Does Gender Change How We Lead? with retired colonel DeDe Halfhill | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

DeDe Halfhill 0:00 I would say I'm only maybe 20% recovered. I'm still a really bad fixer.

Simon Sinek 0:05 Hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 0:05 I mean, I'm a good fixer. I think my ideas are amazing. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 0:08 [laughs] Traditional male characteristics are things like aggression or decisiveness. Traditional female characteristics are things like patience, empathy. We don't actually need more female leaders. What we need is more leaders who act like females, and women just happen to be better at that, which is why I'm excited to talk to DeDe Halfhill. She is a powerhouse and a badass. She was in the Air Force for over 25 years, and she advised some of the most senior leaders in the military, from chiefs of staff to the chairman of the joint chiefs. She was a leader in a profession dominated by men and machismo. As she was learning to be a leader, she could have followed their model, but she didn't. She forged her own, one built on clarity, vulnerability, and a deep understanding of what truly inspires people to follow. This is actually not about men versus women. This is about finding the right traits that make any of us, all of us, better leaders. This is A Bit of Optimism. You and I have known each other a very long time.

DeDe Halfhill 1:18 A long time.

Simon Sinek 1:19 Too long.

DeDe Halfhill 1:20 No, not too long. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 1:21 Some would argue. In fact, I met you probably three years before Start With Why was a TED Talk or a book or anything like that.

DeDe Halfhill 1:28 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 1:28 In fact, I think you are more responsible for my relationship with the military than almost anybody else.

DeDe Halfhill 1:34 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 1:34 It's true. You were forced to be in a meeting that I was there.

DeDe Halfhill 1:37 Yes.

Simon Sinek 1:37 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 1:37 Well, I wasn't, I wasn't forced. I was excited to be there.

Simon Sinek 1:40 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 1:40 I wasn't excited to see you.

Simon Sinek 1:41 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 1:41 I was excited to have the conversation because I'd spent years trying to get to these leaders-

Simon Sinek 1:48 Ah

DeDe Halfhill 1:48 ... and you were there to help pave the inroads for that.

Simon Sinek 1:50 That's true. Okay. You and I have had this conversation many times about what is female leadership.

DeDe Halfhill 1:55 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 1:55 25 years in the Air Force, and you left just recently.

DeDe Halfhill 2:00 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 2:00 You grew up in a very male-dominated machismo world, and I'm very curious if there is such a thing as female leadership.

DeDe Halfhill 2:07 I would say yes and no. You know, I think I shared a story with you about just prior to going to Iraq, and I was gonna be taking command for the very first time. This was my second tour to Iraq. So I wasn't necessarily nervous about going to Iraq, but I had some apprehension about going into command, what I didn't know. I didn't grow up in the world of the squadron I was gonna be commanding. And so I had reached out to a female leader I very much respected and admired. She's amazing. And I said, "Listen, I'm getting ready to go take command. What do I need to know as a woman?" And she said, "Nothing. Leadership is leadership." And I thought, "Oh, okay. Great." So I went over to Iraq, and I was in command, and I was constantly butting up against things that just didn't feel right. Like, I felt like something was off. Like, I had one captain at one point, we were having struggles with our dining facility, and I said like, "Hey, we really gotta get this in check." Backstory, it was all about Cocoa Puffs. I had a commander who was anti-Cocoa Puffs, but we don't have time to go into that today.

Simon Sinek 3:17 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 3:18 And he said, "All over it, ma'am. I got this." And I was like, "Oh, okay." I didn't, you know, think much of it. And then a couple weeks later, the Cocoa Puffs were still there, and I asked him again like, "Hey, what's going on with the Cocoa Puffs?" And he's like, "Ma'am, I, I told you, we're all over it. We got this." And I said, "Well, I, I don't think you do because Cocoa Puffs are still there." Little moments like that where it just felt like I was being dismissed, where it felt like I was getting these pats on the head-

Simon Sinek 3:50 Hmm

DeDe Halfhill 3:50 ... even though I was substantially senior to him in rank.

Simon Sinek 3:54 Mm-hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 3:55 And I thought, "Ugh, this just, just feels off."

Simon Sinek 3:58 Mm-hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 3:59 I then had another moment where a com- a leader senior to me was giving me feedback, and he said, "Listen, I think you're doing a great job, but sometimes I think you flirt to get your way." And I was like, "Flirt?" Like, it, it just threw me into a tailspin because you know me.

Simon Sinek 4:19 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 4:19 I mean, I'm, I don't ever try to use-

Simon Sinek 4:21 No

DeDe Halfhill 4:21 ... femininity to get my way or to make inroads. I did grow up in the Air Force as a communications officer. Public affairs officer is what we call it in the military. I was the liaison to the community, to the media, sometimes to Congress, which means I had to be personable and I had to know how to engage people.

Simon Sinek 4:42 Very different from flirting.

DeDe Halfhill 4:43 Very different from flirting. And it threw me into such a tailspin because sometimes I share this story and I'll ask people, "What does flirting look like to you?"

Simon Sinek 4:53 Hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 4:53 So if I were to ask you right now, like what does flirting look like to you? How would you know if someone's flirting with you?

Simon Sinek 4:59 I think flirting, like when you, when you're in a, when you're in a social place with someone and you're both trying to send signals to each other like, "Hey, I kinda like ya," and you look for to get those signals back. And we know we're social animals. We're attuned to it, you know, s- some better than others, but it's, there, it's the dance of mating.

DeDe Halfhill 5:19 Yeah, but what-

Simon Sinek 5:20 And so-

DeDe Halfhill 5:20 ... what are the behaviors you're seeing?

Simon Sinek 5:22 What are the behaviors you're seeing? Well, but I think context also matters. Like if I make a joke in a social context, it could be a flirt. If I make a joke in a professional context, you know, like I make a little self-deprecating joke.

DeDe Halfhill 5:32 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 5:33 You know? Extreme flirting would be, I guess, touching, you know, somebody rubbing a knee or touching a shoulder. That's a flirt, you know?

