Simon Sinek How to discover your why in difficult times TED
Transcriber:
Chris Anderson: Simon, I’ll start us off
by saying, I mean, here we are, look,
after a year of the pandemic,
probably one of the most extraordinary
experiences any of us have had.
What do you think the unexpected
psychological carryovers might be?
I mean, do you think we’ve kind of –
Part of me thinks that people
have got more fragile,
that it’s almost like
there’s a sort of learned timidity.
Have you seen any evidence of that
or how would you characterize it?
Simon Sinek: I think we’ve definitely
all become much more aware
of mental health.
And that it’s a real thing
and that mental health affects
strong and healthy people.
We all suffered trauma during COVID.
Some of us dealt with it earlier,
some of us dealt with it later,
some of us are still dealing with it,
but nobody escapes it.
When COVID first started, you know,
many of us had to pivot our organizations,
had to pivot our businesses very quickly.
And so I, like many others,
we went into mission mode.
And I called a friend of mine
who is active-duty military.
And I asked him a very simple question,
how do I compartmentalize my emotions
so that I can stay focused on the mission?
And he gave me a very stern warning.
He said, you can’t.
He said, we can compartmentalize our
emotions for only a short period of time,
but no one, no one escapes
the trauma of combat.
And he said, you may not even experience
the trauma while you’re in it,
you may not experience it when
you first come home,
you may experience it months later.
He says, I experience it four
or five months after I get home.
So immediately I hung up the phone
and called all my A-type
personality friends
and said, OK, we think we’re good,
but we’re going to get hit
by this at some point.
And we made a deal that when we
started to feel off our game,
we would call each other.
Safe space.
And we made another deal
that there would be no crying alone.
That if you had to cry, you picked up
the phone and you called somebody.
Well, about four or five
months into COVID,
I started to feel off my game
and I didn’t know what was going on.
And so I called that same
friend in the military
and I asked no leading questions.
I simply asked him, tell me what your
symptoms are when you suffer the trauma
when you come home from combat.
And he said, well, number one,
he falls out of his sleep pattern.
He said he starts going to bed
late for no reason
and doesn’t want to get up in the morning.
And I thought to myself, yep.
He says he has some unproductive days
and he comes up with an excuse like,
“It’s OK, you know,
you deserve a rest. It’s fine.”
But then he has another
and another and another.
And I thought to myself, yep.
And he said he becomes very antisocial
where he doesn’t want to ask for help
and he definitely doesn’t want
to talk to anybody.
And I thought to myself, yep.
And I realized what I was going
through was trauma.
And I was afraid to use
the D-word, depression,
for fear that that was some
sort of diagnosis.
I think a lot of people
are afraid of that word,
but that’s exactly
what I was going through.
I was going through
lowercase “D” depression.
And I followed the rule
that we set with our friends
and I called people.
Because one of the things
I asked my friend is like,
how do you overcome it?
He said, you have to force yourself
back into a sleep pattern
and force yourself to call friends
and ask for help.
And so I think one of the things,
I think that comes out of COVID,
is we recognized just the importance
of human connection.
You know, in this fast-paced
digital world,
we kidded ourselves to think
that we had connections
just because we were connected.
But it was amazing to see
when COVID started,
regardless of someone’s age
or a technological competency,
we all picked up the phone.
Like, young people
were talking to each other.
And I think that intense craving
for a human voice and human touch,
I think we were reminded just
how fragile we are as human beings.
CA: That phrase you’ve mentioned,
“no crying alone,” that’s powerful.
I mean, forgive me asking,
did you cry with someone?
SS: Yes.
I followed my own counsel to my friends.
And when I had to cry,
when I was overwhelmed,
I picked up the phone and I just cried.
And I had friends call me and do the same.
CA: And there was healing in that.
SS: The most important thing
that came from it
was that we didn’t –
none of us felt alone.
And there’s intense safety.
That amazing sense of safety
that we all desire as human beings.
You know, you can’t feel safe
when you’re vulnerable,
like, that’s when we need it the most.
But you have to build those relationships.
You build those relationships
in the happy times, the good times,
where you think you’re strong,
you think you’re great.
It’s very hard to start
building those relationships
in the moment of crisis.
And I think it’s a lesson
for leadership, quite frankly.
Which is, you can’t judge
the quality of a crew
by how a ship performs in calm waters.
You judge the quality of a crew
by how a ship performs in rough waters.
But the time in calm waters
is when you’re building
relationship and trust
and you don’t really actually know
if you have trusting relationships
and trusting teams
and loving relationships
until the crisis strikes.
