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Simon SinekSupercommunicators with journalist Charles Duhigg | A Bit of Optimism Podcast
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30 min read · 5,670 words- 0:00 – 1:35
Guiding Readers on a Journey, Not Playing the Expert
- SSSimon Sinek
One of the things that I like about you is your books are different.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Oh, thanks.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know? It's like sometimes writers, they, they're, they write like here's a book and here's another book that's kinda like the other book, you know?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs] And I, I like that your books are different. I mean, the whole point of, I think, a good book, and I think it's what, what's so nice about your work as well, which is you're not like, "I'm the expert, let me tell you." You're like, "I'm on this journey. Wanna come?"
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And that's joyous to read.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Bringing people on the journey is actually the most important part of s- teaching them the idea.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Right? We, I think when, when people ask me for advice on storytelling, um, what I usually say is, "A lot of people focus on the beginning and the end of the story-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... but the middle is where everything important happens."
- SSSimon Sinek
Yes. Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And a lot of people just skip over it.
- SSSimon Sinek
I, I, I've always thought of myself, I never wanna be perceived as the expert. I wanna be perceived as the guide.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know? And my w- when I write and when I speak, I'm very particular that I wanna preve- present enough evidence that my audience or my reader will come to the conclusion right before I do, so that when-
- CDCharles Duhigg
That's interesting
- SSSimon Sinek
... there's no ta-da.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
There's no like, "Wait for it. Wait for it."
- CDCharles Duhigg
[laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
"Wait for it. Look how smart I am."
- CDCharles Duhigg
[laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
There's none of that. What I want is when I provide this conclusion, I'm like, "And here it is," that the audience is going, "Yeah, yeah, that makes..."
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
"Yeah, yeah, I saw that."
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah, that seems inevitable.
- SSSimon Sinek
That make, that means inev- yeah, that seems to make sense.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- 1:35 – 4:20
Why Duhigg Wrote Supercommunicators
- CDCharles Duhigg
I, I wish that there was, um... Yeah, I wish that there was more... One of the reasons I, I wrote Supercommunicators was because I felt like we were living through this time when people had forgotten how to communicate with each other.
- SSSimon Sinek
It's so true.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And something else happened, which is that in 2017, um, or I guess it was in 2016, The New York Times made me a manager. I went from being a reporter to a manager, and I was terrible [laughs] at it. Like, like fantastically bad. And I went into it and I was like, "Oh, my God. I'm gonna be so good at this." Like, like, "I've had bosses my whole life, and I got an MBA from Harvard." I was like, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna kill this." And I was ter- like, and the thing that what made me crazy was that I was really good at the logistics part.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Like, I could, like, plan everything out and do all the d- diagrams. It was the communication part that I sucked at.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And so badly that, like, I would make other people angry without even understanding why they were angry and, like, get frustrated myse- I was terrible at it. And but then also it was at, at the same time that Trump got elected.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Right? And I'm looking around and I'm thinking like-
- SSSimon Sinek
He's a great communicator.
- CDCharles Duhigg
He is a very good communicator. But I looked at all these other people just screaming at each other.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Right? Not wanting to have a dialogue at all. And, and what, one of the things that I thought was, like, we've sort of forgotten. There's some lessons here that we've forgotten about how to communicate.
- SSSimon Sinek
Can we learn? Is it learnable?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Oh, absolutely. Abso- I mean, the evidence is, like, like completely clear on this. Nobody is born as a great communicator. Nobody's born as a supercommunicator. There is no personality type that is more likely-
- SSSimon Sinek
Right
- CDCharles Duhigg
... to be a supercommunicator. It's literally all just learned skills.
- SSSimon Sinek
It's fun. I've seen old footage of Steve Jobs and old footage of R- Ronald Reagan, both considered great communicators.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Um, and they sucked.
- CDCharles Duhigg
They're terrible, right?
- SSSimon Sinek
They sucked.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It's shocking.
- SSSimon Sinek
By any standard, they sucked.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Bumbling, incoherent.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It-
- SSSimon Sinek
Sucked
- 4:20 – 5:56
Defining a Supercommunicator and Neural Entrainment
- SSSimon Sinek
So define supercommunicator, first of all. Let's start there.
- CDCharles Duhigg
So, so the best way to is, um, if you're having a bad day-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm
- CDCharles Duhigg
... and you know that there's one person if you call them they're gonna make you feel better-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm
- CDCharles Duhigg
... who is that person?
- SSSimon Sinek
My sister.