DeDe Halfhill 5:40 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 5:40 I guess the proverbial batting your eyelids.

DeDe Halfhill 5:42 [laughs] Which I can't do.

Simon Sinek 5:44 Which I can't do either.

DeDe Halfhill 5:46 But you make-

Simon Sinek 5:46 I don't know. It's hard

DeDe Halfhill 5:47 It is, right? You make my point.

Simon Sinek 5:48 It's a hard... It's a, it's a good question. It's hard.

DeDe Halfhill 5:49 You make my point in that most of us can't describe it, and when we do, we say things like, "Well, you were smiling. You might have giggled." I actually touched one of your staff members this morning when I came in and I said, "How are you doing?" I touched his shoulders, right?And so these behaviors that-

Simon Sinek 6:08 Stop flirting with my staff.

DeDe Halfhill 6:09 I know, I'm sorry.

Simon Sinek 6:10 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 6:11 Uh, I'm sorry. And so all of these behaviors that sometimes people say are flirt- you know, flirtatious behaviors are the very same behaviors that I had to-

Simon Sinek 6:23 Yeah, yeah

DeDe Halfhill 6:23 ... cultivate as a public affairs officer: smiling, being-

Simon Sinek 6:26 Okay, so is there a such thing as female leadership or not?

DeDe Halfhill 6:29 Yeah, so I was getting there. So I left there thinking, "Oh my gosh, there was so much about that experience that was different because I was a woman." And so yes, do I think sometimes there are things about being a woman in a male-dominated environment that may just be behaviors that come naturally to us, things like more communicative, right? We tend to collaborate, we tend to communicate more, we tend to be more inclusive in bringing people in. Not exclusive to women, but maybe more practiced by women.

Simon Sinek 7:08 Mm-hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 7:08 And so yes, I think there are ways that men traditionally behave, there are ways that women traditionally behave. I don't think it's male leadership and female leadership.

Simon Sinek 7:18 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 7:19 I think it is there are some behaviors that maybe as a general rule, not in its entirety, that we might be more practiced at. I think there's a bigger discussion to have. Like you had asked me what it was like being a woman in the military and, or, you know, is there female leadership?

DeDe Halfhill 7:36 When I get asked the question, "What was the hardest part about being a woman in the military?" the answer I've come to is the emotional labor. Because I had these skills and I could sit in that discomfort of other people's emotion, people started to come to me, and I would have people come to me from other squadrons who would say, "Hey ma'am, could I get 10 minutes of your time?" And I'd be like, "Of course," right? Because I want everyone to feel healthy and to get through, like to talk about the things that are frustrating them. And what I realized after like a year or so of doing this was that that's real time. So spending all that time when people would come, want to t- when people would want to talk to me about where they were struggling, the time I spent doing that, 'cause I believe in it and I think it matters, is time I wasn't getting to go out and talk to my units. It was time I wasn't getting to do the admin that all of us have to do, wasn't getting through emails. And so it was a real, it, it was a quantifiable thing. And so the hardest part for me about being a woman in the military was not all of the environmental things that people think about being a woman in the military. It was to be the kind of leader I wanted to be. Is it because I'm a woman or not? I don't know. But my ability to sit in that emotional space was time that my, my male peers did not have to expend, right? Because their own people weren't going to them to talk, because they didn't have the ability to sit in this space with them, which means they didn't have that half hour, or they had that half hour to do other things. They had that hour to do other things. That for me, when I look back, is probably the hardest. That was the hardest thing.

Simon Sinek 9:23 You told me-

DeDe Halfhill 9:24 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 9:24 ... which is, but, but people respond differently to men versus women. You know-

DeDe Halfhill 9:29 Yeah

Simon Sinek 9:29 ... you told me about that there was a, a, it was a, an army, I think it was an NCO who was in your command back in Iraq, and he said to you, "You know, ma'am, when a male le- leader yells at me-"

DeDe Halfhill 9:39 Mm. Yeah

Simon Sinek 9:40 ... all good, water off my back.

DeDe Halfhill 9:41 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 9:41 Totally got it. Hop to, whatever he needs me to do. When you yell at me, I feel like my mom's yelling at me.

DeDe Halfhill 9:46 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 9:47 And it's, it's a different response.

DeDe Halfhill 9:48 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 9:49 And so I think when men engage with men and men engage... Like, I think there is a dynamic of traditional mom-dad dynamics.

DeDe Halfhill 9:56 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 9:57 I mean, is, is that true or is that just unique to him? That if you yell at him, it comes across very differently than if a male leader yells at him, how he responds.

DeDe Halfhill 10:05 Yeah, I mean, same situation, same time in Iraq, there were three female commanders. Two of, uh, the three of us were investigated for mistreatment of our airmen. A friend of mine was the investigating officer and he said, "I'm not seeing these women do anything I don't see men do every day. But when the women do it, it is perceived to be more toxic than when the men do it." The research shows that when men behave differently than society thinks we should be behaving, we are held to a different standard, and it's used against us more.

Simon Sinek 10:42 So what was the behavior? What was the thing that they were upset about that men do all the time?

DeDe Halfhill 10:46 Oh, I mean, swearing.

Simon Sinek 10:48 Swearing?

DeDe Halfhill 10:49 Swearing was the big one.

Simon Sinek 10:50 Swearing in the military.

DeDe Halfhill 10:51 She sw- she cussed at me. She dropped the F-bomb too many times.

Simon Sinek 10:56 No kidding.

DeDe Halfhill 10:57 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 10:57 That was the toxic behavior.

DeDe Halfhill 10:59 That was it. It was the, the behaviors of get it done, get your proverbial shit together. And when women behaved in a way that we all see men do every... In fact, in most cases, men are rewarded for it. They're decisive.

Simon Sinek 11:16 So interesting.

DeDe Halfhill 11:17 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 11:17 It's so interesting, and I think you're right. It's the societal expectations. It's not the behavior per se, it's the expectation and the lane. If we think about what the lanes are in the 1800s-

DeDe Halfhill 11:28 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 11:28 ... and the 18... No, but I'm serious. Like, like if we go back through time, what the lanes for-

DeDe Halfhill 11:33 Yeah

Simon Sinek 11:33 ... acceptable behavior for men and women have been.

