Simon Says

In this episode of "A Pane In The Glass Podcast" you will hear the words of Simon Sinek American author & dynamic inspirational speaker. This episode is a Simon Sinek sound bite that touches on a number or areas regarding leadership (think coaching) with special emphasis on the Millennial generation. If that's you and I suspect many of my listeners are either in that generational group or work with those who are, then you've come to the right place! I have unpacked the topics that Simon addresses in "Chapters" above these show notes. I believe you will want to return to portions of the sound bite that might have particular relevance for you!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome to another episode of a Pain in the Glass Podcast. This is your host, Bill Shearhart, chartered professional coach with Coaches of Canada. Once again, coming to you from my home in Grand Bend, Ontario, Canada, on the shore of Lake Huron, and on the ancestral land of the kettle and Stony Point First Nation. Well, I've been doing this for four and a half years, and I'm gonna keep doing it until I get it right. But this is the first time I'm going to devote an entire episode to one soundbite. And I know how much you, my loyal listeners, and again, thank you very much for being a loyal listener, that you like sound bites. I've come across a gentleman that impresses me greatly. His name is Simon Sinek. I believe I've used one of Simon's sound bites previously, but this one just well just knocked my socks off. In the editing process, of course, I listened to the sound bites several times, but this is one that I have gone over and over and over again because I get something different every time I hear what Simon has to say. I think you will find the same, and I encourage you, of course, to listen to it from start to finish. And I'm going to identify certain parts in the chapters notes because I really do encourage you to go back and listen to various aspects over again, because as I said, and this is always one of the reasons why we see movies many times when we know the the entire plot and the script and everything, but each time we see it, we pick something different. One of those movies movies for me is Moneyball, about baseball, Brad Pitt's movie. And I love Moneyball, and every time I watch it, I get something different from it. Well, there isn't just one topic that Simon talks about today, but if you are born post-1984 and part of the millennial generation, I think you're gonna find what he has to say, well, to say very interesting would be putting it mildly. So again, here are the words of Simon Seneck, and it's about leadership, and of course, leadership, and for most of us who are coaches, we're talking about the role of the coach. But there's so much more here. So sit back, enjoy the words of Simon Seneck.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

We are social animals and we respond to the environments. We're in, and if you create an environment in which people feel safe amongst their own, we will naturally, the natural human response to those conditions is trust and cooperation. Remember, trust and cooperation are feelings, they're not instructions. There's no PowerPoint or pitch that you can give upon the end that someone will trust you. You can't tell somebody, trust me. It doesn't work that way. They're feelings. Um, likewise, if you create an environment where we actually fear each other, fear the people with whom we work, the natural human reaction to that uh that environment is paranoia, cynicism, mistrust, and self-interest. That's what happens. There's enough danger outside the organization, there's enough stuff going on outside that we should have to fear the people we work with or fear our own leaders. And most leaders don't get

The Real Role Of The Leader/Coach

SPEAKER_01 4:03

this. Most leaders think leadership is about being in charge. No, it's not. It's about taking care of those in your charge. Most leaders think everybody works for them. No, you work for the people in your organization. It is your responsibility to take care of them, make them feel safe, and they will naturally want to cooperate and work hard and give you their blood and sweats and tears to advance your vision. All they ask is you take care of them, make them feel valued and valuable, and the rest takes care of itself. I have yet to give a speech or have a meeting where somebody doesn't ask me the millennial question.

The Millennial Question

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Um, what's the millennial question? Apparently, millennials of the generation, which is a group of people who were born approximately uh 1984 and after, are tough to manage. And they're accused of being entitled and narcissistic, self-interested, unfocused, lazy. But entitled is the big one. And uh and because they confound leadership so much, what is happening is leaders are asking the millennials, what do you want? And the millennials are saying, we want to work in a place with the purpose of that. Um we want to make an impact, you know, whatever that means. We want free food and bean bags. And so somebody articulates some sort of purpose. There's lots of free food and there's bean bags, and yet for some reason, they're still not happy. And that's because um you they're missing, there's there's a there's a missing piece. Um what I've learned is that there I

