What Grit Really Teaches Us About Happiness with Professor Angela Duckworth | A Bit of Optimism

Angela Duckworth 0:00 Do you think that society is, is moving toward the direction of, like, selflessness, of belonging, of community?

Simon Sinek 0:06 I have empirical evidence. You and I have careers. You and I should not have careers. There should be no demand for our work. We talk about trust, we talk about cooperation, and there should be no demand for our work. But the fact that people are interested in the things that we're putting in the world, that are some of the guidance that we can help offer towards getting to that ideal that we imagine, proves that people are hungry for this.

Angela Duckworth 0:33 Five years from now, we'll revisit the conversation. We'll see how, when, and in the meanwhile, we'll try to, like, you know, tilt the odds in, in the direction we want.

Simon Sinek 0:40 I promise to have you back on the old pod in five years. Every now and then, I have a guest where we talk about everything, and everything seems to be really, really interesting. Angela Duckworth is one of those guests. She's a professor of psychology at UPenn, a MacArthur Genius Award winner, and probably the reason most of us know her, the bestselling author of the book Grit. We talked about the problem of living in a world that pushes us to stand out as individuals when, as human beings, we're actually hardwired to thrive together. We went deep into the loneliness epidemic, particularly as it affects young people. And we talked about something that both of our work delves into, the reason achievement means very little without belonging. So pull up a chair, sit back, and enjoy. This is A Bit of Optimism. [upbeat music]

Simon Sinek 1:40 Now, the thing that I-

Angela Duckworth 1:42 Yeah

Simon Sinek 1:42 ... love about language, it is a living, breathing thing. It is, it changes. Pronunciations change, grammars change, words get added and taken away, and it is a reflection of the times we live in. And there's one word that I find really funny that I- my ear catches every time somebody says it of a completely new way of people speaking. Very rarely do people use the word me anymore. They use myself.

Angela Duckworth 2:08 Oh.

Simon Sinek 2:08 So, "Angela and myself went to the beach," as opposed to, "Angela and me went to the beach."

Angela Duckworth 2:13 Ah.

Simon Sinek 2:13 It is amazing-

Angela Duckworth 2:14 Swirling

Simon Sinek 2:14 ... how many people say the word myself.

Angela Duckworth 2:17 What, what does that reflect? Like, what is the-

Simon Sinek 2:18 I do not know, but it is a clear pattern how many people say myself.

Angela Duckworth 2:23 Do they think it's, like, more proper? But that would not be... You know, language is getting more informal.

Simon Sinek 2:28 I don't think it's a properness. If I had to make a wild-ass guess, I would say that it is a reflection of the fact that our nation over-indexed on rugged individualism and individualism in general, and that so much of our society has become, "Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me," you know?

Angela Duckworth 2:47 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 2:48 And, and-

Angela Duckworth 2:48 Yeah

Simon Sinek 2:49 ... I'm the hero-

Angela Duckworth 2:50 Yeah

Simon Sinek 2:50 ... and I want the promotion, and, like, the concept of team and togetherness and we're all in this-

Angela Duckworth 2:55 Yeah

Simon Sinek 2:55 ... has kind of taken a backseat for, for this overemphasis on individual performance. And I think-

Angela Duckworth 3:02 Yeah

Simon Sinek 3:02 ... changing the word from me to myself-

Angela Duckworth 3:05 To myself

Simon Sinek 3:06 ... is just-

Angela Duckworth 3:06 First of all, you get two syllables. You get twice the airtime.

Simon Sinek 3:09 And it's a more emphatic me, isn't it?

Angela Duckworth 3:12 It's more ema- emphatic, right. It's sort of like a slightly larger font.

Simon Sinek 3:16 It's a slightly larger font. It's exactly what it is.

Angela Duckworth 3:18 That's good.

Simon Sinek 3:19 I think that's interesting.

Angela Duckworth 3:20 Do you want me to ask the, um, you want me to ask the people in the linguistics department?

Simon Sinek 3:23 Yes, please. What is their theory as to why more people are using, particularly young people, but it has now

Simon Sinek 3:30 become to your point that the young people lead the language.

Angela Duckworth 3:32 And by the way, I completely agree about rugged individualism. I guess it was Aristotle, right? Like, man is a social animal. But just, like, forgetting that you are part of an organism, like, it's not like the universe extends to just, like, your fingers and toes, right? Like, you are part of an organism called society.

Simon Sinek 3:50 Mm-hmm.

Angela Duckworth 3:51 But, like, yeah. I mean, my parents are Chinese, so I think I was brought up with both American and Chinese, like, sensibilities, and I think the rugged individualism that is distinctly of the United States [laughs] is not good.

Simon Sinek 4:07 You go inside companies, and you look at incentive structures, and almost all incentive structures inside most companies today are based on individual performance. If you hit this number, you will get a bonus, right? You know, incentives don't incentivize performance outcomes, they incentivize behavior.

Angela Duckworth 4:24 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 4:25 And so you can't incentivize an outcome. You can only incentivize a behavior.

Angela Duckworth 4:29 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 4:29 And the goal is to align the incentive to the behavior you want, hopefully to get the outcomes that you want. And so when you emphasize individual performance, what you get is hoarding information, can't share it, right?

Angela Duckworth 4:42 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 4:42 What you get is me before we. What you get is my performance is more important than your performance.

Angela Duckworth 4:49 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 4:49 You know? What you get is, "That's what my boss wants. That's what I'm gonna do," as opposed to, "What's the right thing to do here?"

Angela Duckworth 4:55 Right. So, like, your annual performance review, like, paradoxically, like, disincentivizes, like, what you can do for the coming... You know what we should do? We should figure out a better grading system, right? Because, you know, all of us went to elementary school, all of us went to middle school, most of us went to high school-

Simon Sinek 5:11 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 5:11 ... a lot of us went to college.

Simon Sinek 5:12 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 5:13 And at no point in the academic journey are you ever incentivized to do things for other people.

Simon Sinek 5:19 Nope.

Angela Duckworth 5:20 Right?

Simon Sinek 5:20 Nope.

Angela Duckworth 5:20 Like, how would I, as a professor, for example, change the grades in my class so that when you are part of the tide that lifts the other boats, like, you-

Simon Sinek 5:29 Yep

Angela Duckworth 5:29 ... you know, whatever. You can get marked for it, right? Yeah.

Simon Sinek 5:32 When I used to teach, I did the final project. So they got individual grades for all their tests leading up to the final, and the final was gr- a group project, and what I told them was, "The

Simon Sinek 5:45 group grade is gonna be your grade."

Angela Duckworth 5:47 Hmm. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 5:48 And the people who, like, like, literally filed complaints with the university about, about that-

Angela Duckworth 5:53 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 5:54 ... were my high performers because-

Angela Duckworth 5:58 Oh, interesting

Simon Sinek 5:59 ... they-

Angela Duckworth 5:59 Because they, they felt like they were gonna, um, suffer for the-

Simon Sinek 6:02 That, that the group would, would-

Angela Duckworth 6:02 ... slackers on their team?

Simon Sinek 6:03 ... the group would pull them down.

Angela Duckworth 6:06 So what did you say to them? You m- must have had a rebuttal to that.

Simon Sinek 6:09 Oh, I didn't care.

Angela Duckworth 6:10 Oh, you just let them complain.

Simon Sinek 6:11 What it reveals is just that, which is there's a, there's a flaw here that they're missing.

Angela Duckworth 6:16 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 6:16 When, the first time I did group projects in a classroom, I did what I thought was fair. I took my highest performers and evenly distribute them. I took my lowest performers and evenly distributed them, and I took my average players and evenly distributed them so that I had four or five teams that were-

Angela Duckworth 6:32 Like fairly matched

Simon Sinek 6:33 ... similar profiles. And the university gave me advice. They said, "Absolutely do not do that."

Angela Duckworth 6:39 Many of the high performers are gonna be unhappy, right?

Simon Sinek 6:41 Based on the university's advice, I remade the groups, um, and I put my highest performers on one group, and then sort of evenly distributed everybody else, right?

Angela Duckworth 6:52 And then what happened?

Simon Sinek 6:53 When I announced the teams to the class, literally, 'cause they o- they know who the high performers are, right?

Angela Duckworth 6:57 Yeah. [laughs] The students will.

Simon Sinek 6:57 I announced that all my top performers are gonna be in one team, and literally the classroom goes, "Come on!" Right?

Angela Duckworth 7:03 God. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 7:04 Not one year ever did my high performers get the best grade. Never.

Angela Duckworth 7:11 Really?

Simon Sinek 7:11 And the reason is, is because the high performers are predominantly motivated by individual performance. And s- and they would-

Angela Duckworth 7:18 Oh, interesting

Simon Sinek 7:18 ... constantly stab each other in the back. They would constantly complain to me that, "Somebody's not pulling their weight, and I'm doing all the work, and they're gonna get the grade based on my work, and that's not fair." You know?

Angela Duckworth 7:29 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 7:29 Where your average performers, because they know they're not the smartest, they work really well together.

Angela Duckworth 7:36 They work really well together.