DeDe Halfhill 11:36 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 11:36 You know, those lanes move. Culture advances, and norms and standards of behaviors change, and those lanes of expectations change. And that's very interesting that when, when, when somebody steps out of that lane of expectation, we find that jarring

DeDe Halfhill 11:51 Yeah

Simon Sinek 11:51 ... in, in your case, worthy of investigation.

DeDe Halfhill 11:54 Yeah. It's so interesting because what used to be held against women, I think is actually being held against men just as equally now.

Simon Sinek 12:03 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 12:04 You know, I was in Iraq, that was 2010, so that's 15 years ago. And the way I'm watching leadership change now, the feedback I get from employees who are working for leaders who maybe grew up in a very command and control environment, they are no longer tolerating that. Even in a traditionally command and control environment-

Simon Sinek 12:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah

DeDe Halfhill 12:26 ... of the military, it's no longer being tolerated.

Simon Sinek 12:28 So now there's a new expectation, and too many, in this case men is what we're talking about-

DeDe Halfhill 12:33 Yeah

Simon Sinek 12:33 ... have been practicing in a different lane, and now they're-

DeDe Halfhill 12:35 Yes

Simon Sinek 12:35 ... trying to conform to the new lane.

DeDe Halfhill 12:37 100%, and they feel really lost because they've seen one kind of leadership modeled.

Simon Sinek 12:41 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 12:42 The expectations are changing rapidly.

Simon Sinek 12:45 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 12:45 They have not seen modeled the kind of leadership we actually need today.

Simon Sinek 12:50 Yeah. Okay, let's go deep.

DeDe Halfhill 12:52 Yeah, okay.

Simon Sinek 12:53 We've been playing up here.

DeDe Halfhill 12:54 Okay. [laughs] Uh-oh.

Simon Sinek 12:58 When you were deployed, so three things happened to you simultaneously. Any one of those would've been difficult to manage by themselves. You were promoted.

DeDe Halfhill 13:08 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 13:09 You were given your first command.

DeDe Halfhill 13:11 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 13:12 And you were deployed for 365 days.

DeDe Halfhill 13:15 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 13:15 So any one of those things was, w- is difficult to, to manage by itself, and all three of those happened simultaneously to you.

DeDe Halfhill 13:21 And command of a squadron I had no experience in.

Simon Sinek 13:24 And command of a squadron you had n- knew nothing about.

DeDe Halfhill 13:26 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 13:27 Right. Y-

DeDe Halfhill 13:27 Yeah

Simon Sinek 13:27 ... you, that wasn't your, your, your training.

DeDe Halfhill 13:30 Right.

Simon Sinek 13:30 Okay, so we'll add four things in there.

DeDe Halfhill 13:32 I could add a fifth, but we won't.

Simon Sinek 13:34 [laughs] What was the fifth?

DeDe Halfhill 13:35 I was the only female in my leadership group.

Simon Sinek 13:38 Okay, so any-

DeDe Halfhill 13:39 Yeah

Simon Sinek 13:39 ... one of those five things is difficult to manage, and you had all five things happen simultaneously.

DeDe Halfhill 13:44 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 13:44 And off you went for your deployment, and you... I saw you maybe a week after you got back.

DeDe Halfhill 13:51 Yes.

Simon Sinek 13:51 Two weeks at the most, but it was, you were, all the emotions were raw, the experience was raw, and we went out for dinner, and I asked you a very simple question, which is, "How was it?" [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 14:04 It's so funny 'cause even putting myself right back in that moment, hearing you say it, like, I can feel all the raw emotions.

Simon Sinek 14:11 Tell me as best you can remember, you took command of a squadron that was underperforming, and I- if I recall, the previous leaders had all been fired, like the past, the previous two or three leaders had been fired, and you were like, "I'm gonna turn it around. I'm gonna be the one-

DeDe Halfhill 14:27 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 14:27 ... I'm gonna be the, the one who fixes this and makes..." If I recall.

DeDe Halfhill 14:30 The career field as a whole-

Simon Sinek 14:31 Okay

DeDe Halfhill 14:31 ... was really having trouble-

Simon Sinek 14:33 Okay

DeDe Halfhill 14:33 ... with its commanders.

Simon Sinek 14:35 You were responsible for all the base operations at Balad Air Base.

DeDe Halfhill 14:38 Yeah, feeding, fitness, and fun.

Simon Sinek 14:40 Okay.

DeDe Halfhill 14:40 Right? So, and housing, and I mean, just everything that allowed people to exist on the base. The story I told you was that it just felt like everything was

DeDe Halfhill 14:51 going wrong. I had a day where I went back to my trailer, and the inner story I was telling myself is, "You are the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to leadership. You are a complete failure. Who thought that you could do this?" Like, I had all of the shame narratives running on repeat and at max volume. And I had this moment where, you know, I first had my little mini, like, breakdown, but then I had this moment after talking to a couple friends about it that I thought, "If I have failed, and maybe I have, like maybe I'm not meant to be a commander. Maybe this just isn't my calling. I'll go back to public affairs," which is all about, ag- again, engagement, communication. "I'll just go back to that, and I'll have a g- I'll g- I'll have a great career in the Air Force. So if I have failed, what impact do I really wanna have? What do I want these people who I have been entrusted to care for, what do I want them to know? I want them to know they matter. I want them to know that what they're doing here is not in vain. I want them to know that the time away from their family, the time away from their lives, the danger they are accepting is worth something, and it matters." Because so often, the airmen in my squadron, so often they were the ones who took the brunt of everyone else's stress. I would have a pilot throw milk at one of my airmen at the dining facility because we changed the policy on takeout, right? We couldn't take out containers anymore. I would have my airmen get yelled at because their laundry wasn't done in a timely fashion, even though it wasn't my airmen doing the laundry, it was a contractor. And so they were just always taking the brunt of people's bad behavior, and so they were always getting beat up, and you could see that in their energy. Like, often they would... It, it just felt like we were beat dogs, and I thought, "I want them to know, like, that's not true. That story they're telling themselves isn't true. I want them to know they matter." And I didn't know it then, but it was, it started the journey of the next 15 years of my career because I realized I may never be the best at anything. There are always gonna be moments I'm gonna feel like I'm failing, and who I want to be as a leader at the core is to make people know they matter and what they're doing matters. I think the first thing that happened was I felt better, and when I felt better, I wasn't barking as much. I wasn't as stressed. I wasn't as tied to outcomes because I was more concerned about the people, and you could just see a tangible shift in the way they laughed with one another, the way they came to me with opportunities and new ideas. I could see the way my own officers took a breath, and I think just overall the stress level of the entire organization dropped.

