Over the years, people who like my work, bring up pranay, Brand's name, more than anyone else. And Brunei told me that the people who like her work, bring up my name more than anyone else. It turns out that we may be two sides of the same coin that our work together.
Is something bigger than by itself. So what a treat for me to sit down and talk to burn a. And what might surprise people is we actually don't agree on everything. In fact, we even disagree on my own work but one thing is true, we respect each other and we learn from each other. This is a bit of optimism first and foremost. How are
We're good, Texas, in general, is really still suffering deaths and just hard stuff.
I mean, it's insane to me the pandemic, Texas. You know, one of the whole things that this thing is revealed to me is just especially in the United States. We think we're like so far ahead and we got everything sorted out it. Like this whole thing is so Faustian to me like we made a deal to be rich and we're crap.
Now it is a complete Faustian bargain and there's a couple of bad things. First of all, I don't understand why.
By 500,000 people dead, we are the center of oil and gas business in the United States. And we've got people dead from a snow and ice storm and just the failures in leadership, but no one remembers that when it's time to
vote. We have a leadership vacuum in the United States. Yeah, I mean, we have a leadership vacuum in the world, but it's really significant, the United States, it's not a recent thing. This is a slow boiling frog and you can trace it very easily back to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
We had this existential threat outside of our own borders, it was a philosophical and ideological contest, and it doesn't matter what somebody's politics are. You can go back and listen to JFK or Ronald Reagan's inaugural address. They both talked about peace on Earth, World Peace. As driving Ambitions to say those words, right now, World. Peace. It's actually sounds cheesy. Yeah, and this idea of like big purpose and idealism to drive decisions was a real thing.
And made easier by the fact that there was this existential threat this contest. And when the Soviet Union ran out of money to play in the game, we falsely believe, we had one because you don't win in an infinite game. The player just dropped out it's like Circuit City went bankrupt, Best Buy, didn't win anything and then you start to see the fact that we no longer have great purpose. We no longer have an external existential threat, what starts to happen as we become more and more finite, more and more short-term, focus more and more insular.
And the great philosophical contexts are no longer external, they become internal. So we no longer perceive external threats as existential. We now perceive each other as existential threats, we have opposing political parties that are just different philosophies of how to advance what was laid down for some the Declaration of penance. That's all it is that we think we should go this way. Well we think we should go this way. That's what political parties are but now we actually accuse each other being anti-American, unpatriotic Traders and view each other as the threat to America.
What? And now
I was listening to Jon Meacham has a podcast series about great speeches given over time and I was listening to Kennedy during Bay of Pigs. Martin Luther King, Churchill during the Blitzkrieg. And there's a couple things that struck me one, the big audacious goal that slightly Out Of Reach, you know, the just cause as you would say and the honesty and no bullshit way, they talk.
Let me tell you, I was listening to this series of speeches during the Bay of Pigs where Kennedy was odd like. Well it seems dire and we're not sure what we're going to do. But it does seem really dangerous, I'll get back with you all tomorrow after we do some more thinking, our Churchill saying, we cannot concede your son's, your brother's, your father's will die, but we cannot give up. Can you imagine that kind of candid response from a politician today? The game is so finite, it's actually starts two years after their elected.
Because they have to start campaigning again.
Yeah, I don't think people realize how powerful being honest really is. It's the whole debate about taking Pilots out of a cockpit. Can you imagine getting on a plane? With no Pilots. We're just computers control the aircraft and the strong argument could be made that the computers are way more reliable. Yeah. That's palpable less fallible than Pilots, but we would rather have a human being in charge, knowing that, they make mistakes because most airplane, crashes, or Pilot error, and it's the same here, I don't think Paul.
Tuitions and leaders recognize that simply being honest, even if I'm going to make a mistake is actually way, more confident, building than pretending, you've got everything under control.