Simon Sinek 7:37 And they're not so bothered if somebody does slightly more and somebody does slightly less because they're kind of all in it together. And every single year, they got the better grades. That's not to say that the high performers got bad grades, but when they got-

Angela Duckworth 7:50 Right

Simon Sinek 7:50 ... like B-pluses, like, my God, the complaints, right?

Angela Duckworth 7:53 Yeah, right, right, right. So do you know this David Deming paper?

Simon Sinek 7:56 Uh-uh.

Angela Duckworth 7:56 Do you know David Deming at Harvard?

Simon Sinek 7:58 Uh-uh.

Angela Duckworth 7:58 He is one of my favorite economists. He's so great. Anyway, um, he wanted to know what makes a great team player, which is a version of the title of this paper. So what he did was he-

Simon Sinek 8:11 I have a theory. I wanna see if he, if he lines up with me.

Angela Duckworth 8:13 Yeah, yeah. Okay, so, like, well, first give me your theory, 'cause now, then I can reveal to you what he discovered, but I'm gonna also tell you how he did it 'cause it's so clever. Uh, but what, w- what do you think makes a great team player?

Simon Sinek 8:24 Well, I mean, I've seen data on this before that average students tend to make great gr- [laughs] as I just ex- you know, sort of my example.

Angela Duckworth 8:30 Oh, right. Like average versus like, uh, outstanding students? Okay.

Simon Sinek 8:33 Outstanding s-

Angela Duckworth 8:33 Yeah, and then what-

Simon Sinek 8:33 Yeah, outstanding students-

Angela Duckworth 8:34 Yeah

Simon Sinek 8:35 ... b- uh, uh, are put on pedestals, and they're afraid-

Angela Duckworth 8:38 Yeah

Simon Sinek 8:38 ... to fall off them.

Angela Duckworth 8:39 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 8:39 And, and s- very, very, very smart kids in school are told, "You're so smart. I knew you'd do so well. You're so smart. I knew you'd do so well." And so they're afraid of falling off their pedestal, where more average players aren't rewarded for their outcomes, they're rewarded for their effort. "Hey, great effort." So for them-

Angela Duckworth 8:53 Right

Simon Sinek 8:53 ... there's no ceiling.

Angela Duckworth 8:54 You're partly vindicated. I don't think there's anything that contradicts it, but I will tell you that he measured IQ. I mean, this is a experiment, so there are, I don't know, volunteers.

Simon Sinek 9:04 Sure.

Angela Duckworth 9:04 Um, they're all adults, and they take a baseline set of measures, like the Big Five personality, measure one of them, and then IQ, uh, and then they also do the reading the mind in the eyes test, which is, I think 27 items. You know, you get a photograph-

Simon Sinek 9:19 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 9:19 ... of someone. You can only see their eyes and their eyebrows, and you have to essentially guess what emotion they're feeling. Like are they irritated? Are they angry? Are they sad? Are they upset? And then what he does, and I think this is the part that is so c- clever, is that you rotate through teams. I mean, it's kind of like being a company, but you're like, "Okay, next. Switch, switch." And, and each time you're with a team, you have to basically solve a bunch of puzzles, right? So they're all games that require you to figure out something. And, um, what he finds is that, you know, being higher IQ, 'cause, you know, full-scale IQ test at the beginning, it, it does help. You do do better, right?

Simon Sinek 9:57 Sure.

Angela Duckworth 9:57 But the question is, like, when you are on a team, you know, is it likely that that team, because Simon was on it, right?

Simon Sinek 10:04 Right.

Angela Duckworth 10:04 Because Angela was on it, that, that you will be part of the tide that lifts the other boats, right? That as a, as a team-

Simon Sinek 10:10 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 10:10 ... the team will do better. And so he does this, you know, rotational thing so he has enough observations-

Simon Sinek 10:14 Yep

Angela Duckworth 10:15 ... to know e- every time Simon's on a team, you know, they, they do better. And what he finds is that IQ is not a predictor of being a team player. I don't think it's a negative predictor-

Simon Sinek 10:24 Right

Angela Duckworth 10:24 ... but it's certainly not a positive predictor. The predictor is really, um, how well you do on this test of social intelligence, like reading other people's emotions. And he does speculate, you know, economists tend not to be too forthcoming about, like, what might be going on because they don't wanna make the wrong inferences, um, b- going beyond the data. But I think he says, like, you know, basically people work harder collectively when there is this, like, empathy on the team, right?

Simon Sinek 10:51 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 10:51 Where you're, like, checking in with people. You're like, "Oh, you know, you seem kind of, um, annoyed by what I just said we should all do [laughs] for the next step. Like, like, can you help me understand what's going on?"

Simon Sinek 11:02 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 11:02 Right? Like, "I don't wanna annoy you." I think it's so interesting because if you just ask this deeper question, which is like how much energy do we spend as a society-

Simon Sinek 11:10 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 11:10 ... like-

Simon Sinek 11:11 Checking in

Angela Duckworth 11:11 ... thinking about this, measuring it, and rewarding it, it's, like, not enough. And you know, I, I think this is related to, like, the general, like, decline in wellbeing among young adults. And I know you've thought a lot about generational changes, but that is the other thing that is, like, literally keeping me up at night, just, like, just how unhappy Gen Z is.

Simon Sinek 11:29 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 11:29 Like,

Angela Duckworth 11:30 wow. Like holy smokes, and I think it's related to what we're talking about.

Simon Sinek 11:33 And I, I'm very happy to hear about this experiment because it basically validates my work, which is the difference between high performing teams and low performing teams is not the IQ, it's how good a leader are you. And the good leader-

Angela Duckworth 11:45 Yeah

Simon Sinek 11:45 ... is checking in. The good leader's concerned about the, the wellbeing of their people.

Angela Duckworth 11:49 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 11:49 And I guess I go back to what I said before, 'cause I'm thinking about some remarkable leaders I know who are brilliantly smart, but they care so much about their people first. And where I talked about the sort of more average, you know, w- they're not worried about are you bringing down my grade.

Angela Duckworth 12:06 So what is your prescriptive recommendation, then, for, like, the rehaul of, you know, traditional incentives and structures inLet's say corporate America for starters, right?

Simon Sinek 12:17 So I need, I, there is a rebalancing that's required. It's not that individual performance isn't important, it's that we need a rebalancing, right? So for example, one of the theories that I've heard from business, and one of my favorite companies, and I think it's proprietary so I'm gonna leave out their name.

Angela Duckworth 12:33 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 12:33 But they, they don't do individual performance, they do group performance. And it's not usually, the, it's not money based. It's like, "What are the things we have to do to succeed?" And, and the, the analogy they use is sports, right? Which is-

Angela Duckworth 12:51 Yeah

Simon Sinek 12:52 ... in sports, nobody practices winning. You don't practice-

Angela Duckworth 12:55 Yeah

Simon Sinek 12:55 ... winning in sports. You practice plays. And then you go out on the field, and if you play the plays to perfection, you're more likely to win.

Angela Duckworth 13:05 As a team.

Simon Sinek 13:05 But nobody practices winning. And so he took that logic and they applied it to their company. I guess I can say what it is. Trek Bicycles. They're amazing. John Burke, who's their CEO.

Angela Duckworth 13:14 Oh, I have a Trek bicycle. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 13:15 John Burke, who's the CEO, was inspired by the sports idea, you know, of playing the play to perfection. And so what he does is say, "What are the plays?" So if, if you're in marketing, if you're in product development, if you're in sales, what are the plays versus, versus what is the score?

Angela Duckworth 13:29 Right. Right.

Simon Sinek 13:30 And so what are the plays that if we do these plays to perfection, we're more likely to succeed?

Angela Duckworth 13:35 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 13:35 Now, I'm, we're gonna score ourselves, we're gonna do scorecards, and we're gonna score how well we're playing the play.

Angela Duckworth 13:41 On the plays.

Simon Sinek 13:41 On the plays. And so the, there's no individual incentive at all put into these.

Angela Duckworth 13:46 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 13:46 It's all team oriented. The incentives come later, which is if the corporation hits certain goals, then the l- then those in leadership position will, will get a financial benefit.

Angela Duckworth 13:57 Don't you think some people listening to you say that will be like, "Wow, I didn't know Simon Sinek was a communist"? I mean, it sounds a little bit like, "Hey, if we all work together, then, like, the harvest will be better, and, you know, we'll all be fed," right?

Simon Sinek 14:09 Uh...

Angela Duckworth 14:09 I think what people worry about is that without creating a local, like, individual incentive structure, then there's the, you know, sort of the, the slacking off phenomenon, right?

Simon Sinek 14:19 No, no, but, but, but it's, it's not... Communism says, um, everything's equal and everybody, and everything's distributed, right?

Angela Duckworth 14:25 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 14:25 And everybody does their, their-

Angela Duckworth 14:27 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 14:27 That's not what this is saying. What there's, what he's saying is, "We are more likely to succeed, hit and exceed our goals, if we work better as a team. And so the better I can incentivize teamwork than individual performance, the more likely we will succeed as a, as a company." A team sport, you do not incentivize individual performance, you incentivize how well they play plays. So it's all fine and good that you're the fastest runner.

