Speaker 1: You start to realize we just treat friends like these
Speaker 1: disposable things, which I find so upsetting. Is to have
Speaker 1: a successful marriage, to have successful work, to be able
Speaker 1: to manage stress in our lives. Friends, they're the ultimate biohack.
Speaker 1: They fix depression, they fix anxiety, they fix an ability
Speaker 1: to cope with stress. Multiple times best selling off They're.
Speaker 2: One of the greatest thinkers of our generation, one of
Speaker 2: the most impactful voices in the world of leadership. Your
Speaker 2: best friend thinks the person you're dating is not right
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes not all our partnerships are understod by our friends.
Speaker 1: Very often they don't tell you until you after you've
Speaker 1: broken up.
Speaker 2: How should introvets think about friendships differently to extroverts?
Speaker 1: The rules are the same. Every friendship should be additive.
Speaker 1: They should be worth the time and the energy that
Speaker 1: we invest.
Speaker 2: What do we do when we feel the people around
Speaker 2: us don't believe in us?
Speaker 1: Anybody who wants to have an impact in the lives
Speaker 1: of others has to get used to the idea that
Speaker 1: not everybody's going to like you and number one health
Speaker 1: and Well.
Speaker 2: In his podcast Jay set Jay Shetty, Hi, everyone, welcome
Speaker 2: back to on Purpose. I'm so grateful that you decided
Speaker 2: to tune in today. Today's guest is someone that I've
Speaker 2: been excited to have on the podcast for a long
Speaker 2: long time. I interviewed him in a previous life when
Speaker 2: I was at the Huffington Post for one of my
Speaker 2: first ever followed the Readers series, and I couldn't wait
Speaker 2: to have him on for a story that last yare shortly.
Speaker 2: I'm speaking about the one and only Simon Sinek, best
Speaker 2: selling author, speaker, founder of the Optimism Company, known for
Speaker 2: his groundbreaking work on leadership and purpose. Simon's Ted Talk
Speaker 2: on the concept of Why has been viewed over sixty
Speaker 2: million times, and Simon's books, including Start with Why Leaders
Speaker 2: Eat Last and The Infinite Game have shaped how leaders
Speaker 2: inspire action and build impactful organizations. Simon also hosts his
Speaker 2: own amazing podcast called A Bit of Optimism where I
Speaker 2: Got to be a guest, where he talks to people
Speaker 2: who inspire him about life, love, and leadership. Please welcome
Speaker 2: to On Purpose, Simon Sink Simon. I'm so happy to
Speaker 2: have you here.
Speaker 1: Jay. It's been a long time coming.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, So I have to tell you so
Speaker 2: when I got to New York and I got given
Speaker 2: my own show. It was on Facebook Live, and you
Speaker 2: were top of my list, and you were launching a
Speaker 2: new book that week, and I just I was so
Speaker 2: excited to tell you the story, because the story I
Speaker 2: told you in the hallways of the huff Post where
Speaker 2: that when I was a monk, one of our monk
Speaker 2: teachers was giving out Start with Why as a gift
Speaker 2: to the monks, and he said to all the monks,
Speaker 2: he was like, you have to read this book. This
Speaker 2: is important reading. And the jory of the monks were like, well,
Speaker 2: it's not scripture, so who cares? Like it was like
Speaker 2: this kind of not the best monk attitude if I
Speaker 2: read it, very very unmonkey, But that happens too. I
Speaker 2: read it and it was life changing, and it was
Speaker 2: life changing, not because I was starting a business or
Speaker 2: because I was a leader. It was actually life changing
Speaker 2: from a life perspective. So I applied Start with Why
Speaker 2: to my life and that was remarkable for me. So
Speaker 2: I wanted to share that story.
Speaker 1: Really had no idea so badly then, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: how long ago was that? I mean that was a
Speaker 1: very long time.
Speaker 2: Ago, nine years ago? Ah yew six.
Speaker 1: I remember exactly where it was too. I remember that building,
Speaker 1: that big white building down and where it's like astor
Speaker 1: place or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask you because I was thinking
Speaker 2: about that experience in that moment, and by the way,
Speaker 2: a lot of your work has felt that way to me.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to ask you. If someone read all
Speaker 2: your books, they listened to all your podcast episode, they
Speaker 2: watched all your YouTube videos, what type of life would
Speaker 2: they be leading if they listened, watched, learned, and applied.
Speaker 1: Well, the key is there is applied. My work fundamentally
Speaker 1: is about human beings. It's about who we are as
Speaker 1: human beings. It's how we relate to other human beings
Speaker 1: and how we connect with other human beings. It's fundamentally
Speaker 1: about relationships. That's what the work is about, which is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I think it resonates and continues
Speaker 1: to resonate over time, and why I'm not really threatened
Speaker 1: by AI or anything like that, because it really is
Speaker 1: about this. It's the ability to make eye contact with
Speaker 1: somebody and how to connect with somebody. And so I
Speaker 1: hope that if somebody is a student of my work,
Speaker 1: they're on the same journey that I'm on, because all
Speaker 1: my work is semi autobiographical. You know, the life they're
Speaker 1: going to be living is a life filled with support
Speaker 1: and love, where they'll still have ups and downs, and
Speaker 1: they'll still have their struggles, but that they will feel
Speaker 1: equipped to take on those struggles with greater confidence and
Speaker 1: greater calm and have that same skill set to do
Speaker 1: for their friends, that they can be a rock for
Speaker 1: their friends who are going through difficult things as well,
Speaker 1: even if they don't necessarily know the solutions.
Speaker 2: You're talking about. Your work's obviously been about human relationships.
Speaker 2: What has surprised you most about human behavior? In what
Speaker 2: you've looked at when it comes to friendships, relationships, romantic.
Speaker 1: It's all I mean, look, you know this, it's all
Speaker 1: remarkably consistent. You know that the problems we have at
Speaker 1: work are the same problems we have at home, or
Speaker 1: the same problem we have with our friends. It's all
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know. I can give advice to
Speaker 1: somebody who's a leader in an office or a mid
Speaker 1: level middle manager, you know, or entry level, and I
Speaker 1: can give them advice, like if you get a response
Speaker 1: that's above a five, it's about something else. Okay, And
Speaker 1: if I'm giving somebody relationship advice, I can say, if
Speaker 1: you get a response that that's above a five, it's
Speaker 1: about something else. You know, Like it's always the same
Speaker 1: thing because fundamentally, it's just human beings trying to get
Speaker 1: along with human beings. Now, obviously the contexts are different,
Speaker 1: the goals are different, but fundamentally the breakdowns and communications,
Speaker 1: the repair that needs to be done, it's all very
Speaker 1: similar stuff. It's listening, it's how to give and receive feedback.
Speaker 1: It's how to have an effective confrontation, it's how to
Speaker 1: hold space. It's all the same. And it's always funny
Speaker 1: to me because you know, I'll work with every industry.
Speaker 1: I've worked with every single industry, and they all think
Speaker 1: they're problems are unique and all their problems are the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I learned that when I went on my world
Speaker 2: tour two years ago. We did nearly forty cities across
Speaker 2: the world, and everyone was like, oh, what was this place?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What was that place?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Of course there were local quirks. They were like Australia
Speaker 2: had more banter, Like everyone quipped back if you made
Speaker 2: a joke, and everyone in Boston was very handsy, like
Speaker 2: everyone would like grab me when I walked in the
Speaker 2: crowd and be like, pick my girlfriend, take me up.
Speaker 2: You know. It was very like active. But overall we
Speaker 2: laughed at the same things. We cry at the same things.
Speaker 2: We we get excited about the same things. We ooh
Speaker 2: at the same things, like there's this and I wanted
Speaker 2: to tell people that. I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: I just went across the world, and like you're saying,
Speaker 2: you went to every industry and you saw that. Why
Speaker 2: is it? Then? Belonging an identity feels like it needs
Speaker 2: to be found in that which is different. Right, we
Speaker 2: find a different football club that gives us a sense
Speaker 2: of identity, we find I'm in a swim club or
Speaker 2: a run. I like nonfiction books. I like fiction books,
Speaker 2: Like what is then the dissecting of that for finding identity,
Speaker 2: belonging community. Where does that kind of come in?
Speaker 1: As an aside, It's really funny because when I do
Speaker 1: travel around the world, I don't change any of my stories.
Speaker 1: I don't change any make cases. They alsoy, please don't
Speaker 1: use American examples, and I was like that's fine, and sure, sure,
Speaker 1: and they again they all understand the lessons. They all
Speaker 1: laugh at the same places, their responses are different. Like
Speaker 1: the English they sit their stone faced and I'm like,
Speaker 1: am I bombing here? And at the end they come
Speaker 1: up to me like that was amazing. It was like
Speaker 1: you give me a little love. When I'm on the
Speaker 1: stage where the Americans is, you know, it's all it's
Speaker 1: all right there. What you see is what you get.
Speaker 1: But we can't belong to everything because then there's no
Speaker 1: such thing as belonging. And it's not sufficient to say, well,
Speaker 1: we're all human beings. I mean, you know, we're tribal
Speaker 1: animals and our sense of safety comes from feeling safe
Speaker 1: in the tribe. And so the question is, well, what
Speaker 1: are the definitions of the tribe? And it can come
Speaker 1: in many different ways, and we can be members of
Speaker 1: multiple tribes simultaneously. You mentioned some of them. You know,
Speaker 1: I like this football club. I'm a member of this church,
Speaker 1: this company, this group of friends. I have this common interest,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's a run club or comic con
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. And we look, we look for
Speaker 1: those common things so that we feel psychologically safe. And
Speaker 1: the quickest way to feel psychologically safe is somebody who
Speaker 1: looks like me, worships like me, acts like me, has
Speaker 1: the same hobbies as me. Those are those are superficial
Speaker 1: and those are easy, and the real close memberships come
Speaker 1: when we can share values. But it makes perfect sense
Speaker 1: why we would want to make things smaller and smaller,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's remember the Doctor SEUs book,
Speaker 1: the Sneeches. It's like, we want, we will want to
Speaker 1: belong and the easiest way, the best way to belong
Speaker 1: is if we're different from from them. You know, then
Speaker 1: I'm belonging because I'm different to you, but I'm like them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like that idea of you can only get
Speaker 2: groups to organize if there's a common enemy. It's like,
Speaker 2: if we know what we're against, then we know what
Speaker 2: we're for, and it kind of becomes easier to organize. Humans.
Speaker 1: It's easier to know what you're for when you can
Speaker 1: see what you're against, because knowing what you're forward tends
Speaker 1: to be pretty ethereal. What you're against tends to be
Speaker 1: pretty tangible. And so we're very visually driven animals, so
Speaker 1: it's very easy to default to that which we can
Speaker 1: see countermeasure, and so that's why we tend to be
Speaker 1: you know, love metrics and things like that. We think
Speaker 1: about the end result, the metrics, the money, before we
Speaker 1: think about well taking care of the people, the culture
Speaker 1: of the leadership. Because one is easy to measure and
Speaker 1: one is hard to measure, right, not that it doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: just hard to measure. And so the same thing. I
Speaker 1: can more easily have a sense of what I stand
Speaker 1: for if I can see what I am against. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and the nuance there is. Yes, common enemies are valuable,
Speaker 1: But when it becomes what I would call more healthy,
Speaker 1: is I know what I believe, I know what I
Speaker 1: stand for, and I can see what's standing in the way.
Speaker 1: I'm not particularly anti this group. What I'm for is
Speaker 1: on the other side of it wall, and so I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want to hurt you or harm you, but
Speaker 1: I need to find a way to get through this,
Speaker 1: to get to what's on the other side of the wall.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you don't have a sense of purpose, if
Speaker 1: there is no cause, then I don't know what I
Speaker 1: stand for. I just have the wall, and it's easily
Speaker 1: to rail against the wall. But the problem is what
Speaker 1: happens if you get through it. And we've seen this
Speaker 1: time and time again, which is very easy to rally
Speaker 1: against something and then you destroy it or you win
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and then you're like, we didn't
Speaker 1: think we'd get here where. When you're purpose driven, you
Speaker 1: always know what's in the distant future, even though there
Speaker 1: are obstacles along the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't even think it's the language that we
Speaker 2: use anymore in society, But there's this feeling around everyone.
Speaker 2: We know that there's a loneliness epidemic. People are more disconnected.
Speaker 2: I think I read a statistic that said, like sixty
Speaker 2: five percent of people feel disconnected from others and the
Speaker 2: world definitely purpose is lacking, or vision is lacking or clarity.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because even though and I don't think
Speaker 2: we necessarily talk about it in that way to your friend,
Speaker 2: Like you don't wake up and call your friend and go,
Speaker 2: I have no purpose today, Like I don't think people
Speaker 2: really do that on a daily basis. I think people
Speaker 2: wake up feeling brain fog and exhausted and overworked and
Speaker 2: burnt out, Like that's the language that we use, but
Speaker 2: they're connected, yeah, right, Like that's kind of the space
Speaker 2: in which you sit, which is recognizing that well, we're
Speaker 2: dealing with all of these things, but they're actually coming
Speaker 2: from a lack of all of this.
Speaker 1: I think that's really right. And what we think is
Speaker 1: the cause of things are very often symptoms, or if
Speaker 1: we do recognize them as symptoms, we falsely diagnose what
Speaker 1: the cause may be. So let's take one that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: which is burnout. Right, I'm feeling burnt out. It must
Speaker 1: be because of my job, right, it must be because
Speaker 1: of my boss. It must be because of my career. Right,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. It's where I feel it, right, But
Speaker 1: perhaps it's something else. Perhaps it's a sense of loneliness.