- CDCharles Duhigg
That person for you is a supercommunicator, and my guess is your sister is actually a supercommunicator to many people.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
She just knows how to make you feel listened to.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
She knows what you need.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
She knows how to, like, she knows how to have a conversation. You're a supercommunicator, right? You, you establish a flow with everyone who, who comes on your podcast. So a supercommunicator is someone who has thought deeply about how to communicate, and as a result, they have the ability to invite others into the conversation. They have the ability to, to break through and make a connection, even in the most unlikely of situations.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And most importantly, they have the ability and they recognize the importance of achieving what scientists refer to as neural entrainment, right? Where right now in this conversation, if we had enough machines, we would see that our, our pupils are actually dilating at the same rate.
- SSSimon Sinek
Huh.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And our heart rates are starting to match each other.
- SSSimon Sinek
Uh-huh.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And our breath rates and the electrical impulses on our skin, and most importantly, if we could see inside our brains-
- SSSimon Sinek
There's a deep mirroring
- CDCharles Duhigg
... it's a deep mirroring. Inside our brains-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm
- CDCharles Duhigg
... we would see that our brain waves started to look similar, our brain activity started to look w- similar.
- SSSimon Sinek
Huh.
- CDCharles Duhigg
That's what communication is.
- SSSimon Sinek
So it's bio- biological connection. Like, we have a connection.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It's literally biological connection.
- SSSimon Sinek
Wow, that's cool.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And if you think about it, that makes sense because the goal of communication is I have an idea or I have a feeling, and I want you to understand it. I want you to experience it.
- 5:56 – 10:58
The CIA Recruiter Story and the Matching Principle
- SSSimon Sinek
So tell a story, uh, of what you consider a great communicator or, or, uh, what they do.
- CDCharles Duhigg
So, um, so one of the stories from the book.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Um, so, so one of the stories from the book is, uh, the story about this guy, Jim Lawler, who is a CIA officer, and he had just gotten hired as a CIA officer, and they sent him over to Europe, and they were like, "Go recruit overseas assets," right? [laughs] Like, "Go find spies."
- SSSimon Sinek
Right, right.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Basically, and get them to work for the CIA. And he's terrible at it. Like, he like-
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
He like, he told me all these stories, like he would go to all these bars and like try and like chat up attachés [laughs] and they'd be like, "I don't want anything to do with you." There's this one guy, he finally made friends with this one guy from the Chinese embassy, and like he takes him to lunch like seven or eight times, and eventually he's like, "Hey, would you consider, you know, telling me some of the gossip you hear, and I could pay you for that?" And the guy says, "You know, actually, my family's very wealthy, and they kill people in my country for doing that. Let's not meet again." [laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
So he's just terrible at this.
- SSSimon Sinek
He didn't even make a real friend. [laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah, no, he didn't even make a real friend. So he, he's at this point when like it's been a year, and basically his bosses are like, "We think you're gonna get fired."
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
"You're just, you're just bad at this."
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
And this woman comes into town who works for the foreign ministry of her home country back in the Middle East.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Um, and he never told me which country, but it, it'll be pretty obvious which one it is. And so he goes and he introduces himself as an oil speculator. He like bumps into her at a restaurant-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... and they develop a relationship, and he's taking her out to lunch. And he's trying to recruit her, and eventually he says like, "Actually, I don't work for an oil company, I work for the CIA. Would you consider helping us out?" Because she hated what was going on in her home country.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It had just been taken over by revolution, um, uh, Islamic revolutionaries-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... religious revolutionaries. She was a woman. She-
- SSSimon Sinek
In approximately 1979.
- CDCharles Duhigg
In, yeah, exactly.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
Exactly. You're, you're guessing which country that is.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
And, and she's opposed to the regime, and he's like, "We're, we believe in the same thing. Why don't you, will you help us out?" And she just, she starts crying, and she freaks out. She's like, "I, no, I'm absolutely not gonna do this. I'm gonna get killed-"
- 10:58 – 12:05
Authenticity and Our Ability to Detect Fakery
- SSSimon Sinek
But he was honest, right?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yes. That's a huge part of it.
- SSSimon Sinek
And so-
- CDCharles Duhigg
He has to be authentic
- SSSimon Sinek
... and that's part of the problem, which is, you know, h- how lo- can you fake these things? Can super communicators fake these things?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Not, uh, once or twice perhaps.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
But what's amazing is, and again, research has shown this, our ability to detect inauthenticity-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... is like laser sharp. There was actually, one of the, my favorite experiments is they, they, um, so these researchers took a bunch of people, friends laughing together, and strangers trying to, to pretend like they're laughing together, and they would play people a half second of the laughter and ask them which is which, and people could detect it 92%.
- SSSimon Sinek
Wow.