Parenting

SPEAKER_01 5:39

can break it down into four pieces, right? There are four four things, four characters. One is parenting, the other one is uh technology, third is impatience, and the fourth is environment. The generation that we call millennials, too many of them grew up um subject to, not my words, failed parenting strategies, you know? Where, for example, they were told that they were special all the time. They were told that they can have anything they want in life, just because they want it. Uh some of them got into um honors classes not because they deserved it, but because their parents complained. And some of them got A's not because they earned them, but because the teachers didn't want to deal with the parents. Some kids got participation medals. They got a medal for coming in last, right? Which the science we know is pretty clear, which is it devalues the medal and the reward for those who actually work hard, and that actually makes the person who comes in last feel embarrassed because they know they didn't deserve it, so it actually makes them feel worse, right? So you take this group of people, and they graduate school, and they get a job, and they're thrust into the real world, and in an instant they find out they're not special, their mums can't get them a promotion, that you get nothing for coming in last, and by the way, you can't just have it because you want it, right? And in an instant, their entire self-image is shattered. And so you have an entire generation that's growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations. The other problem to compound it is we're growing up in a Facebook, Instagram world, in other words, we're good at putting filters on things. We're good at showing people that life is amazing, even though I'm depressed, right? And so everybody sounds tough, and everybody sounds like they got it all figured out. And the reality is there's very little toughness, and most people don't have it figured out. And so when the more senior people say, Well, what should we do? They sound like this is what you got it in. And they have no clue. So you have an entire generation growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations, right? Through no fault of their own, through no fault of their own, right? They were dealt a bad hand. Right?

Technology

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Now let's add in technology. We know that engagement with social media and our cell phones releases a chemical called dopamine. That's why when you get a text, it feels good, right? So you know we've all had it when you're feeling a little bit down or feeling a little bit lonely. And so you send out 10 texts to 10 friends, you know, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi. Because it feels good when you get a response, right? Right? It's why we count the likes, it's why we go back 10 times to see if and if it's going, if our Instagram is going slower, did I do something wrong? Do they not like me anymore, right? The trauma for young kids to be unfriended, right? Because we know when you get it, you get a hit of dopamine, which feels good. It's why we like it, it's why we keep going back. Dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes us feel good when we smoke, when we drink, and when we gamble. In other words, it's highly, highly addictive, right? We have age restrictions on smoking, gambling, and uh alcohol, and we have no age restrictions on social media and cell phones, which is the equivalent of opening up the liquor cabinet and saying to our teenagers, hey, by the way, this adolescence thing, if it gets you down. That's basically what's happening, right? That's basically what's happening. You have an entire generation that has access to an addictive, numbing chemical coke oak meat through social media and cell phones as they're going through the high stress of adolescence. Why is this important? Almost every alcoholic discovered alcohol when they were teenagers. When we're very, very young, the only approval we need is the approval of our parents. And as we go through adolescence, we make this transition where we now need the approval of our peers. Very frustrating for our parents, very important for us, that allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the broader tribe, right? It's a highly, highly stressful and anxious period of our lives, and we're supposed to learn to rely on our friends. Some people, quite by accident, discover alcohol and numbing effects of dopamine to help them cope with the stresses and anxieties of adolescents. Unfortunately, that becomes hardwired in their brains. And for the rest of their lives, when they suffer significant stress, they will not turn to a person, they will turn to the bottle. Social stress, financial stress, career stress, that's pretty much the primary reasons why an alcoholic drinks, right? What's happening is because we're allowing unfettered access to these dopamine-producing devices and media, basically it's becoming hardwired. And what we're seeing is as they grow older, they too many kids don't know how to form deep, meaningful relationships. Their words, not mine. They will admit that many of their friendships are superficial. They will admit that their friends, that they don't count on their friends, they don't rely on their friends, they have fun with their friends, but they also know that their friends will cancel on unless something better comes along. Deep meaningful relationships are not there because they never practice the skill set, and worse, they don't have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress. So when significant stress starts to show up in their lives, they're not turning to a person, they're turning to a device, they're turning to social media, they're turning to these things which offer temporary relief. We know, the science is clear, we know that people who spend more time on Facebook suffer higher rates of depression than people who spend less time on Facebook. Right? These things balance. Alcohol is not bad, too much alcohol is bad. Gambling is fun, too much gambling is dangerous, right? There's nothing wrong with social media and cell phones. It's the imbalance. If you're sitting at dinner with your friends and you're texting somebody who's not there, that's a problem. That's an addiction. If you're sitting in a meeting with people you're supposed to be listening to and speaking, and you put your phone on the table, face up or face down, I don't care, that sends a subconscious message to the room that you're not just you're just not that important to me right now. Right? That's what happens. And the fact that you cannot put it away is because you are addicted. Right? If you wake up and you check your phone before you say good morning to your girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse, you have an addiction. And like all addiction, in time, it'll destroy relationships, it'll cost time, and it will cost money, and it will make your life worse. Right? So you have a generation growing up with lower self-esteem that doesn't have the coping mechanisms to do with stress, stress.