When do you think that
shifted? Well, like I said, I think it's been a steady drumbeat since the fall of the Berlin wall and you can see it. It's got nothing to do with the political parties, you know, Bush 41, and then Clinton and you start to see especially under the Clinton years. We did a lot of dismantling of Regulation that made us way more.
Or finite minded. And by the time you get to the Trump Administration, Trump is not a cause he's a symptom for sure and he's the most exaggerated finite player because that's the path we've been on.
It's really interesting, the couple of thoughts one when Trump was elected, I was writing the foreword for a book and they said can you write about your thoughts? And I said, you know, I think this is white male power over making the last and I think it could have been Trump or anyone else. I think this is someone with a very specific point of view about power being finite and using power over not
We're with power to and power is infinite shared, and this is going to be a Last Stand and it's probably going to get violent and crazy. And I think that happened. I think that this idea of power over versus Power with into really coincides, with what you're talking about, around the fall of the Berlin
Wall. I'm very uncomfortable, and I've thought about this a lot over the years and it really bugs me. I'm very uncomfortable with the fact that you have to have a. Not that like it's wonderful and beautiful and ideological to know what we
Stand for, but I recognize that that's ethereal.
Right. Vision is an ethereal thing inherently, it's intangible, whereas when there is an existential threat or something or someone who stands for something different or opposed to what you stand for, it's tangible and easier to see and the challenge I have is do you have to have a not that like, you know, we can all agree and not that like we don't want to be the Soviet Union. Do you have to have an? I even don't like the term, an enemy to be clear on what you stand for and I uncomfortably keep coming.
The answer.
Yes. Well I'll tell you how this relates very much to my research. When I asked people about love, they told me about heartbreak, when I asked them about trust. They told me about betrayal when I asked him about connection, they told me about disconnection. So part of the problem is that we lack actually the language and vocabulary to talk about what is people have a really hard time defining love. But they can tell you with excruciating detail about heartbreak and if you look into
The literature in psychology and social science across the board. You'll see that we have a hundred X, the research on negative emotion than we do want positive emotion. So I think it's the inability to articulate in a meaningful galvanizing key word being galvanizing way. What is possible?
What is it about? Positive emotion, that feels intangible where negative emotion feels very
real. Well, I think it goes down to neurobiologists.
Biology. I think it goes down to our wiring that we are wired for survival above all else. There's not even a close second in terms of what the brain is wired to do. And so the brains interest in positive effect is not as great as the brains acute feelers out for negative affect everything from fear and physical threat to emotional threat to stress overwhelming anxiety, despair. Anguish.
It's how we're wired
this explains a lot, but it's also a little bit depressing, because if it's a biological thing, that means positive is always intangible and hard to grasp and negative is always tangible. And easy to grasp, is that mean you have to have evil to know what? Good feels like?
No, no, I mean, I'm hardwired most of us are that if someone says something really shitty to me or not, one of my children, I'm hard-wired to punch him in the face, but I don't do that. And so, I think we can
Can address the hard wiring with mindfulness and critical thinking. But I will tell you positive emotion requires more complex thinking it requires. Reality Checking, some of the emotional feelings that were having I can scare you into joining me. I have to engage with you cognitively in a thinking way to inspire you to join me.
I don't know, I agree that it requires more thought for the affirmative, but I mean, let's look at your career in my career, right? The things that we have come up with we're not the first people to come up with, for sure. People been talking about purpose for the thousands of years. You and I learned how to communicate the things we believe in the positive by telling good stories, storytelling and storytelling makes those intangibles.
Things feel tangible, and people join the story and we don't have to be rational, or convince someone to join. We can Inspire someone to join because we can paint a picture of a future, that is so clear to them in their own imaginations. That they're inspired to say, I'd like to be a part of that, please.
I disagree go on.