Simon Sinek 18:04 But what ended up actually happening at the performance level?

DeDe Halfhill 18:06 You can't help but have better performance when you have all that.

Simon Sinek 18:09 Yeah. I remember when you told me the storyAnd it's nice to hear it, you know, these 15 years later because you're telling it differently.

DeDe Halfhill 18:15 Ah.

Simon Sinek 18:15 You're telling it with new perspect- But when I remember you telling me, which is, you know, you came in like, "I was gonna turn this place around. I was gonna be the l- this leader. I'm gonna prove everybody they chose the right person."

DeDe Halfhill 18:26 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 18:26 "I'm young, I'm hungry, I got the skills, I'm gonna do this." Rah, rah, rah. Right?

DeDe Halfhill 18:31 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 18:31 And, uh, and it wasn't working.

DeDe Halfhill 18:33 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 18:33 Nothing was working. And you told me that for six months, you cried yourself to sleep.

DeDe Halfhill 18:39 Mm.

Simon Sinek 18:39 That you regretted being in the Air Force, you regretted serving your country, you regretted being in Iraq. You had h- you were homesick. You just, you wanted it all to end. And this is what you're saying, which is at, at some point you just accepted that you were a failure, and it was at the point of accepting failure that you said, "Well, screw it. If I've failed anyway, I might as well make it that these people, for the time that they're away with their families, they have a, a decent time."

DeDe Halfhill 19:04 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 19:04 "And prove to them that they matter."

DeDe Halfhill 19:05 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 19:05 And things started to change. And you ended up, you did turn it around. It did become a highly, highly successful command, and you went from fighting with those in your command to them f- they would willingly follow you anywhere. And I remember as you were telling me the story sitting at dinner, I remember exactly where we were, too.

DeDe Halfhill 19:24 Oh, across from the Pentagon?

Simon Sinek 19:26 Yeah. When it's Pentagon City.

DeDe Halfhill 19:27 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 19:27 There's a little restaurant in that square. It's dar- it's like a pub.

DeDe Halfhill 19:30 Oh.

Simon Sinek 19:30 And we sat in a corner-

DeDe Halfhill 19:32 Yes

Simon Sinek 19:32 ... in a very dark, pubby kind of space, and we sat there pretty private so we could talk.

DeDe Halfhill 19:36 Champs. It's gone out of business.

Simon Sinek 19:37 Cha- okay.

DeDe Halfhill 19:38 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 19:38 Well, Champ... That's right, it was Champs.

DeDe Halfhill 19:39 [laughs] Yeah.

Simon Sinek 19:40 My God, listen, look at us, 15 years later. And you sat there, and you're telling me this whole story, the emotions right on the surface, and you started to cry.

DeDe Halfhill 19:48 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 19:48 And you said, "I've never felt pride like this, helping people realize they matter."

DeDe Halfhill 19:54 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 19:54 A subject that I know you talk about. I genuinely want to

Simon Sinek 19:58 know how you, how you've learned to manage the feeling of loneliness-

DeDe Halfhill 20:07 Mm

Simon Sinek 20:08 ... as a leader or in general. Like, when I say loneliness, what, what washes over you?

DeDe Halfhill 20:18 Oh, gosh. I mean, that I'm not alone in the feeling of loneliness, right? Like it's everywhere. Uh, I think I'll tell you what made me feel the most lonely, is feeling like I had no support around me. I think I felt loneliness, but I don't know that I really had the courage to address it until much later in my career, and it was a moment that I was out with one of my squadrons. The story is actually in the book Dare to Lead. Dr. Brené Brown included this story in the book. And I was out having a conversation with a group of my airmen presenting an award, and at the end of the award, I said like, "What's on your mind?" Which is a question I asked regularly. And one of my airmen raised his hand and he said, "Hey, ma'am, when's the ops tempo gonna slow down? 'Cause like, man, we're super tired."

Simon Sinek 21:09 Operations tempo.

DeDe Halfhill 21:10 Yeah, ops tempo. Sorry.

Simon Sinek 21:11 Mm-hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 21:11 Operations tempo. And I said, "Yeah, I hear you. Like, we're asking a lot of you." And so I asked the group, I said, "How many of you are tired?" You know, and three-quarters of the r- uh, the whole room raised their hand. And I said, "We ask a lot of you. We've been at war for 20 years. When we're not at war, we're at home preparing for an inspection. When we're not preparing for an inspection, we're training for an exercise. Like, there is just always something to be doing, so I get it." Oddly enough, three days prior to that conversation, I had read an article in Harvard Business Review, and it was talking about this organization that went into five different companies that were all reporting high levels of exhaustion, and it wanted to understand what was happening in those organizations that was causing that. And so it spent months talking to their leaders, talking to their employees, looking at their policies, and it came back after two months and said, "It's not that people are tired, but people are lonely." And it's the feeling of loneliness that was manifesting itself as this feeling of exhaustion, that that's the language we knew to use. Because the truth is, we didn't talk about loneliness at work, but we could talk about being tired. That's almost a badge of honor.

Simon Sinek 22:16 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 22:16 Like, "Oh, I'm just so tired. I'm working so hard." But whenever in my career did I have someone, without prompting, say, "I'm feeling really disconnected and lonely-"

Simon Sinek 22:26 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 22:26 "... feeling like I don't really fit here"?