Angela Duckworth 14:49 Okay, so m- maybe your point is, like, you don't incentivize the outcome which you have, uh, limited agency over.

Simon Sinek 14:56 Correct.

Angela Duckworth 14:56 But you incentivize the thing that somebody has, I don't know if it's 100%, but, like, yeah, like, a lot of agency over.

Simon Sinek 15:03 If somebody is a great runner, then let's, then the play we're gonna run, maybe we'll have our fastest runner be the runner in that play.

Angela Duckworth 15:10 Right.

Simon Sinek 15:10 And the person who's a great thrower-

Angela Duckworth 15:11 Yeah

Simon Sinek 15:11 ... we'll have the person who's a great thrower be in that play. Uh, you know, it's, it's leveraging everybody's individual skills for the good of the play.

Angela Duckworth 15:19 Yeah. Do you think this has anything to do... Maybe this is, like, too far afield, but just the other day I was listening to another Harvard professor named Mike Norton give a talk on CEO pay.

Simon Sinek 15:30 Mm-hmm.

Angela Duckworth 15:31 And so he has these charts about, you know, how much people think that a CEO should make relative to the lowest paid worker-

Simon Sinek 15:41 Right

Angela Duckworth 15:41 ... in the company, right? Like an unskilled worker or, say, like a factory worker or something. And then, you know, you can list these, you know, sort of, ah, I think it should be 10 to one. You know, some people might say, like, 20 to one. I think the average was something in the teens, right?

Simon Sinek 15:54 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 15:54 Like 12 to one, right? So if I make $10 an hour, you know, I'm comfortable with you making $120 an hour or something like that, right? But then he has, like-

Simon Sinek 16:03 The real data

Angela Duckworth 16:03 ... another slide on, like, [laughs] yeah, actually, uh, what, what the ratio is. And maybe this isn't entirely related, but it is really stunning how vastly, uh, you know, higher paid [laughs] CEOs are than-

Simon Sinek 16:15 Oh, it's like 30 to-

Angela Duckworth 16:15 ... even, say, like, the moon walker

Simon Sinek 16:16 ... 50 to one or something, yeah.

Angela Duckworth 16:18 I think it's over 200 or something crazy.

Simon Sinek 16:20 Oh, even better. Isn't that crazy?

Angela Duckworth 16:20 I mean, I'm, I might be wrong, but I think-

Simon Sinek 16:22 I believe it

Angela Duckworth 16:22 ... order of magnitude it's, like, whatever, 10X or something at least for, like-

Simon Sinek 16:24 But he, but here's, here's the thing. Do you know about... So the anthropology of this I find really fascinating, right? Which is, and to your point, people aren't angry that somebody more senior makes more money, right? Because we're naturally-

Angela Duckworth 16:35 Right

Simon Sinek 16:35 ... hierarchical animals. I like the anthropology of it, which is, you know, you go back to early Homo sapien, you know, we're living in tribes of about 150, 200 max. And-

Angela Duckworth 16:44 Yeah

Simon Sinek 16:44 ... you know, austere conditions, and the hunters bring back food and we're all hungry. So what happens? And so if you just left it to the concept of, you know, the misunderstanding of survival of the fittest, which is not about strength, different conversation, which is then we'd all shove our way to the front. And if you happen to be built like a football player, you get to eat first, and the artist of the family gets an elbow in the face. This is a bad system for cooperation because if you punch me in the face this afternoon, I'm not gonna wake you and alert you to danger tonight.

Angela Duckworth 17:13 Right. Right.

Simon Sinek 17:13 And so we evolved into these hierarchical animals, where we're constantly assessing and judging who's alpha in the, in the natural hierarchy, and we defer to the alphas. So we let our alphas get first choice of meat and first choice of mate. And this is, um, true in, in our modern world too, which is, you know, you hold a door open for somebody senior. You know, you're, if you're, if you're senior and you left your coat in the other room, someone will go get your coat for you. If you're a junior-

Angela Duckworth 17:39 Yeah

Simon Sinek 17:39 ... you get your own coat, right?

Angela Duckworth 17:40 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 17:40 You get a better parking space. You get a, a-

Angela Duckworth 17:43 Yeah

Simon Sinek 17:43 ... a better office. And nobody minds that somebody more senior gets a m- higher salary than me. I might think you're an idiot, but I'm not morally offended by it.

Angela Duckworth 17:52 No, we, we get, we get hierarchy. I agree. We are a hierarchical species.

Simon Sinek 17:55 But where, where it gets screwy is, and to go back to cavemen a- a- again, which is the group is not stupid. We don't give these benefits of leadership for free.

Angela Duckworth 18:07 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 18:08 There's a deep-seeded social expectation that if danger threatens the tribe, the person who's actually smarter, actually stronger, actually better fed, will be the one to rush towards the danger to protect the tribe. In other words, the benefits come at a cost.

Angela Duckworth 18:23 Right.

Simon Sinek 18:23 So if you wanna be a leader, it comes at a cost. And so if you go back to our modern world, we have no problem paying our leaders... incredible amounts more than what we get. However, if the economy hits the skids, if bad things happen, you better put your own interests aside and, and protect us. But what ends up happening is we see CEOs lay their people off,

Simon Sinek 18:50 lay off their people-

Angela Duckworth 18:51 Right

Simon Sinek 18:51 ... to protect their bonuses.

Angela Duckworth 18:52 Or they will like, um, you know, decrease their own, right, performance bonus.

Simon Sinek 18:55 And that's why we get angry. It's not the disparity, it's that they have failed their deep-seated social contract.

Angela Duckworth 19:02 They, um, abrogated the contract, right? Like-

Simon Sinek 19:04 Exactly. That's where we get morally offended.

Angela Duckworth 19:08 I think when you ask people what they think the ideal thing is, and they're like, "Oh, you know, it's different from what the actual is." But when you show them the actual, they're not like, "Oh, wow, let's, like, do something about it." [laughs] Maybe you can move them a little bit. Like, "Hey, should we have this policy? Should we have that policy?" But, but maybe what you're saying is like that's not really people's central concern. I don't care that you make 500 times what I make. What I care about is that you have an obligation as our leader to protect and to serve, and therefore, if I'm threatened, you have to go do your job, right?

Simon Sinek 19:41 Correct.

Angela Duckworth 19:41 Like, that was the one job I gave you.

Simon Sinek 19:43 The one job I gave you-

Angela Duckworth 19:44 Well, that was kind of... Yeah

Simon Sinek 19:44 ... was to protect the tribe.

Angela Duckworth 19:46 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 19:46 And it goes right back to where we started, which is teamwork, which is, "Hey, how you doing? You okay?" Like, "Do you even care about me?"

Angela Duckworth 19:54 Right.

Simon Sinek 19:54 Because if you do care about me, I will work my brains out to see that your company does really, really well because I'm grateful that I feel protected in this tribe-

Angela Duckworth 20:03 Right

Simon Sinek 20:03 ... called my job.

Angela Duckworth 20:05 Right.

Simon Sinek 20:05 Called the company.

Angela Duckworth 20:07 Well, let me ask you this business, um, question because, you know, I am a professor at a business school slash, you know, I don't have, you know, decades of experience myself as a leader or, um, [smacks lips] so let me just ask you this. If you have a large company-

Simon Sinek 20:19 Mm-hmm

Angela Duckworth 20:20 ... and you are at the head or, um, in the, you know, executive leadership, how does this work, right? Because you're taking us back to the time where there were, like, 150 people living in a group. It's more clear to me what I do to show you in word and in deed that I do care about you even though you are a lower ranking person in the hierarchy. So what does this mean when you have, like, a global conglomerate of, like-

Simon Sinek 20:46 Mm-hmm

Angela Duckworth 20:46 ... 5,000 or 10,000 people or more?

Simon Sinek 20:48 Yeah. So super simple. We see it all the time, unfortunately, at the end of every financial year, especially in the public markets, but not exclusively. We're seeing it in the private markets, too, because the amount of VC in business today basically is making lots of private companies operate like public companies, which is they care more about-

Angela Duckworth 21:04 Hmm

Simon Sinek 21:04 ... their investors and their shareholders than they do about their employees or their customers, right?

Angela Duckworth 21:08 And their quarterly, quarterly performance [laughs] than their long-term success. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 21:11 The whole idea that you're better off as a private company is not necessarily even true anymore.

Angela Duckworth 21:14 Oh, that's interesting.