Speaker 1: In fact, Heill, she came on the podcast and explained
Speaker 1: this to me. It was amazing, which is she was
Speaker 1: in the military and she's got her troops and there
Speaker 1: was an issue with burnout and people were exhausted, they
Speaker 1: were struggling, and they all said, I'm burnt out, and
Speaker 1: they didn't know what to do. And there's nothing they
Speaker 1: could do because the tempo of the operations, the ups tempos,
Speaker 1: was intense and it's not slowing down. So what's a
Speaker 1: leader supposed to do when the team says, I'm burnt
Speaker 1: out and I can't keep up right. So I'm not
Speaker 1: even sure what her motivation was. I have to go
Speaker 1: back and listen, but I think maybe it's because the
Speaker 1: way she felt. She simply asked the room, how many
Speaker 1: of you are feeling lonely? And the number of hands
Speaker 1: that went up was astonishing, and she realized it wasn't
Speaker 1: the ups tempo, it was the sense of loneliness that
Speaker 1: was giving the feeling of burnout and the feeling of overwhelm.
Speaker 1: And so the way she dealt with people's burnout was
Speaker 1: not by giving them vacations or giving them days off.
Speaker 1: What she did was she did the hard work of
Speaker 1: helping them not feel alone, checking in with them as
Speaker 1: human beings. And I think people's burnout started to subside
Speaker 1: when somebody was doing the hard work of making sure
Speaker 1: they knew that they were they weren't alone in this world.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love that example because it completely shifts
Speaker 2: your perspective because you're over here trying to solve this problem,
Speaker 2: and then you realize, oh, it's actually over here. There's
Speaker 2: almost more places to belong, but there's less bigger places
Speaker 2: to belong. So in the past, like you said, you'd
Speaker 2: have church or your place of worship. The company was
Speaker 2: a big part of your identity, and then family was big,
Speaker 2: and now families are spread over. Even myself, like my
Speaker 2: wife and I don't live anywhere near our family. You
Speaker 2: don't live that close to your family, So that's kind
Speaker 2: of broken over time. Places of faith some people have them,
Speaker 2: but they're not as popular.
Speaker 1: Church membership is down yet, yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So that's there as well. And then on top
Speaker 2: of that you have the breakdown in company in terms
Speaker 2: of people. Not necessarily people either loved where they work
Speaker 2: or they absolutely and it's a chore. So you're losing
Speaker 2: these very big places of belonging or at least if
Speaker 2: you see the words on a wall, you don't believe
Speaker 2: that they're lived. And so there's a disconnect. Should we
Speaker 2: be relying on our friends now? Is that where we
Speaker 2: have to go? Or where do you go when you
Speaker 2: see these big symbols of belonging kind of disconnected?
Speaker 1: So, I mean you're touching on something which if you
Speaker 1: go back to like the nineteen fifties, right, which is
Speaker 1: we went to church for our sense of values. Work
Speaker 1: was just a place to make a living. They took
Speaker 1: care of us, and we took care of them. When
Speaker 1: we were work decades at one company that was considered normal.
Speaker 1: You know, you got your sense of community from the
Speaker 1: bowling league, and you knew your neighbors and sometimes you
Speaker 1: even had barbecues with your neighbors on the weekends. That was.
Speaker 1: And so there were these There was a sense of community,
Speaker 1: and there were many communities to which we were able
Speaker 1: to partake, with with whom we were able to partake.
Speaker 1: And then things change. The world changes for various reasons.
Speaker 1: The bowling clubs went away, church membership declined, don't really
Speaker 1: know the neighbors anymore, and all of a sudden we
Speaker 1: started putting pressure on work to fill all the voids.
Speaker 1: And now I want my work to give me a
Speaker 1: sense of values and purpose, and I want work to
Speaker 1: provide my social life, and I want work to provide
Speaker 1: my sense of community, my sense of belonging. And now
Speaker 1: let's throw politics in. I want my work to match
Speaker 1: my politics as well. And it's not a good thing
Speaker 1: or a bad thing. It just as it is. And
Speaker 1: most companies are ill equipped to even know what to
Speaker 1: do there. You can't push back because it's the world
Speaker 1: we live in. And so companies now actually do have
Speaker 1: to make some decisions where and how they want to play.
Speaker 1: And we do have to offer some sense of belonging
Speaker 1: community instead of values, because that's where else are people
Speaker 1: going to get it? And when you ask about friends,
Speaker 1: you know, I find friendship and the concept of friendship
Speaker 1: super fascinating. You know, if you ask most people are
Speaker 1: you a good friend? Most people say I'm a good friend.
Speaker 1: And if you peel the onion just one layer, you
Speaker 1: find out that most of us are not great friends.
Speaker 1: Right would you cancel on a friend for a meeting?
Speaker 1: Would you cancel on a meeting for a friend? Oh,
Speaker 1: but my friend would understand. You know, we sort of
Speaker 1: take our friends for granted that way. If your marriage
Speaker 1: is struggling, what do you do? You're good for couples
Speaker 1: counseling because you don't want to just throw the relationship away.
Speaker 1: We've invested this amount. We're going to do the work first.
Speaker 1: And if we can't do the work, then okay, but
Speaker 1: we're going to do the work. Why aren't there friendship counselors?
Speaker 1: Why is there no friendship therapy? I saw it happened
Speaker 1: just two weeks ago. Two people who defined each other
Speaker 1: as best friends. They talked every day something happened. They
Speaker 1: both blame each other, but there was there was a fight.
Speaker 1: They haven't talked since, and I've talked to them and
Speaker 1: said what's going on. They're like, the friendship is over?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, isn't it worth What about
Speaker 1: the friendship leading up to it? How can you just
Speaker 1: walk away from it? Maybe I was wrong, maybe they
Speaker 1: were never my friend, which of course is complete nonsense,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was just so upsetting to me,
Speaker 1: the fragility of the friendship and how we treat friendships
Speaker 1: so differently, and the skills of good friendship are the
Speaker 1: same skills. We've talked about it before. Relationships relationships are
Speaker 1: the same skills as marriage or any kind of romantic relationship,
Speaker 1: you know. Do your friends know how to hold space
Speaker 1: for you when you're struggling? Do your friends know how
Speaker 1: to listen to you when you just need somebody to listen,
Speaker 1: not fix? And I mean, I'll tell you from personal experience.
Speaker 1: I was accused by many of my friends that I
Speaker 1: was a terrible listener. And I would say, you do
Speaker 1: know what I do for a living, right, you do know, right'
Speaker 1: I'm a great list a professional. I'm a great listener.
Speaker 1: And then I took this listening class, and what I
Speaker 1: learned was that I am a fantastic listener with people
Speaker 1: I will never talk to again for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. But it came to my intimate relationships and
Speaker 1: my close friends terrible, terrible, terrible, And just because I
Speaker 1: had the skills, I wasn't applying them to the place
Speaker 1: that was actually more important than anywhere else. The first
Speaker 1: thing I did after I got out of this class,
Speaker 1: I called all my close friends and I was like,
Speaker 1: I just found out I'm a bad listener, and I
Speaker 1: owe you an apology. They're like, yeah, what took you
Speaker 1: so long? Right? But the point is is the skills
Speaker 1: are there, and sometimes we actually are good at applying
Speaker 1: them in different contexts and circumstances at work or whatever,
Speaker 1: and we're junk at applying them to our friends. And
Speaker 1: the irony is is for you to have a successful
Speaker 1: romantic relationship or a successful marriage or personal relationship, you
Speaker 1: need to have good friends around you because when you
Speaker 1: have stress in that relationship, you've got to have a
Speaker 1: safe space that you can go vent or talk it about,
Speaker 1: talk about it, or get advice or get perspective. Somebody
Speaker 1: will slap you around and be like, that's your fault.
Speaker 1: Right when things go wrong at work, you're struggling with
Speaker 1: a colleague, you're struggling with a project, you're struggling with
Speaker 1: your boss, you're struggling with you know, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you better have good friends who can give you perspective,
Speaker 1: slap you around and tell you know that's on you.
Speaker 1: But then where do we go when we're having friend issues?
Speaker 1: You know, and you start to realize we just treat
Speaker 1: friends like these disposable things, which I find so upsetting
Speaker 1: because the joke is to have a successful marriage, to
Speaker 1: have success at work, to be able to manage stress
Speaker 1: in our lives. Friends, friends are They're the ultimate biohack.
Speaker 1: They fix depression, they fix anxiety, they fix an ability
Speaker 1: to cope with stress, even the obsession with longevity that's
Speaker 1: going on right now. You know, people talk about blue zones,
Speaker 1: and you know Dan Buner's work, and everybody talks about
Speaker 1: their Mediterranean diet. Now they walk everywhere, and but there's
Speaker 1: very little talked about how they have dinner with each
Speaker 1: other every single night that they are convening with friends
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, we don't talk about that.
Speaker 2: I want to dig into that a little bit because
Speaker 2: I feel similarly, and it's interesting. I observe two types
Speaker 2: of people. One type of person was never that close
Speaker 2: to their family and therefore friends became their family. And
Speaker 2: then there's the other type of person that's so close
Speaker 2: to their family that they rely less on their friends.
Speaker 2: So when I look at my wife, she's really close
Speaker 2: with their mom, and she's really close with their sister,
Speaker 2: and they are her friends. They act as our friends
Speaker 2: in all of the ways you mentioned. And when I
Speaker 2: look at me, someone who was less close with my
Speaker 2: family or my family unit, even though me and my
Speaker 2: sister are good friends and my mum is too, my
Speaker 2: friends became my family. So I'm very focused on developing
Speaker 2: community beyond family because that's what I've always had to
Speaker 2: rely on. And so it's interesting when you look at that,
Speaker 2: because you're like, all right, well, is it that those
Speaker 2: of us who have family don't invest in friendships as
Speaker 2: much because we don't need them.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good question. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: an either or. I think it's a both. And again, remember,
Speaker 1: if you go back to how we evolved, you know
Speaker 1: we're tribal animals. We lived in groups never bigger in
Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty ish, you know, plus or minus.
Speaker 1: And what worked was you had your family, of course,
Speaker 1: but the community helped raise your kids. It's really funny
Speaker 1: if you look at just you know, rich and poor, right,
Speaker 1: those who have and those who don't. Like if you
Speaker 1: go to sort of a poorer neighborhood, people sit on
Speaker 1: the front porch and their kids play in the front,
Speaker 1: and they raise each other's kids. And as soon as
Speaker 1: you start having any kind of wealth, you move to
Speaker 1: the back and put up you put up fences and
Speaker 1: you have to raise your own kids. And you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that the community looks at for the kids
Speaker 1: is actually correct. Like that's how how we sort of
Speaker 1: work together. So I don't think it's either or. I
Speaker 1: think it's a both. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've ever did you ever have the chance to go
Speaker 1: to Dharavi in Mumbai?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, So Daravi Darvey is the largest slum in Bombay
Speaker 1: in Mumbai, And just to give you a sense of scale,
Speaker 1: right Manhattan, it's thirteen miles long, two miles wide. It's
Speaker 1: about twenty six square miles and the island of Manhattan.
Speaker 1: The residents are about one point five million. One point
Speaker 1: five million people live on the island of Manhattan. So
Speaker 1: if you've ever visited Manhattan or seeing pictures of Manhattan,
Speaker 1: you can get a sense of population density. Obviously the
Speaker 1: population goes up during the day during work, but you
Speaker 1: can get a sense of the density over twenty six
Speaker 1: square miles. Okay, Daravi is one square mile and there's
Speaker 1: about seven hundred and fifty to one million people that
Speaker 1: live there. They're not one hundred percent suor over the
Speaker 1: exact number, so you can just imagine the intensity and
Speaker 1: the density, which is why when disease shows up, it
Speaker 1: just it runs rampant, right because it's just so close
Speaker 1: and you walk around Derrivey and it's it's not sanitary,
Speaker 1: and there's like live electric wires hanging down and if
Speaker 1: you touch one by accident, you're a gonner. And kids
Speaker 1: are just running around by themselves or with their friends
Speaker 1: because the community looks out for them. You know. It
Speaker 1: is an amazing feeling of looking out for each other.
Speaker 1: And when you talk about belonging, and because we do look,
Speaker 1: we look for it. When when we look for things
Speaker 1: to join and we push our kids to join things.
Speaker 1: So they have these these friends, and it's easier for
Speaker 1: kids because they're at school. Right. So kids go to school,
Speaker 1: they're about the same age, they have the same similar stresses,
Speaker 1: the same teachers, the same homework, same same same, same, same, same, same,
Speaker 1: and so common experience is really the same stresses of
Speaker 1: adolescents and growing up, and like they have very common experience.
Speaker 1: It's very easy to connect as soon as you leave school.