Go on. I wish I could see your face right now. I love
this. Yeah, no, I disagree. I love this. Go on
what I would say is, I me I disagree and agree. I do think there's a fundamental difference in the way, I think about it
because rational thought doesn't Inspire. No facts. Don't Inspire
no, but I'll tell you what does yeah. Is conceptually complex. Ideas made accessible with
That people didn't have access to before they heard you
talk. You mean a story? No, no, I mean, sometimes
a story I do think in three acts you can Inspire someone. Whether that 3x story is a Pixar movie, or that 3x story is a 20-minute Ted talk, or that 3x story is a five-minute story. You can Inspire someone with a story, I don't think you can engage people in meaningful.
Change without giving them some tools and skill building which requires new cognitive ways of thinking about things. I don't think that all cognition, is rational dry thought? I mean, I think storytelling is a cognitive craft that has emotional valence like, thinking about going in and doing some work with Pixar. When they
Stuck on a film, and it's like ballet, the more effortless. Looks the more, really deep? Analytical cognitive work goes into it with storytelling. Like I'm a good Storyteller because I understand the craft of story but who gives a shit if I'm not saying something that's important.
So I don't think we disagree. I don't think we do either. I think this is actually not one or it's
One end,
right? Yes, I agree.
And I think that the story invites because we've started this talking about what is it takes me to join? And then the question is, what does it take for them to stay and do hard work? You know, it's like everybody joins the gym with the vision in January and then is done by March, when they realize, this is hard work and they sieve gym memberships. Go up 12 percent every year every January. So I think the story does the
And then we want to see that there's Goods otherwise it's just marketing. We want to see that there's honesty and we want to see that the leader believes in this. It's not just their get-rich-quick scheme and I think time, you know, it's kind of like relationships, I guess when you go on a first date everything's amazing because we're fitting someone into the vision, we have for the partner we want and they check all the boxes and then all of the things that are wrong start to show up and they're like, all right, I still like them. But then the Beauty and the love comes later.
Later when we realize all the vulnerability
in the hard work, that's true.
I don't think it's either or I think it's both but you still need the vision in the story for the invitation to go on the second day, the third day, the fourth date. You don't start with hard work, you don't start on date ones. Like let me tell you all my baggage you'll never get a second date even though I really want to know your baggage. And it's actually going to make me fall in love with you. Just not yet.
I'm thinking, I'm really thinking this is my thinking face.
So, yeah, but stories are not neutral. Stories can be fashioned into Weaponry really easily. Sure
I'm trying to think about. I'm so
hold on, hold on. I have to. So does this mean we can't be vulnerable on date one?
No, I disagree. Yeah, that's why I'm thinking. This
is what I miss such thing as over oversharing. I've done it. I've done it. Let me tell you not effective.
Have, you know, just being able to manage your vulnerability on a first date, just going on. A first date is vulnerable in itself. It's not like you can choose. I do think that when I was writing braving the Wilderness, I studied this a lot. I do think common enemy intimacy is a very powerful thing. This kind of counterfeit connection that we feel when we hate the same people or the same things and that is the ultimate Tha ostium bargain, right? Because the minute you start thinking about something and you disagree. You lose.
What is perceived as belonging which was actually never belonging. But I do think that I do see thought, or cognition affect or emotion and behavior as a three-legged stool. And I don't see them, temporarily connected, I don't see that you have to lead with one and come in with the other. For me, I'd see the way we act, the way, we feel the way we think, as inextricably connected in
Time and in everything we do. So I'm thinking about your stories, I'm thinking about you specifically when you tell a story, I do feel emotionally awakened, I do feel hooked and I do feel, I feel. Hard stop, but I don't think I've ever read. I'm trying to think so it's not hyperbolic, but I cannot remember an instance of reading a story.
That you were telling our hearing one and in person and not being as cognitively engaged as I was emotionally engaged and also behaviourally questioning. So, I think there is for me when we talk about do you have to have an enemy? I think those narratives actually require
Lean to suffocate cognition.
The people that do that, the best are people that really don't want you to think, they just want you to feel
which is highly manipulative
which is highly manipulative, right? So I would argue that we're right in the middle of the book I'm writing right now and so I'm just picturing all the data in my mind. I would argue that the fork in the road goes back to a different question, not even the use of story not even.