Impatence

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Right? Now you add in a sense of impatience. Right? They're grown up in a world of instant gratification. You want to buy something, you go on Amazon, it arrives the next day. You want to watch a movie? Log on and watch a movie. You don't check movie times. You want to watch a TV show, binge. You don't even have to wait week to week to week. Right? I know people who skip seasons just so they can binge at the end of the season. Right? You want to go on a date? You don't even have to learn how to be like, hell, you don't even have to learn and practice that skill. You don't have to be the uncomfortable in which says yes when you mean no, and says no when you mean no, then yes when you mean you don't have to just wipe right. Bang, I'm a stone. Right? You don't have to learn the social coping mechanisms, right? Everything you want, you can have instantaneously. Everything you want, instant gratification. Except job satisfaction and strengthened relationships, there ain't no ad for that. They are slow, meandering, uncomfortable, messy processes. And so I keep meeting these wonderful, fantastic, idealistic, hardworking, smart kids that just graduated school. They're in their entry-level job. I sit down with them and I go, How's it going? They go, I think I'm gonna quit. I'm like, why? They're like, I'm not making an impact. I'm like, you've been here eight months. It's as if they're standing at the foot of a mountain, and they have this abstract concept called impact that they want to have in the world, which is the summit. What they don't see is the mountain. I don't care if you go up the mountain quickly or slowly, but there's still a mountain. And so what this young generation needs to learn is patience that some things that really, really matter, like love, or job fulfillment, joy, love of life, self-confidence, a skill set, any of these things, all of these things take time. Sometimes you can extract pieces of it, but the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult. And if you don't ask for help and learn that skill set, you will fall off the mountain. Or you will the worst case scenario, the worst case scenario, and we're already seeing it. The worst case scenario is we're seeing an increase in suicide rates, we're seeing an increase in this generation, we're seeing an increase in accidental deaths due to drug overdoses, we're seeing more and more kids drop out of school or take leaves of absence due to depression. Unheard of. These are all this is this is really bad. The best case scenario, the best those are all bad cases, right? The best case scenario is you'll have an entire population growing up and going through life and just never really finding joy. They'll never really find deep, deep fulfillment in work or in life. They'll just just waft through life and it'll be just it's fine. How how how's your job? It's fine. How's your relationship? It's fine. Like that's that's the best case scenario.

Environment

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Which leads me to the fourth point, which is environment. Which is we're taking this amazing group of young, fantastic kids who are just dealt a bathead. It's no fault of their own. And we put them in corporate environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids. They care more about the short-term gains than the long-term life of this young human being. We care more about the year than the lifetime, right? And so we are putting them in corporate environments that aren't helping them build their confidence, that aren't helping them learn the skills of cooperation, that aren't helping them overcome the challenges of a digital world and finding more balance, that isn't helping them overcome the need to have instant gratification and teach them the joys of impact and the fulfillment you get from working hard over on something for a long time that cannot be done in a month or even in a year. And so we're thrusting into them, they're in corporate environments, and the worst part about it is they think it's them. They blame themselves. They think it's them who can't deal. And so it makes it all worse. It's not. I'm here to tell them it's not them. It's the corporations, it's the corporate environments, it's the total lack of good leadership in our world today that is making them feel the way they do. They were dealt a bad hand, and it's, and I hate to say it, but it's the company's responsibility. Sucks to be you. Like we have no choice, right? This is what we got, and I wish that society and their parents did a better job, they didn't. So we're gonna we're getting them in our companies, and we now have to pick up the slack. We have to work extra hard to figure out the ways that we build their confidence. We have to work extra hard to find ways to teach them social, the social skills that they're missing out on. There should be no cell phones in conference rooms. None. Zero. And I don't mean the kind of like sitting outside waiting to text. I mean like when you're sitting and waiting for a meeting to start, nobody goes, This is what we all do. We'll sit here and wait for the meeting to start. Meeting starting? Okay. We start the meeting. No, that's not how relationships are formed. Remember, we talked about it's the little things? Relationships are formed this way. We're waiting for a meeting to start and we go, how's your dad? I heard he was in the hospital. Oh, he's really good. Thanks for asking. He's actually at home now. Oh, I'm really glad. That was a really amazing. I know, it's really scary. That's how you form relationships. Hey, did you ever get that report on, oh my god, no, I didn't. I'll help you out. I totally uh can I help you out with that? Really?