Speaker 1: Still pretty easy because your entry level with all the
Speaker 1: other entry levels, all bumbling and fumbling trying to make
Speaker 1: a career. And then all of a sudden it starts
Speaker 1: to separate. Your friends started different ages and now you
Speaker 1: don't have common experience, and I think friendship you Actually,
Speaker 1: it's more difficult as we get older, not less difficult.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And that's why I want to dig into it
Speaker 2: because I can agree with you more, especially for people
Speaker 2: who have moved. I remember the first time I interviewed
Speaker 2: a brit on the podcast, and it was different. It
Speaker 2: was this really different connected with them so much. That
Speaker 2: makes sense, Yeah, but I hadn't. It didn't like register
Speaker 2: until I did that, where I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: why do we have so much chemistry and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: wait a minute. Of course, we both talked about football,
Speaker 2: both grew up in some part of London, like, had
Speaker 2: similar types of friends. It makes sense, and it makes sense,
Speaker 2: but it didn't register because I'd been interviewing Americans for
Speaker 2: so long.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a funny analogy, right, just just to
Speaker 1: just to drive the kiss them, because beating a dead
Speaker 1: horse is kind of my thing. So are you friends
Speaker 1: with everybody in California and you live in California? Are
Speaker 1: you friends with everybody in California? No? Of course not right,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous. But if you go to Michigan and you
Speaker 1: meet somebody from California, you're like, hey, we're from and
Speaker 1: you're like connected. Okay, Now you go on holiday. Let's
Speaker 1: say you're in Paris. You're standing on the Paris Metro
Speaker 1: and you hear an American accent and you, hey, where
Speaker 1: you guys from. You're from Michigan, We're from California, and
Speaker 1: you're like best friends. Right, Because when you don't feel
Speaker 1: like you belong, you look for anything that gives you
Speaker 1: some sense of safety. Somebody who understands a little bit
Speaker 1: about how you grew up, a little bit of your perspective,
Speaker 1: even though it's back at home, it's entirely different. And
Speaker 1: the biggest joke is the level of trust that family
Speaker 1: from Michigan will be like, oh, you've got to try
Speaker 1: this restaurant, and you'll turn to your wife and be like, honey,
Speaker 1: we've got to go to this restaurant because strangers who
Speaker 1: don't live here told us it's really good. But if
Speaker 1: a stranger from Paris, did you got to go to
Speaker 1: this restaurant, you' be like, I don't even know who
Speaker 1: you are. Why would I trust you recommendation?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And it's the sense that the tourists are looking out
Speaker 1: each there even though they have no clue, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's how powerful this thing is. That when we
Speaker 1: get any inkling of somebody who quote unquote gets me,
Speaker 1: our speed to which we will trust them is or
Speaker 1: at least try to connect with them. It's so huge.
Speaker 1: So the fact that you're living in America, you know,
Speaker 1: stranger in a strange land. The first brit you're just
Speaker 1: like humming. It makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2: Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from
Speaker 2: our sponsors and back to our episode. Do you believe
Speaker 2: there's a way to feel that way with more people
Speaker 2: if we're feeling disconnected or can it only happen when
Speaker 2: it's correlated in the way?
Speaker 1: Great question, So as we goes right back to what
Speaker 1: we said before, which is we you know, the tangible
Speaker 1: stuff is just easier because I can see it. Right,
Speaker 1: So it makes sense why neighborhoods look the way they do,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes sense, right, we want to live
Speaker 1: and hang out with people who worship like us, look
Speaker 1: like us, sound like us, live like us. Whatever. It is, right,
Speaker 1: and that can be based on anything, but it's superficial,
Speaker 1: which means the connections aren't necessarily there, and once you're
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, it kind of disappears anyway, Right, you
Speaker 1: ask the question right at the beginning. You know, somebody
Speaker 1: who sort of applied my work, what woul their life
Speaker 1: look like? Well, this is what happens when you learn
Speaker 1: to start with why. Because when you learn to stop
Speaker 1: thinking about your life in terms of what I do,
Speaker 1: what I look like, what I sound like, what I
Speaker 1: you know, all of these superficial things, and you start
Speaker 1: thinking of yourself in terms of who I am, why
Speaker 1: I'm on this planet, what are my values? And more important,
Speaker 1: you learn the language of how to express those things,
Speaker 1: you will more efficiently and more quickly find people who
Speaker 1: actually view the world and live the world like you.
Speaker 1: So and this is you can do it in a
Speaker 1: personal context, you can do in a business context. And
Speaker 1: I'll give you a real life example. So when I
Speaker 1: first learned my why, I didn't know how to tell
Speaker 1: people about it, And so I stopped asking the question
Speaker 1: what do you do? What do you do? I would
Speaker 1: tell people what I believed? Right, what do you do?
Speaker 1: Is really easy? You know, I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer,
Speaker 1: I'm a consultant, whatever, Right, And you're sitting on a
Speaker 1: plane and somebody says what do you do? And you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a doctor. Unless they need a doctor, that nobody cares, right,
Speaker 1: And so I started saying what I believed. And it
Speaker 1: took a probably one hundred, one hundred and fifty tries
Speaker 1: of me bumbling and fumbling different ways of saying it
Speaker 1: so that people weren't look at me like I had
Speaker 1: three heads, right, and eventually I had the perfect elevator pitch.
Speaker 1: So I'd sit on a plane and you know this
Speaker 1: is pre internet, you know, we actually talk to people,
Speaker 1: and somebody would say, what do you do And I
Speaker 1: would say, I teach leaders and organizations how to inspire people.
Speaker 1: The people who believe what I believe would say, inspire cool,
Speaker 1: how do you do that? We're talking about me for
Speaker 1: the next tw and a half hours. We're connecting. We're
Speaker 1: becoming friends, I mean instantaneously, right, We like, really get along.
Speaker 1: The people who don't believe what I believe would say
Speaker 1: what kind of companies. It was a it was a
Speaker 1: filter instantaneously because I was presenting my beliefs and those relationships.
Speaker 1: Some of them I made friends on planes, and some
Speaker 1: of my friends today I believe it or and I
Speaker 1: met them on random flights years ago. And it's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that we connect with some professions more
Speaker 1: than others.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So I tend to have really good relationships with folks
Speaker 1: who serve in the military because I'm pretty open about
Speaker 1: my sense of service that I believe true purpose is
Speaker 1: the opportunity to serve those who serve others. They kind
Speaker 1: of live their lives very similarly. So the minute we
Speaker 1: show up or like, gotcha, you know, and so there's
Speaker 1: at least a common thing I don't necessarily like them all.
Speaker 1: They don't necessarily a like me, but there's a good
Speaker 1: foundation to make make a real friendship. And so I
Speaker 1: think the opportunity to understand one of one's own values
Speaker 1: and beliefs and to say them often, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, when I blurb a book, for example, I'm
Speaker 1: really sort of strict about it. Like if somebody asked
Speaker 1: me to blurb their book, I always insist that the
Speaker 1: way they list me is it's Simon Sinek optimist and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, all the things
Speaker 1: I've done after I tell you who I am, because
Speaker 1: if you cut that list off after who I am,
Speaker 1: I don't care what goes after it. And the number
Speaker 1: of people like author New York Times best selling post podcasts,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, which is fine, but that's not who
Speaker 1: you are. There's just stuff you do. They're just make
Speaker 1: anybody connect with you. They just go, oh, I know
Speaker 1: the podcast, Oh I read the book, you know. And
Speaker 1: our identity doesn't come from our credibility. Our identity comes
Speaker 1: from our beliefs.
Speaker 2: I remember the first time I went on television and
Speaker 2: they were like, what do you want the chiroficial, lower
Speaker 2: the chiron the thing to say, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't. I wanted to say, dedicated to helping billions
Speaker 2: of people find their purpose. Yeah, something like that, something
Speaker 2: like that, and I was like, that's what I went
Speaker 2: and they were like no, bit Jay, like that is it,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, but that is who I am, and
Speaker 2: I relate. I so relate to what you're saying, because
Speaker 2: I never set out to be a social media creator,
Speaker 2: or to be an author or to be a podcaster.
Speaker 2: To me, these are just vehicles. They're just exactly all
Speaker 2: mats of district, exactly mediums. They've got nothing to do.
Speaker 1: Nothing, which is one of the reasons why I can
Speaker 1: speak for you, I think, but for me for sure,
Speaker 1: which is I'm super flexible as to how I get
Speaker 1: my message out. You know, what got me here won't
Speaker 1: get me there. And I'm not I don't define myself
Speaker 1: as a speaker or a writer or whatever. Everything I've done.
Speaker 1: I never thought i'd write a book. I never thought
Speaker 1: i'd have a podcast. I never thought i'd be a
Speaker 1: public speaker. And so for me to walk away from
Speaker 1: any of those things, it's super easy because not who
Speaker 1: I am. It's just something I did. And even if
Speaker 1: I'm good at it's okay. But there are other new ways.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, the idea of reinvention, I think
Speaker 1: is sort of a misnomer, right, because I'm not reinventing.
Speaker 1: I'm just taking a different route. I'm just sitting there
Speaker 1: with a map, going, well, that road's going slower, why
Speaker 1: don't we try that road over here. I'm not reinventing.
Speaker 1: The reinvention comes in the car I'm driving, or the
Speaker 1: or the destination. And you know, my destination is fixed
Speaker 1: to the world in which the vast majority of people
Speaker 1: wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are,
Speaker 1: and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do.
Speaker 1: There's only one destination. How I get there wherever the
Speaker 1: best root is. And so I think that you see
Speaker 1: it a lot when people get really good at something,
Speaker 1: they're very afraid to change it because they confuse the
Speaker 1: destination with the root. They confuse the goal with the journey.
Speaker 1: Even though everybody knows all the tropes. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not about the destination. It's about the journey, like we
Speaker 1: all know that. But and I understand because the skills
Speaker 1: set or the thing that did is what got me
Speaker 1: to where I am, and to change or move away
Speaker 1: from that is very scary. And it's only scary if
Speaker 1: you don't have a grounding and why you do what
Speaker 1: you do. Because as soon as you know why, it's
Speaker 1: really easy. Yeah, because you start to see the hierarchy
Speaker 1: that the why is more powerful and more important than
Speaker 1: whatever route you chose or chose you because it could
Speaker 1: have just been a sign of the times.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And you don't get you don't get disappointed.
Speaker 2: I was just talking to someone this morning on a
Speaker 2: Q and A. You don't get disappointed when the platform
Speaker 2: doesn't reciprocate. So what I mean by that is if
Speaker 2: your wise, what you just beautifully said is to I'm
Speaker 2: paraphrasing completely, but to help people using the skills you have.
Speaker 2: If you get rejected, you don't think it's no to
Speaker 2: what you're committed to. You just realize that's just not
Speaker 2: where it's going to be disseminated, and you can continue
Speaker 2: to try and find a new place for it to
Speaker 2: be destributed. Whereas when you think, oh, this is a
Speaker 2: rejection of my idea, you actually let go of the
Speaker 2: idea that you so deeply carried.
Speaker 1: So if I decide that the best way for me
Speaker 1: to advance my messages for me to join the NBA
Speaker 1: become a professional basketball player, I will learn very quickly
Speaker 1: that that's not going to go well. Yeah, right, And
Speaker 1: so do I go home depressed or do I say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe basketball is not the best way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know exactly.
Speaker 1: And it's an interesting rabbit hole to go down because
Speaker 1: it raises the question. And I can't remember you and
Speaker 1: I've talked about this before, but knowing when to quit.
Speaker 2: I think we did on yours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which because you know, there are some people
Speaker 1: that say, nope, you never quit. That's what grit is.
Speaker 1: And there's some people say nope, there's a time to
Speaker 1: walk away. And the question is okay, but when when
Speaker 1: do you apply grit and when do you walk away?
Speaker 1: And my rule has always been if the sacrifice is
Speaker 1: worth it, you keep going. Right. So, I'm exhausted, I'm tired,
Speaker 1: But is it worth it for what I'm trying to do?
Speaker 1: Is this sacrifices, this cost that I'm paying worth what
Speaker 1: the outcome is going to be? And if the answer
Speaker 1: is yes, you stick with it. If it's not worth it,
Speaker 1: if the sacrifice no longer feels and that's the only standard.
Speaker 1: Does it feel There's nothing to do on a piece
Speaker 1: of paper, there's no pros and cons. Right, If the
Speaker 1: sacrifice feels worth it, you keep going in. The sacrifice
Speaker 1: no longer feels worth it, you walk away. That's healthy.
Speaker 2: I want to link with that, back that idea that
Speaker 2: we're discussing here, back to friendship, going to your point
Speaker 2: around not having friendship therapists, which I love the idea
Speaker 2: that we don't go to therapy for our friends. How
Speaker 2: do you know when it's okay to outgrow someone or
Speaker 2: keep growing with them in the same ways we were
Speaker 2: literally just talking about.
Speaker 1: Right, So friends, friends, any like, any relationship needs to
Speaker 1: be additive. Right. That doesn't mean every single time, but unbalanced.
Speaker 1: We should all feel that who we're hanging out with,
Speaker 1: who are spending time a non redeevable commodity. You can
Speaker 1: spend money, you can lose money, you can make more money,
Speaker 1: but if you spend time, that's it, that's gone. And
Speaker 1: so we want to make sure that the people with
Speaker 1: whom we spend time it's additive to our lives. You
Speaker 1: get to define what additive means. Additive can means you
Speaker 1: fill me up, you inspire me. Additive can mean I
Speaker 1: just have a freaking rock and good time with you.
Speaker 1: Additive can mean you give good advice, you define outever
Speaker 1: you want. But I think on balance, our friends should
Speaker 1: be additive. They should contribute something to our lives and
Speaker 1: to our works being. And it absolutely happens for not
Speaker 1: necessarily bad reasons, where for whatever reason, you just outgrow
Speaker 1: each other. Sometimes it's just the natural ups and downs
Speaker 1: and weirdnesses of life. You know, it's easy to be
Speaker 1: friends when you're local. Your career takes you across the country,
Speaker 1: around the world just harder, and those friendships sometimes fall away.
Speaker 1: Nothing personal. Sometimes we outgrow people. That absolutely happens. I
Speaker 1: had a friend who we would hang out a lot.