And I heard this from a lot of people:
When COVID happened,
they commented on how they realized
who their real friends were.
Some people kind of fell by the wayside,
it was nothing personal.
It’s just like, we didn’t call each other
and we’re still, you know,
weren’t angry or anything.
And there are some people who came out
of the woodwork to check in on us
and those friendships flourished.
And that’s what I mean.
It takes hardship for those friendships
and that trust to really bear fruit.
But that’s why we have to invest
in people when we’re doing well
and we don’t think we need anybody.
And I think we forget that.
CA: What would you say
to someone who has realized
that they’re in this moment,
what’s been a really difficult year,
and they actually don’t feel
that there’s someone they could,
for example,
pick up the phone and cry with?
Is it hopeless for them until this passes?
Or what would you say to them?
SS: There is an irony.
There’s an irony in when we need help.
And when I was writing
the book “Leaders Eat Last,”
I had the opportunity
to spend some time with
and visit Alcoholics Anonymous.
And it is a remarkable organization.
And many of us are familiar
with the 12-step program.
And many of us are familiar
with the first step,
which is admitting you have a problem.
But then it’s the other 11 steps
that also matter.
And Alcoholics Anonymous knows
that if you master the first 11 steps,
but not the 12th,
you are likely to succumb to the disease.
But if you master the 12 steps,
you’re more likely
to overcome the disease.
That 12th step is to help
another alcoholic.
It’s service.
And so there’s a great irony
when we need help
to actually help someone
who’s struggling
with the same thing as us.
And it is the most
healing thing we can do.
So, you know, if we need
someone to cry with,
it’s to offer the shoulder
for somebody else to cry with.
If we’re feeling lonely,
it’s to be there for someone else
who’s struggling with loneliness.
And this goes way beyond these subjects,
which is if we’re looking for love
to help somebody else find love,
if we’re looking for the job we love,
to help somebody else
find the job that they love.
And there’s tremendous value in service.
And you hear about these
things all the time,
you talk to people why they chose to go
in the profession they went into,
especially if they’re in
the service profession,
let’s say somebody
is a counselor for trauma.
And you say, why did you go
into this profession?
“When I was younger,
I suffered a trauma,
and somebody was there to counsel me
and I decided I wanted to commit
my life to doing that for others.”
This is what happens with service.
And we forget, just because we live
in a modern world,
we’re actually a very
old-fashioned machine.
The human animal is a legacy machine
living in a modern world.
And we still work the same way we used to.
And we desperately need each other
to survive and thrive
as much as we did
when we were living in huts
in small tribes of 150 people.
And so service service is the thing.
CA: That sounds like,
even for someone who’s not feeling,
like, depressed or at the edge right now,
but a good checklist-question to ask is,
is there someone
I could reach out to actually,
there maybe other people
who are in a much worse situation
and maybe there is a call I could make
that would be incredibly
valuable to that person
and help build
a relationship with future?
SS: “Are you OK?” “How are you?
You know, a friend of mine, George Flynn,
he says his test for a leader is
if they ask you how you’re doing,
they actually care about the answer.
And I really like that.
CA: OK, I could talk with you
for hours about this,
but we’re going to go
to some questions now.
So here’s a question from Kayum.
“If there is no way to get back
to normal,” as you said,
“then are we on the right path
of building new normal already?
Or can you help us with a blueprint
that new normal should be based on?”
SS: So blueprint? No.
Guidances? Yes.
I think that humanity has to be –
We have to remember that humanity matters.
And when I say humanity,
I don’t mean big-H Humanity,
I mean little-H humanity, our humanity.
When COVID first happened,
so many leaders leaned on their humanity,
whether they were effective
or ineffective leaders prior to COVID,
many of them picked up the phone
and said, “Are you OK?”
They called their teams
just to check in on them.
Or they called their friends to say,
“Are you OK? How are you?”
Well, we don’t need a global
pandemic to do that.
That’s called good leadership
and we should be doing that all the time.
And we should be encouraging
those in our charge to do the same
for those in their charge.
You know, the hierarchy
can still be effective that way.
I hope that remains.
I hope that remains.
I hope the use of the telephone remains.
That we don’t just go back
to texting all the time.
I hope that putting our phones away
and having family dinner remains.
I think there’s a lot of kids
that will actually come through this
with stronger relationships
with their siblings if they have them,
and stronger relationship
with their parents
because they had so much time together.