Simon Sinek 22:29 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 22:30 And so I asked my group that day, "If I were to ask you instead of who's tired, who's lonely, how many of you would raise your hands?" And I asked it completely rhetorically.

Simon Sinek 22:39 Mm-hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 22:40 'Cause again, not equipped really to have this conversation. And three-quarters of the room raised their hands, and I stood there for a moment, one, kind of paralyzed, like, "Oh, shit, what do I do with this?" But two, heartbroken, because you know this, having spent so much time with DoD, we have an epidemic of rising suicide rates.

Simon Sinek 23:02 Mm-hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 23:03 And I knew that because I'd spent my whole career working with senior leaders every year when the suicide data report was released, trying to once again find just the perfect messaging-

Simon Sinek 23:16 Mm-hmm

DeDe Halfhill 23:16 ... to reach our airmen, to share with them the tools that were available, the support that was available. And year after year after year, the numbers were increasing, and we weren't getting through. And here I am standing in front of a group of, let's be honest, mostly men, and they are sharing something with me that is a very real emotion, one we don't talk about, and I realize that we're not having conversations at the root level. And because we're not having those conversations at the root level, we are wasting so much energy just dealing with the symptoms because a word like lonely was so uncomfortable for us that we didn't know how to talk about it. I went to wing standup, which is our weekly meeting at the wing level, and I went to that meeting that week and I said, "We need to be talking about loneliness." [laughs] You know, luckily I'm at the table now. I'm not in the cheap seats against the wall. And to watch... I mean, you would not have seen discomfort more than we saw in that room that day.

Simon Sinek 24:15 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 24:15 Like, they were like, "Oh my gosh, why is she talking about loneliness? Like, why are we having this conversation?"And that was the moment when I watched all of my fellow peers and other commanders. When I saw their discomfort, I realized we're never gonna get to the root of this problem if we can't get over the discomfort of language.

Simon Sinek 24:37 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 24:37 And that was the moment when I realized I have to use the word lonely if we're ever going to be able to show people it's okay to talk about it.

Simon Sinek 24:46 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 24:46 Right? Like, I had to, as a leader, go first-

Simon Sinek 24:49 Mm

DeDe Halfhill 24:49 ... in sharing that. So I think that's when I realized this isn't just a word that we should talk about in the dark corners where no one can really hear us. Like, this is the kinda language we need to be bringing out into the light-

Simon Sinek 25:03 Mm

DeDe Halfhill 25:03 ... on a regular basis.

Simon Sinek 25:04 I find this insight not only particularly interesting, but very important, which is because we can publicly talk about being exhausted-

DeDe Halfhill 25:13 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 25:14 ... and when people are lonely, it may show as exhaustion, may feel like exhaustion.

DeDe Halfhill 25:18 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 25:18 And so it's the easiest thing to say-

DeDe Halfhill 25:20 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 25:20 ... especially 'cause we don't wanna come to work and say, "I'm feeling lonely."

DeDe Halfhill 25:23 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 25:24 And the problem is, is even if you have a well-intentioned leader-

DeDe Halfhill 25:27 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 25:27 ... who sees-

DeDe Halfhill 25:28 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 25:28 ... that you're exhausted, sees something's wrong, they check in and you report, "I am exhausted," they say, "You know what? Take a day off."

DeDe Halfhill 25:36 Yes.

Simon Sinek 25:36 "You've been burning the candle at both ends. Why don't you take a day off?"

DeDe Halfhill 25:40 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 25:40 Which means, go be by yourself more.

DeDe Halfhill 25:42 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 25:42 Right? So w- even well-intentioned solutions to the problems that we perceive might... Which is why we don't see the numbers change-

DeDe Halfhill 25:49 Yeah

Simon Sinek 25:49 ... which is why we see the loneliness epidemic rise and the, and in the military and other places, the suicide rate's rising. There's this intense loneliness, and nobody knows how to talk about it for fear that it sounds weak-

DeDe Halfhill 26:02 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 26:02 ... or mushy, or just fear that I'm ill-equipped. Even the ones who want to talk about-

DeDe Halfhill 26:06 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 26:07 ... what if they say yes? I don't know what to... What do I just, "There, there?" Like, what do I say?

DeDe Halfhill 26:13 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 26:13 So I think it's a very important conversation to say that these things exist. A friend of mine who you and I both know, who's active duty still, when they started offering s- therapists on base to talk to folks, you know, and all the commanders went, "Hey, we got a therapist on base now, you know. If you're feeling like you need to talk to somebody, I encourage you to go."

DeDe Halfhill 26:33 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 26:33 But that commander never went.

DeDe Halfhill 26:35 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 26:36 And so m- my friend was very vocal. He's like, "Look, if you've got a busted leg, go see the leg doctor. If you're having thoughts, you go see the head doctor. It's totally normal." And he would say, very publicly, "Hey, I've got a lot of stuff going on, feeling super stressed out. I'm not gonna be available from 3:00 to 4:00 on Thursday 'cause I'm gonna go see the therapist. Let me know if you need anything before or after that."

DeDe Halfhill 26:56 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 26:56 He was very public that he was struggling and he was gonna go talk to somebody.

DeDe Halfhill 27:00 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 27:01 And it normalized it, to your point.

DeDe Halfhill 27:03 Mm-hmm. I get brought into organizations that are very male-dominated, construction, law enforcement. I spend a lot of time with finance, which isn't always male-dominated, but still-

Simon Sinek 27:15 Yeah, it's pretty bro-y

DeDe Halfhill 27:15 ... yeah.

Simon Sinek 27:15 Let's be honest. It's pretty bro-y.

DeDe Halfhill 27:17 And two of those three are because they, too, are really struggling with suicide rates and mental health, you know, mental health crisis.

Simon Sinek 27:25 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 27:26 And they bring me in because of, I think, my ability to talk about these hard things without being too soft-

Simon Sinek 27:37 Yeah

DeDe Halfhill 27:37 ... because I come from such a hard background.

Simon Sinek 27:40 Right, right, right.