Simon Sinek 21:15 But we see it all the time, which is the company missed its projections. These projections were arbitrary. They made up numbers of what goals we could hit, and they missed them. They're still profitable. They're just not as profitable as they promised, and so to make the numbers work, they send you home, and you can tell your spouse you no longer have a job because the company missed its arbitrary projections. Because if I hit the projections, I get my bonus 'cause my bonus is based on the price of the equity, right? So we see it-

Angela Duckworth 21:39 Yeah

Simon Sinek 21:39 ... all the time versus a company saying, "We missed our numbers," and that's it. We missed our numbers. And so the shareholders will be pissed off, but that's okay. Don't worry about it. The... Let's learn our lessons and, and, and figure it out next time and protect the people. I saw it happen even in one of my favorite examples, Barry-Wehmiller. Bob Chapman, the CEO of, of Barry-Wehmiller, and in 2008, uh, they lost 30% of their orders, and their company was... I mean, like, if they, the expenses that they had, that if they continued down that path, it would have been very, very, very damaging to the company. And the board was like, "We need layoffs. We have to do layoffs. That is the prudent thing to do." And Bob absolutely refused, and they, what they ended up doing was implementing a furlough program that every employee had to take. I can't remember what it was, two weeks or three weeks. I can't remember what it was. Four weeks vacation. They didn't have to take it consecutively. They could take it whenever they wanted. But Bob announced the program, and he said, "Better we should all suffer a little than anyone should have to suffer a lot." And no one lost their jobs. And something that was not a part of the program, but happened organically, which is the team started looking after each other. So people who could afford to take off more time would do so-

Angela Duckworth 22:46 Hmm

Simon Sinek 22:46 ... so that people who couldn't afford to take off any time didn't have to take off any. And this is the point, which is when leadership expressed care about the people-

Angela Duckworth 22:55 Yeah

Simon Sinek 22:55 ... the people took care of each other-

Angela Duckworth 22:58 Right

Simon Sinek 22:58 ... as opposed to stabbing each other back because I gotta protect numero uno. I gotta protect myself. [laughs]

Angela Duckworth 23:04 Right. Right. Right. Like, he turned it from a zero-sum game into, right, like a collective-

Simon Sinek 23:10 And all these years later, people still talk about that and talk about their love and loyalty to the company from that time.

Angela Duckworth 23:15 You know, I think there's another company. I don't know that they had the same crisis, but like one of my favorite companies is Wegmans.

Simon Sinek 23:22 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 23:22 You know the supermarket chain?

Simon Sinek 23:24 Yep.

Angela Duckworth 23:24 Do you have a Wegmans near you?

Simon Sinek 23:25 I don't, but I, I've been.

Angela Duckworth 23:27 Going to Wegmans, don't you think it's like a magical experience? I just think [laughs] it's so fun. It's like, it's like people are nice. They'll [laughs] like help you. It's, and, um-

Simon Sinek 23:36 Yeah, Trader Joe's is like that, too.

Angela Duckworth 23:38 And Trader Joe's, yes. Wegmans and Trader Joe's. I knew an executive in the food industry, um, and he was like, "By the way, if you wanna talk about, like, cold chain management and these things that, like, nobody really thinks about, but actually you should know that, like, it influences the quality of your foods," like they were like Wegmans and Trader Joe's, [laughs] like best in the business.

Simon Sinek 23:55 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 23:56 But on culture, I think they have a policy. I mean, they're a very successful supermarket, and so they, I don't think they have a lot of closures. But you know, like every company, they take risks. You know? Like whatever, they're gonna start a cafe, and like maybe the cafe idea takes off, and maybe they shouldn't have cafes. I think they have a, a, a general corporate policy that, that, you know, if a store doesn't work out or if an idea doesn't work out, that you have a job. You have an open, open invitation.

Simon Sinek 24:20 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 24:20 And maybe you don't have, like, infinite latitude about what those choices are, um, but I think it builds tremendous loyalty. But when I learned about its culture, it made me think of, um,

Angela Duckworth 24:30 do you know this, uh, anthropologist, since you like anthropology, um, named Alan Fisk at UCLA?Like, this is very Simon Sinek. I, I think you'll appreciate this, um, [smacks lips] theory that he developed for understanding human relationships. So he said, you know, "We have different kinds of relationships with other people, um, and they're categorically different, and they have, like, different math to it, like different logic."

Simon Sinek 24:54 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 24:54 So one kind you already mentioned, which is hierarchy, right? We are a primate species, and so I know what it means to be a follower. I know what it means to be a leader. I know what it means to be a manager. I know what it means to be a subordinate. And, um, those have roles, you know? Like, um, for example, when the manager says to do something, the employee tends to do it. There's another kind of relationship which is, like, a contractual relationship or a matching relationship.

Simon Sinek 25:17 Mm-hmm.

Angela Duckworth 25:17 So it's like, "I agree by the rules of the society to give you $10 for the stated price of this pizza."

Simon Sinek 25:23 Mm-hmm.

Angela Duckworth 25:24 "And you are going to give me a pizza in return."

Simon Sinek 25:26 Mm-hmm.

Angela Duckworth 25:26 And it's tit for tat, and, you know, we agree on prices and, you know, that's it.

Simon Sinek 25:32 Mm-hmm.

Angela Duckworth 25:32 And then the third kind of relationship is a communal relationship, where you're, you're sort of part of the same organism. So now instead of, like, taking orders from you because you are my manager or because, um, you know, you paid me a certain amount and in return I promised you a certain service in return, a communal relationship would... It, it's almost like, you know, the elbow to the wrist to the hand to the for- Like, you're part of an organism.

Simon Sinek 25:55 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 25:55 And the analogy I think he has used is, like, if you come down in the morning to the kitchen and you open the refrigerator and you pour a glass of milk, you're not recording on a little pad that you, like, took eight ounces of milk and you owe the family eight ounces, and you'll try not to drink too much milk in the next week to balance it out. Nobody thinks about that, right? Because you're in a family.

Simon Sinek 26:14 Right.

Angela Duckworth 26:14 And the milk, when it's gone, somebody has to go buy the milk, but that's pretty much it. And I think that that bears on, like, what we're talking about because, yes, we are hierarchical and we're, you know, primates.

Simon Sinek 26:23 Yep.

Angela Duckworth 26:24 But I think the best leaders, you know, understand, at least at some tacit level, that in some ways you're in all three relationships with the people who work for you, right?

Simon Sinek 26:34 Yeah, of course.

Angela Duckworth 26:34 Yes, you're the boss. Also, you have made contractual obligations that you will honor, um, and are explicit. But thirdly, I do think that that's the best feeling in the world, to feel that you are, you know, part of a, an organism, and you're gonna do your part, and then other people are gonna-

Simon Sinek 26:50 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 26:50 ... do other parts, but you're not really individuals, like, first and foremost.

Simon Sinek 26:55 Look, you've had contracts with people, and everybody knows that the best contracts are when you sign it and then you never refer back to it.

Angela Duckworth 27:01 Yeah. [laughs] You probably don't even know what it says-

Simon Sinek 27:03 And everybody just-

Angela Duckworth 27:03 ... 'cause you're like, "What?"

Simon Sinek 27:03 ... everybody just gets the work done, and nobody's actually checking-

Angela Duckworth 27:05 Yeah

Simon Sinek 27:05 ... if you're doing more or less, and nobody's actually worried because it's working fine.

Angela Duckworth 27:08 Like, I don't know what my contract says with my employer, right? Like, University of Pennsylvania, did I even sign one?

Simon Sinek 27:13 A relationship has gone sour when you pull out the contract and you start referring-

Angela Duckworth 27:17 Yeah

Simon Sinek 27:17 ... to the terms.

Angela Duckworth 27:18 When you're reviewing the prenup-

Simon Sinek 27:20 Right

Angela Duckworth 27:20 ... it's not a good relationship. [laughs] Yeah.

Simon Sinek 27:22 And so even though the contract, like an employment agreement or minimum standards or whatever it is-

Angela Duckworth 27:27 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 27:27 ... it's really important for mutual protections at the beginning. But, but once that deal is signed, and the, you ha- you shake hands and say, "We both agree to these broad terms"-

Angela Duckworth 27:38 Mm

Simon Sinek 27:38 ... it gets put aside, and this is why when someone's like, "Well, you're contracted to work 40 hours a week," you know? But we're in a group project.

Angela Duckworth 27:45 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 27:45 I mean, like, I'll tell... I... For example, I'll tell you what we do, right? So-

Angela Duckworth 27:48 Yeah

Simon Sinek 27:49 ... to... And it's not because it's written down. It's not a company policy. It's not a promise. It's just what we do. If somebody works on a, on a Saturday, like, we have a huge project, and somebody, whether they're asked to or not, but they work on a Saturday, somebody will say to them, "Hey, listen, thanks so much for working this Saturday. Why don't you take any day off your week? Use your, use your responsible freedom to pick the right day. You know, we advise you of a Friday or a Monday 'cause it'll work out better for you. But, like, take off... We owe you a day. Like, we took one of your personal days, so we owe you one of our days."

Angela Duckworth 28:22 Yeah, yeah.

Simon Sinek 28:24 Again, it's not written down. It's not a corporate policy. It's just like, "That's the right thing to do." And so-

Angela Duckworth 28:28 Yeah

Simon Sinek 28:29 ... the point is, is we don't pull out the contract and say, "Well, we're entitled to six weekends a year."

Angela Duckworth 28:33 Right.

Simon Sinek 28:33 You know, nobody cares. We're just thinking about each other, and I actually, just to, you know, pivot real quick, I... You know, if you go back to your family analogy, you know-

Angela Duckworth 28:43 Yeah

Simon Sinek 28:43 ... Mom and Dad are the leaders of the, of that l- of that company.

