amazon. You know, it's like you scroll through, you find one that looks good, and you click like. Good reviews and you Yeah, good reviews. Look, it's definitely convenient and it's definitely made life a lot easier. And you never have to deal with rejection because you don't know if they swiped left on you. You just assume that they never saw your picture, right? Like it doesn't actually say rejected, you know? Um uh uh I think the problem with it is is it's grass is always greener because it's so easy, you know, to just go swiping. Uh and you know, sometimes you treat it like Instagram. You know, I'll I've done this where I've sat in my bed late at night because instead of looking at social media, I'm looking at a dating app and I'm swiping right like I'm clicking like on a post and then it says you're connected. I'm like, "Ah, damn it." because I don't actually want to like go through the effort of like connecting. I was just I was just liking the post, you know. Um Scott Galloway talks about this. Uh I can't remember what the numbers I can't remember what the numbers are, but the point the point is is there's a massive disparity of men that just don't ever connect. Um and there's nothing more dangerous in a modern society than a lonely man, right? And if you look at terrorism and if you look at mass homicide and things like that, it's very often a lonely man, you know, and you add in sex and um uh and um and incelss and you know, you know, the Middle East for example, you know, it's 25% at during the height of terrorism, you know, a bunch of years ago, it was 25% unemployment in the region in in a shame based society where you have young men living at home and who aren't employed and they've never had sex because there's no sex before marriage and how are you ever going to meet a girl when you live at home and you don't have a job and then all of a sudden that stress comes out somewhere
and I think we don't talk about sex and sexuality as a part of um our other behaviors and I I for some reason because we we've we think it's bad to connect you know sex life with how people show up in the world but you take somebody who's sexually frustrated a sexually frustrated men in their mid to late 20s um and all of that pressure and insecurity and you know now desperation like it comes out in horrible ways and the the need to exert control comes out in horrible ways different conversation Scott Galloway I said you know has some fantastic numbers on this so I think um you know the dating apps uh aren't necessarily fair that's one thing you know it's not like everybody everybody's going to find somebody. But I do think that there's something wrong with shopping for people. Um, and I the thing that I lament about dating apps that's really and maybe this is just me. Uh, cuz I'm hate first dates. Um, oh god, the worst. Um, but the reason you know them pre pre-dating apps or let's not pre-dating apps, it's just when there's no dating app being used. The way that we traditionally would meet somebody is you meet them at a party, at a dinner party, you meet them at the pub, you, you know, you bump into them at a museum, you make small talk, or you eye them up from across the room, and there's some attraction. And then one of you musters up the courage to go up and start flirting and have a conversation. And at some point, you say, "Can I get your number? I'd love to I'd love to continue this." And they'll say, "Yes, or no." And the flirting and the initial trashing has already happened. And so the first date is actually the first date after the initial attraction and flirting. Now with dating apps, the flirting, the initial attraction, the attempt to court someone is all happening simultaneously on the first date. There's a lot there's a lot of pressure for a first meeting where, you know, when you meet somebody in in IRL, it's like, you know, it's happened. The initial attraction has already happened. Um, there's no expectation they're not they're not going to look like their picture. They're going to look like exactly what
they're going to look like when you met them. And it's dinner, so they could be 3 hours allocated. It could be expensive meal, whatever it is. Um, I don't I I think there's nothing quote unquote wrong with online dating. I just think we we like everything. Like there's nothing wrong with online shopping, but there's the reason that bricks and mortar stores still exist and that Amazon is opening stores. It's because people like to go shopping. It's a hunter gatherer thing. Like there's entertainment. It's more than the than the purchase. It's more than the transaction. It's the browsing we enjoy, you know? It's it's in our DNA, you know? and and and I think that there's nothing wrong with online, but I think that that making an effort to do, you know, in real life things should be should be included, should be balanced. You know, it's like I like everything in the world, I'm a great believer in balance. I don't usually rail for or against something. I'm usually about talking about balances and imbalances. Even social media like much so much has been said about you know what I've said about social media and millennials etc. I'm not against it. I'm talking about balance and it's out of balance you know uh uh you know even corporate culture you know I'm not against many of the modern things. I'm against the imbalance you know capitalism is unbalanced in in its current form. So when we usually feel discomfort or anger or frustration it's usually due to the imbalances. Um, isn't that what where this conversation started? You know, that you know, feelings of loneliness, something's out of balance, you know, and this is why I call it fitness rather than health because fitness is the attempt to maintain equilibrium, to find balance. Sometimes it tips one way and sometimes it tips the other way. And it's you're constantly working to maintain balance. That's what all of this stuff is. Business is the same. You're an entrepreneur. It's feast or famine. Like, it's never the right amount, you know, and you're constantly working on balance. And I think that's why that's the strongest argument for playing the long game, which is it's
always teetering. That means you have to constantly be alert and constantly be working because if it tips too far good, it's going to tip the other way. Don't don't rest on your laurels. Make make sure you have got money in the bank. Like stock markets just don't go straight up. It's not how it works, right? At the same time, when it goes the other way, it's like don't worry, this too shall pass. this also won't last. Start working on some skills that you maybe haven't worked on. Start reaching out to people. Start apologizing. You know, if you've been so self-involved with yourself and now you're in a lonely place. Sometimes being lonely like is calling up a friend and saying, "I've been an [ __ ] and I am sorry." And I'm looking I'm in a really dark place right now. And I'm just looking back thinking, "Oh my god, I've been so self-involved that there's no one around me to be there for." And I am so so sorry. You know, and again, it goes right back to everything we were talking about, which is it's a it's accountable for my it's accountable for me versus victim of me, you know, that that I'm not a victim of the world around me, you know? Um, what impact has that had on your self-esteem? The the the realization, the awareness that you you are feeling lonely, has it had any impact on your self-esteem at all? Does it? especially some of those confronting some of those tough truths from the past. It's a good question. You know, again, I'll go back to what I said before. I'll go back to what I said before, which is um you can have we can have multiple feelings at the same time even if those feelings are opposite. So, I can be insecure and confident at the same time, right? But so much of it is situational, right? I'm not insecure every moment of every day. Of course not. Nobody is. But I'm not confident every moment of every day. Of course not. Nobody is. And if you're stuck in one of those things, then there's a problem. If like if you really are overly confident every moment of every day with no actual self-doubt in your mind, there's something wrong there. There's something there divergence going on there, right? Um we