DeDe Halfhill 27:41 Right? And if I'm being really honest-

Simon Sinek 27:43 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 27:43 ... like, I would have told you up until probably 2015, "Yeah, emotions have no place here. We've got real shit to do."

Simon Sinek 27:52 I've known you that long.

DeDe Halfhill 27:53 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 27:53 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 27:53 We don't need to be talking, we don't need to be talking about feelings.

Simon Sinek 27:56 I've known tough DeDe.

DeDe Halfhill 27:58 [laughs] And what I realized is [laughs] not talking about feelings was causing all the problems that were getting in the way of us doing good work.

Simon Sinek 28:09 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 28:10 That you can avoid it for only so long. It's going to come back to haunt you.

Simon Sinek 28:15 Yeah, yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 28:16 The problem in the military is that we rotate so much-

Simon Sinek 28:19 Yeah

DeDe Halfhill 28:20 ... that we don't always see the long-term consequences of that-

Simon Sinek 28:22 Yeah

DeDe Halfhill 28:23 ... until we have a suicide epidemic.

Simon Sinek 28:26 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 28:26 That is the long-term consequences. It's an uphill battle, you know. I get that, but...

Simon Sinek 28:32 By the way, just as an aside, I hate the term mental health-

DeDe Halfhill 28:35 Why?

Simon Sinek 28:35 ... because it s- it sounds like a goal to achieve. You either have it or you don't. Like, you either have-

DeDe Halfhill 28:40 Mm.

Simon Sinek 28:40 You, like, "I'm struggling with mental health issues, and I'm gonna do the thing so that I can achieve mental health," which is l- all you do, you're gonna do is lose.

DeDe Halfhill 28:49 What would you rather call it?

Simon Sinek 28:50 Mental fitness.

DeDe Halfhill 28:51 Okay. Yeah, that's fair.

Simon Sinek 28:51 'Cause, 'cause it's an ongoing process. It's like physical fitness-

DeDe Halfhill 28:55 Yeah

Simon Sinek 28:55 ... is something I always have to do.

DeDe Halfhill 28:56 Right, right.

Simon Sinek 28:56 Sometimes ahead, sometimes I'm behind, but even if I'm in good shape, I have to keep doing it. And so I like mental fitness, which is like my body. I constantly work on my mind, and sometimes I'm super, like, in shape-

DeDe Halfhill 29:09 Yeah

Simon Sinek 29:09 ... and sometimes I'm not, and sometimes it's my fault, and sometimes it's 'cause of lack of sleep and old... Just like my body.

DeDe Halfhill 29:14 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 29:14 And so it's just something you work on, and it takes the stigma of achievement out of it.

DeDe Halfhill 29:20 From a mental fitness perspective-

Simon Sinek 29:22 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 29:23 I'm a quick learner, Simon. The work that helped me the most is understanding shame resilience. Anytime we have those feelings or thoughts of, "I'm not good enough," or, "If I do this, who do they think I am?" I learned this idea of shame resilience, which is all about how do I talk to myself, really recognize the stories I'm telling myself, getting outside of myself to normalize them, which is a reality check.

Simon Sinek 29:50 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 29:50 And if I don't have the conversation to normalize and get the reality check, which is often, like, can we talk to someone and be met with empathy to get a reality check on all the lies I'm telling myself, 'cause I can tell myself a lot of them, some good, some bad. But knowing the work of shame resilience, identifying it, naming it, reality checking it, and then rewriting the story-

Simon Sinek 30:12 Mm

DeDe Halfhill 30:13 ... right, those are the steps of shame resilience. That is the regular weightlifting-

Simon Sinek 30:17 Mm

DeDe Halfhill 30:18 ... of my mental fitness-

Simon Sinek 30:19 Mm

DeDe Halfhill 30:19 ... because I am prone to shameI had a lot of experiences in my past that have made me prone to shame, to thinking I'm not good enough, to thinking I shouldn't do that because then they'll think I'm too big for my britches, right? And so I can very quickly go right to shame. "Oh my God, that was horrible, that w- you suck. What do you think you're doing? Did you see the way that guy in the front row was giving you the eye?" Oddly enough, and you know this, the guy in the front row giving you the eye is usually the one who's thinking deeply about what it is [laughs] you're saying, but that's not the story you hear in your head. And because I now have those tools, and I have practiced them so much-

Simon Sinek 31:02 Hmm

DeDe Halfhill 31:03 ... they have now become close to second nature.

Simon Sinek 31:07 What are the tools?

DeDe Halfhill 31:08 Naming it, reality checking it, rewriting the story.

Simon Sinek 31:12 Right.

DeDe Halfhill 31:12 Which-

Simon Sinek 31:13 And let's talk about the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt-

DeDe Halfhill 31:15 Yeah

Simon Sinek 31:15 ... is blaming the action; shame is blaming yourself.

DeDe Halfhill 31:18 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 31:18 You know, it's-

DeDe Halfhill 31:19 Great way of saying it

Simon Sinek 31:19 ... and guilt is not necessarily a bad thing. It's like, "I told a lie."

DeDe Halfhill 31:21 No.

Simon Sinek 31:21 "I need to talk to you. I feel really bad that I told you a lie."

DeDe Halfhill 31:25 Yes.

Simon Sinek 31:25 Guilt can sometimes produce good behavior, right?

DeDe Halfhill 31:28 Yes, yes.

Simon Sinek 31:28 Shame is, "I'm a liar. I'm a horrible, horrible human being."

DeDe Halfhill 31:32 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 31:32 So let me ask you a question. Let me game this out with you. Somebody is struggling with shame, you know, "I'm a horrible person."

DeDe Halfhill 31:38 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 31:38 And when you talk about reality checking it, does that mean going to somebody who can offer a safe space and be like, "Can I just run a story past you that I'm telling myself? I'm telling myself a story. Can I just reality check this with you?"

DeDe Halfhill 31:49 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 31:49 "I, I think I'm a horrible person 'cause I tell a lot of lies. I think I'm a liar." [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 31:53 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 31:53 You know?