Angela Duckworth 28:49 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 28:49 And, you know, when the milk has run out, it's, "Mom, Dad, we need more milk."

Angela Duckworth 28:55 "There's no milk." [laughs] Yeah.

Simon Sinek 28:57 And so there's the expectation that the leaders will provide,

Simon Sinek 29:00 and we're not counting all the things, but, like-

Angela Duckworth 29:02 Yeah

Simon Sinek 29:02 ... let's just get the work done, you know?

Angela Duckworth 29:05 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 29:05 And there's the expectation that the kids will support, and you know the data better, better than I do, which is kids who are raised with, um, chores, uh, tend to be happier as adults.

Angela Duckworth 29:18 Yeah, I totally wanted to do a chores random assignment study. Like, when my daughters, who are now 24 and 22, like, we looked up when is it legal to work in Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania, and my husband and I were like, "The day you get your working papers, like, you're getting a job."

Simon Sinek 29:34 You're getting a job. Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 29:34 We were, like, of mixed success in get- Yes, they had chores. I think we were, you know, not as... But we knew that having a boss was, like, a good thing. But I wonder if, you know, the malaise/ennui of Gen Z, which, which is really documented. I mean, again-

Simon Sinek 29:48 Okay, you used two French words there in the same sentence

Angela Duckworth 29:50 ... you know, 'cause it's the language of feeling. [laughs] Like, um, um-

Simon Sinek 29:54 I, I love-

Angela Duckworth 29:56 Yeah, so I, I did pull out my, um-

Simon Sinek 29:56 I love the word ennui.

Angela Duckworth 29:58 But those are, like, uh, English too.

Simon Sinek 29:59 Just let's be clear, just so that people who know what we're talking about, like, because I... Ennui, and I always forget-

Angela Duckworth 30:05 Yeah

Simon Sinek 30:05 ... the definition, but ennui is kind of like, "Eh, meh."

Angela Duckworth 30:09 Okay, I think ennui has a sort of, like, existential, um, vibe, and I recently did a Google Scholar search because, you know, in addition to Google, I use Google Scholar to look up anything, and there are, you know, remarkably few articles written on the psychology, uh, or any other aspect of ennui. But I think it's a great word. Again, no direct English, but it's-

Simon Sinek 30:31 No English translation

Angela Duckworth 30:31 ... kind of like spiritually restless. You're feeling a little empty. I mean, I think Viktor Frankl actually-

Simon Sinek 30:35 Like, what's it all for?

Angela Duckworth 30:36 Yeah, what's it all for, and what am I doing, you know, um-

Simon Sinek 30:40 From a philosophical, like, existential standpoint, not, not life.

Angela Duckworth 30:43 All of the above, I think. All of the above. I think it's also something that, you know, people feel about themselves. Like, it's not necessarily just a comment on the state of the world.

Simon Sinek 30:52 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 30:52 And, you know, as you can tell from this description, it's not something that people like feeling.

Simon Sinek 30:56 No.

Angela Duckworth 30:57 And I've been thinking about these like, say, you know, 18 to 28-year-olds, which is, um, as you know, the, the, uh, lower and upper bound of being a Gen Z adult. Um, and when I look at the data on how unhappy they are, it is really, I mean, I have to say as a social scientist, it is rare to be shocked by data.

Simon Sinek 31:15 Mm-hmm.

Angela Duckworth 31:15 When you look at the data on Gen Z adults and how they're feeling, how lonely they are, how depressed they are, how anxious they are, the number of days out of the last 30 where they would say, like, every day was a bad day-

Simon Sinek 31:25 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 31:26 ... it's really amazing how unwell they are in that sense. And, I mean, everyone points to phones and, and to social media. I c- I don't think it's a complete explanation, I think. I mean, Viktor Frankl pointed out the existential crisis that he, uh, both saw and predicted for the United States when he came to visit in the mid-20th century. So I think it's, it's not uniquely a social media phenomenon, because that predates social media. And I'm not saying that phones and screens don't have anything to do with it, but, but I just wondered, you know, as Simon, as somebody who thinks about these things, like, what the heck do you think is going on?

Simon Sinek 32:03 Yeah, I think there's two very, very simple answers, and social media and cell phones are not the cause, but they do absolutely exaggerate the problem.

Angela Duckworth 32:12 Mm.

Simon Sinek 32:12 And it's not feeling a part of a community, not feeling a part of something bigger than myself, no sense of belonging, and-

Angela Duckworth 32:19 Yeah

Simon Sinek 32:20 ... few, if any, deep, meaningful relationships.

Angela Duckworth 32:23 Hmm. And those are not the same thing. You're saying, like-

Simon Sinek 32:25 Not the same thing

Angela Duckworth 32:26 ... lack of community and yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:27 Not the same thing. Not the same thing.

Angela Duckworth 32:28 So, so yeah. Elaborate.

Simon Sinek 32:29 So a deep, meaningful relationship is, um, a friendship, um, um, with someone with whom I confide in, that I share my hard days, I celebrate my good days. I want to be there and sit in the mud with them on their bad days, and I want to cheer them on-

Angela Duckworth 32:50 Mm

Simon Sinek 32:50 ... on their good days.

Angela Duckworth 32:51 Ooh.

Simon Sinek 32:52 Right?

Angela Duckworth 32:52 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:53 Fully relaxed, and even young people will admit to me, you know, that they wouldn't be surprised if their friends canceled on them because they got better plans. I've heard people tell me that they like their friends-

Angela Duckworth 33:04 That's horrible

Simon Sinek 33:04 ... they have fun, fun with their friends, they enjoy the company with their friends, but they don't deeply trust their friends, and wouldn't turn to them in a time-

Angela Duckworth 33:11 Wow

Simon Sinek 33:11 ... in a time of-

Angela Duckworth 33:11 Really?

Simon Sinek 33:11 ... in a time of desperate need, yeah. So you, you go to the ChatGPTs for s- advice in hard times, and, and that business model, oh, is like, "Oh, we got another live one," you know?

Angela Duckworth 33:21 [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 33:23 We keep using, like, drugs and alcohol to talk about the addiction of phones and social media, which is unfair, because when you are addicted to drugs or alcohol, the way you can solve that addiction is abstinence. You, you cease the use of drugs and alcohol.

Angela Duckworth 33:36 Right. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 33:37 You can't cease the use of social media and, and your cell phone entirely, and so it's more like a, an eating disorder.

Angela Duckworth 33:42 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 33:42 Which is you can't stop food to get over your bulimia.

Angela Duckworth 33:45 Mm. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 33:46 Right? You can s- you can't stop eating.

Angela Duckworth 33:47 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 33:47 But you have to learn to have a healthy relationship with food.

Angela Duckworth 33:51 Right.

Simon Sinek 33:51 I would argue that we're, we have to learn to have healthy relationships with the devices, but the priority is the friend, and-

Angela Duckworth 33:59 Right

Simon Sinek 33:59 ... how do I have a healthy relationship with the device in order to prioritize my friend? And, and the act of service, which is-

Angela Duckworth 34:04 Mm

Simon Sinek 34:04 ... it's not about me. And so if I'm struggling with deep, meaningful relationships, instead of s- worrying about me and how do I get friends, it's how do I help my friends get friends, and how do I be the friend that people want? And that actually sol- helps solves the problem. So that's, friendship is one problem.

Angela Duckworth 34:19 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:19 The other one is, uh, belonging. It's a deep psychological need to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. I am both me and I am in a member of a group every moment of every day.

Angela Duckworth 34:29 Mm.

Simon Sinek 34:29 But the problem is, where's the group? You know, there's a, there's no bowling leagues, there's a decline in membership to churches, and where work could provide that sense of belonging and meaning, and just what we just talked about, the problem is, is all the incentive structures at work are not about belonging and meaning. The purpose is a statement on a website, but we don't actually use it to make decisions. It's all about individual performance and money, and it has, there's nothing to do with serving the greater good, using our products or services or our culture to give people a sense that they're contributing to something larger. You go back to that company Barry-Wehmiller, and you walk around their factory. In fact, I did an episode with Bob Chapman and Barry Wehmiller where we visited their factory. You can see that these magical human beings feel a part of something bigger than themselves. They work in a factory.

Angela Duckworth 35:17 Ooh.

Simon Sinek 35:17 And so-

Angela Duckworth 35:18 Mm

Simon Sinek 35:18 ... if that company is able to give people that feeling, then the, the sort of the, the glamorous products and the glamorous industries have no excuse.

Angela Duckworth 35:26 Mm.

Simon Sinek 35:27 And even in America, like, as a nation, we've lost that sense of feeling a part of something bigger than ourselves, and I will blame every president that has served since the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Angela Duckworth 35:37 Mm.

Simon Sinek 35:37 'Cause we got a cheat, because when there was an, a, a, a, an existential threat outside of our own borders, it's like no matter how much our political divisions were, at the end of the day, the threat outside our borders was worse than the threat inside our borders. So it gave us a collective feeling of we're in this together. You know, we saw it after September 11th, you know?

Angela Duckworth 35:54 Right.