Speaker 1: We were friends. We would get together, we would talk
Speaker 1: about how much we hated our bosses and what we
Speaker 1: hated about work, and I would try and make changes
Speaker 1: in my life, get new jobs, take myself on, become
Speaker 1: a better leader, and we would keep getting together, and
Speaker 1: his problems were always the same. And you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of years go by and I'm realizing I'm having
Speaker 1: the same conversation with somebody who, for whatever reason, doesn't
Speaker 1: want to take themselves on and doesn't want to listen,
Speaker 1: and had advice for everybody but couldn't take it. And
Speaker 1: you realize, I can't be in a friendship if I
Speaker 1: can't serve my friend. Yes, I want to get from
Speaker 1: my friends, of course, but I also want to give
Speaker 1: to my friends. Right, there's tremendous joy in being able
Speaker 1: to hold a friend up, oh, you know, and for
Speaker 1: a friend to deny me the opportunity to serve because
Speaker 1: they're to fill in the blank, to listen, take advice,
Speaker 1: you know, admit any kind of weakness. At some point,
Speaker 1: we just drifted apat you know, I just stopped calling
Speaker 1: and that's okay.
Speaker 2: And you don't feel they needed to be a definitive
Speaker 2: ending conversation to.
Speaker 1: In that particular case.
Speaker 2: Now, when when do you need one of those?
Speaker 1: When there's a definitive ending. I think just let's make
Speaker 1: the comparison to a divorce, right, there has to be
Speaker 1: work before the definitive ending, So if you feel like
Speaker 1: the relationship is worth protecting and saving and working on.
Speaker 1: In that particular case, it seems like neither of us
Speaker 1: felt like doing the work. We had a good time
Speaker 1: and I don't think of it as an ending. I
Speaker 1: think of a graduation, right, Like the relationship was great,
Speaker 1: and then we graduated and we both moved on, right,
Speaker 1: and that's fine, and graduated, right. I learned what I
Speaker 1: could learn, and now it's time to go. But if
Speaker 1: the relationship, if it's worth fighting for and you're doing
Speaker 1: the work and maybe it's just not working, then I
Speaker 1: think then you have a hard conversation and you sit down,
Speaker 1: just like a divorce or leaving a job, like we're
Speaker 1: trying this and I'm struggling and I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's worth anymore. Can we end this?
Speaker 2: That's a good decision.
Speaker 1: You know, I think ghosting is horrible.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about you went out on one date
Speaker 1: with somebody and like that's fine, you know, But I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you hear about whether it's romantic relationships or
Speaker 1: friendships where you've been hanging out a lot for six months,
Speaker 1: seven months a year and then for whatever reason, you
Speaker 1: decide you don't want to and you just stop. You
Speaker 1: ignore the texts, you unfollow on socials, which is an
Speaker 1: act of unbelievable passive aggression. And some people it's you
Speaker 1: have to remember what you're doing to somebody when you
Speaker 1: do that, which is especially if they can't look on
Speaker 1: the socials and see that you're fine. There's this horrible
Speaker 1: sense that something's happened to you, like if you got
Speaker 1: into a car accident or something, the result would be
Speaker 1: the same, and so the panic of are you okay
Speaker 1: comes first. Then they may go on social and discovery
Speaker 1: you're fine. They see you out at you know, out
Speaker 1: at the club or whatever it is, and then you
Speaker 1: reach out and they don't reach back. Now, so you've
Speaker 1: gone through the panic of what's happened. Then you realize
Speaker 1: they're fine, You realize you're being ghosted. Then the overwhelming
Speaker 1: sense of what did I do? The guilt, the no
Speaker 1: you get no closure, You give no closure. You allow
Speaker 1: someone to chew in their own fears and insecurity and anxieties,
Speaker 1: which is debilitating and cruel because you lack the courage
Speaker 1: to say I don't know how to say this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm struggling in this friendship. I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: You know again, that's different from friends that just naturally
Speaker 1: drift apart. And so I think you're right. I think
Speaker 1: one of the things we have to learn to do
Speaker 1: is how to have difficult conversations with our friends, even
Speaker 1: if it means, like I think, at least give somebody
Speaker 1: a breakup. Yeah, you know, a breakup is at least
Speaker 1: there's still pain, there's still anxiety, there's still you know, mourning,
Speaker 1: but at least give somebody the closure to do with dignity.
Speaker 2: Well, I think your points were all taken because I
Speaker 2: love the distinct you made because if you were working
Speaker 2: on it, if you were both trying to bring some
Speaker 2: enthusiasm and energy and trying to figure it out, you're
Speaker 2: more likely to actually have a proper breakup.
Speaker 1: Have you both come to the realization, I don't know
Speaker 1: it is working totally.
Speaker 2: And I like that a lot because it's almost like
Speaker 2: sometimes we have the same expectations for a relationship that
Speaker 2: we didn't put energy into for ones where we did,
Speaker 2: and you can't really compare the two because.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I'll add one final copage is it's messy.
Speaker 1: And it's the reason it's messy. It's because human beings
Speaker 1: are messy. We're full of anxieties and ego and pride
Speaker 1: and fear, and most of us don't have the skills
Speaker 1: of co confrontation and listening. We suck at it. And
Speaker 1: even if you have the skills, are you good at
Speaker 1: applying them? And even if you have the skills, when
Speaker 1: you had a bad night's sleep, or you're stressed or
Speaker 1: you're feeling attacked, are you able to call upon those skills?
Speaker 1: You and I do this, you know, a lot, and
Speaker 1: we fail daily, you know, and it's thrown in our face.
Speaker 1: I thought you knew how to like I do. But
Speaker 1: I'm struggling right now, clearly because I'm hurt, because my
Speaker 1: feelings are hurt, and I'm lashing out and being defensive
Speaker 1: interrupted you because I'm hurt, and that's not right. But
Speaker 1: it's messy, and so you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that you can easily accuse both of us of is
Speaker 1: sort of oversimplifying all of this stuff. And we do
Speaker 1: oversimplify it to make the case and hopefully share some
Speaker 1: lessons that we've stumbled upon over the course of our careers.
Speaker 1: But it's still hard, and it's still messy, and it's
Speaker 1: still imperfect, and that's kind of beautiful. I think that
Speaker 1: makes people beautiful. I just had this conversation with somebody today,
Speaker 1: you know, like compare that to AI right. Let's say
Speaker 1: you have a fight with your wife. You want to
Speaker 1: get it right. Hey, chat GPT, can you tell me
Speaker 1: what I have to say to get this right? And
Speaker 1: chat GPT, which has been trained with all the best
Speaker 1: therapy everything, this thing's a PhD, will give you the
Speaker 1: exact right thing to say. And you go and say
Speaker 1: to your wife you memorize it, and you say to
Speaker 1: your wife exactly what chatcheeb he told you. And she goes,
Speaker 1: thank you, my good, thank you. And then she finds
Speaker 1: the script in your drawer and she said, did you
Speaker 1: get this some chatchebt. Yeah, did you memorize it? Yet
Speaker 1: she's going to be angry because there's nothing heartfelt about it.
Speaker 1: It's hollow, it's not and she would rather you bumble
Speaker 1: and fumble and do it wrong, but at least be
Speaker 1: yourself and be it authentic. Can you imagine giving a
Speaker 1: one hundred percent chatgebt written speech at a wedding, best
Speaker 1: speech ever, and then somebody says, oh my god, that
Speaker 1: speech was amazing. How'd you write it? Like no, chat
Speaker 1: gbt wrote it for me, you know, And that's just
Speaker 1: the feeling of.
Speaker 2: Like, oh right, I disappointment.
Speaker 1: I'd rather you give me a worse speech. But I
Speaker 1: know it came from the heart, you know, and again
Speaker 1: you know they're silly examples. But the point is is
Speaker 1: that imperfect human and those two words are synonymous. Those
Speaker 1: two words mean exactly the same thing, to be humans,
Speaker 1: to be imperfect. To be imperfect is to be human.
Speaker 1: It is the most beautiful thing in the world. Perfection
Speaker 1: comes off a factory line. It's the difference between a
Speaker 1: pottery barn mug and a beautiful piece of Japanese ceramic.
Speaker 1: One is handmade. It is imperfect. It is gorgeous versus
Speaker 1: the thing that comes off of machine. It looks the
Speaker 1: same as all the other things that come up a machine.
Speaker 1: It is perfect. It's fine. I like it, love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think we forget that in this day and
Speaker 1: age of incredible technology that can solve all the problems
Speaker 1: for us and answer all the questions for us. It's
Speaker 1: all there right, Like therapists should be afraid because Chatchybet
Speaker 1: can do it. But to be able to sit like this, convene,
Speaker 1: feel someone staring at you with love, to feel to
Speaker 1: cry with someone and have them cry with you, you and
Speaker 1: I have both welled up just because the other person
Speaker 1: is welling up with us, and to feel a person
Speaker 1: connect with you in your pain, to hug someone and
Speaker 1: not want to let go. You know the rule at Disney,
Speaker 1: the Disney rule for hugging.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I learned this recently. It's the best thing in the world. Disney.
Speaker 1: All of the characters are trained that when a little
Speaker 1: kid hugs you, you may not let go until the
Speaker 1: kid lets go first. Oh, that is not the best.
Speaker 1: You hug the kid. Oh, it makes me cry. You
Speaker 1: hug the kid as long as the kid wants to
Speaker 1: hug you. And now do with a friend, hug your
Speaker 1: friend until they let go, you know, apply the Disney rule.
Speaker 1: I met somebody recently. She's wonderful human beings. She's got
Speaker 1: a wonderful boyfriend. They're great couple, and they were saying,
Speaker 1: when we hug, we hug for it. I don't remember
Speaker 1: what the number was, thirty seven seconds, you know, sixteen seconds,
Speaker 1: whatever the numbers. And I'm like, oh, that's okay. Why
Speaker 1: that number they go because that's the amount of time
Speaker 1: it takes for oxytocin to release, and so when we hug,
Speaker 1: you know, we hug for this period of time to
Speaker 1: give each other the oxytocin rush because we love each other.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, weird, but okay, I'll go I'll go
Speaker 1: with it. You know, I'm sure the science is correct.
Speaker 1: Somebody studied it, you know. You know. I saw her
Speaker 1: in the hallway and I was like, hey, how are
Speaker 1: you And she's like great, and she comes in for
Speaker 1: the hug and we're hugging and I sort of stop
Speaker 1: and I sort of like pull back a little, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have to ask you. Are you counting?
Speaker 1: She said yes. I said, I appreciate it, but let
Speaker 1: me show you something. Yeah, okay, I want to just
Speaker 1: show you something. Stop counting. Please, don't don't count. You're human,
Speaker 1: I'm human. Our bodies already know how to do this.
Speaker 1: Stop counting. Just feel and then you let me know
Speaker 1: when the oxytosins ares flong. So let's do this hug again. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's hug and we start hugging, and in a
Speaker 1: few seconds, I don't know how many, Maybe it was
Speaker 1: slightly more, maybe it was slightly less. I have no idea.
Speaker 1: At some point we felt unbelievably connected. I mean we
Speaker 1: could both feel it. And I said to her, do
Speaker 1: you feel that, she goes. Yeah, I'm like, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: it too. I think the oxytosin is flowing. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: wasn't that nicer. We're just allowed for it to happen
Speaker 1: when it happens, as opposed to applying the science. Ye science,
Speaker 1: somebody studied it and said it that doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: should count it. It just means it takes a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all it means. Yeah, a hug for longer, Just
Speaker 1: hug for a little Let's just hug for a lot,
Speaker 1: don't worry, right, Yeah, And it's this is our metrics obsessed,
Speaker 1: metrics obsessed world. Like everybody's obsessed so much deep sleep
Speaker 1: they gotten, how much rem they got and how many
Speaker 1: ey its like. But there's also all of the I
Speaker 1: find it ironic, right, all of these data obsessed people
Speaker 1: data obsessed about you know. And before anybody gives me
Speaker 1: shit because I'm wearing an orderring, it haven't I haven't
Speaker 1: charged it in two years.
Speaker 2: It's just a good belonging I.
Speaker 1: Was given to me. I wear it somewhat sentimentally. And
Speaker 1: I did replace it with a ring that looks just
Speaker 1: like it. But that ring broke and I'm like, well
Speaker 1: it looks the same, so I'm going to go back
Speaker 1: to the one with the sentimental value. No I love that, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: just but I think it's ironic with people who are
Speaker 1: so data obsessed that they want to know, did I
Speaker 1: drink a glass of wine? You know, did it affect
Speaker 1: my rem that the data also shows that people who
Speaker 1: obsess about the data actually suffer more stress than the
Speaker 1: people who don't. Absolutely, And yet that's the funniest data
Speaker 1: point of all.
Speaker 2: The reason why I love it so much is because
Speaker 2: you're also giving people a heightened agency and accountability of
Speaker 2: feeling the change. Just feel, because that's what it is. Right.
Speaker 2: It's like if I tell you something's a great hike,
Speaker 2: or let's take something really everyone can relate to. If
Speaker 2: I tell you something's a great restaurant and it's got
Speaker 2: two Michelin stars, it's got ten star rating, it's got everything.
Speaker 2: You could go there and hate the meal, sure, none
Speaker 2: of that means anything in that sense. It's your taste
Speaker 2: because you had to feel it, and that was what
Speaker 2: made the difference. It wasn't the Michelin stars or the
Speaker 2: rating or whatever it was, It was your feeling it
Speaker 2: and we've lost that ability in a world where we're
Speaker 2: counting on everyone else and everything else to tell us
Speaker 2: if we've done it for long enough, short enough, have
Speaker 2: we lifted for that long enough, you've lost the ability
Speaker 2: to actually feel like I was talking to my doctor today.