know this. We know that narcissists are actually filled of self-loathing. You know, for all their bluster and power, they hate themselves, right? We know this. Um and again, I think it's all situational. I think it's all and so and I've I I I've talked about this which is which is I don't believe in you and I have talked about this which is I don't believe in strengths and weaknesses or right or wrong. I believe everything is contextual. So you know people do these evaluations what are my strengths what are my weaknesses. know what are your characteristics and what are your attributes and then once you know those things you have to know in what contexts those characteristics or attributes are advantages and in what contexts those attributes are disadvantages and work very hard to put yourself in context where you're going to be working to your strengths. So if you have a natural capacity for maths, right, you're just really you're just really good. Like people say out numbers and you just add them up in your head immediately and you don't have to pull out your fingers, right? You're just good at it, right? Put yourself in a situation where that's an advantage. If if you are maths like incapable, don't become an accountant, no matter how many people tell you it's a good thing to become an accountant, right? It's just not going to go well for you. So you can go down the list of our personal attributes and I have attributes um where for example I think out loud. Is that a strength or a weakness? Context dependent. Context dependent, right? Put me on a stage, ask me a question, let me wax philosophical, give me a podcast on a microphone, give me one question, and four hours later, you know, I'm still talking. You know, advantage, right? sit me down on a team when I'm having a team meeting and somebody says something and I'm thinking out loud. I'm now dominating the meeting. Maybe I need to learn how to scale that back a little bit. In the diary of a CEO, we have hundreds of questions that have been left by our guests. And we've put them on these cards. And on these cards, you have the question that's been left in the Diver CEO, the name of the person who wrote
the question. And if you turn it over, there's a QR code. If you scan that code, you can see which guest answered the question and watch the video of them answering it. Every time I've done this podcast and every time we've asked the kind of questions we ask here, I feel a tremendous sense of affinity to the guest. And our aim with these cards is that you can create that sense of connection through vulnerability at home with the people you love the most. And I have some good news for you. As of today, you can add your name to the waiting list to be the first in line to get your own set of conversation cards at the conversation.com. That is the conversationcards.com. Over the last couple of how long, maybe 4 months, I've been changing my diet, shall I say? Many of you who've really been paying attention this to this podcast will know why. I've sat here with some incredible health experts and one of the things that's really come through for me which has caused a big change in my life is the need for us to have these superfoods, these green foods, these vegetables. And then a company I love so much and a company I'm an investor in and then a company that sponsored this podcast and that I'm on the board of recently announced a new product which absolutely spoke to exactly where I was in my life and that is Hu and they announced Daily Greens. Daily Greens is a product that contains 91 superfoods, nutrients, and plant-based ingredients, which helps me meet that dietary requirement with the convenience that Hule always offers. Unfortunately, it's only currently available in the US, but I hope I pray that it'll be with you guys in the UK, too. So, if you're in the US, check it out. It's an incredible product. I've been having it here in LA for the last couple of weeks, and it's a game changer. What are those layers that you've you've peeled off recently? I I can think of layers that I've peeled off in the last, you know, couple of months with with people close to me that I was always scared to peel off before, but I've had to in order like what um so with my girlfriend, I you know, I reflect and I go I don't think I ever told her truly that I'd ever had like a bad day
or that I was like feeling bad about anything. I think I'd always just had this wall up. I thought because part of me stupidly thought that if I tell her when I'm having a bad day or I'm feeling anxious or whatever, then she'll start talking about it and it'll make me more anxious and then I'll have to calm her down. So, I just give it to myself. And then in the last, you know, in the last 3 to 6 months when I felt anxious, yep, I've told I slowly ran the experiment of what happens if I just tell her about a little bit of it. Yeah. That experiment went well. So, I told her that a little bit more and to the point now where I've told her completely how I'm feeling even on my best and worst days. Um, and I would never have done that before because it made me feel weak. Yep. It made me feel like I was like not the tough masculine boyfriend that she would be attracted to. Obviously, and I have to say this surprisingly, it's caused deeper connection of course and deeper understanding which is exactly what I needed. I needed understanding. I needed and I also created a space where we could say, "Listen, when I'm feeling like this, this is how I'd love you to to respond, which often is just like just just listen just sit in the mud with me." Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And don't don't don't necessarily say anything. Don't try, you know, your point about fixing it. My girlfriend, she's so through all of her love and and I'm the same with her and I'm just the same with everybody. I will always try and fix. Yeah. It it men are worse than women come when it comes to fixing. Uh I I've been on the receiving end of that. I dated somebody who if I asked her, "How are you?" Great, was the only answer she ever gave me. That's all I've ever said to people. And uh and it actually made it very difficult for me to get close to her because I knew that she was having bad days. I could tell when she was frustrated and she and so when somebody
puts on that brave face and always wants to be great for their partner, it's the most selfish thing you can do because you're denying them that awesome joy of being able to be there for you. M remember as social animals we want to take care of the people we love and how dare you how dare you deny them the the unbelievable honor of getting to sit in the mud with you. You know it is it is a joy that human beings get to experience. And one of the things if you can by the way the biology proves it that one of the things that releases oxytocin which is that feeling of love and connection and trust is shared struggle. Shared struggle releases oxytocin, which is why when families go through tragedy, they get closer. Which is why when societies go through hurricanes, there's intense, you know, politics get put aside and we support each other, right? And it's the same in a relationship, which is if you allow someone to sit and struggle with you, it actually deepens the relationship biologically. Um, so but what we're talking about is risk. What we're talking about is being vulnerable, making, you know, and it requires more courage, as you've learned. It actually requires more strength to say, "I'm anxious today," than it does to lie and say, "Everything's great." That's the irony. Superficially, it's stronger, but in reality, it's cowardice. And by the way, that doesn't make it easy. The words are easy, and I've definitely been there, and you've been there. Um but I I think that if we like someone um and it only and I always say leadership is about going first. It's why we call you leader, right? Doesn't mean you're have the answers. It doesn't mean you're right. It just means you st stepped first into the unknown that we uh took the risk to go first. And so in a relationship, one of you can take the lead. One of you can go first to set the example of what it looks like and feels like to say, "I'm having a bad day today. And I don't need you to fix it. I know what I'm going through. I want you to I want to tell you all of this stuff because I want you to be there with me and I want to be there with you cuz I don't want to feel this way alone." And that key second step which I I learned
literally in the car this weekend with my partner was you then need to work with them to educate them on and vice versa on how you would like to be held correct in that moment which is actually a really difficult thing because um for example I give you an example with me and my partner when I'm going through those moments I go really quiet y I shut down I'm glued to my phone and so if she says something to me I My brain almost viewed it as like why is she bothering me in my hard moment? So I might say something like babe I'm just dealing with something and then it it always seemed to me like she'd ask me more questions of course. Hey babe look at this. Come look at this. Look at this. I'm trying. I'm thinking I just told her that I'm dealing with something. She's making it worse. She's trying to give me more stuff to deal with. So I had this conversation with her. I go and I said to her let's let's just create a safe space here. This is how I feel. I feel like when I'm going through something and I'm dealing with something and I shut down and look at my phone, the amount of irrelevant questions you ask me then increased considerably. And then she gave me her perspective on that situation. Then we kind of um formed a deal about in those moments the first thing I'm doing wrong is I'm going babe I'm dealing with something and I'm saying with with a certain tone and a lack of love and empathy that's immediately making her feel abandoned and rejected of course. So I'm going babe I'm dealing with something. So she said to me, "If you say it in this way, if you say, "Babe, I love you, but could I just have five minutes because something's something's up and I just need to work through this?" Her reaction would have been totally different. Of course. And it and having that second stage of like, "Let's find a solution together and understand each other was so difficult." But going back to my question, well, it goes back to what we said
