hey folks welcome to dennis miller plus one coming to you oddly from hollywood where i've asked them to completely recreate my home studio and the actual kick i'm still at home and we're joined today by author motivational speaker simon sinek simon is best known for his 5 books and his ted talks and i know you're thinking jeez who you know who doesn't have a ted talk well only for 3 other people have a ted up that is more watched than simon's the 4th most watched. of all time with over 49000000 views i i think if it gets to 50000000 we all get a fry up greater something his latest book is the infinite game it is a new york times best sellers currently available online and in stores mr cynical

are you my friend and i'm very well thanks very good to see you. well certainly as i wrote about you did at thought well i'm a positivist and then i thought well let's see how positives positivists are reacting to a complete lack of sed to me. and house house the court scene holding up for you my friend. you know i don't think of myself as a positive as i think of myself as an optimist i think there's a big difference between the 2 i think positive start to everywhere you go further before you go further tell me that i'm fascinated by that yeah i think i think being positive is seeing the world through rose rose colored glasses it's looking around going everything's fine everything's good everything's good which i think is is that i think is naive and in denial of the world that's going around us as an optimist i am i am not naive to the fact that we're in a dark tunnel but i see the light at the end and i think that's what optimism is

it's believing that that the future is bright and i'm fixated on that light rather than the darkness of the tunnel i believe the future is positive so i like to think of myself as a as an optimist point taken and mr cynic point taken i like. i was wondering what happens if you see the glass half empty but it is rose colored glass what sort of what sort of physical quandary do we have right there you know at as an optimist i see the glasses that i see the glass is totally full half full with water and half filled with air so it's it's all good there you know a lot of now that is a sharp observation for it it's a put a metaphor of just by good reading this is going to be interesting. listen. you know i hear people saying that we're having a hard time isolating i must really be an outlier on this stuff because i can't

believe in the course of 2 lunar cycles we went from having iran what is it 7 and change a 1000000000 wise as far as citizens on the planet or 4 of them staying in there a perk that i find a pretty no using don't you. it you know it's an astonishing thing and i and i the thing that i appreciate about it is that this is a great equalizer though though our experiences are not equal we all have to experience it and for the 1st time in all of our lifetimes we can relate to anyone on the planet every single person on the planet no matter where they are we have a shared experience in some way shape or form you know and i find that incredible what it's for all of the divisions that we're able to find amongst each other it's there's a odd sort of i don't want to quote a warmth but there's an odd sort of happy feeling i get that that we're actually united as a human race listen it's like

a bunker mentality at the measure no line proximity to the abyss certainly brings people together and makes them fast track deed and you know i read it closely and it was a little bit it was a little bit i and randy and it put me off in that way but i always thought it was such in another way look through another prism i thought it was a beautiful sentiment where somebody said the children are poor people's diamonds and that always blew me away that like in the commonality of the the human experience you could be the richest rockefeller in the world or you can be the poor person who and when you have that child you're equally illuminated so level language was rough i always loved the sentiment of the commonality of the human experience at some point in dire straits yeah it does become almost unanimous i think and you speak to that side i'm heartened by that too. yeah yeah and it is a thing to be played up you know our arc our shared experiences that needs to be talked about more you know across nations. rather than then there's plenty of time

to discuss the divides later there's plenty of times discussion he said she said and who did what and who acted appropriately like there's plenty of time for for the post-mortem but 1st 1st i think we have to get through it as as as one. could you know i don't see that but i don't think it's not you know. don't worry i'm not going to hold you to that because i'm a pragmatist. you're talking to simon sinek and he has a new book the infinite yeah it's out now wherever books are sold. tell me about the book simon i we should get to business here tell me about the new book and then we'll get to the ted talk later in the segment but the book. yeah so a philosopher by the name of james carse in the mid 1980 s. . theorized that there are these 2 types of games finite games and infinite games

a finite game is defined as known players fixed rules and an agreed upon objective football baseball there's always a beginning middle and an end and if there is a winner there has to be a loser and then there are infinite games infinite games are defined as known and unknown players which means new players can join at any time the rules are changeable which means you can play however you want and the objective is to perpetuate the game to stay in the game as long as possible we are players and infinite games every day of our lives there is no such thing as being number one in your marriage not going to happen. there is no such thing as as as you can be number 2 but you can be number one. there's no such thing as winning health care winning education winning global politics nobody's declared the winner of careers and there's definitely no such thing as winning business but if we listen to the language of so many of our leaders they talk about being number one being the best