Speaker 2: I was saying, Hey, I'm not sure about this whole
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty grams of protein intake, Like I'm
Speaker 2: just not feeling good, Like you just don't feel good.
Speaker 2: That's a lot, that's not even as much you meant
Speaker 2: to do, like your body weight in protein. And I've tried,
Speaker 2: I've tried everything, but it's like I don't feel good
Speaker 2: when I do it. So either, Yes, my digestion may
Speaker 2: not be strong enough, it may need to be strengthened,
Speaker 2: but at this point of my current strength, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, I mean you're right. It's ironic right
Speaker 1: where we trust we trust the watch, we trust the app,
Speaker 1: we trust the numbers more than we trust ourselves. We
Speaker 1: trust what we're being told, and we're doubting our own feelings.
Speaker 1: And so the question is is A, why are we
Speaker 1: doing that? And B shouldn't we learn how to trust
Speaker 1: our feelings more? Right now? Yes, it feels good when
Speaker 1: we eat the chocolate cake, but we all know that
Speaker 1: it feels pretty gross if you do it too often. Right,
Speaker 1: and so there's also data on this, which is people
Speaker 1: who stress about eating dessert, the cortisol released from the
Speaker 1: stress of eating the dessert is more harmful to your
Speaker 1: body than the dessert, right, and so, like, I think
Speaker 1: you're right, which is where why we were disconnecting from
Speaker 1: our bodies to the point where we don't even trust
Speaker 1: our bodies to know what's right for our bodies. I
Speaker 1: mean functional medicine. This is a large part of functional medicine,
Speaker 1: which is your body already knows. Your body knows how
Speaker 1: to heal itself, so all you have to do is
Speaker 1: protect the body, you know, Like I and I love
Speaker 1: these things, Like what are you doing, I'm doing a cleanse,
Speaker 1: So you're you're drinking lemon juice and cayenne pepper for
Speaker 1: a week, you know, and you're doing a cleanse. What
Speaker 1: are you doing while I'm cleaning. I'm cleaning my body
Speaker 1: of toxins. I'm like, that's what your liver and kidney
Speaker 1: do as long as your liver and kidneys are healthy, Like,
Speaker 1: you're good, you know, and so your body already knows
Speaker 1: how to get bad things out of it, Your body
Speaker 1: already knows how to fight disease, your body already knows
Speaker 1: how to do these things. The only thing you have
Speaker 1: to do is look after your body and trust your gut,
Speaker 1: right literally and figuratively, especially with the hugging, especially.
Speaker 2: With even something that I love that example so much
Speaker 2: because it's like I love the idea that a kid
Speaker 2: knows when to let go, Like that idea of like
Speaker 2: only let go when the child lets go.
Speaker 1: It's so beautif kid knows, it's.
Speaker 2: Literally romantic, spectacular, and just the kid knows, it's so
Speaker 2: beautiful because that's actually what we want. We want someone
Speaker 2: to hold us for as long as we need to
Speaker 2: be held.
Speaker 1: And I'll take it a step further. Right, So in
Speaker 1: terms of the kid knows, right, so good parenting advice
Speaker 1: is like, you know, like when it's cold outside and
Speaker 1: the parents like, put on your sweater. I don't want
Speaker 1: to put on your sweater. I don't want to put
Speaker 1: on your sweater. I don't want to let the kid
Speaker 1: go outside in the cold, and very quickly the kid
Speaker 1: will either be fine or not fine. The kid knows
Speaker 1: the kid, be like I am cold, put on a sweater, right,
Speaker 1: they won't right? Like Like there are little things that
Speaker 1: we know, and that goes right back to friendship. We've
Speaker 1: all been in relationships that suck energy from us and
Speaker 1: we feel like we have to like keep going because
Speaker 1: I don't know, we've been friends for a bunch of years,
Speaker 1: so time is the only bond. You don't actually fill
Speaker 1: each other up anymore. You know, people grow up. You
Speaker 1: were a different person than you were five years ago.
Speaker 1: I'm a different person than I was five years ago,
Speaker 1: hopefully better. I definitely know there's some skills that I've got.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely a better friend. I'm a better leader, I'm
Speaker 1: a better boyfriend. Like I worked on those things, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm better at it. You know what it's like.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, for a lot of us, we
Speaker 1: left home when we were eighteen, and we kept growing up.
Speaker 1: We went to school, we got a job, and we
Speaker 1: kept learning and growing and taking ourselves on. But our
Speaker 1: parents knew us up until we were eighteen, and then
Speaker 1: they missed the new growth. And then you come home
Speaker 1: and your parents are treating you like you're eighteen, and
Speaker 1: you're like I'm not. We say stupid things like I'm
Speaker 1: not a cute anymore, but they only know you as
Speaker 1: the eighteen year old. They've missed all the growth. And
Speaker 1: that sometimes happens where we're growing at different paces, or
Speaker 1: we grow and somebody else chooses not to and that's fine.
Speaker 1: But we know people differently.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like maybe there was a bully you had in
Speaker 1: high school who bullied you. They're not a bully anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean they might be, but that's my memory, but
Speaker 1: that's your memory. So you come up with you you
Speaker 1: see them at a bar, and you come in with
Speaker 1: like animosity, you know, versus like how are you and
Speaker 1: they're like I am sorry, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that's I just find all this friends. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: one really funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you have friends that you can call on in
Speaker 1: really dark times that something's gone wrong, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: problems in your marriage, problems is your career, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: something went badly. You call for and be like, dude,
Speaker 1: can I just talk to you? Like life is not
Speaker 1: good right now. I just I just need to talk
Speaker 1: to somebody, like you know who those people are? Yes,
Speaker 1: you know exactly. The phone numbers you're going to call.
Speaker 1: What I've learned is the people when everything goes right
Speaker 1: and you want to just brag, like, dude, I just
Speaker 1: want an award. I just made a bunch of cash.
Speaker 1: I just I'm a frickin hero, I'm the smartest person
Speaker 1: in the room. That number of people that you can
Speaker 1: call is even smaller, true, And I just love the
Speaker 1: fact that there's more vulnerability in wanting to toot your
Speaker 1: own horn and ask a friend to hold space with
Speaker 1: no judgment, no jealousy, and no envy, and that number
Speaker 1: of friends that I can call and be like, I'm
Speaker 1: a frickin rock star and I just needed to tell
Speaker 1: somebody about how great I am and how proud I am,
Speaker 1: and that friend will gush and glow and cheer. And
Speaker 1: I remember a friend of mine called me and something
Speaker 1: amazing happened in his life, and like he didn't know
Speaker 1: who he could call because he didn't want to sound
Speaker 1: like he was bragging but to me, but he needed
Speaker 1: to get it out. And I just sat on the phone.
Speaker 1: I was like a proud parent. I was glowing. And
Speaker 1: you realize that chemicalist seratonin that when you see somebody
Speaker 1: walk across the stage at graduation and accept their diploma.
Speaker 1: Like their bodies are being consumed by serotonin with the
Speaker 1: feeling of pride. That's what seratonin gives you, the feeling
Speaker 1: of pride as they're graduating. You know that amazing feeling.
Speaker 1: But what we don't talk about is the parents and
Speaker 1: the friends and the family sitting in the audience also
Speaker 1: have serotonin pouring through their bodies and they feel the
Speaker 1: same pride for the person on the stage. Oh wow, right,
Speaker 1: And so when you have a friend that you can
Speaker 1: brag to and they share in your pride, both of
Speaker 1: you are coursing. Your veins are coursing with serotonin, and
Speaker 1: it is a pro social experience. In other words, it
Speaker 1: is making you even closer your ability to share the
Speaker 1: vulnerability of success, giving somebody else the opportunity to share
Speaker 1: in your pride. You're actually not bragging to them, that's
Speaker 1: not what's happening. You're both firing on serotonin. I felt
Speaker 1: the same pride, joy and excitement that my friend was feeling.
Speaker 1: And when I hung up the phone, I was in
Speaker 1: such a great mood because my friend had an amazing success.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. That's beautiful, I mean and that's.
Speaker 1: Because you have to do so much in a friendship
Speaker 1: of all the good stuff and the bad stuff, and
Speaker 1: that I don't want to be here, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sit here and the bad news and the time and
Speaker 1: the effort. You have to do so much work to
Speaker 1: nurture a friendship, to earn the mutual joy from either
Speaker 1: one's success, the fact that I can share in your
Speaker 1: success and you can share in my success, and I
Speaker 1: am feeling more confident in a great mood because you
Speaker 1: had success that just like a parent earns the feeling
Speaker 1: of pride from their child walking across the stage, because
Speaker 1: all the sacrifices of raising my kid. Now not everybody
Speaker 1: who knows my kid is not pouring with serotonin. It's
Speaker 1: the ones who earned it from the years of investing
Speaker 1: in the friendship, in the relationship. And that's what you
Speaker 1: miss in all these shortcuts. That's what we miss in
Speaker 1: all of this AI stuff. You don't get to earn
Speaker 1: those feelings, and those feelings are the best feelings in
Speaker 1: the world. And all those feelings do is make you healthier.
Speaker 1: The more oxytocin and serotonin you have in your body,
Speaker 1: you're less likely to die from heart tosease, you're less
Speaker 1: likely to get many cancers, you're less likely to get diabetes.
Speaker 1: In other words, friendship and the hard work of friendship
Speaker 1: and earning that oxytocin and earning that serotonin keeps you healthy.
Speaker 1: And then we go back to the chocolate cake and
Speaker 1: the exercise of the doctors, and you start to realize
Speaker 1: the healthiest thing I can do is not the diet.
Speaker 1: The healthiest place I need to apply my willpower is
Speaker 1: not on how long I'm working out, but it's how
Speaker 1: much time, effort, and energy and presence I give to
Speaker 1: my friends.
Speaker 2: But first, here's a quick word from the brands that
Speaker 2: support the show. All right, thank you to our sponsors.
Speaker 2: Now let's dive back in. Where this is hitting for
Speaker 2: me is that the challenge I think people are having
Speaker 2: today is they're struggling to clap for their friends when
Speaker 2: it's not their turn. People are struggling to feel joy
Speaker 2: for someone else's joy when they're not in a joyful state.
Speaker 2: So I've had real life scenarios in my life right
Speaker 2: now which I'll share that immediately came to my mind
Speaker 2: when you were saying this, which I love. There on
Speaker 2: this conversation is two examples. One person, and these are
Speaker 2: people who are really close. This is not like some
Speaker 2: fake friendship, really close. One of them's going through a miscarriage,
Speaker 2: the other one is expecting a baby, and the person
Speaker 2: of the miscarriage is feeling bad because they're a miscarriage.
Speaker 2: They're feeling bad because they can't celebrate their friend's wine,
Speaker 2: and they're now feeling bad that they don't even want
Speaker 2: to be around their friend because their friends are actually expecting
Speaker 2: And now that friend's feeling guilt because they're having a baby,
Speaker 2: and they're like, well, how do we share this with
Speaker 2: that person who's just lost a baby? And it's real, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's really real. And this applies to people getting
Speaker 2: married before you The kids one is probably the most
Speaker 2: one of the most dream forms of it. But if
Speaker 2: people getting married, people getting engaged.
Speaker 1: Before your career doing great, somebody else's career hitting the skills.
Speaker 2: There's so many versions of all of it, but the
Speaker 2: most extreme one being or that I've heard so far
Speaker 2: as this, I've just lost a child and you're having
Speaker 2: a child, and we're best friends and we were going
Speaker 2: to be having children at the same time, and we
Speaker 2: were going to share that together.
Speaker 1: And we were going to.
Speaker 2: Raise our kids together and now I don't even you know, so,
Speaker 2: how what do we do when we can't share our
Speaker 2: win with our deepest friend because they're losing and they're
Speaker 2: scared to share space with us because they're threatened by
Speaker 2: your win.
Speaker 1: In that context, communication, right, and this is the thing.
Speaker 1: We avoid the communication because it's uncomfortable. I don't know
Speaker 1: what to say. I don't know what to say. You know,
Speaker 1: one person's the happiest they've ever been. The other person's
Speaker 1: the saddest they've ever been, and neither knows what to say,
Speaker 1: and both are consumed with guilt. Both are consumed maybe
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of anger. I mean, there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of feelings, and feelings are messy and they slow,
Speaker 1: and you know, and the other one's success or achievement
Speaker 1: or in this case, pregnancy just reminds me of what
Speaker 1: I'm going through. It makes it just makes it feel worse.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be reminded right now. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of like when something bad happens in someone's life,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we don't do anything because we don't
Speaker 1: know what to say, and we don't want to say
Speaker 1: the wrong thing, and so sometimes that's the best thing
Speaker 1: to say. Hey, I don't know what to say. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say the wrong thing, but I want
Speaker 1: you to know I love you. I can't imagine what
Speaker 1: you're going through and it must be the worst thing
Speaker 1: in the world. I'm here when you need me. Take
Speaker 1: the space you need.
Speaker 2: Better to say.
Speaker 1: Just say something, say something incomplete. And when you say,
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about getting it right, just say
Speaker 1: the thing you're feeling. And the feeling is I don't
Speaker 1: know what to say. Yeah, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: friend recently who lost somebody close to them, and you know,
Speaker 1: I got the text that says it happened, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what to say, and I write back, dude,
Speaker 1: that sucks. I'm sorry, that really sucks. That's all I had.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say, and there's no rules,
Speaker 1: there's no right thing to say, and we don't know
Speaker 1: what state somebody else is in. And even the friend
Speaker 1: who is who had the miscarriage saying I love you,
Speaker 1: please understand, I'm just struggling. I love you. I just
Speaker 1: need a little bit of space. I will promise I
Speaker 1: will reach out soon. I love you, and it just
Speaker 1: opens up a space to say I love you too.