before, which is business partnerships, personal relationships, friendships are acts of co-creation. Yeah. And so I have definitely been guilty of checklisting people professionally and personally. Oh, they have this, they have this, they don't have this. I guess I could do without that one, you know. And and the problem with a checklist is people can feel it, you know. Um, and I keep complaining this. I said I have a bad picker. It's because I would show up with my checklist early in my in my in my 20s. And you know, if they were strong, which is the kind of person I want to date, they would be like, "This idiot has his checklist. I can't meet everything on his checklist. He's not for me." Right? And so what I ended up was attracting was people who would mold and bend to fit my checklist. And then I'm like, but then I don't even know who you are. Bad picker. My fault. Right? Take full accountability. But the point is is like I go to pain saying, "I might have preferences. I have a couple of deal breakers." You know, I think everybody shouldn't know their deal breakers, but the amazing thing is is we I actually have fewer deal breakers than I thought I did. What are your deal breakers? Not talking about them. You set that up. Sorry. No, that's my That's for me. Fair enough. That's for me. This is not a dating app. I can tell you my deal breakers. Great. I'd love to hear them. So, uh uh I mean, look, there's some obvious ones, right? some of my dealbreakers, you know, somebody I I want somebody who who who who's who's who's taking themsel on. They're in they're in constant growth and constant improvement, right? Somebody who thinks they've got it all figured out. This is not going to work out, you know. Um obviously, you know, integrity, somebody who lives a life of service is really matters to me. Like when somebody like all they're driven by is money, cash, fame, fortune, success, you know, like anybody who posts a picture of themselves on a private jet on a dating app is an immediate no. You know, it's like, right? Like, of course, those are some basics because those are
my my values. I'm I'm serviceoriented and I and I I don't I and I need to some I need to date somebody who's passionate about something. It doesn't matter if it's been commercially successful or not. That's not what I care about. But you have to have a love for something. A passion. Something that like excites you and gets you out of bed. Even if you don't get to do it all the time. I don't care if you're a painter. I don't care if you're trying to change the world. It can be big. It can be small. Just have a love for something. Should I give you my three that I please? So I I was through my early 20ies. I was I love that you wrote them down and you know them because there's only three of them. They used to be 300. So it' be like this color hair, this color height, this color, this, this. I want it to be this shape and this size. And then I was like, how do I consolidate this down? So, I came down to three things that are important. First one is quite surprising to some people, but sexual attraction, of course, because I've had physical attraction without the sexual attraction. Um, but I've never had it almost the the other way around. Good distinction. So, I've had physical attraction where I've dated someone who's absolutely beautiful and then there wasn't sexual chemistry there. So, I pri prioritize sexual attraction, which I think is important. The next one is intellectually stimulating. Intellectually, which is what you've described, where they have a passion. I might not even believe it's true or like it or care, but the the fact that it stimulates me and they can we can have a conversation. They can teach me. Yes. Exactly. Me and my girlfriend, she she believes in all these things I don't believe in. But she'll sit there and tell me that, you know, something with crystals in this glass of water. I don't believe it. She has doesn't have an expectation that I'll believe it, but I'm peering into a new world of breath work and spirituality. And right, I do believe in breath work. Anyway, um and the third one is that we make each
other better people. Really, I'm going to be honest, it was a bit more selfish. it was actually that she makes me a better person, but I'm willing to give that back obviously and I want to give that back. And what I mean by that is in my mission, in the work that I love to do, they support me. So those three things, I think if I can find someone that has all three. So I think you've you've summed up my three as well. I went way more specific, which is why I rejected the question. But if I take it up a few thousand feet, okay, sexual attraction, 100%. And I think you're it's a great distinction between physical attraction and sexual attraction. So I I I agree with those three. Those are my three too. The way I used to describe I still describe relationships. I think great relationships are based on what I call 3+ 1 which is you have to have uh and it's the same list. That's the funny thing. You have to have uh intellectual compatibility which is you teach and learn. You have to have emotional compatibility where you're showing up to grow together, right? You can find vulnerability and hold space for each other. You have to have sexual compatibility which I consider part of creativity. So, creative and sexual camp, which is not physical attraction, it's sexual attraction and create and like I said, creativity. And you can have a good relationship with one and a half or two of those. But you can't have a great relationship without three. Yes. Because they they're not all on high at the same time. They sort of they go up and down and they they they wax and wayne. And so, you need the others to hold each other hold the others up when one is down. That's a good point. That's why you need all three because like I said, you can have a ton of fun with one or two of them, but great requires all three. And the plus one is circumstances. Ah, like timing, location, timing, location. Like I've met people who are threes and they're married and their kids and
they're happily married and we look at each other and go at a different time. It might have worked, but definitely not now. And we just smile and we go on. Or I've met somebody who lives on the other side of the world and I'm not moving, they're not moving. and you shrug and you go, "Uh, if circumstances were different and you know, it's like and you just it's not a it's not a sad thing. It's just a it's a smile, you know. It's like I've met I you know, and and by the way, I've dated one and a halfs and twos and they're amazing people, but they're those three things." It's so true. The reason I know that that it's so funny that my three plus one is Yeah. is your three. Yeah. It's exactly the same list. Well, I I've I've dated the only reason I have those three is because I've dated someone who had two, right? And I've had two. So, I've You had all the permutations of two, but there's always been one missing. And so, I I remember thinking in the woman that I thought I was going to marry that was missing this one thing. Um if she just had that one thing, then I I genuinely believed I would have been happy. And I'm thinking about this particular person from many years ago. She's married. She's got a kid now and everything. I think I'm I um I lost out there, but I'm very very more happy myself. But she just missed one of those things. And then I can think of my previous relationship like, "Oh, if they just had that one thing." So now I found someone who I genuinely Yeah. Whether she's listening or not, has all three. And I go, "That's me. Let's go to the till." You know what I mean? Like the thing the thing that I'm appreciating, there's two things I'm appreciating. One, she has all three, but you have to have all three for her. Oh, I hope so. Right. Cuz like she has to find you sexually attractive. She has to find you intellectually stimulating. And she has to make she has to find that you're emotionally available for her, which means when you're having a bad day, you