Simon Sinek 35:54 Osama bin Laden-

Angela Duckworth 35:55 Yeah

Simon Sinek 35:55 ... thought it would divide our country. It did the opposite. It brought us together because the existential threat was m- scarier outside of our borders than inside our borders, and it, it brings us together. And so I think every president since the collapse of the Berlin Wall has failed to bring, uh,

Simon Sinek 36:10 to give us a sense of-

Angela Duckworth 36:11 Of unity. Of unity and belonging

Simon Sinek 36:13 ... and that only contributes-

Angela Duckworth 36:16 Yeah

Simon Sinek 36:16 ... to, well, if I, if I can't get it at a national level, and I'm not getting it-

Angela Duckworth 36:20 At, at, at my work

Simon Sinek 36:21 ... I'm not getting it at my work, and I'm not getting it from my church-

Angela Duckworth 36:23 Yeah

Simon Sinek 36:23 ... and I'm not getting... By the way, w- amongst young people, we're seeing a rise of... uh, of church membership

Angela Duckworth 36:30 Like religious, I, I just heard that

Simon Sinek 36:31 Rel- yeah

Angela Duckworth 36:32 I just heard that, like very recently, right?

Simon Sinek 36:34 Rel-

Angela Duckworth 36:34 Because it's been going like-

Simon Sinek 36:35 College students are attending church and worshiping. They're becoming more religious and God-fearing, and you can see it. A- and if you look on the left or the right side of the aisle, you can see people desperate, especially young people, desperately looking for anything that will help them feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves. So on the left-

Angela Duckworth 36:52 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 36:52 ... it might be Palestine, Israel, that kind of, that thing.

Angela Duckworth 36:55 Right.

Simon Sinek 36:55 On the right, it might be, uh, vax or masks or whatever it was, you know. And-

Angela Duckworth 37:00 Yeah

Simon Sinek 37:01 ... those things have all of the feelings of movement and a part of something bigger, and I'm contributing, and it has the community, it has all of it, but for the fact that all of those things are reactive and temporary, and they aren't something that you would commit your entire life to, and then your kids will pick up the torch where you left off.

Angela Duckworth 37:18 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 37:18 And you can see one thing will phase out, and something else will phase in. But what's interesting to me is not what they're latching onto, it's that they're, that everybody's trying to latch onto something. How do you rally a people to come together around a common cause without waiting for fear to galvanize us?

Angela Duckworth 37:37 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 37:37 And the, this is, this is what distinguishes the reactive cause finding that we see, uh, versus real cause.

Angela Duckworth 37:49 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 37:49 You still need, unfortunately, you still need a threat. And I, I'm very uncomfortable with this point of view, and I've struggled with it for over a decade, which is it, it is much easier to know what you stand for when you can see the thing that stands in the way of what you stand for, right? Because standing for something is ethereal. It lives in our imagination.

Angela Duckworth 38:09 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 38:09 Where the thing that is against is real and tangible.

Angela Duckworth 38:12 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 38:12 And the difference between the reactive versus the true cause relationship is, is this threat that stands in the way of you achieving what you're trying to get is temporary. It is simply an obstacle in the way.

Angela Duckworth 38:26 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 38:26 And true cause is being able to know what is on the other side of that obstacle that will outlast... It'll, it'll have another obstacle and another obstacle and another obstacle, but we are driven by what is on the other side of the wall. We are not driven by breaking down the wall, although we recognize that the wall is an obstacle. And so the Soviet Union stood in the way of us achieving, you know, democracy and peace in the world, and it's not that we're inherently waiting for them to fail, it's just that i- if they did go away, we still believe in democracy and peace.

Angela Duckworth 38:57 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 38:57 I believe in a world in which people wake up in morn- in the morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. I see current leadership models l- left over from the '80s and '90s, and the lack of good leadership education as the obstacle standing in the way from me achieving my vision. So I am anti, you know, the way Wall Street tells us to run companies. I'm anti the way, you know, private investors and venture capitalists tell good CEOs how to run their companies. I'm anti ranking yank.

Angela Duckworth 39:25 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 39:25 I'm anti mass layoffs. I'm anti those things, but w- if I got rid of those things, I

Simon Sinek 39:30 still have something to believe in.

Angela Duckworth 39:32 Yeah. Right. Right.

Simon Sinek 39:33 And so it's not that I'm just anti-corporate. That's too convenient. That's not true.

Angela Duckworth 39:38 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:39 But I'm driven by the vision of where to go to. So, like, you can take a look at both the left and the right, and you can play the mental exercise, the, the, the... which is, okay, what if you achieve what you're looking for, then what? There's no, there's no answer. There's no answer because it's not, it's against something. It's not for something.

Angela Duckworth 39:57 Ah, but not for something. Do you think that's true? Do you think... I mean, obviously you think it's true. You just said that. I don't know if they would agree that, that it's true.

Simon Sinek 40:05 Ask for any of them to articulate the vision and explain what this is standing in the way of because they talk about the obstacle-

Angela Duckworth 40:13 Interesting

Simon Sinek 40:13 ... more than they talk about where they're going.

Angela Duckworth 40:16 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:17 And at the end of the day, at the end of the day, true cause, true vision is not-

Angela Duckworth 40:23 Yeah

Simon Sinek 40:24 ... is not-

Angela Duckworth 40:24 It's not the negation

Simon Sinek 40:24 ... exclusively about standing against.

Angela Duckworth 40:27 Yeah. Yeah, it's not about negation of X. It's about the affirmation of Y.

Simon Sinek 40:30 It is a service to building something, and the question is, what i- what are you in service to building?

Angela Duckworth 40:37 Who's your favorite leader? Like, who are your favorite leader? Who are the, um, leaders that you think, well, like, okay, let me give you a counterexample to what I just described.

Simon Sinek 40:45 I mean-

Angela Duckworth 40:45 Yeah

Simon Sinek 40:45 ... it's the greatest hits, you know?

Angela Duckworth 40:48 G- give it to me.

Simon Sinek 40:48 You know, I think Winston Churchill was pretty great.

Angela Duckworth 40:51 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 40:51 I think Marshall was in-

Angela Duckworth 40:53 George Marshall?

Simon Sinek 40:53 George Marshall.

Angela Duckworth 40:54 Like the Marshall Plan?

Simon Sinek 40:54 Marshall Plan.

Angela Duckworth 40:55 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:55 What a remarkable-

Angela Duckworth 40:56 Yeah

Simon Sinek 40:56 ... remarkable vision.

Angela Duckworth 40:57 Oh, Marshall Plan was good.

Simon Sinek 40:58 What a, what a-

Angela Duckworth 40:58 Marshall Plan [laughs] was pretty good

Simon Sinek 40:59 ... I mean, he was, he was-

Angela Duckworth 41:00 Yeah

Simon Sinek 41:00 ... Secretary of Defense, he was Secretary of State, and he developed the Marshall Plan after the end of the war. His thinking was like, "Okay, we've completely flattened Japan, so how do we prevent Japan from rising up again-

Angela Duckworth 41:16 From just like rising up, threatening us again

Simon Sinek 41:16 ... and threatening us again in the future?"

Angela Duckworth 41:18 And like...

Simon Sinek 41:18 Right?

Angela Duckworth 41:18 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 41:18 So we can suppress them, and we can overbear them with force and might, which probably won't work in the long term. It'll work in the short term. What if we spend our money, rebuild that nation, and make them a great trading partner?

Angela Duckworth 41:33 Hmm. You know, I'm a Marshall scholar, so I have George Marshall to thank for that.

Simon Sinek 41:37 Oh, well, there you go. And-

Angela Duckworth 41:38 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 41:38 ... what a brilliant long-term idea-

Angela Duckworth 41:41 Long-term, yeah

Simon Sinek 41:41 ... to spend our own money to rebuild our enemies, to turn them into allies, and that's exactly what happened.

Angela Duckworth 41:47 What about, like, living today, like 2025, 2026? Like-

Simon Sinek 41:51 Yeah, so, so I told you abou- about Bob Chapman from Barry-Wehmiller

Angela Duckworth 41:55 Yeah. He sounds great. Okay, I'm pro-

Simon Sinek 41:56 Who is, who is absolutely remarkable, and by the way, wasn't born that way. He, he had to have, um, a come to Jesus and recognize that the way he was leading was, was, was not the way to lead. And so-

Angela Duckworth 42:10 Ah, interesting

Simon Sinek 42:11 ... so, so, so leaders, the good ones have conversions, you know?

Angela Duckworth 42:15 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 42:15 And so it's never too late.

Angela Duckworth 42:17 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 42:17 So, so-

Angela Duckworth 42:17 Yeah

Simon Sinek 42:17 ... Bob was converted. He used to view people as items on a, on a spreadsheet until he didn't. I told you about, uh, uh, John Burke from Trek Bicycles. I think he's-

Angela Duckworth 42:28 Yeah

Simon Sinek 42:28 ... absolutely remarkable.

Angela Duckworth 42:31 Yeah

Simon Sinek 42:31 Gary Ridge, who left WD-40 just recently, I think he, he was one of the good guys. You know, you talk... I mean, if you just look at the companies we love to do business with-

Angela Duckworth 42:41 Yeah

Simon Sinek 42:41 ... you're gonna get some clues, because people who love to work for their companies-

Angela Duckworth 42:44 Right

Simon Sinek 42:44 ... we love to work with them

Angela Duckworth 42:45 ... I mean, people who are happy.