or beating the competition based on what based upon what agreed upon objectives based upon what agreed upon metrics what agreed upon time frames which means we're playing for the wrong game that we're actually in and when we play with a finite mindset in an infinite game when we play to win a game that has no finish line there's a few very consistent and predictable outcomes among which include the decline of trust the decline of cooperation and the decline of innovation and so what i wrote about is if we have to be players in these infinite games then we have to learn to adjust our mindset to an infinite mindset and that's what i wrote about. let me ask you this i mean as a parent when i was young. and had 1st had my boys i remember going to field day on the pitch at the school and i remember stopping the tug of war and calling it a tie after a very brief amount of time i wasn't going to turn into the guy who stands there

and starts lecturing on the harsh nature of life and how kids need to develop right no scan i just sort of ate it because at that point my prime directive was not make my children stand out with the dad who's the loud about the field gay so i just shut up but i do remember registering that this is a codify game that they're turning into an infinite game and i'm not sure this yet service down the road with your thoughts there's nothing the infinite game the existence of the infinite game is not the denial of finite games there are finite games within the infinite game and they're actually very important you know we as a species are driven by metrics and tangible outcomes and we need those things to motivate us but it's a bit it's about re understanding the game in which you're in so we we have to stop thinking about our lives our businesses our careers a sporting events of which there's beginning middles and ends and there's a winner and a loser and the a better analogy is more like exercise or lifestyle that you want to live

a healthy lifestyle so you can have a finite you can have a finite goal you want to lose x. amount of weight by x. date and that's very motivating and you count the metrics and you weigh yourself every day and if you hit the goal it's very exciting however the game doesn't end you actually have to keep exercising for the rest of your life. and likewise if you miss the goal nothing happens absolutely nothing. because it was an arbitrary number set on an arbitrary date if anything you're actually healthier now than when you started and if you just keep going you'll hit the goal in a month or 2 and business is the same way we set our financial goals. and they're there they're arbitrary number set to arbitrary dates and if we miss them nothing happens but if we've been and if we've under good leadership with with with trusted teams and we're working toward something to invent something bigger than ourselves then if we miss the goal it's ok because we'll hit it in another 2 or 3 months and

the and the organization is better for it so i think we have to reconfigure all the metaphors that we use and we think about these things even my sister who unfortunately for her is subjected to all of my ideas as i'm as i'm writing and you know i sort of test things out on her and i in the in the mindset of an infinite game i stopped thinking of things as good bad right wrong and started thinking that in terms of ahead or behind because because you can't there's no winning in an infant game there's only being ahead or behind. and so my nephew my little nephew who's 9 years old is a very very competitive little kid gets very very angry when when he loses and he was playing football at school and he scored the losing touchdown and and he was very angry and my sister did not dispense the traditional the

traditional you know parent advice it doesn't matter if you win or lose what matters of how you play the game right. as my old college roommate said than then why do we keep score. but what she said to him is ok you had a behind day today that's all you had a behind it as opposed you had a bad day or you lost it helped him as a 9 year old understand that this is a continuum that this is not final that to be angry and furious about it is irrelevant to. and or unhelpful rather because they'll be another game and to understand that it's a journey and if his goal is to play professional football one day which is not going to happen but if that's his that's his dream then he has to have more ahead days than behind days and i really i really love that she use that with a child to understand this is a journey not an event and you can say that about so many things in our lives well how many times have we been told and i often think it's sort of the prime cord turn of the buddhism that it's the journey because sometimes. the who gets their goals

in life i don't feel like right come and certainly not. and certainly not on time. so that's why you have to assume that you'll get the promotion in the next life that's right and that jet engine and even even america and it's been really helpful during these corona times you know we don't all deal with trauma the same way some of us shut down immediately some of us went into go mode immediately as if we were in combat we're just focused on the mission and we compartmentalize and some of us sort of waxed and waned between the 2 of them and it's unpredictable and so even on our team we stop saying i'm having a good day or a bad day when we report out because it sounds to fix that sounds too much of a of a fixed narrative but rather we report out to each other i'm having a behind day or i'm having a head day and i think and mounting that you're having

a head day even in one's career one's business i think it builds in an element of humility which is this won't last. you know no matter how good it is this is this is not permanent likewise if you're having a behind a this too will not last. well listen i've had bad interviews and dare i say this is a good one or i'm i'm ahead and ahead of you it's a good internet as it's different because i've had interviews. and will come back and see if we can push it a night a little further ahead in the next segment right simon sinek. time after time called parisian to repeat the same mantra sustainability it's very important to accelerate the transition to sustainable transport sustainability stay

in her manner the more equitable and sustainable well. they claim their production is completely hama's. the big. companies my models and it builds on the prison companies want us to feel good about buying their products while the damage is being done far away and this is something else this wasn't going to mean and i mean look. this is the moon i mean listen we didn't dream and strengthened then we understood so when. hey welcome back to dennis miller plus one my guest today is simon sinek he has