Speaker 1: I understand, you know, it's just a human moment. And
Speaker 1: I think what we have to do is like we
Speaker 1: try and come up with the right answers. What's the
Speaker 1: right thing to say? When this there's no right thing
Speaker 1: to say? And some people will handle it differently than others,
Speaker 1: and some people will go into deep sadness, and some
Speaker 1: people go into anger, and some people will be avoidant,
Speaker 1: and some people will bury themselves and pretend, I mean
Speaker 1: like there's no right And so what I've learned is
Speaker 1: instead of trying to guess, is a just say what
Speaker 1: I am feeling, which is I don't know what to say, Mike.
Speaker 1: Let me express my confusion, let me put out something
Speaker 1: and be there like when you're ready, please I'm here,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like saying I love you. And
Speaker 1: sometimes to ask. So I have a friend who called
Speaker 1: me and said I'm struggling. I said, so, do I
Speaker 1: go into solution mode because I know what to do,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what's going on, or do I go
Speaker 1: into the no, I got to hold space. This is
Speaker 1: what friends do. They hold space for friends in need.
Speaker 1: And so I just said, what do you need. Do
Speaker 1: you need me to hold space or do you mean
Speaker 1: to offer you some ideas? And then they said I
Speaker 1: think right now, I just need you to hold space.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I will climb into the mud with
Speaker 1: you and I'll sit there for you with you, and
Speaker 1: when you're ready, you tell me. I think I'm ready
Speaker 1: to get out now and be like, oh hey, I
Speaker 1: got some ideas and a you can ask. You can
Speaker 1: ask for guidance if you don't know, as opposed to run,
Speaker 1: I guess and be if somebody gets it wrong, you
Speaker 1: can tell them. Yeah. The reverse happened to me. I
Speaker 1: was in a bad, bad place and I called somebody
Speaker 1: where I just needed them to listen. And I called
Speaker 1: her up and I was like, I just I'm having
Speaker 1: a really hard week and can I just I need
Speaker 1: And then this happened, and then this happened and I'm
Speaker 1: feeling this and this happened and she went into fix
Speaker 1: it mode and it made me feel worse because I
Speaker 1: just need to feel heard in that moment and it
Speaker 1: was well intentioned, but I was getting angry. I could
Speaker 1: feel myself getting angry. I feel out myself getting frustrated,
Speaker 1: and I simply said, can I just interrupt you. I
Speaker 1: know it's well intentioned. What I need right now, I
Speaker 1: just need you to just listen. I'm not angry, please
Speaker 1: and thank you so much. What I need right now
Speaker 1: is please just listen. That's all I need. And she
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm so sorry, and you can reset.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, Please go ahead, thank you. Very few
Speaker 1: of us are experts, and even the experts bungle it
Speaker 1: all the time. And I think the just trying to
Speaker 1: say how you actually feel, telling people what you need
Speaker 1: in the moment you need it, and asking for what
Speaker 1: you need in the moment you need it right, that
Speaker 1: combination much can bumble through it all. It won't always
Speaker 1: be fun, but it's a good start. Yeah, And you
Speaker 1: don't need any PhD skills.
Speaker 2: The most important thing about that is saying something is
Speaker 2: better than saying nothing. And they're saying something, part speak
Speaker 2: your intention, like that's that's what I feel like. It's
Speaker 2: like when I'm sharing my confusion and I'm sharing my
Speaker 2: feelings and I'm scared to share them because they're messy.
Speaker 2: Going back to your earlier point, being human is messy,
Speaker 2: and you're right, sometimes I get a message like that too.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't really know what to say,
Speaker 2: and not saying anything is way worse than saying, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm really sorry. I'm here. If you need me, let
Speaker 2: me know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say, and I don't know
Speaker 1: what you need exactly, and tell me if you feel
Speaker 1: up to it, please tell me exactly. Right, but I'm here.
Speaker 1: Just know one thing, one thing, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 1: is I'm here exactly, you know. Yeah, And that's sometimes
Speaker 1: all people needed to feel not alone, most mostly mostly Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think we're also afraid of triggering somebody or
Speaker 1: saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. And
Speaker 1: it's our own fears, that's our own insecurities. And it
Speaker 1: goes back to the ghosting. It's my fear of discomfort
Speaker 1: that's making it worse for somebody else. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And it goes back to what the definition of a
Speaker 1: leader is, right. A leader is the person who accept
Speaker 1: the awesome responsibility to see those around us rise. It's
Speaker 1: about caring for people, right, And it's a very leadery
Speaker 1: thing to do to just be the person who says,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but here it is. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I remember this a while ago. There's someone that I
Speaker 2: knew that told me one of their friends came up
Speaker 2: to them and said they said exactly how they feel,
Speaker 2: but it was different. It said I'm envious of you.
Speaker 1: I kind of respect that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, but it was hard for that person
Speaker 2: to hear it. Yeah, because they felt a creative a distance,
Speaker 2: even though to me, that person is being courageous.
Speaker 1: There's a way to do it though. Yeah, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: recommend going up to somebody to be like, dude, I'm
Speaker 1: really envious of you because you don't know the context.
Speaker 1: You know't where it's coming from. I think context is important,
Speaker 1: A good setup is important, you know, like, don't know
Speaker 1: what to say. You know, I'm afraid of saying this
Speaker 1: wrong right, and I think to say, I need to
Speaker 1: share something with you that's really uncomfortable for me to share,
Speaker 1: and I know it's revealing of my own issues. It
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with you, and I know it's
Speaker 1: something I'm dealing with, but I'm really envious of you,
Speaker 1: And that Letted least signals like it's not you, it's me.
Speaker 1: Like I'm dealing with my own insecurities and my own
Speaker 1: feelings of inadequacy and my own feelings and by the way,
Speaker 1: that same friend, you know, his career, just like when
Speaker 1: I was still like struggling and you know, trying to
Speaker 1: make a go of it, and I had no money,
Speaker 1: and he was starting his career starts to take off,
Speaker 1: and like we would go for dinner, and like he'd
Speaker 1: order expensive bottles of wine and I'm sitting there just
Speaker 1: stressed out because I know we're going to split the
Speaker 1: check and I am like everything he's ordering and I'm
Speaker 1: just like sitting there going and it's just making me
Speaker 1: feel worse. His success is actually making me feel bad
Speaker 1: and affecting a boat and feeling inadequate and feeling lesser than.
Speaker 1: But this is why he's a great friend. He goes, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: let's make a deal. I'll pay for the wine and
Speaker 1: let's just split the meal. I'm like, I'm good, thank you.
Speaker 1: I don't have to say a word. He knows where
Speaker 1: he is and he knows where I am.
Speaker 2: But that requires humility.
Speaker 1: And it still sucked. And I still hated it, and
Speaker 1: I still had jealousy and I still had anger. I
Speaker 1: still had all the feelings. As his career is flying,
Speaker 1: all it's his success is just reminding me what I
Speaker 1: haven't achieved or what I'm not achieving, or you know,
Speaker 1: am I ever going to achieve anything? You know, I
Speaker 1: wish I had. And he's buying big houses and things like,
Speaker 1: you know, and not that I desire big houses, but
Speaker 1: I'm watching it happen. And I knew it was my issue,
Speaker 1: and I knew there's a there's a danger of me
Speaker 1: lashing out or making accusations. You're always throwing your money
Speaker 1: around in front of me. I knew all of that existed.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, I had the self awareness to be like,
Speaker 1: this is me, this is my issue, These are my insecurity,
Speaker 1: these are my fears, this is my ego. And I
Speaker 1: can't remember what I did. I sat in a discomfort
Speaker 1: for a long time, and I think at some point
Speaker 1: I just talked to him. Yeah, and you know, he's
Speaker 1: he's one of my best friends in the world. And
Speaker 1: now I can look at him be like, dude, I'm
Speaker 1: so proud of you, like you freaking nailed it. And
Speaker 1: I've known him since we were eighteen years old, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's like we've known each other since we were
Speaker 1: both idiots. You know, we've known each other since we
Speaker 1: were eighteen. We lived across the hall from each other
Speaker 1: freshman year of college, and we've always been friends. We've
Speaker 1: never not been friends.
Speaker 2: So you can't be friends with people you're envyousself and
Speaker 2: people that are envious with view.
Speaker 1: I've never actually talked to him about it. It's really funny.
Speaker 1: I was actually just talking to him on the way
Speaker 1: up driving up to here, which is really funny. I've
Speaker 1: never talked to him about it. I should. I don't
Speaker 1: know what his experience in that moment was being on
Speaker 1: the other side, but I treated it like a fight.
Speaker 1: I treated it like we have to get through this,
Speaker 1: even though he was pretty much uninvolved in the whole
Speaker 1: thing was going on in my own head. He was
Speaker 1: just going through life. He probably was completely in fact,
Speaker 1: knowing what I know about him, he was completely I
Speaker 1: guarantee you mostly unaware, right I remember, I just I
Speaker 1: love him, I care about him. Nothing happened. I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything to me, just doing well. I treated it
Speaker 1: like like this is a tension and I have to
Speaker 1: get through this because it goes right back to it
Speaker 1: before the stress is worth it. Yeah, this friendship is
Speaker 1: worth going this, This stress is worth getting through for
Speaker 1: this friendship. It's not. You can't say that about all friendships,
Speaker 1: but in this case, it was it was worth it. It
Speaker 1: was worth it to sit in mud by myself and
Speaker 1: maybe tell somebody else what I was going through and
Speaker 1: have them go, oh, that sucks, you know. So I
Speaker 1: don't remember the details, but I'm pretty sure that's how
Speaker 1: I dealt with it. I probably told somebody else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, definitely. I mean, I had
Speaker 2: a friend say to me the other day. They said, Jay,
Speaker 2: you know the thing I love about you is that
Speaker 2: you've stayed the same despite your success. You taller a friend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it was just like and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: the reason why I've been able to be the same
Speaker 2: with you is because you've stayed the same with me.
Speaker 2: And it was this really interesting not that we haven't
Speaker 2: changed or grown. Of course, I've learned new skills, so
Speaker 2: they but that they didn't think I was changing negatively
Speaker 2: and that allowed me to continue to be who I
Speaker 2: wanted to be with them.
Speaker 1: You only get half the credit on that, right. The
Speaker 1: other half of the credit is that I guarantee you
Speaker 1: that other people in your life, other friends, will give
Speaker 1: me a different answer that they will say now that
Speaker 1: Jay's all successful and you know.
Speaker 2: No, but that's the point of my life.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like he's like aloof Now that's the point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So my point is that's exactly what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That maybe I didn't explain it. Well, he's saying that
Speaker 2: I'm giving him the credit back. Oh yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 2: I'm saying, you didn't change what you've viewed of.
Speaker 1: In me, right, So I never he's done the work.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, because he's allowed me to continue to be
Speaker 2: me without judging me comparing this and you're right, You're right.
Speaker 2: It is only half the credit.
Speaker 1: For sure, you know, and you you may have changed totally,
Speaker 1: and you may be more aloof you know, and you
Speaker 1: may be more cynical, and you may be more guarded.
Speaker 1: All of that and some people who may experience you
Speaker 1: is different. Right, all those things can be true. But
Speaker 1: I love the fact. Yeah, I think he gets the
Speaker 1: credit for having the strength of ego to recognize that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my point. Yeah, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: Gets the credit came across from but he gets he
Speaker 1: gets all the credit. He gets. That's really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just a really interest. It never clicked
Speaker 2: to me because I was receiving it, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but can't you know maybe I have exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Like I was like, maybe I have changed. Not everyone
Speaker 2: would agree with that, but it was the idea that
Speaker 2: was him that that was that way we kind of
Speaker 2: went to the end of a relationship like breakups. But
Speaker 2: I was thinking about another thing that I feel a
Speaker 2: lot of people are struggling with friendships that I at
Speaker 2: least here right now, are people who are wanting to
Speaker 2: kind of like where you were actually, but you're wanting
Speaker 2: to grow, You're wanting to pivot into a new business,
Speaker 2: You're wanting to start something. And what I've noticed is
Speaker 2: we're not scared of what people think on the internet.
Speaker 2: We're scared of what people around us think when you're
Speaker 2: starting something, Like when you're trying to begin something, you're
Speaker 2: not really scared about what some anonymous person says on
Speaker 2: the internet. That's not even on your mind. You're scared
Speaker 2: about what your friend from college is going to say
Speaker 2: about that video you made, or you're scared of what
Speaker 2: your friend from high school is going to say about
Speaker 2: the business you're about to start. You're scared of the
Speaker 2: LinkedIn update that goes out to your former colleagues, right, Like,
Speaker 2: that's the thing you're worried about. What do we do
Speaker 2: when we feel that people around us don't believe in us?
Speaker 2: Are the most cynical, the most skeptical, are the most
Speaker 2: negative about our ideas.
Speaker 1: That's interesting even a person, for anybody who wants to
Speaker 1: accomplish anything of value in the world. And when I
Speaker 1: dunk of value, I think of impact. Right, That's how
Speaker 1: I define it. Right, if you want to operate at
Speaker 1: a skille that's bigger than yourself, and if you want
Speaker 1: to and when I say bigger stuff, it could be
Speaker 1: three people, right, meaning I want to have an impact
Speaker 1: in three people's lives around me. I want to be
Speaker 1: the best parent in the world. Right. My point is
Speaker 1: more than you. Right. So I think we confuse when
Speaker 1: we think bigger than ourselves. We don't necessarily mean national stage.