Cognition affect Behavior. It goes back to is your intention self-focused or other focused? Yeah. Yeah, selfish
yourself. Is that make sense? Yeah, I think intention is a big part of it. I agree with you. What? I'm trying to sort of suss out here. The three-legged stool thing challenges, the basis of my original work which is start with Y, which is a three-legged stool. But the argument that I make is has a
turning point.
You need all three, but you gotta start with one. And so I agree with a three-legged stool, but when someone starts with rational,
We disengage.
When someone comes out, okay, I do know. It's so crazy because I don't want to argue with you about your own
work argue away. I mean, I just just Theory, it could be completely wrong.
We are the most cynics organization that you've ever seen. We all have personal, why statements we haven't organization. Well, I'm a freaking Chief Vision officer. Like we aren't we? Yeah, we got you.
With your take on your own work and I'll tell you why. Yeah, I think scientist laughing I wish right
now this is great. I love this
stuff. I think the why the genius of the why? Yeah. Is it the only first question I've seen in 20 years of doing organizational work?
That captures all three legs of the stool.
But why is an emotional question? It engages. The emotional
brain? No, I think your why work? Yes, it's on. The throne of the three-legged stool, I do. And, and what I think, but
it's on the stool or it's a leg of the stool.
No, it is on this tool. It is, says, I
Want you?
To give deep thought.
To how you feel.
I think it's the yes. And so this is
Christmas in the same thing so you can see.
So the thing that I'm railing against these days is how binary we've made our world totally great, you know, right wrong, good, bad left, right? All of these things and it's none of those things. The world is actually quite Gray.
And it's usually and not or and in this particular case I think it's the same thing which is are we actually debating? If it's rational or emotional? The answer is, it's both. Yes. And the only question is which is more effective to get people to join and stay and do hard work and the answers, will you still need both and even when people are in it and doing the hard work and they're bought in, you still have to offer inspiration now and then totally and like you need it all and I think we're great movements survive there.
Our leaders is when there is both when there's greet, there's meat on the bone and when it's only whether it's inspiration or fear, you get Cult of Personality which can go in both directions.
Yes, great.
But when that person goes so, does the movement and I think this is the challenge that. Quite frankly, let's be honest, personalities, like you and me, and our colleagues have, which is some of us have made careers out of cult of personality.
Even though we like to think that we have movements and when we die it, stops, all of our employees will quit and go get other jobs and everything. Just goes to the right, because we didn't take it away from ourselves. We didn't become rational enough. It wasn't something where a torch could be passed and great organizations, and great movements, light torches, that can be passed. And to your point has both,
it has the inspiration and vision and it has all the rational stuff and what very often happens. We see this in Corporate America, most of all, which is there's a Visionary leader that has all of the goods. They got the inspiration and the rational stuff, and they light, the torch, and they hand it to the next person and they die, and they make it all rational. And this is why CEOs, and CFOs, who take over from Visionary, CEOs, usually muck it up because it becomes only about numbers, and only about returns, and only about efficiencies and the vision.
The inspiration stuff. The story stuff goes by the wayside and eventually it becomes ugly. So whether you have too much of one or too much of the other, it leads to Ultimate Destruction, at the end of the day. And the hard work is both the hard work is having the personalities who can understand both. And I'm not even sure the number of people who can actually do both, which is why we have Partnerships because somebody tends to lean a little more Vision. Somebody tends to lean a little more rational
rational and you see great Partnerships make great movements and great
organizations. I think that's true. I agree with everything you said I had a percent with the exception so close that. I think it's laughing at me with laughing with. We have to include Behavior. I think it's got to be thought. Yeah emotion and behavior. I think that's because
And so, we're back to you completely concurring with the three-legged stool, which is, which there was well
done. Well done brene Brown, convincing me on my own work, swell done this. So
you have to like, you don't have to admit that. I didn't invite you to consider. This is
really work repeating because I think it's a great thought, which is the three-legged stool is emotion. It's rational thought and Its Behavior, right?