a new book out called the infinite game he also has delivered the force i'm fascinated by this because these things are. a little believe me think there's a lot of podcasts out there there's a lot of ted talks to i was once thinking of giving a ted talk on vincent van gogh's brother tale calling it a tale of ted talk but then i saw that somebody had beat me to a larger story at some point but we are tight we are talking the author or the deliverer of the 4th most watched ever tell me the topic tell me how how you i don't even know how one gets to a book launch pad for a ted talk and then are you amazed that it takes off to that degree. it was a ted x. so it was one of the it was actually quite a small event was only about 50 people in seattle washington and back then ted x. was a reasonably new idea where you can put on your own you can organize your own ted event and you get a license from the ted organizations i actually was on the main ted stage and i

shared this idea that of this theory that i had been. sharing for a couple years prior. based on this i concept of why that every single one of us knows what we do these the jobs we perform the products we sell whatever it is like that some of us some of us know how we do it the things that we think make us different or especially stand out from the crowd but very very few of us can clearly articulate why we do it we do and by why i don't mean to make money or be successful those are results by my why i mean what's your purpose what's your cause what's your belief why do you get out of bed in the morning and why should anyone care and i talked about how this the most inspiring leaders the most inspiring organizations everyone from martin luther king to steve jobs the way they think act and communicate is the exact opposite to the rest of us we'll start by telling people what we do and how we're different and they all started by talking about why they do what they do and what i learned is that this this this the organizing of

these 3 essential components is actually based on the biology of human decision making wasn't my opinion and the the i did the talking and didn't think anything of it like i said it was just a small little event they put it up on you tube and in just a couple months it became the most watched ted x. talk. ever which then the people at ted the main organization took note of it and put it on their main web site and it was very rare for them to put a ted x. talk because the quality was so low on the big fancy beautifully you know curated ted's site and it went viral very quickly it actually reached the 2nd most watched talk pretty quickly and and i only found out that they put it up about a week after it happened a week before it happened rather so it caught me completely by surprise and it was sort of an amazing ride to watch it happen. i think the reason that it resonates with so many people is that it's

a fundamentally human idea and it was born out of very authentic experience i articulated this concept of why not as an academic pursuit nor as a commercial. but rather it was a solution i found to my own challenges in my life at the time which i had lost my passion i had lost the passion for my own work at the time i owned a small marketing consultancy and superficially my life was good you know i made a decent living i was living the american dream i own my own business i did we our company did good work and our we have amazing clients not clients liked our work respected our work except i didn't want to wake up and do it again and i was very embarrassed by this and so instead of admitting well how i felt because of the embarrassment you know what was me my life look superficially good and i don't want to do it you know i was lying hiding and faking every day of my life i was pretending that i was happier more successful and more in control than i actually felt which only made those negative feelings darker and it wasn't until

a very dear friend of mine came to me and recognized something's different something's wrong and i came clean and i basically came clean and said how i actually felt and it was such a cathartic experience because all of that energy that i was using to live and fake every day i now invested in finding a solution and the solution that i found was this was this magical little hierarchy and i realized i knew what i did i knew how i did it but i didn't know why and i realized that was the missing component so i went on this journey to find my why and when i did it restored my passion to levels i'd never experienced before and it was so profound i did what anybody would do i shared it with my friends i shared it with the people i loved you know use read a great book you see a good movie you tell your friends to watch it you know and read it i did the same thing and i told my friends about this idea they started making crazy life changes and would invite me to their homes to share with their friends and it was just a whole organic journey even the invitation to do the ted x. that's how it happened people were just hearing about the work and and it was all

very very natural so i think that's the reason that took off is because it's it was fundamentally born and i think a very. common experience i think a lot of us a lot of us struggle with what our passion is or what it could be or if we had it we lose it i think is a very normal human experience and i put words to it. i'm i'm intrigued and by the way folks anybody watching this has been in therapy adverse in their life and but i'm not i've been them numb or serapis i always found it a cathartic think what simon was referring to there you cannot believe the power of getting something that lives soley inside your head out of your pipe hole onto the ear of another human being even if it's one friend what what sort of amazing game it opens up it is one of the most powerful thing it's how 12 step programs work i believe at some point i'm not mystical and i'm not i'm not starry eyed i think life can be brutish but i do know that there's something about you when you are deeply

conflicted and trying to figure it out and be as ingenious as you can on your interior are never going to find that solution almost and when he said i'm fascinated by that so just by telling your one friend your life changes in that moment correct yeah and i think and i and obviously i've learned many lessons since of the profoundly changed the course of my life obviously it's set in a whole new career for me but it changed the way i approach life and it changed the way i view life it changed that lens entirely for me and i i literally stopped talking about what i did and started talking about what i believed and i followed all of these things that i was talking about as if i turned myself into the guinea pig i said well this is a theory i'm going to test it out of myself and and strange things started to happen you know it's like you sit next to somebody on a plane and they ask you that dreaded question what do you do. and when when i