Speaker 1: Bigger than yourself can just means more than one. Right.
Speaker 1: Anybody who wants to have an impact in the lives
Speaker 1: of others has to get used to the idea that
Speaker 1: not everybody's going to like you, Right. You just have
Speaker 1: to get used to that idea. And for me, I
Speaker 1: have rules, which is if you don't like me because
Speaker 1: you disagree with me. I'm cool with that. Right. If
Speaker 1: you don't like me because somehow I make you uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that too. But if somebody I respect
Speaker 1: doesn't like me, now I've got a problem, right, because
Speaker 1: I'm not so blind and pigheaded to be like, screw
Speaker 1: the world, it's me. You know. If you don't like it,
Speaker 1: you can you know, you can eat it. Right. My
Speaker 1: eyes are open. And if there's a friend I care about,
Speaker 1: who's m simon? Okay, I got to take that seriously
Speaker 1: because now I'm getting too big for my breeches, or
Speaker 1: now I'm not listening, or now I'm ignoring my blind spots,
Speaker 1: And now I got a problem, right. But if somebody
Speaker 1: just disagrees with me, I mean, what am I supposed
Speaker 1: to do? I don't get everything right. Sometimes things come
Speaker 1: out wrong. Give me some grace, you know. But if
Speaker 1: you just disagree with me, like what am I like?
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I actually don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: It's like the gold dress, blue dress? Remember that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the dress is blue, You're an idiot, it's gold.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what am I supposed to do. I see
Speaker 1: it as blue. I don't know what to do. That's
Speaker 1: what it is, right, It's hard. Everybody wants people to like.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a lot of respect for people
Speaker 1: who like literally don't care. Yeah, I don't have that.
Speaker 2: Well, it goes back to what you were saying earlier
Speaker 2: that we're looking for people to affirm, confirm, and join.
Speaker 2: So it's like when you have that idea and everyone
Speaker 2: around you, who you thought supported the same football club
Speaker 2: and had the same values doesn't agree with you, it
Speaker 2: kind of feels like there's something wrong.
Speaker 1: You're kind of raising something that's quite least, it's quite insidious.
Speaker 1: We can't help but think about like likes and views
Speaker 1: on a post that you know, we get our sense
Speaker 1: of self from how many likes we get, And this
Speaker 1: video got more likes. I'm bohite, period, I'm awesome, this
Speaker 1: video gout no likes, Oh my god, I'm worthless? Yeah
Speaker 1: like or how many views it gets. And that's sort
Speaker 1: of the macro social media version of what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: which is if people like me, I must be a
Speaker 1: good person. That people don't like me or aren't giving
Speaker 1: me a lot of views, I might I must not
Speaker 1: be a good person, and how to disconnect a like
Speaker 1: or a view or a comment from what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do here and what I'm putting out in the world.
Speaker 1: And the problem is it's the incentive structure, right, because
Speaker 1: if you're making money from views, if your sense of
Speaker 1: value in the world comes from those numbers, that's the
Speaker 1: insidious version of what you're saying. And how do you
Speaker 1: get comfortable like some will do well? Like I can
Speaker 1: tell you I've won the Internet Lottery more than once.
Speaker 2: Yeah you have.
Speaker 1: I have won the Internet Lottery more than once. And
Speaker 1: I've had multiple things that I've put out there go
Speaker 1: very viral. None of them did I predict. The videos
Speaker 1: that I thought would do well fine, And the videos
Speaker 1: that I had no clue went you know, and they
Speaker 1: went ballistic and it wasn't because the production quality, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't I didn't just didn't know something connected, you know.
Speaker 1: That's why I call it virals. I was at a
Speaker 1: dinner once and a guy I'd like, what do you do?
Speaker 1: He's like, I made viral videos. I'm like, no, you don't.
Speaker 1: You make videos and you hope they go viral. And
Speaker 1: that's why this stuff is hard. Now you can do
Speaker 1: tricks and games. You and I both know people who
Speaker 1: use all the tricks and games to drive the views.
Speaker 1: And you know, and there are tricks and games on Amazon,
Speaker 1: there are tricks and games on YouTube, there are tricks
Speaker 1: and games on Instagram, right, TikTok, they all have tricks
Speaker 1: and games. But when something actually goes for legitimate reasons,
Speaker 1: it's because you connected with somebody you didn't even really
Speaker 1: knows realize why or how. And to make those the
Speaker 1: standards is ridiculous. It's stupid. Like people said to me, Simon,
Speaker 1: you know, after I wrote, start with why, how are
Speaker 1: you going to write a second book as popul as
Speaker 1: the first? The answer was easy, I'm not. I'm not.
Speaker 1: Didn't predict that, didn't orchestrate her. That's like asking me,
Speaker 1: how are you going to repeat that lottery win? Well,
Speaker 1: I've studied the numbers I picked the first time, and
Speaker 1: I've got a formula I having to pick. No, I
Speaker 1: won the freakin lottery? What do you want from me?
Speaker 2: Like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to do the best job I can
Speaker 1: the second time, and it won't do as well. And
Speaker 1: that's okay, you know, And I think to disconnect our
Speaker 1: value from the metric. Is a is really the lesson here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and on on that small scale of.
Speaker 1: The I'm not less valuable because my second book didn't
Speaker 1: sell as well as my first.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, me too, But yeah, I know that
Speaker 2: that point that you're making to me, that micro version
Speaker 2: is that I don't feel value. Like, for example, when
Speaker 2: I put on my first video the people closest to
Speaker 2: me or maybe second closest to me, where like, you
Speaker 2: talk too fast, the editing's bad, the music's soft, and
Speaker 2: the funny thing is they were right like that all
Speaker 2: of that was true, but it resonated with someone right.
Speaker 2: It was like a weird It was like this weird
Speaker 2: thing where and I've seen that with people when they're
Speaker 2: trying something new. It's like the people around them will
Speaker 2: be the most cynical, the most skeptical, And if you
Speaker 2: use that as feedback it could get better, or if
Speaker 2: you use it as like, hey, you're not really an
Speaker 2: explant that you don't know much, I'm just going to
Speaker 2: get on with it, right. That's what I'm trying to
Speaker 2: get at is like how does how does someone deal
Speaker 2: with the discomfort of just your best friend thinks your
Speaker 2: business idea sucks, or like your your best friend thinks
Speaker 2: the person you're dating is not right for you.
Speaker 1: But you're conflating a lot of stuff there.
Speaker 2: I like the best and doesn't like the best in
Speaker 2: your date.
Speaker 1: That's a hard one. Yeah, very often they don't tell
Speaker 1: you until you after you've broken up.
Speaker 2: Why do our friends feel like they have to wait
Speaker 2: till we break up?
Speaker 1: Because it's really uncomfortable to say I don't like your partner.
Speaker 2: Could we do something better about that too?
Speaker 1: Can I have a really uncomfortable conversation with you? You know?
Speaker 2: Could we do something better to help our friends have
Speaker 2: uncomfortable comed.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, sometimes not all
Speaker 1: our partnerships are unerstood by our friends too. I've definitely
Speaker 1: been in partnerships that people are just like really, I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you don't understand the value that this person gives to me.
Speaker 1: And this person is the exact right person I need
Speaker 1: to date for the place I'm in right now, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I had a girlfriend many years ago who
Speaker 1: nobody could like they looked at us walking dow the
Speaker 1: street and people just like like I me and my
Speaker 1: friends like they're like, what like they couldn't understand this relationship.
Speaker 1: And what they didn't understand is who I was and
Speaker 1: what I need In that time, she was magical and
Speaker 1: we're still friends, but nobody, nobody got it, and she
Speaker 1: was socially awkward and like so like if you've got
Speaker 1: friends with big personalities and you know, we go and
Speaker 1: she's just quiet the whole night, Like my friends didn't
Speaker 1: get it. That's the other thing I've learned, which is
Speaker 1: to do people not like the girl I'm dating or
Speaker 1: do they just want somebody who's the life of the party.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a great point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if they're looking for somebod who's a life
Speaker 1: of the party, that's not who I'm dating. She's the rock,
Speaker 1: she's not the fireworks. She's stable, and that's what I need. No.
Speaker 2: I like that. I like that because I think you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean introverts in general, in friendships in great settings
Speaker 2: like my family.
Speaker 1: My parents have never liked quote unquote any introvert I've
Speaker 1: ever dated. They love the extroverts because the extroverts are
Speaker 1: fun and the introverts are awkward. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 2: Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from
Speaker 2: our sponsors. Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now
Speaker 2: back to the discussion. I think everyone who's listening right
Speaker 2: now and watching me include it is thinking of someone
Speaker 2: in my life right now. Yeah, that I don't enjoy
Speaker 2: being around because they're introverted. Yeah, And even though I
Speaker 2: can be very introverted in certain group settings, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: certain group friends saying I'm the biggest introviet there is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then in sand and I'm the awkward ones sometimes
Speaker 2: where people like I don't get it same you're dating him.
Speaker 2: He's so vivacious on stage and on camera, and at
Speaker 2: dinner he was quiet and grumpy. How should introverts think
Speaker 2: about friendships differently to extroverts.
Speaker 1: I don't think they should think about friendships differently. I
Speaker 1: think they're all the same. The rules are the same,
Speaker 1: you know. I think we confuse introversion extraversion in social awkwardness.
Speaker 1: There are socially awkward introverts. There are socially awkward extroverts.
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 1: There are socially functional introverts, and there are socially functional extroverts.
Speaker 1: I am a socially functional introvert, right, I'm okay, you
Speaker 1: know I'm not that awkward, though I can be. My
Speaker 1: ex would make fun of me. We'd go to a
Speaker 1: party and like all these little groups of conversations, you know,
Speaker 1: people standing around in threes and fours with their drinks
Speaker 1: talking one over there, one over there, and I never
Speaker 1: knew how to insert myself into one of them. And
Speaker 1: I know, oh the people like, but I never know
Speaker 1: how to insert myself. And so I just stand by
Speaker 1: myself with my drink in the middle of the room.
Speaker 1: And she would always make fun of me that I
Speaker 1: would just stand there by myself, just totally fine, just
Speaker 1: taking the room in, you know, and I just feel
Speaker 1: sorry sorry for everybody else is looking at me going out.
Speaker 1: I don't even know. People don't know how to talk
Speaker 1: to me. How do you walk up to it? A
Speaker 1: person just standing in the middle of the room by themselves,
Speaker 1: Like I think friendships are the same, Like, of course
Speaker 1: it's partially. It's energy, is what we get from people.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to go right back to what we
Speaker 1: said before. Stop thinking about the introversion of the extraversion
Speaker 1: of life of the party, death of the party. Does
Speaker 1: this person give you something? Are they additive to your day,
Speaker 1: to your night, to your life? Not every friendship has
Speaker 1: to be a deep, meaningful relationship, but every friendship should
Speaker 1: be additive, and it should they should be worth the
Speaker 1: time and the energy that we invest. Yeah, right, And
Speaker 1: one thing I look to is you don't need to
Speaker 1: keep score, but you do want there to be some
Speaker 1: reciprocal investment. I've definitely had friendships where I'm the one
Speaker 1: making the plan, I'm the one doing the calling, I'm
Speaker 1: the one doing the texting. They always respond, But if
Speaker 1: I didn't call her text I'm not sure I'd ever
Speaker 1: hear from them again for the rest, you know. And
Speaker 1: in those scenarios, I'm asking myself, like, we have fun,
Speaker 1: I'm investing. What if we didn't? What if I didn't invest?
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, And so I've done little experiments where
Speaker 1: I just like, don't and some of those friendships drift apart.
Speaker 1: They just drift apart, and you're like, huh, okay, got it,
Speaker 1: not offended. And then other times the person will be like,
Speaker 1: I have not talked to you for so long. You
Speaker 1: are always so good at staying in touch with me.
Speaker 1: I'm a bad friend. I'm going to do better. I
Speaker 1: don't like not talking to you, And they pick up
Speaker 1: their game, and again it goes right back to where
Speaker 1: we started. If you peel the onion back one layer.
Speaker 1: A lot most of us are bad friends, and most
Speaker 1: of us are lazy, you know, and most of us
Speaker 1: would prioritize work before a friend and take our friends
Speaker 1: for granted. In this case, when one person's putting in
Speaker 1: all the energy, it's super easy to be the lazy friend.
Speaker 1: On the other end, I've definitely been the lazy friend
Speaker 1: on the other end, you know, I have one friend
Speaker 1: rockstar rock star. It's making plans, getting in touch and so,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: But that's that thing, right It's like when we're looking
Speaker 2: at the question of as someone additive to my life,
Speaker 2: if they don't ask the other side of.
Speaker 1: Also, it's also what you're looking for, right, Like if
Speaker 1: you as long as it's communicated. I think it's like,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for always being so good at
Speaker 1: being the one who initiates every time we get together,
Speaker 1: because I can tell you every time we get together,
Speaker 1: I love seeing you. Thank you for leading the way.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's just acknowledgment. Again. This is why
Speaker 1: these things, like human beings are messy. There's only a
Speaker 1: few things that are quote unquote right or wrong. But
Speaker 1: a lot of this is figuring out what each person wants,
Speaker 1: and sometimes by the way, they want things different things
Speaker 1: at different times. And that's the if you're really busy,
Speaker 1: if you're really stressed, or if you're really distracted, or
Speaker 1: and like, well, we've all been the person or been
Speaker 1: the friend of the person who like has a new
Speaker 1: romantic relationship and all of a sudden you don't anymore.