I don't know. I don't usually say rational thought, I usually just say it's emotion.
Behavior and thinking. Okay, but
yeah, feeling thinking and behavior. Yeah. And I think the challenge for every human being is how to manage all three of those all the time because it's
really hard work. God, it's really impossible and there's this great quote humans don't function at irrational thinking level we function from emotion, right? And I've heard that it's like we want to believe that we're thinking beings but we're actually feeling veins. Do on occasion think right?
And so, I do think it's really hard to do all three because emotion can tie up thinking and behavior and put it in the trunk and ride roughshod over everything in 5 seconds, especially when it comes to our self-worth.
You know our do we belong or we loved to people get
us which is a perfect segue to my next
God dating.
No, I'm not gonna, I'm not touching that with a 10-foot Pole.
Why is the word vulnerability were vulnerable? So scary to so many people, like I found myself like I've written it and I said, like, in leadership, you have to be vulnerable. And then I have to write a sentence saying. I know a lot of you are scared by that word. So let me unpack this a little bit like why is the word scary? There's just a lot of
words that we have visceral reactions, to we have the same kind of visceral, reaction to the word, shame, just a mythology.
Elegy surrounding vulnerability. That it's weakness that it's over sharing that, you know, you're either the sucker, you're the asshole. Don't be too sucker. You know, that whole line of thinking is so instilled in US globally. We did a training and London, we had 50 countries of origin represented, and it was interesting because in the beginning, when we were kind of building the safe container, everyone talked about their concern about the emotional part of the training, specifically, vulnerability and shame.
I'm feeling not culturally relevant for them and then at the end of the training, the feedback was the work on vulnerability and shame was the most unifying, their what we shared in common, the most because we had 30 languages in the room and every single person stood up and gave us a saying in their own language that they heard growing up that completely vilified, vulnerability, whether it was don't get an ocean beyond your station, don't get taller than the poppies. You know what?
Ever it was it was don't put yourself out there. You're going to get hurt and that makes you look stupid. So I think our cultural training has been deep and effective so that's why we have that response to the
word vulnerability. Has a lot of shared definition most of it,
pejorative, right and inaccurate. And I think we've done a pretty good job. I mean I think you're hearing more and more and more. I mean I was talking to my publisher the other day. They said oh my God, we've got 25 vulnerability business books, coming out. What's scary about that is it?
Go the way of authentic where it gets co-opted by corporate and then redefined into something. That's not it's really interesting. I tell you a story that's really
funny. Only if it's funny
it's funny. You'll love it horrible. So I'm giving this talk and these are newly funded CEOs and Silicon Valley and some of the investors brought me in to talk to them. And so, some of them are right in the beginning of series 8, finding some of them have been funded and they're getting series B. Funding is that they're just in different stages but mostly pretty.
New CEOs. So I'm talking about vulnerability and I'm talking about what it is and what it is that and afterwards. A guy runs up to me and says, oh my God, I'm drinking the Kool-Aid which is if my first flag because a horrible analogy carnivore, right? And be if you ever leave a talk of mine decided not to critically, think about something then I'm not doing my job, right? And so, I said, well, said, Willow, say morning is no, I'm going to. I'm vulnerable. I'm going to be vulnerable. I'm not a vulnerable person.
I'm going to do it, I'm just going to look at my investors in my employees and say, look, I'm in over my head were bleeding money and I don't know what to do.