- CDCharles Duhigg
We just know. We, like so you're-
- SSSimon Sinek
Our survival depends on it, right?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Our survival, absolutely. Absolutely.
- SSSimon Sinek
Like our ability to form friendship and community means that I can trust you to watch for danger while I'm for, asleep.
- CDCharles Duhigg
That's exactly right. And, and if, by the way, you betray me-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... I will be so much more angry than if you simply did the same thing but for benign reasons.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It, it's, it's, it's a evolution. It's, it's-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... grown up as a pro-social instinct.
- 12:05 – 14:11
Deep Questions and Three Types of Conversation
- SSSimon Sinek
Are you a better communicator now that you've written the book?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Oh my gosh, so much better.
- SSSimon Sinek
What, t- tell me something- Tell me how you showed up in different circumstances that you show up differently now.
- CDCharles Duhigg
So, okay, so two ways. The first way is I ask just a lot more questions, and I ask what are known as deep questions.
- SSSimon Sinek
Uh-huh.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And so a deep question is something that asks someone about their values or their beliefs or their experiences, and they usually start with why. So it's a- [laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
Right
- CDCharles Duhigg
... um, and they can be very easy. It can be like, "Oh, you're a lawyer. Like, did you always wanna be a lawyer?"
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Like, "Why'd you go to law school? You know, what, what, at what point did you decide that, like, the law was the thing for you?"
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Those are easy questions to ask, but they're all deep questions-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... 'cause they're asking someone about their values or their experiences.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And so the, that's the first thing I do, is that I try and ask more deep questions, and I try and just listen more closely.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
But then the second thing is there's this big insight that, that we think of a discussion as being about one thing, but actually every discussion is made up of multiple conversations, and most of them fall into one of three buckets. There's these practical conversations, right? We're making a decision. We're fixing a problem. There's emotional conversations-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm
- CDCharles Duhigg
... where the goal is not to fix someone's problem.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It's simply to share-
- SSSimon Sinek
Hold space
- CDCharles Duhigg
... yeah, hold space.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And then there's social conversations, which is about how do we relate to other people? How do we think society sees us?
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And so I used to come home, and I would have a bad day at work, and I would be complaining to my wife, and she would respond with practical advice. She'd say like, "Look, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm
- CDCharles Duhigg
... get to know him a little bit better?" And instead of hearing her, I would get even more upset.
- 14:11 – 16:14
Labeling Conversations and Going Off Script
- SSSimon Sinek
I love the idea of labeling the conversation. I've had it happen where I was in a bad place, and I called somebody for advice, and they started fixing. And I said to them, "I appreciate your intention of trying to fix it. I need you to not fix it."
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
"I need you to just listen to me." So I was able to give instruction to match me at the time.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And they probably appreciated that, right?
- SSSimon Sinek
They did.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And they, and they said sorry, and I've caught myself, too, like in the middle of trying to fix somebody's problem. Like, "Do you need me to offer you solutions now?" You know?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
I love this idea of labeling. The... And it's, look, everybody can remember three things. They're easy. Social, we're having fun.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Emotional, how you feeling? Practical, you know, do you wanna fix something, or do you wanna talk about something intellectual?
- CDCharles Duhigg
That's exactly right.
- SSSimon Sinek
And it's, it's, they're easy to understand. They're easy to remember. And I love the idea that it's not some deep internal skill. You just have to make known the thing that's happening so that we can be on the same wavelength-
- CDCharles Duhigg
That-
- SSSimon Sinek
... a- and have that mirroring.
- CDCharles Duhigg
That's exactly right, and I think that that's what Steve Jobs and Ronald Reagan and other people do, is they, they walk away from a bad conversation, and instead of being like, "That was a bad conversation"-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... they think to themselves, "What did I miss?"
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
"Like, what should I look for next time?"
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And if you start paying attention, what you notice is, like, you're talking to a, to a friend or a colleague, and they'll say something in a practical conversation, right?
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
We're at work. They'll say something emotional, and it's really easy to gloss over it.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
They'll say like, "My son just graduated. I'm so proud."
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Or, "I, sorry I didn't reply to your email yesterday. It was like I, I had something going on." And our instinct is to s- stay on that practical track, right?
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Like, but if you say like, "Ah, that's amazing. Tell me about your son." Or-
- 16:14 – 17:19
Duhigg's Hope for the Book: Talking Across Differences
- SSSimon Sinek
what is your hope for the book? I know it's a, I know it's a big question. But, like...