Simon Sinek 42:46 Yeah. So, so, like, w- sure, Wegmans, that's on the list. How, how can it not be? You know, Trader Joe's, how can it not be?

Angela Duckworth 42:53 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 42:53 Just go and interact-

Angela Duckworth 42:54 Yeah

Simon Sinek 42:54 ... with their employees, and you'll get a very-

Angela Duckworth 42:56 Right

Simon Sinek 42:56 ... clear sense-

Angela Duckworth 42:57 Yeah

Simon Sinek 42:57 ... of what the leadership environment is like

Angela Duckworth 42:58 That's good. That's the litmus test.

Simon Sinek 43:00 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 43:00 You're like, "Uh, when I go there, is everybody happy?" [laughs] Like, and, you know, wanting to be helpful. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 43:05 And I... And there are companies that I will keep their names out of this who I used to love going to their stores, and now it's just a retail experience.

Angela Duckworth 43:13 Or worse.

Simon Sinek 43:13 Or worse.

Angela Duckworth 43:14 [laughs] Like, it... Or worse.

Simon Sinek 43:15 Or worse.

Angela Duckworth 43:16 Something less than a retail experience.

Simon Sinek 43:16 I went to a store recently, and I, I sort of like said semi-jokingly to the guy, like, as I was buying something, I was like, "Any sales today?"

Angela Duckworth 43:23 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 43:23 He's like, "I'll give you 50% off." I'm like, "Say more?" You know why he gave me 50% off? 'Cause he, 'cause he hates his job.

Angela Duckworth 43:31 Oh, and he's like, "I would rather you have the money than..." [laughs]

Simon Sinek 43:34 He couldn't give a shit.

Angela Duckworth 43:36 [laughs] Yeah.

Simon Sinek 43:37 He's like-

Angela Duckworth 43:37 Yeah

Simon Sinek 43:37 ... "Screw this place. You can have 50% off." It wasn't done like, "Oh my God."

Angela Duckworth 43:41 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 43:41 "Here, here, let me give you..." It wasn't done like this. Like, "You know what?"

Angela Duckworth 43:43 Right.

Simon Sinek 43:44 "Screw this place."

Angela Duckworth 43:44 Right.

Simon Sinek 43:44 "I'll give you 50% off." It was done out of anger.

Angela Duckworth 43:48 Yeah. Yeah. So much work to be done, Simon Sinek.

Simon Sinek 43:51 I know.

Angela Duckworth 43:51 So much work to be done.

Simon Sinek 43:52 C- can I ask you one other question?

Angela Duckworth 43:54 Sure.

Simon Sinek 43:54 'Cause I'm curious about this with your work. So your, your work and my work has both been on the market for 10 years, and both your language and my language have now been integrated into the vernacular, which is, you know, grit is now m- a much talked about thing, and people talk about their why, which is a great honor for both of us, right? What about your work has either been completely misinterpreted-

Angela Duckworth 44:20 Hmm

Simon Sinek 44:20 ... and/or is outdated?

Angela Duckworth 44:23 Oh, right, like what have I changed my mind about, or what is a misconception, right? Um-

Simon Sinek 44:28 Because, because grit is one of those very dangerous things. I, I'll tell you where the root of the question comes from, right?

Angela Duckworth 44:35 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 44:35 I see people who are unhappy. I see people who are grinding.

Angela Duckworth 44:39 And they're like, "I have to grit it out."

Simon Sinek 44:40 "I gotta grit it out." And like, the, like-

Angela Duckworth 44:42 Yeah

Simon Sinek 44:42 ... it is either used to force myself to do something I don't wanna do and I've lost any joy, or-

Angela Duckworth 44:48 Yeah

Simon Sinek 44:48 ... it is used as a, uh, feedback. Like, "You need more grit," you know?

Angela Duckworth 44:55 Yeah, yeah.

Simon Sinek 44:56 And nothing-

Angela Duckworth 44:56 Well, you're hitting on what I think the misconception is.

Simon Sinek 44:59 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 44:59 Right? So, so I'm gonna answer both these questions.

Simon Sinek 45:01 Okay.

Angela Duckworth 45:01 The first is, I, I mean, I recently reread Grit. I give it to my undergraduates to read, and I wouldn't give them anything to read that I don't read the same time they do.

Simon Sinek 45:09 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 45:09 I agree with my past self, Simon, and yeah, growth mindset, check, deliberate practice, check. Like, you know, getting to the flow state and being interested in what you do, check. Like, I, I, I stand by what I said. Um, n- now to answer your other question, I think it's a huge misconception to think that what gritty people really are are people who have iron willpower.

Simon Sinek 45:31 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 45:31 There's something about the monosyllabic word, grit, that makes you think that it's, you know, they're, like, white-knuckling their way to excellence. But as you know better than most-

Simon Sinek 45:43 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 45:43 ... and I think myself included, not just because of what we study for a living, but also because who we are, that nobody becomes great at what they do because they're forcing themselves against their, against their will. I mean, there are four things that I think run through the mind of a person who has grit. This is interesting. This is important. I can do this.

Simon Sinek 46:04 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 46:04 I know what to try next.

Simon Sinek 46:06 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 46:06 When you have those four sentences, like, nobody has to, like, shove you out of bed in the morning, you know, force you to stay late. You want to.

Simon Sinek 46:13 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 46:13 And so the, the monosyllabic, you know, grit, um, you know, should I grit or should I quit? I mean, it's not the Nike slogan, I will tell you that.

Simon Sinek 46:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Angela Duckworth 46:22 It's not just do it.

Simon Sinek 46:23 And look, the great thing is the concept has, has, has spread, and I think the part that I try and instill in people is, is, is the sacrifice worth it? Like, you should lean into your grit if it's, if it feels like it's worth it.

Angela Duckworth 46:41 If it's worth it, which by the way, is a rational decision. I know people think that what gritty people do is they do irrational things. No, they do rational things, but the way they tally up the costs and benefits-

Simon Sinek 46:53 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 46:53 ... may be different than the way you do, but nobody does irrational things. Nobody does things where the, you know, the, the costs outweigh the benefits to them, right?

Simon Sinek 47:01 I think some people, to your point, which is when they get it wrong, is they feel they need to prove to themselves or somebody else that they-

Angela Duckworth 47:07 I, I hereby give everybody license and endorsement and even encouragement to quit the things that you hate.

Simon Sinek 47:14 There we go.

Angela Duckworth 47:14 You know? Like, don't spend another day doing things that you don't really want to do, and I think everybody, if they introspect and they look in the mirror and they say, like, "Do I really want to do this?"

Simon Sinek 47:24 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 47:25 Like, don't worry about, like, you know, being a wimp. Like, you, you probably have a voice in you [laughs] that does.

Simon Sinek 47:30 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 47:30 And if the answer is no, go do something else. Life is short.

Simon Sinek 47:33 Yeah. Love. Thank you for that. Thank you for that.

Angela Duckworth 47:36 [laughs] That's a great question.

Simon Sinek 47:38 It-

Angela Duckworth 47:38 I love that question

Simon Sinek 47:38 ... it speaks to something slightly aside to what we're talking about, but related, and when it goes right back to what we were talking about, about grading, which is I've always believed that grades should be given as ratios, which is the level of accomplishment, your grade-

Angela Duckworth 47:54 Yeah

Simon Sinek 47:54 ... over how many hours you studied, right? So you gotta-

Angela Duckworth 47:59 Oh

Simon Sinek 47:59 ... you gotta-

Angela Duckworth 47:59 Oh, that's interesting

Simon Sinek 48:00 ... you gotta a-

Angela Duckworth 48:00 So it's like an efficiency rating?

Simon Sinek 48:01 Right. Well, like, so you get an A over a 50 or a B+ over a 3. So, because what it does is it demonstrates that an A is not necessarily a better grade than a B+. It depends the kind of person you're looking for. So if you need somebody to hit perfection and you're willing to give them the time to hit it, you hire the A over a 50. But if you need somebody who can grind-

Angela Duckworth 48:19 Oh

Simon Sinek 48:19 ... if you need somebody who can grind and do pretty well, you know, with a lot of pressure-

Angela Duckworth 48:23 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 48:23 ... you hire the B+ over the 3, because the A over the 50 is gonna flail in your company, right?

Angela Duckworth 48:29 No, I, I like this 'cause you're like, "Not only am I going to radically change the way you think about it," I... Like, even the scale, it's not like more is always better.

Simon Sinek 48:37 And it's not that a higher c- level of accomplishment is betterIt's-

Angela Duckworth 48:41 Yeah. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 48:41 It's, it tells you different skills and different personalities, right? So I, my whole life, was a B+ over a 3 guy, right? And I literally would have people be like, "I'm smarter than you. I got an A." I'm like, "Yeah, but your life sucks. You studied 50 hours."

Angela Duckworth 48:57 But what's your return on investment? [laughs]

Simon Sinek 48:58 Like, I studied-

Angela Duckworth 49:00 What's your return on investment?