have to say, "I'm having a bad day," not be great all the time. Otherwise, you're only a two to her. If you're actively being strong all the time, then you're only a two to her, and you'll only ever be a two to her. So, there you go. So, it's all fine and good for you and I to have our our three plus one, but we have to have the three for them, too. And that's the work. That fluctuation point is so important. Yeah. Because sometimes we just we have two in our relationship. Yeah. Two of the three. Yeah. Yeah, but the other two are very important to hold us through that and they and it's unpredictable as to when they go up and down and sometimes you're not sexually compatible and you're just snuggling and that's all you want to do and you don't want to do anything more than that. But that's okay cuz the the vulnerability is so deep and the intellectual is so high that it's okay. Like it the relationship is really very very good. You're both very happy. Should we make this dating app or should we let someone else steal the idea cuz there's going to be someone out there that's going to get the 3+ one app. I think we should I think we should make it. Okay. Um and we should call it 3+ 1. I love that. So, I guess I do know my list and that's that's the three. And if I look back at my my failed relationships and again, personal accountability included, you know, I think that in some cases I definitely did not present myself in one of those things. Um, or like I said, the act of co-creation is really I'm this is to me is like like the biggest insight that I've learned about myself in my own dating life, which is which is, and I love what you said, which is I'm not into her crystals and all of that stuff, and she knows it. You're not pretending that you are, right? And you're okay with the fact that, you know, she wants crystals to guide her life, and she's okay with the fact that you don't. And I think that's really important, which is the number of people I meet who say, "Well, I'm into crystals and he's into crystals. This is going to work." And I'm thinking may maybe, but or worse, they go, "He's
not into crystals. I could never date him." Right? And it's not a question whether they're into it or not. It's a question whether they are open to learning from you and they're not rolling your their eyes when you start speaking, you know, uh or vice versa. Um you know, there's I forgotten his name. There's a famous relationship therapist who can tell in the first five minutes if a couple that's come to see him are going to survive or not. And the test is when one of them starts talking and the other one rolls their eyes, it's over. Professor Drum Cotman. Is is that I I did a You did a thing with him. I did a thing on him. So, I've like So, good, right? Yeah. It's contempt. Yeah. It's it's contempt and and and what it is, it's not just contempt. It's it's intolerance, right? Like, you idiot or how can you be so stupid? Unressed resentment or oh god, you know, and I think when somebody starts talking about their crystals and you start rolling your eyes, it's it's over. If somebody talks about their crystals and you can say it's not my thing, but tell me. I genu I genuinely want to learn and I'm open to some of it. I want to learn things I know nothing about. I like my my my last girlfriend is so good at the thing she's passionate about. She's so good at it. And she'll send me pictures when she's working on something of something she's working on. And I just like I'm so blown away about how good she is at the thing she does. I get joy out of seeing her be so good at her thing, you know? It's I love it. Um. Uh. Do you miss her? We're still very close friends. Have you experienced heartbreak? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I have. You mean like Yeah. Yeah. Romantic heartbreak? Yeah, sure. I think I mean like I think I've had all the things. I think I posted something the other day about just how it's the most incredible incredible feeling. Not as in awful. Yeah. But it's an incredible because it's so deep and so
prevailing that I actually think it teaches you a lot about the nature of what it is to be a human. I think this is a perfect we've got in a beautiful circle here which is to experience heartbreak though awful. Um again it goes back to balance right in all sadness there is less than joy. In all happiness there is um um there's a cost right always there's a cost for everything good in our lives and there's less than an opportunity and everything bad or negative right so you know all of the things that I've done that have brought me tremendous happiness tremendous joy I I I know some of those costs and it's only bad if the cost wasn't worth it but in in most cases the cost was worth it and I did it with eyes wide open right um and when there has been pain or loneliness, I'm learning about myself. I'm learning about my friends. Um, I'm learning about how I want and need somebody to show up for me, which means that in those good times, I can equip them and I can be better equipped myself. I can say, "Hey, listen. If this ever happens, I know I know what I know how you can hold space for me. You just have to say these three things. I need you to do this and you'll be amazed how how responsive I can be in that situation. To your point about learning how to communicate with your girlfriend, you know about when you're feeling anxious and you need five minutes to yourself, right? And as I I'm going to say this over and over and over again, which is successful relationships are acts of co-creation. And to have a successful act of co-creation, you both have to be really equipped to listen and and and to volunteer information to help the other person. In other words, when we talk about what we need, we're giving somebody tools. And when we learn to listen, we're gaining tools. And the goal is to help them fill up their toolbox and to work very hard to fill up your own. So filling up your own is about listening. And filling up theirs is about being an effective communicator. And now when you both have tools, you can go build something together. Because if only one of you has tools, the thing you're going to build is going to be weak. Um, and a business partnership, a creative partnership, a personal partnership. They're acts of
co-creation. And that that insight has come from failed relationships. And thank goodness, some very strong, smart, wonderful women who've told me, "Do you know what your problem is?" And I listened. And I asked you 20 minutes ago what wall you bro you'd pulled down. I said, you know, the layers of the onion you've peeled back. I shared mine. Yeah. I said with my girlfriend, I've started to tell her when I'm when I'm really feeling. I've never done that before. What are those walls that you've recently pulled down so that people can come inside? I've become much better at understanding how some of my symptoms of ADHD show up in relationships, which I just was unaware of. And so instead of taking total accountability, which I do, I take accountability for showing up. I'm now able to explain them so somebody can look for them and point them out when they're happening happening. So I can take accountability because it's about some of it's about awareness, right? And so I literally can say very early in a relationship, you may experience this with me dot dot dot. If it happens, I know that I do it. Please just point it out and I will know. I have the tools. I'm just sometimes unaware that it's happening. Right? And so I'm asking for co-creation. I'm saying, look, I'm in this. I'll take I take all the accountability for my own behavior. Sometimes I just need you to tell me when I'm doing it. And so I'm I'm asking for help, right? Um and like I said, leadership is about very often just going first. And if if either person in the relationship goes first, it gives a safe space for the other person to say, "Well, let me tell you about me." Um uh and I think being open to feedback allows you to give feedback, too. Um but for me, the huge insight that I wish I'd known before, which is even though I may have said it, I didn't know how to do it. the act of co-creation, you know, I whenever you hear relationship like really successful relationships, you always hear both the partners say it's a lot of work. Yeah. And like I never really understood that like if it's such a like I look at my great friendships. I mean I wouldn't say there's a lot of