And kids who may have struggled prior
because they weren’t getting
the kind of attention they needed
because their parents
were so busy with work,
you know, even if mom or dad
are busy on a Zoom call all day,
that hour that they would ordinarily
just go get a cup of coffee or something,
that they could focus on their kid.
I think a lot of kids
actually will come out of this.
And kids are remarkably adaptable.
They’re remarkably adaptable.
CA: Here’s a question from Mariusz.
“Could you give us some tips
on how to discover our Why?”
SS: Absolutely.
I’ll give you a little exercise
that you can do with your friends.
It’s called the Friends Exercise.
Find a friend you love and who loves you.
The person who, if they called you
at three o’clock in the morning,
you take the call and you know
they would do the same for you.
Do not do this with a sibling or a spouse.
Do not do this with a parent.
Those relationships are too close.
Do it with a best friend.
And go up to them
and ask the simple question,
“Why are we friends?”
And they’re going to look at you
like you’re crazy
because you’re asking them
to put into words a feeling.
You’re asking them to use
a part of the brain, the neocortex,
that doesn’t control feelings,
and to put the thing that exists
in the limbic brain into language,
which it doesn’t do.
And so it’s actually
a very difficult question.
They’re going to say, “I don’t know.”
It’s not that they don’t know,
it’s that they can’t put it into words.
Ironically, you stop asking
the question why
and you start asking the question, “what”
because “what” is a rational question.
“What is it about me that I know
that you would be there for me
no matter what?”
And they won’t know how to answer it.
They’ll start describing you.
“I don’t know, you’re funny, I trust you.
You’ve always been there for me.”
You play devil’s advocate.
“Good. That’s the definition of a friend.
What specifically is it about me
that I know you’d be there for me
no matter what?”
And they’ll continue to do the same.
They’ll keep trying to describe you.
You keep playing devil’s advocate.
You get the idea.
Eventually they’ll give up
and they’ll start describing themselves.
And they’ll say,
and this is what my friend said to me
when I did it with them,
“I don’t know, Simon.
I don’t even have to talk to you.
I could just sit in the same room as you
and I feel inspired.”
And I got goosebumps,
I’m getting them right now.
They will articulate the value
you have in their life
and you will have some sort
of emotional response,
goosebumps or you’ll well up,
because what they’re telling you
is your Why,
your Why is the thing
you give to the world.
You can do this with multiple friends
and they will say almost exactly,
if not the exact same thing,
because that is your Why.
That is the thing you give to the world.
So it may not give you exact language,
but it will put you squarely
in the ballpark for what your Why is.
CA: Here’s an anonymous question.
“I have a friend who is currently
struggling with depression,
and he’s just not like he used to be.
I don’t know what to say to him.
He’s actually annoyed by the question,
‘How are you doing?’
How can I offer my help?”
SS: So one of the things I learned
by accident a couple of years ago
is sometimes statements
work better than questions.
Because questions people can avoid, right?
This is what we all did during COVID.
“How are you?” “Fine. Fine.”
Everyone’s fine, right?
And then what do you do with that?
And so try making a statement, right?
Something’s wrong.
Something’s different.
You’re not the same.
I’m worried about you.
Make statements.
And it leaves very little room
for somebody to divert the conversation.
You’re not the person I know.
And do it with love and empathy
and the most important thing,
don’t show up to solve the problem.
Especially when you’re starting
to have a difficult conversation,
you don’t show up to solve the problem.
You show up to create an environment
in which they’d be willing
to open up to you.
That’s the only goal.
So try a statement instead of a question.
CA: So here’s the last question,
I’m going to ask this for me.
What do you mean, Simon,
when you say that everyone is a leader?
SS: Leadership has nothing
to do with rank or title.
I know many people who sit
at the highest levels of organizations
who are not leaders.
We do as they tell us
because they have authority over us,
but we don’t trust them
and we wouldn’t follow them.
And yet I also know many people who sit
at very low levels of organizations
that have no formal rank
and no formal authority,
and yet they’ve made the choice
to look after the person
to the left of them
and the person to the right of them,
and we would trust them
and follow them anywhere.
Leadership is the responsibility
to see those around us rise.
It’s the responsibility to take care
of those around us.
That’s what leadership is.
It’s not about being in charge.
It’s about taking care
of those in our charge.
And the only thing title
and authority allow you to do
is lead with greater scale.
Every single one of us has the opportunity
to be the leader we wish we had.
Every single one of us.
CA: Simon, thank you so much
for spending this time with us.
SS: Thanks, Chris. I really appreciate it.
Take care of yourself.
Take care of each other.
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