Simon Sinek 49:00 ... three, and I, I'm okay with a B+.

Angela Duckworth 49:03 Right. Right. Well, I, I like the ratio. I'm not sure I'm gonna change all my grading to it, and I'm not sure I would categorize myself as the same person you were. But, you know, there is something about hard workers. Like, they have a heuristic. They have a rule, which is, like, pain is good, you know? Like, suffering is good, being tired is good, not getting enough sleep is good. And all those rules are stupid. Like, no, that's not true. Efficiency is good.

Simon Sinek 49:26 Yep.

Angela Duckworth 49:27 Sleep is great. If you can get this task done in five minutes that I thought was gonna take you an hour, that's amazing.

Simon Sinek 49:34 Yeah.

Angela Duckworth 49:34 Right? But I think there is a kind of, you know, masochistic, you know, self-flagellating, like, "Oh, I, I know that tired is good." And I've spent a lot of my life that way. I was like, "Oh, the, the more tired I go to bed, like, the better I am doing." And, like, now at the age of 55, I'm like, "Uh, no, exactly the opposite." But I think it took me longer than I would have liked to-

Simon Sinek 50:00 Yeah

Angela Duckworth 50:00 ... figure out that efficiency is a thing.

Simon Sinek 50:02 And I think it's o- Look, I know that there's always somebody who's gonna sell more books, make more money, be better looking, be more charming, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, like, I'm not competing against them, right?

Angela Duckworth 50:12 Right.

Simon Sinek 50:12 I'm competing against-

Angela Duckworth 50:14 Right

Simon Sinek 50:14 ... me. Do I want the A to make myself feel better? Sometimes. Depends what the thing is. And sometimes B+ is great because I wanna go live my life. It comes right back to, it sums up so perfectly the whole conversation we've had and the loneliness, unhappiness of a young generation who has been raised in an environment that over-emphasizes individual performance, has been raised in an environment where good leadership is not the norm, and they're all one degree away from either their parents having been laid off or their friends' parents having been laid off through no fault of their own. It was not a meritocracy.

Angela Duckworth 50:49 Mm.

Simon Sinek 50:49 They've been raised in a world in which they've seen only bad leadership in jobs, you know, where the company would sooner sacrifice the people than, than its own money or, or, or the CEO's executive pay package over the people's pay packages, right? We see this over and over again, and it's no wonder why they're cynical, they don't trust companies, they offer no loyalty, and they're unhappy. I would be, too.

Angela Duckworth 51:12 Mm.

Simon Sinek 51:12 And the solution that we're asking is be the friend you wish you had, be the leader you wish you had, because in every example that you and I have been talking about, about the highest performing teams, the happiest people, the healthiest people, it's not about grit. It's not about individual performance. It's not about me before we. In every single circumstance, it's a commitment to the greater good. It's a commitment to serve. It's a commitment to the people to the left of me and the people to the right of me. And the great irony is when we do that, we're happier, we're healthier, we feel more con- more connected, and the performance of the organization, regardle- regardless of which organization we're working for, thrives.

Angela Duckworth 51:53 I literally could not agree more, and I couldn't agree more that that is not the general direction of where society is going, so.

Simon Sinek 52:01 Yes, it is.

Angela Duckworth 52:02 Okay.

Simon Sinek 52:02 Yes, it is. Because you-

Angela Duckworth 52:04 Do you think that society is-

Simon Sinek 52:05 Yes, it is, and I can prove it

Angela Duckworth 52:06 ... is moving toward a direction of, like, selflessness, of belonging, of community?

Simon Sinek 52:09 I have empirical evidence. You and I have careers. You and I should not have careers. There should be no demand for our work. We talk about trust, we talk about cooperation, and there should be no demand for our work. But the fact that people are interested in the things that we're putting in the world, that are some of the guidance that we can help offer towards getting to that ideal that we imagine, proves that people are hungry for this. I would not have had a career in the '80s or '90s. They would have laughed.

Angela Duckworth 52:40 Okay, but it also proves that they, they have a yearning and, like, you know, just to... So let's see. Okay, in five years, right? Which is-

Simon Sinek 52:47 That's the optimist in me-

Angela Duckworth 52:48 Yeah

Simon Sinek 52:48 ... which is that people want it.

Angela Duckworth 52:49 Yeah. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 52:50 If... I agree that-

Angela Duckworth 52:51 People want it, and then, and then maybe we'll get it

Simon Sinek 52:52 ... I agree. The fact that there's demand-

Angela Duckworth 52:53 So I don't want... Yeah

Simon Sinek 52:54 ... is the embarrassing part, but the fact that it exists. All right.

Angela Duckworth 52:57 Yeah. Fair, fair.

Simon Sinek 52:57 I gotta ask you a couple more questions here.

Angela Duckworth 52:58 Okay. Five mi- five years from now, we'll revisit the conversation. We'll see how, when, and in the meanwhile, we'll try to, like, you know, tilt the odds in, in the direction we want.

Simon Sinek 53:06 I promise to have you back on the old pod in five years. Okay. If you could teach every child, um, or young person one thing about grit and building character, what would it be, and why?

Angela Duckworth 53:18 I would say that character is everything you do, not just for yourself, but for other people. That is my definition of character. Uh, and if that's only one thing, that's... I'll leave it at that. It's, like, what you do, not just for yourself, but for others. If you ever ask, like, "What is my character?" Like, what do people mean by good character? What do they mean by bad character? It's all in the definition.

Simon Sinek 53:40 That is brilliant, and I think it challenges a traditional definition of character, which is it's how you are when nobody's looking.

Angela Duckworth 53:46 When nobody's looking?

Simon Sinek 53:47 And, and I-

Angela Duckworth 53:47 I think that is not enough. It's like, no, that's-

Simon Sinek 53:49 And I think this is better.

Angela Duckworth 53:50 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 53:50 It's how... It's, it's, it's, it's the pro-social component. It's how you treat others.

Angela Duckworth 53:54 Exactly.

Simon Sinek 53:54 That-

Angela Duckworth 53:54 It's what we've been talking about for this entire podcast

Simon Sinek 53:55 ... amen to that. I completely agree with you. Uh, do you ever struggle with losing motivation, and if so, what are your tricks to getting it back?

Angela Duckworth 54:03 Yes. I have struggled even with burnout, which I used to talk about as an academic subject in the abstract, but have personally experienced in the last couple of years. And, um, you know, turns out, like, I can experience that emotion. I will just say that when you are really struggling with your motivation, I think the first thing to do is to, like, really listen to that. Because whenever you feel anything, it's like spraining your ankle, the first thing you should do is ask, like, "What's wrong?" And not blame yourself, and not try to, like, fast-forward to not feeling burned out, and to, you know, suddenly wake up the next day and have a lot of energy. But to really ask with seriousness what's wrong. I did finally learn to ask what was wrong, and then I fixed it, and it took a long time, and, and, and now I don't feel that way.

Simon Sinek 54:48 The thing that I really like about what you said there about the loss of motivation or the feeling of demotivation or un- unmotivation, I don't even know what the grammar is, but the, the, that is... What you said is it, it's a feeling. And-

Angela Duckworth 54:59 It's a feeling.

Simon Sinek 55:00 It's a feeling.

Angela Duckworth 55:00 It's an emotion. I think burnout is best characterized as an emotional state, and like all emotions, you know, they're, they're signals. And I think-

Simon Sinek 55:07 Bur- burnout, b-but burnout is an emotion-

Angela Duckworth 55:08 Yeah

Simon Sinek 55:08 ... and you have to allow yourself to feel, right? So, you know-

Angela Duckworth 55:11 Yeah, you have to let yourself feel it. And, and, and, and-

Simon Sinek 55:11 ... we, we don't want everybody to go through the world being happy all the time. That's not healthy. But a good, a healthy human being has a range of emotions, and burnout is one-

Angela Duckworth 55:19 Yes

Simon Sinek 55:19 ... of those emotions, including happy, sad, angry, and all of the rest.

Angela Duckworth 55:22 Jealousy, anger-

Simon Sinek 55:23 Jealousy

Angela Duckworth 55:24 ... you know, joy.

Simon Sinek 55:24 And so the question is if you have that feeling-

Angela Duckworth 55:25 Woe

Simon Sinek 55:26 ... like any of those feelings-

Angela Duckworth 55:27 Yeah

Simon Sinek 55:27 ... investigate where that feeling is coming from.

Angela Duckworth 55:30 Exactly. 100%.

Simon Sinek 55:31 Great advice. Angela, thank you so much. I... It's so fun talking-

Angela Duckworth 55:35 It's so fun

Simon Sinek 55:35 ... to you 'cause we just, we sh- we just go, and time dis- disappears. Um-

Angela Duckworth 55:39 So awesome

Simon Sinek 55:39 ... thanks so much for coming on. I so appreciate it.

Angela Duckworth 55:41 Thank you, thank you. I'll see you soon, Simon. [upbeat jazzy music]

Simon Sinek 55:44 A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company, lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbinus, Phoebe Bradford, and Devon Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts, and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simonsinek.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.