work, you know, they flow and but I guess the def with the defin the difference with a friendship is like I don't have to see them every moment of every day. And and I think the work is that act of co-creation. I thought the work was sacrifice when I heard great relationships going, "Oh, it's a lot of work." I thought, "Well, the not sleeping at night and then he can't watch the football every time he wants to watch it." I didn't think it was active work. I thought it was the stuff that you didn't get to do. That's funny. Yeah. It's it's it's not sacrifice, it's service. Yeah. And and and again, you know, it's really funny, you know, my experience with the military versus private sector. So, if I do anything pro bono in private sector, and this is since the dawn of time, right? If I do anything as a favor to a company, almost always they will continue to take and take and take and take until I put my hands up and go, "Okay, we're done. This is enough." Right? The military, it's the total opposite. I'll do something as a as a favor to somebody and I will never hear from them ever again. And the reason they don't call me is for fear that they will look like they're taking advantage. And I have to sit down with these people, these wonderful human beings. And I found a way. I said, "Do you realize I got a I found a way to get them to call me, which is I'm like, "Do you realize when you don't call me, you deny me the opportunity to serve my country?" And that gets them every time. But the reason I bring it up is it's the same in a relationship, which is when you don't call me and ask me for help. When you don't call me and say, "I need to cry." when you don't call me and say I'm in the mud. You deny me the opportunity, the joy, the honor of sitting in the mud with you. Not joy, honor. You deny me the honor because it's not always fun. You deny me the honor of sitting in the mud with you. And I remember telling one of my close friends, I said, we were we were riding bikes somewhere and I just out of the blue, I don't know why it hit me. I I turned to him and I said, "You know, you're one of those friends that if I was really in the [ __ ] I would
call you." And his reaction is he didn't say thank you. He said, "I'd be mad if you didn't." And I've done that to friends. I've done that to friends. A a friend of mine who who is struggling, I said, when we got off the phone, I said, "Hey, listen. I know you're in a bad place, so don't be an [ __ ] and deny me the joy or deny me the opportunity to to sit in the space with you moving forwards, okay? like if you if you need to call me in the middle of the night, you call me. Don't deny me the opportunity to to to be there with you. If you've previously handled the moment when they did call you by being trying to be a fixer or anything, they're just not going to do it regardless of what you say. So, do you know what I'm saying? Correct. And the reason why I know this is because I said this to one of my friends recently who had opened up to me. Um he was in he was in he was back in London and I remember going to say to him, "Oh man, please tell me next time this happens. You know, you always seem to tell me when it's it's And then I reflected and went, do you know why you're a fixer? I'm a fixer. So he doesn't want to [ __ ] call me. Exactly. Cuz cuz he doesn't like the way that I I hold space for him. I'm trying to correct everything. Correct. So even if I'd gone, you [ __ ] better call me next time. He would have in his head go, "Right, what you can say now is I realize in the past I was illquipped. I didn't have the tools on how to hold space for you." Yeah. And I realize in the past when you've called me I've tried to fix everything, which is hardly an incentive for you to call me again. And I want you to know I've been working really really really hard on that skill set. So give me another chance if you're ever in the [ __ ] I'm I I am better equipped. I won't be perfect. It's it's a work in progress, but um I want you to know that I want to be there for you. And I think you'll be surprised I'm a lot better than I was. And if I'm not, you can tell
me. Okay? Cuz I would want somebody to tell me if I if they're in the [ __ ] and I start going to fixing mode. They go, "Simon, you're trying to fix me." I go, "Sorry, sorry." and I can back off immediately because I know what's happening because you can correct the is the great thing about human beings is we're like it's kind of like the difference between public speaking and writing a book, right? Public speaking is really forgiving. I can have screwed up grammar. I can misspeak and people are tracking. I can bounce from subject to subject and people are fine. If I do that in a book, it's unreadable, right? And so it's the same having a conversation with someone like it's a very forgiving process like when you're trying to fix something and then you're doing and that's not what they need and they go stop trying to fix it. You're like sorry. You can actually get them energy in the right place back really quickly. Something you can't do over text. Yeah. Just I had to put that public service announcement in there. Um um you know they're very easily correctable. That's the nice thing. like you can start I mean we've both had the experience where you're having a really bad it's going sideways fast and it is going towards bad and one of you or both of you is really making it worse and pouring you know uh fuel on that fire and then all it takes is one of you to back off and say listen I'm this let's can we just take it back and you and you'll end the phone call hugging and you know hugging each other happens all the time it does we sit here in a couple of years time Simon and we we have a conversation and some of the challenges you're facing in your personal life. Some of the ones you've talked about personal and professional transition moment in your professional life. Um they are they're in a better place. Things are idyllic dare I say because I think that's a bit of an impossibility in the human condition but things are idyllic. What does your life look like? Um you know for me scale matters
and I I am looking so the the one of the things that I I I I measure success by momentum not by achievement. I think I've shared this with you before, how I've always viewed my career as an iceberg, which is when I first started, when I had a vision of the world. You know, I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. That is a vision that no one else can see. It exists in my imagination. It's like an iceberg under the ocean. I know it's there. I can see it, but no one else can see it because there's nothing sticking above the ocean. And so I talk about my vision and people be like, "You're an idiot. You're an idealist. You're crazy. That's impossible." and I do some work whatever it is and a little bit of iceberg pops up. I've done something that is a a tangible demonstration of what I'm talking about, you know, gave a talk, you know, gave some examples, found a company, and somebody goes, "Oh, oh, I see. Yes, I can see what you're talking about now." And they start working with me, and now those are the early adopters. And I keep doing work and I keep doing work and the more and more of the iceberg starts to stick up above the ocean. And no matter how much no matter what point of my career I've been in, no matter how much success I've had, however you want to define it, when somebody says to me, "Oh my god, it's amazing what you've achieved," my answer is always the same. Tip of the iceberg, because though there may be more icebergs sticking above the ocean now than there used to be. All I can see is what remains to be done beneath the ocean, and that is vast. And so I'm never really satisfied with what I've achieved. I'm trying to find ways to get more of the iceberg out of the ocean, right? And so the the question is is what I've been doing up until now will have some effect to get more iceberg up, but not not as much as I need. So if if you ask me sort of like what does my life look like in in in the future, I always think in terms of momentum and the thing that drives me is all of the founders of the women's suffrage movement in the United States all died
of natural causes before the first women ever voted. In other words, I have to put in place um as many systems and and and elements as I can so that when my time comes I will die confident that others will continue the work that I've been working on my whole life without me just as I have continued the work of those who came before me. Why does that work matter to you? I believe we all have a responsibility to leave this world in better shape than we found it. the accomplishment of that work. How would it make you feel? How does it make you feel on an ongoing basis? I am proud of the momentum that I'm contributing to. And momentum is more important to me than any specific thing that I may or may not have accomplished, you know, because I Why not just go get a yacht in a and go to a beach and just like live it up? I mean, I would probably enjoy it for a few weeks and then I'd get bored, you know? I like I It's a probably some sort of neurode divergence. I like I like difficult and uncomfortable and overwhelmingly huge problems are my favorite kind. Um I you know and you know undoing everything Jack Welch did and getting capitalism rebalanced. I mean I can't do that alone for sure. I'm not the only person who has that vision. Um I'm doing my part and it is so vast with so many moving parts that is so complicated that the easier thing would be to give up and just go live on a yacht. It gives you a sense of meaning. Don't get me wrong, there are days that that that abandoning it and just like is very appealing both, you know, but it gives you a sense of meaning, right? It gives you a sense of like life becomes worthwhile when there's something scary. I want to know I I want to know that I lived a life worth living and for and I and by the way for different people it that is defined differently. You know, for some living a life worth living means looking at a child that you've raised and saying that kid will be okay without me. In other words, they will continue the work that I've done without me. It's the same. It's the same. It's