And he said, how do you think it's going to work? And I said I think it's going to be a shitshow I think it's not going to work and this is what's interesting and he said but that's what you said to do and I said did you go on a bio break? When I said that vulnerability - boundaries is not vulnerability and you have to understand who you're talking to why you're sharing that? Why would you share that with people that have followed you from other great jobs here? And he said, because I'm being vulnerable and I said, it feels like you're being manipulative actually, and he goes, oh,
And so I said I do think you need to say those things out loud to someone and we should be very thoughtful about who you say them to. Yeah. So I'm not going to tell you what I said but I will tell you this. I tell the story a lot with leaders and I always ask people if you had two years salary invested in this guy's company, raise your hand, if you're hoping. He's saying that somewhere to someone and no one puts up their hand but me
And I'm like, what do you think? The alternative is if he doesn't say anything, if he doesn't go to a mentor and advisor and say look, yeah, I'm in over my head, I don't know what I'm doing and we're bleeding money. That's what I call and my work controlled flight into terrain. Yeah, you just keep grinding and doing the exact same thing. You've been doing over and over and over again until you crash into the side of a mountain. That you didn't even know, was there. Yeah. Yeah. Like so we hope he says that to someone. Yeah.
But vulnerability - boundaries and an understanding of why you're sharing is
dangerous. That is such a great insight. And if you don't share it with someone, what you'll end up doing, it will lead to lying hiding and faking every day. Yes. And that is a terrible strategy for success, but if he says it to someone that person will say, go on, tell me more, how does that feel?
What are you going to do? And that process to your point about starting with emotion and going into thinking from feeling too thinking. Now you get to go through a process where you get to be like holding I could do this, then I could do this. Okay, I got it and then you go to your team and say okay guys this is what's going to happen and it's all built in. And again it has to come out but where we make the mistake and this is like, kids going on YouTube and telling everybody how they feel, it's a broadcast. I know I know this is a pet peeve of yours. It's
Not vulnerable its broadcast
vulnerability - boundaries is not vulnerability can be over sharing that can shock and awe. It can be attention-seeking but it's not true vulnerability because what you're looking for usually when you broadcast is validation of pain. Yeah. Not connection. Yeah,
and that is the great tragedy which is if the impulse is to share it with,
Everybody put it on YouTube. Go to my team, tell my investors everything. The question is is then where is the Friendship? Where's the Deep meaningful connection that you can actually share that in a vulnerable state? Where you're not looking for validation? That's right. I just looking for safe space, Safe Harbor, what has happened in our society of the past. 20-30 years that we seem to have forgotten or be struggling to form deep meaningful connections. Like
A friend. He's active duty military. He's a warrior. He's a remarkable human being. He is courage that I do not have, and I got off the phone with him yesterday and we ended our calling. He said, love you. That's how we ended the call. And there's this intense sense of vulnerability and emotion that comes with that friendship. That I know that I can tell him anything because we express love to each other. And my question is, what is it? That's happened. In our society brene Brown that we seem to be struggling
To form deep meaningful relationships? Or am I wrong?
No, it's a collection of skill sets that we are not developing and we're actually
losing what skill sets
degree of grounded, confidence, that we are connected enough to ourselves that we are available to be in connection with others.
And grounded confidence. I'm really defining that right now and dear to lead. I defined it as a combination of three skill sets, the ability to rumble with vulnerability, the ability to actually deal with uncertainty risk in emotional exposure. Curiosity, is a huge driver. I would bet a million dollars that you and your buddy that you talked to yesterday. Are authentically curious about each other's lives and in the last one is practice the confidence to
Practice skills when they have not yet been mastered. And I will tell you, I've been thinking a lot about your research, about the infinite game because the finite mindset is so corrosive to understanding ourselves, it changes the metrics, by which we evaluate ourselves. So true, and I didn't understand the level of corrosiveness.
The finite mindset and its relationship to the inability to forge deep meaningful connection until I talk to you in the middle of analyzing this data. Is that make sense? Yeah,
the discovery of those definitions and sort of the Deep dive. I went into that work profoundly changed my view of myself in the world and how I operate within it. Yeah. So for those who don't know what we're talking about in the mid-1980s, dr. James cars to find.