Trust

SPEAKER_01 17:00

That's how trust forms. Trust doesn't form at an event in a day. Even bad times don't form trust immediately. It's the slow, steady, consistency. And we have to create mechanisms where we allow for those little innocuous interactions to happen. But when we allow cell phones and compass rooms, we just have the meeting, and then my favorite is like when there's a cell phone there, and you go like that you go. It rings again. I'm not gonna answer that. Mr. Magnanimous, you know. When you're out for dinner with your friends, like uh I I do this with my friends. When we're going out for dinner and we're leaving together, we'll we'll leave our cell phones at home. Will we call in? Maybe one of us will bring the phone in case we need to pull a number or take a picture of our meal. We'll take one phone. And so it's like an alcoholic. The reason you take the alcohol out of the house is we is because we cannot trust our willpower. We're just not strong enough. But when you remove the temptation, it actually makes it a lot easier. And so when you just say don't check your phone, people literally will go like this. And somebody will go to the bathroom and what's the first thing we do? Because I wouldn't want to look around the restaurant for a minute and a half, you know? But if you don't have the phone, you just kind of enjoy the world. And that's where ideas happen. The constant, constant, constant gauge rooms is not where you have innovation and ideas. Ideas happen when our minds wander and we go, and you see something else, and we can do that. That's called innovation. Right? But we're taking away all those little moments, right? You should not, and none of us, none of us should charge our phones by our beds. We should be charging our phones in the living rooms, right? Remove the temptation. You wake up in the middle of the night because you can't sleep, you won't check your phone, which makes it worse. But if it's in the living room, it's relaxed, it's fine. I I know, but it's my alarm clock. Buy an alarm clock. It costs eight dollars. I'll I'll buy right, but the point is, the point is, is we now, in industry, whether we like it or not, we don't get a choice. We now have a responsibility to make up the shortfall and to help this amazing, idealistic, fantastic generation build a perfect, learn patience, learn the social skills, find a better balance between life and technology. Because, quite frankly, it's it's the right thing to do. I'm just gonna tell you something, right? So, I'm just holding my phone. Well, don't be honest, uh, it's not buzzing, it's not beeping. I'm not checking it, I'm just holding it. Let me just ask you a question. Do you feel like it's the most important thing to me right now? Exactly. Does it deep see the psychological reaction when you're walking around the house with a client holding your phone, even if you're not checking it? And I have absolutely habit where I've been walking around with an agent and they're talking to me, and then I like look to the left and I turn around and they're like this. Guess how that made me feel? That I am not the most important thing to that person in this moment. Wow, right? I'm just doing it right now in front of a room, and I'm not even looking down, and you don't feel that special, right? So, uh, the point is put your phone away for the 10 minutes you're walking around a house.

Learning Their Name

SPEAKER_01 20:15

The art of making someone feel seen and heard is stupidly simple. Right? Learning their name really quickly is really easy, and calling them by their name is really easy. Ask them questions about who they are, like where they see themselves in five years professionally, like you know, are you married, you single? What do you, you know, what do you learn about as if you know as as people. And all of that learning makes you show people different things. It makes you, it makes you creative. We are designed to take care of each other. As social animals, it is in our biology that we will take care of each other. This is why it feels so good when somebody does something really nice for us with no expectation of anything in return. We've all had the experience where somebody does something nice and you're like, oh my god, thank you. And then they put their hand out, you're like, oh it kind of like ruins the whole experience. Completely. It ruins it. But when they just do it and they're like, no, no, no, and you let, please, and it's like, no, no, no, no. It's my pleasure. Yes. You know, not only does our esteem for them go up, but it just it feels good. Likewise, it feels good when we do something for someone else with no expectation of anything in return. When we give our time and our energy, money actually doesn't work, believe it or not. Like if I told you I gave $500 to charity this morning, you'd be like, okay. That's great, Saturday. But if I told you that last weekend I gave up my Saturday and went to paint at schools in the inner city, you'd be like, nice, that's really awesome. Now the value of my labor was worth a lot less than $500. And that's the point, right? That's the point.