all the same mentality. Um, and and and I I I don't care where somebody finds that meaning. I want them to have it. The reason I ask this is because I'm always trying to separate like the virtue from the from reality. And when I speak to young kids, they all want to change the world. And I'm always compelled by like why. And even with this podcast, if someone asks me, Steve, why did you do the podcast? Of course, I can say, you know, I want to help people with this information and whatever else. And I'm always like trying to make sure that I'm fully in tune with the exact why. The most like innate human reason why I'm doing this. Like why am I doing this? Am I doing it because lots of people watch and that's great for my ego or my self-esteem or whatever? Because loads of people are clapping. I'm doing it because I see these messages and people come up to me and say it's really helped them. To be honest, it's probably all of these things. If I'm being like truly honest with myself, it's probably all of these things. Well, they're they're they're metrics. They're indicators, right? Yeah. like you and I you you and I h one of our metrics that's it's a hard one to track is there is tremendous um I don't know what words to use I think there is gratitude when somebody comes up to us on the street and says thank you so much I read your book listen to your podcast whatever it is and it changed my life right and this is a total stranger who just by chance that we happen to walk past them in that moment so we can safely assume that there are other people that we haven't walked past, but through ch and and not only did they see us, they mustered the courage to go up and talk to us, you know, and um uh and that is that is a metric. Why does it feel so good? Um it's not about feeling good. It's not about feeling good for me. It's it's proof that the work that I'm doing is going places I never imagined it would go. And does that feel good? Uh that feels like Yeah. I mean it feels like the work that I should continue working. That's what it it m what it makes me feel it's not doesn't make me feel like it's not like I like it doesn't like do
anything to my ego or anything. It just reminds me you got to keep doing this. Like you don't have a choice, you know. Um I I I I don't know if I've shared the story with you before, but I went to Afghanistan uh with the Air Force during the war in Afghanistan. I went for 24 hours and nothing went according to plan. Mhm. And we ended up thinking we were going to get stuck there and I never told my parents that I was going to Afghanistan. We landed at 10:00 at night in Bram Air Base and uh and the door had opened on the side of the plane. We hadn't got off the plane yet. And about 10 minutes after we landed, the base came in a rocket attack and three rockets hit a 100 yards off our nose. I could you could hear the booms. Obviously, the air raid sirens are going the over the speakers. that's telling everybody to go to their shelters and we're just on a plane filled with gas. And weirdly, I was calm because everybody else was calm and we never bothered putting on our vests or helmets because what's that going to do? And everybody, we just sort of hung out and I was weirdly relaxed. And for anybody who's ever been in a war zone, they all know this. Um, you have all the feelings you're supposed to have. You don't necessarily have them at the right times. My panic came later. Um, we finally were given the all clear. We went to our quarters. The next day, I had the most amazing after about three hours of sleep, that's all we got. Had the most amazing experience, I got to experience an airdrop mission where we flew a C17 at 2,000 ft. I watched the back of the door open and and whoosh flew out the back, fuel, ammunition, and water supply at a Ford operating base, you know, about an hour and a half, two hours from Bram and then we flew back. Most amazing experience. Right now, the goal was to leave the country. I was just there to experience an airdrop, meet some people. I had no particular responsibility other than to witness. Um and uh now the goal was to leave the country. Great. There's nothing regularly scheduled. And so we found another plane that was going back to Bram. We asked the pilot, can we join your flight? He said yes. We waited for many hours because that there's a lot of waiting. And we finally got on the
plane. We're literally 5 minutes from leaving. We're all strapped into the back of this KC46 again. And it's a outbound aird. So, we're taking out wounded uh wounded servicemen and and women. And um and 5 minutes before we leave, the pilot comes up to us and says, "I need to bump you off this flight cuz I need some extra room for stretchers." And we went, "Sounds good. If there's ever a good reason to get bumped off a flight, this is it." So, we took our stuff off and we thought, "Okay, let's go find another flight." And that's when we learned that there are no other flights leaving until Tuesday and it's only Saturday. And um and now all of a sudden every every fiber of my body sank. All of a sudden I realized I'm stuck in this country and there's no guarantee I'm going to get on a flight on Tuesday. I don't have any way to contact my parents. I'm just going to be completely out of touch after the date that they think I'm coming home. And even if I did call them, what am I going to say? I'm not going to be home. I'm in Afghanistan. like in the middle of a war, you know, every I remember I had I was I had a tremendous self-awareness of the of how I felt and who I was becoming. And there was a public affairs officer who said, "I can get you to uh Kyrgyzstan, but you don't have the right visa." And I literally put my finger in his face. I don't do that. I've never held my finger in someone's face in my life. And I put my finger in his face and said, "You get me on that plane." Like, I don't talk to people that way. and I could see myself becoming this person that I am not and didn't want to be. We went back to our quarters. We're all exhausted. And so I laid down on the bed and closed my eyes just cuz I was tired, but there's no way I was sleeping. My mind was racing. One of the officers said, "Well, I'm going to see if I can find us another flight." And so he left. And the other officer said, "Well, I'm going to go to the gym then." And he left. And he thought I was sleeping. So, as he left, he turned the lights out and I was left by myself in the dark. My mind going crazy. And now I'm panicked. That feeling that I should have had when the rockets hit, I'm now having it right now. I'm convinced I'm going to die. I'm
convinced there's going to be another rocket attack. I'm convinced it's going to land on me. I'm convinced my parents are going to find out I was here when the military knocks on the door and tells them. And no logic can dissuade me. I know that one of the reasons I feel this way is because I have no sense of purpose, right? I didn't come here for any reason. I just came here to to witness. And so I look, I'm in the purpose business. I'm like, "All right, Simon, you need purpose. You need purpose. Come up with a sense of purpose. All right, you're here to learn and come back and tell their story. Okay, there you go." And it made me feel good for like five minutes and then it disappeared and the panic and the paranoia came back in. And I went through this cycle multiple times trying to invent a purpose for myself. And then I finally realized I couldn't come up with anything and I gave up. And I lie in that bed resigned to the fact that I was stuck there without a sense of purpose. And I decided that if I was going to get stuck here, I I might as well make myself useful. That I would volunteer. That I would speak to the troops that they wanted me to. I would carry boxes. I would sweep floors. I didn't care how menial the work. I just wanted to serve those who were serving others. And in that moment, I found unbelievable calm, even excitement to be there to serve those who serve others. As if it were a movie, the timing was extraordinary, having just come to this remarkable insight. The door flies open. It's Major Throck Morton. He says, "There's a flight that's been redirected. It's going to Rammstein. We can get on the plane if we leave now. They're not going to wait for us. We have to go. We have to go now. We have to go now. Where's Matt?" I'm like, he's at the gym. We run to the gym. We get Matt off the treadmill. There's no time for him to shower. He puts his uniform back on. We grab all of our stuff and we run to the flight line to get on this plane. We get to the flight line. We can see the C7 we're supposed to get on. It's right over there. We can see it. But the security stops us and won't let us onto the flight line. There's a fallen soldier ceremony happening somewhere on