DeDe Halfhill 31:54 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 31:54 And, you know, let's take an e- let's take one. Let's l- l- laziness.

DeDe Halfhill 31:58 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 31:58 Right?

DeDe Halfhill 31:59 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 31:59 "I'm a lazy person. I, I c- I don't get anything done. I'm unproductive, and I'm, I'm never gonna amount to anything because I'm lazy."

DeDe Halfhill 32:06 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:07 "Is that true? Am I lazy?"

DeDe Halfhill 32:09 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:10 And, you know, it's very easy to see in someone's life, and I'll just... You know, when, when, when I s- To say for some things, yeah, you are. Like, for some of you, like your schoolwork or your work, yeah, I've seen you lazy. But, like, when you're with your kids and you run them around all day, it's the furthest thing from lazy. You have so much ti- energy to help them with their homework.

DeDe Halfhill 32:30 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:31 You're the complete opposite of lazy.

DeDe Halfhill 32:32 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:33 You know?

DeDe Halfhill 32:33 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:33 And to help people understand that these are narratives, not absolutes. Is this right? Am I getting it right, kinda sorta?

DeDe Halfhill 32:39 I think you're, I think you're almost there. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 32:41 [laughs] This is why I had you on the podcast.

DeDe Halfhill 32:45 Um, so-

Simon Sinek 32:46 What am I missing? Show me. Teach me.

DeDe Halfhill 32:48 I think you did what a lot of people probably do, is you answered the question, right? You said, "Yeah, you're lazy here. You're not lazy there."

Simon Sinek 32:57 Ah.

DeDe Halfhill 32:58 Versus when we go to someone and we're in that really vulnerable moment-

Simon Sinek 33:04 Yeah

DeDe Halfhill 33:04 ... if I am brave enough to be that vulnerable with you, what I need first is empathy-

Simon Sinek 33:11 Ah

DeDe Halfhill 33:12 ... and curiosity. So I need you to say, "Oh, that's a hard feeling. What's making you feel that way?"

Simon Sinek 33:18 Got it.

DeDe Halfhill 33:19 And then I get to say what's making me feel that way.

Simon Sinek 33:21 I went into classic fix-it mode.

DeDe Halfhill 33:23 [laughs] That is the problem with... That, that's part of the challenge, especially at work. When we are not comfortable with sitting in the discomfort of someone's really shame-inducing feelings, we want to go to fix it, 'cause we want to get them out of the discomfort, and honestly, we don't wanna be in the discomfort.

Simon Sinek 33:43 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 33:44 Because fixers, and again, recovering fixer, and I would say I'm only maybe 20% recovered. I'm still a really bad fixer. I mean, I'm a good fixer. I think my ideas are amazing. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 33:57 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 33:58 But I'm still working on it. Because I am uncomfortable with your discomfort-

Simon Sinek 34:03 Right, right, right

DeDe Halfhill 34:04 ... I want to fix it, because I don't wanna see you uncomfortable, because that makes me uncomfortable.

Simon Sinek 34:08 Oh, that's such a good... Which is, I wanna fix it. Right, which is why I think when we t- and we go right back to the beginning of men versus women.

DeDe Halfhill 34:16 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 34:16 Right?

DeDe Halfhill 34:16 Yes, yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:17 Which is women are more comfortable with uncomfortable emotions.

DeDe Halfhill 34:20 Maybe. I wasn't.

Simon Sinek 34:22 On, on balance.

DeDe Halfhill 34:23 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:24 Here's one thing I am comfortable saying. I can't say whether women are or aren't.

DeDe Halfhill 34:27 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 34:27 But I can say men s- generally suck at it.

DeDe Halfhill 34:30 And I think-

Simon Sinek 34:30 Right? For societal reasons, which is we've been told that you can't be this, you can't be that from a pretty young age. "Quit your crying. Why are you crying?"

DeDe Halfhill 34:36 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:36 "Man up." This is what we get.

DeDe Halfhill 34:38 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:38 And so when someone expresses emotion to us that makes us uncomfortable, so we don't have to deal with our emotions, it's easier for me to fix yours. My problem is solved.

DeDe Halfhill 34:48 Yes.

Simon Sinek 34:48 Don't really care about yours. [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 34:50 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 34:50 Or I do. I do care about your problem.

DeDe Halfhill 34:52 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:52 But in so doing, I get a twofer. [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 34:56 I often- [laughs]

Simon Sinek 34:56 I don't have to deal with mine. I fixed yours.

DeDe Halfhill 34:58 That's right.

Simon Sinek 34:58 I'm a hero.

DeDe Halfhill 34:58 That's right.

Simon Sinek 34:59 [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 34:59 I often, [laughs] I often tell people it's not a matter of innate ability. It is a matter of societal conditioning.

Simon Sinek 35:07 Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 35:08 Like you said, men have been told you can't exhibit those behaviors, and women have been allowed to practice them.

Simon Sinek 35:15 You learned this in Iraq. You learned this in your own leadership journey. We cannot help others. We cannot be there for other, for others until we're there for ourselves.

DeDe Halfhill 35:22 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 35:22 Until we accept, like when you accepted that I'm not cut out for this, so now I'll be, now I'll worry about my people-

DeDe Halfhill 35:30 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 35:30 ... as opposed to worry about my performance.

DeDe Halfhill 35:32 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 35:32 That was a shift, which is to take yourself on and accept your own failings and opportunities makes you a better leader. And, and how can I hold space for another if I won't allow someone to hold space for me?

DeDe Halfhill 35:43 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 35:43 And

Simon Sinek 35:44 so the reason we call you leader is not because you're in charge. The reason we call you leader is not because you have rank over another. The reason we call you leader, the reason we wor- we use the word lead is because you went first.

DeDe Halfhill 35:55 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 35:55 You literally went first.

DeDe Halfhill 35:56 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 35:56 You led the people.

DeDe Halfhill 35:58 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 35:58 Tip of the spear.