Taking Care Of One Another

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Which is um we are designed to take care of each other. And there's a chemical called oxytocin, um, which is the chemical responsible for our feelings of love, friendship, and trust. When you look at somebody you adore and you go like this, that's oxytocin. When somebody touches you and says, Oh my god, it's so good to see you. Touch creates oxytocin. It's so good to see. You know, it actually makes us feel closer to each other. You know? When oxytocin is released in our bodies, not only does it make us feel good, not only does it boost our immune systems, but the more oxytocin we have in our bodies, it actually makes us more generous because the human body is trying to get us to look after each other. And it gets even better than that. The person who does the act of generosity, giving the time or energy without expectation of anything in return, they get a shell of oxytocin. The person on the receiving end gets a shell of oxytocin. And even witnessing an act of generosity or kindness releases oxytocin. It feels good to see somebody do something nice. And the more oxytocin we have in our bodies, as I said, means we're more likely to do something nice with somebody. This is the biology of pay it forwards. It's the human body's desperate attempt to get us to look after each other. And so when we create environments where we allow that to flow, it does naturally. It just takes care of itself. It's just biology. To have someone believe in us, to have one person see a spark in us, helps us recognize that it helps us see the spark in ourselves. It just, I think it takes one, only one person, whether it's a friend or a coach or a parent, a boss sometimes, you know, who says, who takes a liking to us. Almost all of us, almost all of us, can remember one person in our lives where it's a coach or a teacher who took us under their wing and saw something that we didn't see. And every single successful person on the planet has that person. But I think most of us do. Most of us have somebody who saw something in us, and we are who we are, in part because of that person.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Wow, I hope you feel the same way I do. Yeah, wow. It's just now of course it's time to unpack. And that's why I would suggest that you go to the show notes because I have broken down the various aspects of what Simon said into some hopefully easily understandable components so that you can go back. Now, what did Simon say about trust? What did he say about leadership? What were those four aspects of uh working with millennials? Well, as I said, go to the show notes because you'll see it all broken down. But here's a couple of things that resonated with me. And what got me interested in this sound bite in the first place, because there's a word that's become, I guess, the hallmark of what I do with athletes in the role of the coach. And as an athlete uh oneself. And it's the word trust. It's the word that means so much. But from an athlete's perspective, I love to ask this question, and those of you who have uh been around me long enough, I love to say to an athlete, we'll put it into the curling context, how much do you trust your delivery? Of course, now during the lawn bowl season, I guess I say the same thing to lawn bowlers. Same thing. On a scale of one to ten, how much do you trust your delivery? And usually the answer that comes back to me is somewhere in the six, seven, eight, nine range. The problem is that's you know really not what I asked. I asked you how much you trusted it on a scale of one to ten. And you see, trust is digital. It's either one or zero, I suppose, or ten. You don't sort of trust something. But then, of course, trust means that emotion, that feeling that we place in one another, whether it's from a coaching or leadership from perspective to those in our charge, or when you look at your role on the team or in the group. And the the the word trust is so important. I was really glad that Simon talked about that. But right at the end, when he sort of, you know, gave the formula for connecting with people, and he talked about one of the most important parts of anyone is their name. And and here's a suggestion for you because you know I'm I'm taking my own advice here. When I go through the checkout at the grocery store, almost all of the the employees at the checkout wear an egg tag. And I make it a point to use the person's name. Hi Mary, how are you doing today? How's your day going? And the the reaction that I get is amazing. Um Mary is one of the women that is at the checkout of the grocery store that I frequent. And uh uh I I try to look for her if she's working that day, and I will say, hi Mary, how's your day going today? And and I can tell that it's one of the, you know, not trying to pat myself on the back, but that means so much to that person. Just something, just something small like that. And I I remember in my coaching career, I'm not going to identify the athlete, but I had an athlete on on a team who was uh just just a superb brusher, uh, a really good curler, but a superb brusher. But but this athlete was very quiet, very reserved. And I went up to this athlete one time and I said, you know, uh I'll call this person Tim. I said, you know, Tim, we've got something that nobody else has. And Tim looked at me like, oh, well, well, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, coach. What do we have that nobody else has? Tim, we've got you. And that made that athlete's, not just that athlete's day, but I think it made a difference. And I always go back to the words of the late Maya Angelo when she said, they'll forget what you said, they'll forget what you've done, they'll never forget how you made them feel. So, coaches out there, there's something to take away. Again, the words of Maya Angelo, they'll forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. So, I hope you have enjoyed the words of Simon Seneck, and I hope that uh the chapter markers will help you as you go back and listen to this again because it's like that movie that you see many times. You get something different from it each time. I I really, really feel that this sound bite can make a difference. So, my friends, until next time, remember those great, wise words of North American philosopher Charlie Brown. Don't focus too much on things that make you sad, because there's so many things that can make you happy.