- CDCharles Duhigg
My hope is that it's twofold. I'm hoping that people read this book and that they get something as powerful from it that improves their own life-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... that they can use it. And then secondarily, like, this is very grand aspiration, but I hope that I'm part of encouraging a bigger discussion about how we can, as a nation and as humans-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... have conversations with people who are different from us-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... where we, where we do connect.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Right? Those are the most... If you think about, like, the origin of America, America was born in conversation.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
The Constitutional Convention were people who hated each other-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... having a con- a conversation until they had a constitution.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And our best moments, the best moments for South Africa, the best moments for the UK-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... around the world, our best moments are moments when we have a hard conversation with someone whom it is hard to have that conversation with.
- SSSimon Sinek
You can't make peace with your friends.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
- 17:19 – 20:16
The SPAC Article and Loving Writing Again
- SSSimon Sinek
Can you tell me a story of something you wrote, an article, a project you worked on in your professional career, it doesn't matter whether it was commercially successful or not, but that you absolutely loved this project, you absolutely loved this thing, and if every project you ever worked on was like this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah. So there's, um, I, I wrote this piece for The New Yorker about two years ago about SPACs. Do you remember?
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah, it was about this guy, Chamath Pal- Palihapitiya. Um-
- SSSimon Sinek
Well done. [laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah, thanks. I, I, I think I got it a little bit wrong. Um, I loved this piece. I loved writing this piece. I loved writing about Chamath. I loved, like, it was just so colorful and fun, and I love finance.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Nobody read it. [laughs] Like, like, it was, like, one of these things where, like, it was like, oh, The New Yorker audience is not into finance the same way I'm into finance-
- SSSimon Sinek
Right
- CDCharles Duhigg
... or not into this guy who's, like, bombastic and weird the way that I am. But I was just so gloriously happy to have written it. I was like, "If I read this piece, I would read the shit out of it." Or, like, "If I bought this, I would read the shit out of this piece." [laughs] Like, I loved it.
- SSSimon Sinek
What, what, what... Okay, so you've written some amazing things. You've won a Pulitzer Prize, da, da, da, da. What specifically was it about this one piece that you, you light up when you're thinking about it, you light up when you're talking about it?
- CDCharles Duhigg
It's a really good question because one of the reasons I decided to leave The Times was because that series I wrote about Apple that won the Pulitzer, I couldn't stand to read it. Nobody, like- It was just boring.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It was boring to read. It wasn't fun. And this piece about Chamath and SPACs, it was just fun. Like, this guy, like, he, like, drops F-bombs all the time. He, like, tries to piss o- off other people because he thinks it helps him sell things. Like, he says ridiculous things. He, he left his wife when she had cancer in order to go marry someone younger. Like, like, it's just this story where you're like, "This is ridiculous. I cannot believe that this guy exists." It was just so much fun to write.
- SSSimon Sinek
But you've written fun things before.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
So what is it about this one that sort of-
- CDCharles Duhigg
I don't know
- SSSimon Sinek
... you answered this question very quickly.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Honestly, I think it's because it wasn't popular.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Like, it just, it felt like for the first time, it's something I can point to that I'm like, "I wrote that for me."
- SSSimon Sinek
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And the thing is when you're a professional writer, and, and you know this, is that you become a professional writer 'cause you love writing.
- SSSimon Sinek
Eh.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It's easy to fall out of love with writing.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs] Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It's, it's hard and it, and, like, you get into this place where it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel the way it used to feel, right?
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
It doesn't feel special anymore. And I had felt that way for a long time. And, and then I wrote this piece and I was like, "Oh yeah, this is what, this is what I liked." Like, I, I liked surp- I, I like writing things that surprise me by what ends up coming out of my fingers.
- 20:16 – 22:29
Childhood Memories: The Babysitter Newsletter and Debate
- SSSimon Sinek
Tell me an early specific happy childhood memory, something specific that I can relive with you.
- CDCharles Duhigg
That's a really good question. I have a terrible memory. Well, okay, I'll tell you two, one that's happy and one that's not. Um, when I was a kid, I once made this newsletter-
- SSSimon Sinek
Uh-huh
- CDCharles Duhigg
... about how, that I wanted to be a babysitter. So I put together, I spent, like, three days on this newsletter, uh, advertising myself.
- SSSimon Sinek
Uh-huh.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And it was funny, and it was wry, and it wa- like, had, like, terrible twos, and I thought it was hilarious. My parents thought it was hilarious, and they were like, "If you put this up, nobody's gonna hire you as a babysitter." [laughs] Like, "This is not what they're looking for." But that's one of the first times that I found that writing-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm
- CDCharles Duhigg
... just felt so good.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Then when I was in high school, I became a debater.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And I was so focused on winning. I would actually wake up and I would look in the mirror. I... This is a crazy thing. I would look in the mirror and I would say, "You are crap if you do not win this weekend."