DeDe Halfhill 35:59 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 36:00 Right? If you want people to be open with their emotions with you, then you have to go first. You have to find the courage to be vulnerable with a friend if you want to be the kind of leader who can hold the space for somebody who is vulnerable, who finds the courage to be vulnerable with you.

DeDe Halfhill 36:15 Yes

Simon Sinek 36:15 A good leader isn't the one that has all the answers. The good leader is the one who goes first-

DeDe Halfhill 36:19 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 36:20 ... because they've done it.

DeDe Halfhill 36:21 Can I share a story with you of what that might, what that looked like for me? So this was pre-group command. I'm in an organization, and I have a guy on my team who is supposed to be helping me manage the tasks in the office, and every time I sent him an email, the tasks wouldn't get done. I would send him a list of tasks, and he might do one or two, and the other ones wouldn't get done, and it was causing me a lot of frustration. And so I created this document that he could fill out to give me feedback on what he thinks he did well, what he thinks he doesn't do well, and I sent him the email with the form, and I said, "Fill this out, and when I get back, we'll, we'll sit down and talk about it." And he sent me back an email, and he said, "I don't know if you know this, but anybody, anytime you give feedback to civilians, it needs to be on X and X and X form," which was just basically the middle finger in an email, right? And so that sent me high and right, and I was like, "Oh, game on, buddy." So I went back to the office. I wrote down a six-page memo for record with 68 pages of documentation. Every single time I had asked him to do something in an email, I highlighted it. And so I sit down with him in our feedback session. I said, "This is gonna be a one-way conversation." And so I start, and I'm, like, two sentences into the memo I had prepared for him to read, and he blows up, and he says, "You are the most arrogant, egotistical, know-it-all person I've ever worked for," and he's, like, just going off. And this goes on for probably two, three minutes. And he finishes, and when he finishes, he just takes this, like, deep breath, and even though I was mad and I was frustrated, I looked at him and I said, "Listen, this isn't who I wanna be. I want us to find a way to work together, but it's not working right now, and I need to know what do you think we can do to make that happen?" And in that moment, he started tearing up. And I said, "What's going on for you?" And he said, "Every time you criticize me, every time you tell me I didn't do something, every time you tell me I missed a suspense, what I hear is my dad saying, 'You're a loser. You're a failure. You're never gonna amount to anything.'" And it completely shifted the relationship between us. It never got great, but it definitely was manageable. And I think that's what I mean by, like, you have to go first. I was so frustrated.

Simon Sinek 38:46 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 38:46 Again, 68 pages of documentation. I was armored up, and I was ready to go to battle.

Simon Sinek 38:51 Mm-hmm.

DeDe Halfhill 38:51 And in that moment, I had to sit in my own discomfort of us not working-

Simon Sinek 38:56 Mm

DeDe Halfhill 38:56 ... me potentially being a bad leader, me potentially not doing things-

Simon Sinek 38:59 Mm

DeDe Halfhill 38:59 ... the right way. I had to sit in that before I could ever get to the place to be who I wanted to be, but then once I could be who I wanted to be and I opened the door-

Simon Sinek 39:09 Mm

DeDe Halfhill 39:09 ... to showing my own vulnerability, he reciprocated.

Simon Sinek 39:13 Mm.

DeDe Halfhill 39:13 Right? Like, that's what I mean when you go first.

Simon Sinek 39:15 I get asked this question all the time. Simon, what are the most important characteristics for a, a leader? You know, there's articles written about it. You know, vision, charisma, you know?

DeDe Halfhill 39:23 Yeah, yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:23 The same list of things. And, and of all the great leaders I've met, some of them have big Steve Jobs visions, and some of them don't.

DeDe Halfhill 39:30 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:31 You know, some of them have this in- insane charisma, and some of them, some of them don't.

DeDe Halfhill 39:36 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 39:36 But the one thing that they all have is courage.

DeDe Halfhill 39:39 Mm.

Simon Sinek 39:39 And it's not just the courage to speak truth to power.

DeDe Halfhill 39:42 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 39:42 That's a courage. But it's the courage to lead. It's the courage to go first. It's the courage to say, "You know what? I'm, I don't wanna be this person," or, "This isn't working," or-

DeDe Halfhill 39:53 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 39:53 ... "I have to o- operate differently," uh, versus, "You need to operate differently"-

DeDe Halfhill 39:58 Yeah

Simon Sinek 39:58 ... you know? And it takes tremendous courage to do that, tremendous courage. I would argue more courage than speaking truth to power.

DeDe Halfhill 40:04 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 40:05 You know?

DeDe Halfhill 40:05 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:05 That's a deep breath. [laughs]

DeDe Halfhill 40:07 It's the hardest work we'll ever do.

Simon Sinek 40:08 Here we go. You know, it's like, but the, the-

DeDe Halfhill 40:10 Yeah

Simon Sinek 40:10 ... the, the, the courage to be vulnerable with somebody you don't want to be vulnerable in front of-

DeDe Halfhill 40:15 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 40:16 ... that's, that's the real thing.

DeDe Halfhill 40:18 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:18 And the great leaders that I've had the opportunity to meet are the ones who are weirdly open about their shortcomings.

DeDe Halfhill 40:25 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:25 They're just weirdly open about it, to the point where, like, you, you expect them to be these tough, armored... And they're just like, "Ah, I suck at that."

DeDe Halfhill 40:33 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:33 Or, "Nah, man, I'm way too distractible," or, "I'm way too disorganized to get that done," or, "Oh, that's why I've got a team because, oh my God, I suck at this, or I suck at that," or, you know. They normalize being imperfect in the most beautiful, beautiful way.

DeDe Halfhill 40:45 100%.

Simon Sinek 40:46 I really appreciate you coming on. It's such a joy to hear from you.

DeDe Halfhill 40:48 I'm so, I was, I'm so grateful to be here. It was so nice of you to ask.

Simon Sinek 40:52 Of course.

DeDe Halfhill 40:53 That was fun.

Simon Sinek 40:53 That's the right answer.

DeDe Halfhill 40:54 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 40:55 [instrumental music] If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsinek.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbinus, David Ja, and Devon Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Ruethenschutter.