the base. And out of respect, everything stops. And so we sat on the curb and waited. And while we were sitting there, I told the guys what I had gone through lying in that bed. Mind you, I have no idea how long I was in that bed for. I could have been in there for 10 minutes. I could have been there for an hour. I don't want anybody to tell me either. I had I lost all concept of time. I sat there and told them what I had gone through and I'd come to this remarkable insight. The true purpose in life is to serve those who serve others. And I wept. And I wept while I was sitting on that curb. And one of the things that a lot of people don't know about the military is crying is just fine. Finally, the security came up and we were able to walk to the aircraft. We boarded the plane. We would be the only three passengers aboard this aircraft. What what I didn't know at the time is the reason this flight had been redirected is that we would be carrying the soldier for whom they just had the fallen soldier ceremony. We stood there and waited and the army brought on the flag draped casket. The soldiers put the casket right in the middle of the aircraft. They stood there and did a very slow 8-count salute. They turned, marched off the plane, and we could watch them hugging and crying as they walked out of sight. Our Air Force crew got to work and they strapped the casket down in the middle of the aircraft and we got going. I've never had such an honor in my life, having just gone through this experience that I had on the ground, learning that true purpose is the opportunity to serve those who serve others, that I get to bring home somebody who knows a lot more about purpose than I ever will. We land at Rammstein and we have one night at Rammstein before we come home. The final flight home is another C17 back to Andrews Air Force Base. And this is a an uh an aeromedical evacuation. So it's um an what they call an AE mission. So wounded wound the wounded. Some ambulatory, some not. Um and we get into the the flight. This flight was a little more relaxed and you know lots of nurses tending to the wounded. And in the back of the aircraft was a single gurnie, a single Marine who
was in what they call CCAT, which is an artificial coma, uh, very, very badly wounded. And he had four doctors attending to him personally. And I sort of avoided going to the back of the plane cuz it was uncomfortable. And I finally said, "No, I I got to go." So I I walked to the back of the plane to talk to the docs and they walked me through his wounds. um his buddy stepped on an IED and was killed and he took the shrapnel. He had shrapnel in the chest, shrapnel uh in the eye um and he was in very bad shape and the docs were telling me that the the amount of new uh techniques that they were learning how to how to treat trauma just because of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was slowly making its way into civilian hospitals. So even when they're wounded, they're still serving us, you know. And the lead doc was a was a was a reservist who works in an ER in Austin. And had I not gone through what I had just gone through 24 hours before, I would never have asked him this question. But I did. I asked him, "Hey doc, you're a good guy. You work in an ER. You save lives for a living. That's your job. Do you have a different kind of feeling on these missions than you do back home?" And he looked at me and he said, "990 to 95% of the people who come through an ER are either drunks or idiots." He says, "There's not a single drunk or idiot on this aircraft." He said, "The feeling that I get when I get to work these missions during my reserve hours is more powerful than any feeling I ever get when I'm working back home." Again, the greatest sense of purpose and meaning we can have in our lives is to serve those who serve others. Part of the deal that they made with me when I went, the general said, 'I want you to go and I want you to come back and tell us your insights. What you saw that we did well, what you saw, we just tell us your insights. So about two weeks after I got home, I went back to Scott Air Force Base and was standing in a room full of all the brass, all the generals, the colonels, all the command from the mobility forces and they just wanted me to report on what I saw and I went through everything and I wasn't sure if I was going to tell them about bringing home this flag casket. That was
my the emotions were very raw still and I'm not sure I wanted to do it or could do it. And I remember I was reporting on everything else that I saw and the people I met and the things that I thought were amazing. And I took a pause and I decided to tell the story. And now the again the emotions are right on the surface. And I tell the whole story in even more detail that I'm telling you now. And I got to the point where I choked up and I couldn't continue. I couldn't tell the story anymore. Now, if this was the private sector and I was standing on a stage telling this exact story, somebody in private sector would say to me, "Take your time," they would say, "Uh, it's okay." That's what they would say to me, right? It's happened. Take your time. Right? That's not what happened. I stood there completely choked up. I couldn't I couldn't speak. And was one voice from the back of the room, the general, and he said, "Go on." Meaning, "Go on and we're with you." Right? And that's the difference between private sector and these wonderful people. In private sector, they say to you, "Take your time as if you're alone. Take all the time you need by yourself." And here, these people who understand what service truly means, they say, "Go forwards. Go on. Move forwards. You have no choice. and we will be with you. And that's what I learned from them. When I when my friends are struggling, I don't say take your time. When my friends are struggling, I say go on. When my friends are crying, I say go on. The underlying message is and I am here sitting in the mud with you. It is the greatest honor of my life. And because of that experience, that's where the book leaders eat last came from. That experience was the impetus for that book. So when we talk about what the future looks like, I just want to live a life of service. I want to continue to serve those who serve others. And to meet people who live a life of service, I will do anything for them. I think there's an unwritten rule that when you meet someone who's devoted their life to serving those who serve others, that it is our responsibility to serve them. There's an unwritten rule. The reason I do so much pro bono stuff is because when I meet people who are the on the side of good, on the side of service, I
obey that unwritten agreement that I will be there for you and I will serve you and expect nothing in return. And if you want to bring it full circle back to relationships, when one person shows up in the relationship to serve you, you have the moral responsibility to serve them because to serve someone who serves others, they are serving you, which means we have to serve them. I live my life by that code. The key the key second second line in true purpose is serving those that serve others. The line that you've added and that you learned from your experience going to Afghanistan was that will be there with you along the way. Mhm. How important is that for you in your mission that you have someone there with you? And do you feel like you have someone there with you on the mission you're on? You talked about the iceberg pulling it out of the ocean. At the start of this conversation, you reflected on feeling lonely, not understood. I feel lonely for personal It's my personal life, right? Yeah. Do you feel like you have people that are there with you? Absolutely. And when somebody comes up to me on the street and says, "Thank you. You changed my life." I always say the same thing to them. Thank you for being a part of the movement. I always thank them for being a part of the movement. When they say your life changed me, my word back to them is continue your work. Right? Thank you for being a part of the movement is what I always say. Because when you say I I do not feel alone. I feel I feel that I'm a part of an army with thousands to the left and thousands to the right. Dare I say millions to the left and millions to the right. Some who I know and most I will never know. But we were all marching towards the same direction to build this world that we all believe in in our capacity. Whether we're doing it for our little company, whether we're doing it for our family, whether we're doing it for our friends, or whether we're doing it at massive scale because we of we have that opportunity because we have a bully pulpit or we we lead a large organization.