would be asked the dreaded question i would never answer it as expected i would talk about what i believed and people who believed what i believed. immediately responded to me emotionally and wanted me to meet people who believed what we believed and you know my career started moving at an unbelievably fast pace and what i try to explain to people is i was the same iggy it that i was before nothing had changed i hadn't learned anything or hired anybody new and in win the lottery all that's changed was that i stopped talking about what i did and started talking about what i believed and within 6 months the things went so within 6 months i was standing in the pentagon sharing this exact idea with the chief of staff and secretary of the air force prior to that i had 0 contact with the military in my life. and lots of surreal things started to happen because it became of use to we spew start to see that human beings are so driven by common values and belonging that when we win when one is able to capture in words things that are

usually feelings you know we use our we make gut decisions and and and i know all the facts say i shouldn't do this but it just feels right or it just feels wrong you know it there's something about this person that i just trust if you can put all of those feelings into words it you know if things move at a strange pace. and and it's the most frequent compliment i used to get people would come up to me after after an event and say i've been trying to say that for years you helped me put into words the thing i've been trying to say and that's the thing that i think is so special about the concept which is that it articulate something that exists in our limbic brain the part of our brain that controls all of our feelings all of our behavior but it doesn't control language. and that's why we speak in metaphors or we get tongue tied and we try and tell someone how we feel it's because it's a different part of the brain. so it it it was profound. what

if you felt here's something i'm always intrigued by learning to get in touch with your feelings on most seems to always lead to some sort of altruism or what happens to the person who follows their feelings and finds they're sort of devoid of any mean and sociopathic that i mean they find out that in some way they best operate when they're not in a state of emotional hemophilia or something i watch the world now and i sometimes think my god everybody is soap touchy feely now at some point you need somebody you need gary cooper somebody has got to answer the draw call it i knew you know somebody has got to be you are and i'm wondering you say that you express how you feel do you do you find that in some way that makes use softer or 2

saw i don't know i'm i don't quite know what i'm yes i know it's i don't know if you know that's not in our question it's a very fair question and i think you know i think this modern bismarckian era has misinterpreted good advice and confused. being vulnerable with the people we care about the people we love with going online and saying all the emotions that you're having you know they're not the same thing and and it's you know being vulnerable is is is not it's not a it's not a it's not a it's not a fair piece session with you in a webcam. you know it being vulnerable is feeling safe. afterwards and that requires another human being i mean you talk about alcoholics anonymous. and the 12 step program and it really does get to the core of what what

the stuff means you know most people are familiar with the 1st step which is admitting you have a problem. but it's the 12 step that matters most. and alcoholics anonymous knows that if you master all 11 steps and not the 12th you're probably going to succumb to the disease again but if you master the 12 steps you're more likely to beat the disease in the 12 step is to help another alcoholic its service and it underscores the fact that as social animals we need each other like none of us are strong enough to do this stuff alone and you can't be vulnerable by yourself it doesn't exist it reminds me of a really funny t.v. commercial in it was an old t.v. commercial in england. of the door opens and this this sort of stereotypical sort of middle aged chubby guy you know walks into his small apartment you're ready forming a narrative for him and he has little piers little dog sitting there little cocker spaniel or whatever it was jack russells jack russell a couple of i remember this is a little jack russell he walks past the dog and he sits down at a and you watch the scene play out of him getting undressed and getting redressed

and women's clothing and putting on makeup and dressing himself you know next crush dressing and and the commercial ends by saying your dog will never judge you adopt a pet you know we don't. like we don't feel unsafe alone. we feel unsafe in public or in the company of others that's where all our insecurities lie and it's why we act stupidly when we're attracted to someone and to feel safe requires another human being and we're more likely to create a space in which we can feel safe if we share values and beliefs which is by talking about our values and beliefs not just how we feel and i think that's what you know it's all it's a little f. not a big gap it's not like i feel the pull it's not that it's just tapping into words that that are not about the it's not about measurable stuff it's nice to meet you my friend the now you've been nice to meet you dad is a real pleasure thanks for having me on we'll talk at you down the road the book is

the infinite game and it's written by our friend simon sinek this is dennis miller plus one at a local. he

started to cause a belief so he put good in each other than the human friends who. saw that on the boat are going to do the book on the soul that this is for me just. instead of. me emotional running t.v. months ago i feel still really stuck with muscles from the course which mrs to. use to sloth could. feel the bumps your. compassion that. we think you might be soldier because off the boot she's wearing. a huge wedge so the sole looks like to move the opposing opinion with because i knew i'm going on the shore stuck in the summer watching

a police force sort of us hold. hello and welcome the cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle the underlying narrative some call it a myth of american foreign policy is the country's exceptional position on the world stage this is the bipartisan consensus however reality is very different the global pandemic has demonstrated the us should focus on its own exceptional problems at all.