Speaker 1: Ye right, We've all been that person, and we've all
Speaker 1: been on the receiving end of that person, right, And
Speaker 1: then they break up, and then they start calling and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, well now that you're now that I'm
Speaker 1: you're not busy, and now you're a friend again, right right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so like what do.
Speaker 2: You do in that situation? Do you allow it? Do
Speaker 2: you pretend to be disrespected? Are you offended? I feel
Speaker 2: like we have such we've seem to have such big reactions,
Speaker 2: we will be such common occurrences.
Speaker 1: I think communication is like lubrication. The more communication there is,
Speaker 1: the easier the machine goes. And without communication you get
Speaker 1: is friction. Right, most fights amongst friends. I just had
Speaker 1: a fight with a friend just this week. It was
Speaker 1: based purely on first miscommunication and then total lack of
Speaker 1: follow up, and then the tension just grew and grew
Speaker 1: and grew until one of us was like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's usually miscommunication and then lack of communication, and so
Speaker 1: if you can communicate even badly, that will lose bcate
Speaker 1: the relationship. And so what I find is that good
Speaker 1: relationships talk about the relationship. Yeah, Like, you see good
Speaker 1: marriages and they like, I love how our marriage works
Speaker 1: so well. And you see good friendships. You know, you're like, ugh,
Speaker 1: here's what I love about our friendship. I love that
Speaker 1: I can tell you everything. I have one friend that
Speaker 1: almost every time we talk, almost every time, I will
Speaker 1: say the same thing. Do you know One of the
Speaker 1: reasons I love our friendship is because debt dot dot
Speaker 1: dot dot, and I say it, and I even say
Speaker 1: I know, I say this every time I talk to you,
Speaker 1: but it's just how I feel every time I do.
Speaker 1: I love that we're friends because I can dot dot
Speaker 1: dot or you make me feel dot dot dot every time,
Speaker 1: and we talk about the friendship, and I think that's healthy.
Speaker 1: And so it's okay to talk about the friendship. It's
Speaker 1: okay to say here's what I love, here's what I
Speaker 1: you know, and and it's okay if we need different
Speaker 1: things in different moments. And as I said before, if
Speaker 1: we do the work, it's not the chat Chebt answer.
Speaker 1: It's if you do the work, you get to earn
Speaker 1: the serotonin, you get to earn the oxytocin, you get
Speaker 1: to earn the feeling of the hug because it is
Speaker 1: natural and not because you counted for it. The serotonin's
Speaker 1: because it's earned and you have genuine joy. And if
Speaker 1: you cannot because you've got your own stuff going on,
Speaker 1: if you cannot be that person for the time that
Speaker 1: you know they need you, then simply say so, I
Speaker 1: got shit going on in my life. I can't be
Speaker 1: the person you need me to be right now. I
Speaker 1: love you, I love you, I love you. I just
Speaker 1: need to deal with my own shit, because otherwise people
Speaker 1: will make up stories. Ninety nine times out of one
Speaker 1: hundred tho stories are wrong, and then we will treat
Speaker 1: people or act based on our version of events or
Speaker 1: our story. And that's all listening is. Listening is just
Speaker 1: hearing what the other person's story is, just so I
Speaker 1: have the context for why you've been acting the way
Speaker 1: you've been acting. The story doesn't have to be right.
Speaker 1: It's just their story, just like my story doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be right. It's right to me, but it's just
Speaker 1: my experience of something like my friends like you did this,
Speaker 1: and then you did this, and then you did this,
Speaker 1: and I was like wow, and I didn't say well,
Speaker 1: I didn't intend to. I said wow, I'm sorry, like
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. Yes I did do that, And now
Speaker 1: I want to tell you my experience of what happened
Speaker 1: to the same event. You did this, and you did this,
Speaker 1: and you did this, and she said no, I didn't,
Speaker 1: and I went, I'm not telling you, I'm right. I
Speaker 1: just want you to hear how I experienced what went down,
Speaker 1: so you have context for why I acted the way
Speaker 1: I acted, because now I have context for the way
Speaker 1: you acted the way you acted. Neither of us is
Speaker 1: right and both of us are right. So this is
Speaker 1: about understanding, not about competing. And the funny thing about
Speaker 1: communication is when somebody gets it wrong or when somebody
Speaker 1: gets it right, you'd be like, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1: That's the best thing I needed to hear. And when
Speaker 1: they get it wrong, you'd be like, don't invalidate my story.
Speaker 1: Please just listen to my story. Sorry, sorry, sorry, you're right,
Speaker 1: you're right, you're right. Like this is the great thing
Speaker 1: about human beings is we can actually like give people
Speaker 1: guidance about what they're getting right and wrong in the
Speaker 1: moment and it doesn't destroy the moment, and you can
Speaker 1: be like, you're right, I'm sorry, I'd like to reset.
Speaker 1: Please continue. We can do that and it works. I
Speaker 1: have one friend. I mean, it's how so funny that
Speaker 1: how much guidance were able to give people as opposted
Speaker 1: letting them guess. I have one friend I was upset
Speaker 1: about something another who knows what I was hurt. I
Speaker 1: was like, can I just tell you? And I did
Speaker 1: all the things I want to tell you. I'm hurt,
Speaker 1: and this is the story I'm telling myself may not
Speaker 1: be true. I just want you to know what happened
Speaker 1: when you said this. It made me feel this way,
Speaker 1: and she goes, well, that's not what I intended. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I didn't say you intended it. I just want you
Speaker 1: to know how I feel, and she goes, well, that's
Speaker 1: those are your feelings. I'm not responsible for the way
Speaker 1: you feel. I'm like, well, actually you are. You know,
Speaker 1: when people say like, I'm not responsible for your feelings,
Speaker 1: your feelings, your feelings, I'm like, that's not true. If
Speaker 1: you say something mean and it hurts my feelings, yes
Speaker 1: they're my feelings and I'm responsible for my feelings. But
Speaker 1: you said that that made me feel bad. So yes,
Speaker 1: you are involved in this chain of events. I totally
Speaker 1: reject this idea as like I'm not responsible for your feelings,
Speaker 1: your feels or your flings, Like, no, you called me,
Speaker 1: you called me ugly, and that hurt my feelings because
Speaker 1: it tapped into my insecurities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when it's not black and white, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: but it's you are.
Speaker 1: You're in the chain of events. I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: did on a purpose anyway. So I'm going on and
Speaker 1: on and she's just if they deny push, that's your problem.
Speaker 1: Those are your feelings. I'm not responsible your feelings. I'm
Speaker 1: living my life. You're living a life. This is going
Speaker 1: on and on it and I'm getting more frustrated. I'm
Speaker 1: getting more upset. I'm not feeling heard, And I just said,
Speaker 1: can I just give you some advice about how this
Speaker 1: is going to just because you're getting frustrated with me.
Speaker 1: I'm getting freshured with you. This is super easy, right,
Speaker 1: Just say sorry. That's all I need. Just just say sorry.
Speaker 1: You said those words. Just say sorry. She goes I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm like, thank you, and then we were fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You can guide it.
Speaker 1: You can guide it. And so it's like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying sorry, I'm like, I'm literally telling you all.
Speaker 1: And by the way, one of the best lessons in
Speaker 1: the world. Saying you're sorry doesn't mean you're wrong correct
Speaker 1: Saying you're sorry means you take accountability for the things
Speaker 1: you said or the actual that were performed. And where
Speaker 1: people like, well I don't have to say sorry if
Speaker 1: I didn't attend them. Well, if you're walking through the
Speaker 1: airport with your wheelibag and you run over someone's foot
Speaker 1: by accident, you turn around and they turn around and
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm so sorry, right, didn't do it on purpose,
Speaker 1: but it is your wheelibag. Now if they turn around
Speaker 1: and look at you, waiting for the the sorry, and
Speaker 1: you're like and you look at me like, what, I
Speaker 1: didn't do it on purpose, and a fight will ensue.
Speaker 1: You will get yelled at.
Speaker 2: That's a great example, right, Yeah, you didn't.
Speaker 1: Do it on purpose. It's still your wheelie bag, right,
Speaker 1: you didn't do it on purpose. There's still your words,
Speaker 1: there's still your actions. Doesn't mean you are wrong, but
Speaker 1: they are yours. And all you have to do is
Speaker 1: apologize because it did come from you. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I reject this whole sort of like, I'm not responsible
Speaker 1: your for your feelings. Your feelings are yours. I don't
Speaker 1: have to apologize. I'm like, dude, you're mean, you were mean,
Speaker 1: you are mean, Like, what are you going to tell you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh my gosh, it's been such a joy to
Speaker 2: talk to you. I always feel you're so refreshingly human
Speaker 2: in all your insights. They're going back to your point
Speaker 2: on imperfect as imperfect as human and human is imperfect.
Speaker 2: It's so refreshingly human to just talk to you about
Speaker 2: these ideas when sometimes we can end up living in
Speaker 2: a didactic three ways in two ways and say this
Speaker 2: and it's true, it's all of that's helpful and it's
Speaker 2: completely unhelpful because the reality.
Speaker 1: It's useful and useless at the same time.
Speaker 2: Exactly, Yeah, because the reality is this. I just thank
Speaker 2: you for showing up in that way. Because I love it.
Speaker 2: I really enjoy it because what I freeze you, it's freeing.
Speaker 2: It's liberating to know that, you know, if you can
Speaker 2: be messy, we all can.
Speaker 1: I think it's important for people to present themselves as
Speaker 1: they are, which is messy, because to present yourself as perfect, yeah,
Speaker 1: sets up an unfair standard for other people to live by. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and usually people present themselves as perfect, usually out of
Speaker 1: absolute fear that they don't want people to know that
Speaker 1: they're actually imperfect. And I'll say what I said before.
Speaker 1: To be beautiful is to be human. To be messy
Speaker 1: is to be beautiful. We don't fall in love with
Speaker 1: the perfection. We fall in love with the imperfection. We
Speaker 1: fall in love when somebody lets us be imperfect, allows
Speaker 1: us to be imperfect, and allows us to love them
Speaker 1: for being imperfect. We showed up on the first date
Speaker 1: because of all the perfection and imperfection is earned, like
Speaker 1: the space to be imperfect is earned. You do not
Speaker 1: reveal all your imperfections on date one too soon, too much.
Speaker 1: That's overwhelming. And when you do the work and you
Speaker 1: take the small risks that then become big risks. I
Speaker 1: want to be my messy self. With somebody who loves
Speaker 1: me for my messy self. And I want somebody to
Speaker 1: feel that I love them no matter how messy they are.
Speaker 1: And that is a high standard and a hard thing
Speaker 1: to find. And if you have a friend like that,
Speaker 1: you work damn hard to protect that friendship.
Speaker 2: And we end every episode of On Purpose with a
Speaker 2: final five. These have to be answered in one word
Speaker 2: to one sentence maximum. Okay, So Simon Sinek, these are
Speaker 2: your final five. Question number one, what is the best
Speaker 2: advice you've ever heard or received? Let's do it to
Speaker 2: do with friendship.
Speaker 1: So the best advice I ever got professionally is three
Speaker 1: quarters of an answer is better than an answer and
Speaker 1: a half. And I think it actually, I actually think
Speaker 1: it applies to friendship too. Sometimes just shut up. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the best advice I got personally is you
Speaker 1: don't have to know everything and you don't have to
Speaker 1: always be right, and that's of relief.
Speaker 2: Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever
Speaker 2: heard or received?
Speaker 1: Trust me, I've been doing this longer than you.
Speaker 2: Aha, that's a good I like tho.
Speaker 1: I try and ignore people to tell you that.
Speaker 2: Question number three, define a good friend.
Speaker 1: I believe that friendship is two or more people who
Speaker 1: agree to grow together, and so a good friend is
Speaker 1: somebody who we have decided that we're going to grow together.
Speaker 2: Question number four, how do you define a bad friend?
Speaker 1: A friend who's trying to extract rather than grow.
Speaker 2: Fifth and final question we asked this every guest who's
Speaker 2: ever been on the show. If you could create one
Speaker 2: law that everyone in the world had to follow, what
Speaker 2: would it be.
Speaker 1: That I would outlaw the harp? Why? It's silly instrument.
Speaker 1: It's good for dream sequences. That's about it.
Speaker 2: No way, you're joking right now. Really, you genuinely don't
Speaker 2: like hearts?
Speaker 1: No, I don't like harps. Wow, you can listen to
Speaker 1: a harp symphony.
Speaker 2: No, I have not, But I like harps.
Speaker 1: I didn't know it's good for dreams.
Speaker 2: They're in Eavan though.
Speaker 1: Exactly it's good for one thing, dream sequences. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would outlaw harps.
Speaker 2: I love it, Simon and Okra harps Okra, Wow, that's it.
Speaker 2: It's attacking my Indian heritage. I love it. Simon, You've
Speaker 2: been a joy as ever, and I hope this is
Speaker 2: the first of many appearances on purpose. I really appreciate
Speaker 2: your views as always, and I look forward to these
Speaker 2: conversations and lots more of them.
Speaker 1: So thank you, thanks for having.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If
Speaker 2: you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant
Speaker 2: on why discomfort is the key to growth and the
Speaker 2: strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you
Speaker 2: want to be more and achieve more this year, go
Speaker 2: check it out right now.
Speaker 3: You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months,
Speaker 3: and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief.
Speaker 3: There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of
Speaker 3: expected it, and you would have been disappointed if it
Speaker 3: didn't happen.