That's the professional side. Yes. Personally, do I feel I have people to my left and right to work with? Yes, 100%. Absolutely. My team is incredible. My closest confidant is my sister. You know, my sister and I are business partners and the best of friends. This question started with me asking you about looking forward a couple of years and everything's idyllic. You've given me the the prof professional answer. Yeah. The personal side of that coin is kind of what I'm trying to understand. I mean, I think the answer is I I want somebody I I love companionship and I want to be able to more than talk about and share my magical surreal life with someone because I I have a I have a wonderful life and I do want to share with somebody. I think sharing is more fun than just telling people about something you want to come back and be like, "Do you remember that thing that we did?" as opposed to can I tell you about this thing that I did, you know? Um uh like I and I want to and I want to share somebody else's life. I want to hear about their bad day. I want to hear about their good day. I want to be their cheer cheerleader. You know, I I I want the opportunity. I've been a shitty servant in my relationships in the past. I've been a really shitty servant and uh and I've built the skill set. You know, I'm a slow learner. Give me a break. Better to learn it now than learn it never. Um, but I want the opportunity to like take all these skills that I've been talking about really effectively and really good at doing professionally and I want the opportunity to do it just for one person. You've I mean you spent your life um being a fantastic servant to me from before we even met to to many more people like me. I mean, you know this. You said millions to your left, millions to your right. It's millions. You've been a fantastic service to to millions. And sometimes, even in my own life, I reflect and think the service that I did, whether it was building the service to my employees or the service to the outside world, it came at a cost. And that was often the service to one individual who was right there who I
sometimes took for granted over and over again to the point that I lost them and then had to live with the regret. Um, but I mean it just seems so obvious to me that because you have the awareness of all of that, you're perfectly placed to serve. I'm having a thought an insight right now which I hadn't had before which is we've talked about you know everything that we gain in this life comes at a cost and the only question is was the cost worth it and so now if you say I put all of this focused on this movement and it came at such personal cost right like I took my eye off the ball I wasn't investing the time to be a better boyfriend to learn how to have relationship to learn how to manage you some of the symptoms of the ADHD just to forget about the ADHD just to learn not to be an idiot, you know? Uh, was it worth it? And the sad thing is it was like if you're asking me in the state that I'm sitting in now, would I sit in the state right now again and do it all exactly the same way? Not sure I do it exactly the same way, but I believe the movement that we're building and what you and I are both a part of, it was worth it. Now, it wouldn't have been worth it if I didn't learn this lesson now and be given the opportunity now. You know, would I have preferred it 5 years ago, 10 years ago? Yes. But uh but I I believe the cost was worth it because I think the work that we're doing has nobility to it and it matters and that that weirdly makes it sort of Huh. That's really nice. Yeah, the cost was worth it. Simon, thank you. Do I have to pay for this? Uh, I think everybody's probably thinking the same to be fair. No, I I really I really mean that. I mean, no, I I really mean that. I really mean that because it's it's so unbelievably powerful um to have a conversation like this. It's it's the these are the most important conversations we have. It's not like information sharing and this trick about this business and how to
have this team member. the human level stuff which is the foundation of all the things we do, our success, our businesses, whatever that we struggle with the most, but people like me and you just don't talk about because that's not what we're we, you know, we're recruited to talk about. Well, and people don't ask us those questions and sometimes if they do, we're you know, we got good at avoiding them. And I think that the tragedy is is that, you know, people are modeling their they're making choices based on what we're saying and we're leaving out a huge part of the human story. And you know, for us not to talk about this stuff does the people who are on their own journey and using our information as part of their education a disservice. Um, so yeah, I think this is a great lesson all around and this is it. You know, people often ask me why on the DVI I spend so long talking about health, mental health, mental fitness, mental fitness, mental fitness, um, struggles and all of those things because I think that's the subject matter that is underserved. So that's pretty much the whole space that I play in. I spend very little time talking about how to scale a company and all I I focus what I on what I believe is the underserved foundations of being a great successful quote unquote individual, which is all the stuff we've talked about today. Yeah. Hey, thanks so much. I I uh I really love when we do this. So do I. And the thing is the thing is I think what people don't realize is, you know, you and I know each other, respect each other, and like each other, but we don't go out for dinner. We've never actually gone out for a meal, you know. And I think what's so interesting is I think if we did, this is what we would talk about. And so, you know, it's a bet it's better to do it with others than than than just by ourselves at dinner. We skipped the first date. We went straight. Went straight into the relationship. It's true. Well, we both hate the first date, so that's okay.
Hey, thank you so much. I really do appreciate it. Thank you, Simon. [Music] Quick one. As you guys know, we're lucky enough to have Blue Jeans as a sponsor and supporter of this podcast. For anyone that doesn't know, Blue Jeans is an online video conferencing tool that allows you to have slick, fast, good, quality online meetings without any of those glitches that you'd normally find with other meeting online providers. You know the ones I'm talking about. And they have a new feature called Blue Jeans Basic, which I wanted to tell you about. Blue Jeans Basic is essentially a free version of their top quality video conferencing. And that means that you get immersive video experiences. is you get that super high quality, super easy and zero fuss experience. And apart from zero time limits on meetings and calls, it also comes with highfidelity audio and video, including Dolby Voice. They also have expertise grade security, so you can collaborate with confidence. It's so smooth that it's quite literally changed the game for myself and my team without compromising quality at all. So, if you'd like to check them out, search blue jeans.com and let me know how you get on. I have to say I've been on a bit of a journey with this brand because when I started my business in new territories when we first moved social chain to the to New York City the first place we went to was we work. We moved four of our team members out to New York City and we built the business from there. Um I have to say there's something magical about Weiworks. I've spent the last two or three weeks in LA in a wei work and as you walk in the front door every day, it's almost like that sense of community, that sense of magic, excitement, camaraderie is tangible. And you don't get that when you're working at home. You don't get that often when you're sat in your bed on your laptop. There's something about getting out and getting into a Wei work that makes me feel a sense of entrepreneurship and and creativity and building and the way that we works are designed both both in the way that they offer subscriptions. so that you can work, you know, on demand, but also that the flexibility of the contracts means that it's just the perfect place for
businesses to scale their companies. And if you haven't checked out Weiwork and you want to, you can go to we.co/CEO and there you can get 50% off a trial day at Weiwork close to you. [Music]