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
'Cause I felt like I needed to, like-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm. How'd that make you feel?
- CDCharles Duhigg
It made me feel both bad and good, right? It made me feel like, it made me feel like I was pushing myself as hard as I could push myself, but then when I would lose tournaments or lose rounds, I felt terrible. And to this day, I cannot remember a single round that I won.
- SSSimon Sinek
Hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And I can tell you every single debate round that I lost.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm, mm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Like, I remember all of them.
- SSSimon Sinek
Do you know what's so interesting about those stories? Which is when you make it about something external, when you make it about the winning, um, you are not at your best.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Whereas when you wrote the babysitter newsletter, it was for fun.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And when you glow about the story of, of, uh, of the CIA, uh, recruiter, you, you, you, you relate to him in such a way, which is when he made it about winning, he couldn't do it. And when you, when you, I, I mean, it sounds corny, but when you practice what you preach, when you, when you just are yourself and in life for the fun of it, and your curious, writer self who sees the world as this magical playground, and you're not writing for anyone, everything works.
- 22:29 – 25:01
Reminding Ourselves of What We Love: Why, Orange, and Humility
- CDCharles Duhigg
I absolutely... But, and, but the question I have, and, and maybe you have an answer to this, is how do we remind ourselves of that when it's hard to remember, right? The, do you know George Saunders, the short story writer? He's a wonderful person and a wonderful writer, and he said that basically, like, the question he asks himself all the time is he's, he knows how good it feels to be kind. He knows how much he likes himself when he's a kind person.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- CDCharles Duhigg
So why the hell are there these moments when he's unkind?
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- CDCharles Duhigg
And I, I feel the same way. Like, how do we remind ourselves to listen to that internal voice that tells us, "This is what you love. This is what..." How do we, how do we ignore-
- SSSimon Sinek
So there's, there's, there's multiple answers, um, and some of them are, and, and y- I think you need multiple answers because they don't, they're not all p- easy to do at the same time.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And so you, you have multiple solutions. Uh, I mean, one is to start with why, which is-
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... to have a true north, and then you get to have this filter going, "Am I doing that?" So, like, my why is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. So literally, is this doing that?
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And, and I catch myself, like, I'm tired, I'm grumpy, I'm in a Starbucks, I'm not friendly, and I say to myself, y- your entire... I literally will catch myself and say, "Are you inspiring the barista? No. Okay, well, ch- change." You're like-
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... you have to do this all the time. You know, like, that's, that is who you are.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
And it is the thing that brings you joy. So do it, you idiot. You know? And I'll catch myself, and I have little reminders. So, like, I wear the color orange somewhere on my person, uh, almost always, and that is not there for decoration. That is there because it, it stands out. It's so damn bright, and the color orange is this color of optimism. It just reminds me, like, maintain this disposition.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Show up to inspire. And I think your disposition is, is really to be your s- for, to encourage people to be themselves.
- CDCharles Duhigg
I think that's right.
- SSSimon Sinek
And I think, you know, I think that's your best work and when you are your best self is when you just sort of smile and say, "I guess I'm human," and just enjoy that.
- CDCharles Duhigg
I think that's absolutely true. I think that's a very... And, and there is this thing about, I find that I am happiest when I'm humblest, oftentimes because something has humbled me [laughs] rightly.
- SSSimon Sinek
You were exactly-
- CDCharles Duhigg
Like-
- SSSimon Sinek
Not by choice. [laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
Right. It's, it's not that, like, I'm just a humble human being. It's like I just screwed something up really bad.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs] I used to joke, "I'm the most humble person
- 25:01 – 26:10
Closing Thoughts and Mutual Appreciation
- SSSimon Sinek
I know." [laughs]
- CDCharles Duhigg
[laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
I could talk to you forever.
- CDCharles Duhigg
[laughs] This has been so much fun.
- SSSimon Sinek
Um, thanks so much for coming on. I really, I really, your work helps us be more human.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Oh, thank you.
- SSSimon Sinek
And I really hope, um, I really hope everybody, uh, reads your book because I think we all need to be a little more human today.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Well, and I feel very similarly about your work. I've just, like, I, I, I didn't, I, from the outside, I assumed that you were a writer, like [laughs] because it's, because I felt like Start With Why is so gracefully written. Um, but what I... As long as, I think, there are a, a large number of people who are committed to asking hard questions-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- CDCharles Duhigg
... I think we're okay.
- SSSimon Sinek
Thanks so much.
- CDCharles Duhigg
Thanks for having me.
- SSSimon Sinek
Oh, so good. 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.
Episode duration: 26:11
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Transcript of episode qVotsZswPo0