Has two types of games, finite games and infinite games. Finite game is defined as known players fixed rules and agreed upon objective football baseball. There's always a beginning middle and end. And if there's a winner, there's going to be a loser, then you have 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 we can play, however, we want. And the objective is to stay in the game as long as possible and to perpetuate the game for the good of the whole, we play for the good of the whole.
And there's no such thing as winning an infinite game. You can be a header behind but you can't win. And the problem is is when we apply a finite mind set when you play to win a game that has no Finish Line, you play with a finite mindset and infinite game. You destroy trust, you destroy cooperation. You destroy Innovative thought, and we've seen this run rampant in modern business modern politics, even modern relationships, you can win an election, but you don't win governance, you know, you can win funding, but you don't win business, you can
I'm in first for the finite time, you're in school but you don't win education. There are finite games within the infinite game. And to be ignorant of the infinite game of the context, within which all these finite games exist. You literally playing for the short-term. This cannot last. And what happened? When I started to embrace the concept of the infinite game, as a life strategy, not just a business. Strategy is all the things that started to happen to me. Good or bad. I started to view as part of a story just moments, rather than
Then culminating events. So something bad that happened? I went okay. Well, what am I going to learn from this? How will this help me? And it's something, good happened. I'd be like, okay, well, this too will pass. Yeah. Everything became temporary. So, I didn't take success too, seriously, and I didn't take pain for granted and allow it to Define me. Even the term good or bad stopped in my vernacular. I stopped being good at something or bad. It's, um,
Thing, I stop thinking something was a good event or bad oven. I stopped having good days and bad days because those things were to definitive, I had a head days in behind days.
I'd ahead events or behind events.
Because they were just moments in time, but friends have recognized. It in me I approached almost all my relationships differently to the point of being more, vulnerable, more honest less trying to think in terms of winner loses it's going to go the way I want it to go or not.
I would say the greatest infinite game that we're engaged in besides life. I mean if you want to get a little bit more micro and the one that dictates the quality and the depth of
Connections. We have is probably self awareness and self love. There's a real yearning to understand who we are, to understand ourselves to understand where we belong, to understand our Worth to understand our love ability and our capacity to love. And when we turn that into a finite game, the only metric that we can really
We use are soulless and empty and about things we acquire and external metric likes and followers. So I think the answer to your question is very tied up in your own work which is we are not deeply enough connected with the infinite love and energy that we all are. Yeah to be able to connect with other
people. I think that's right. And you said something before,
We're losing skills. Yes. And it reminded me of a story that a wonderful female entrepreneur that I know told me.
And she said, her theory is that men make better entrepreneurs than women? This is her Theory. I have to underscore that I'm listening and this is what she said. She said whether you like it or not, traditional roles, still exist. So if a boy wants to go to the prom, he has to ask out the girl, you know, traditional roles. And if the girl wants to go to the prom traditionally, she waits to be asked to go to the prom and if the guy doesn't ask, he doesn't go. And because of
at men being the, the social initiators traditionally,
At a very young age, boys. Learn to muster up courage. Ask be humiliated and rejected muster up courage. Asked be humiliated and rejected muster up courage. Asked be humiliated and rejected and as adults,
this translates into muster up, courage tried didn't work. Try again, where women her Theory? Never learn that skill and so as entrepreneurs, fear,
The rejection, the humiliation of failure more than men. And I've seen this happen in meetings, where a guy you know he's got a business and he's got some 40 or 50 percent solution, figure it out. And there's a client at the table going. Well, we need this and he goes, oh, we can do that for you. We've got that. We've got that and sell it right there in the room. When I've sat there with women, who got like, 98% of it figured out, I'm like, say something. And I
It's not perfect yet. I'm like, it just say something it's not perfect yet. And, you know, the statistics about, you know, when men look at no job posting and there's 10 requirements. If they have six of them, they think they're qualified, right? We're women, think they need nine or ten to think that they're qualified. And the question that raises to your point about losing skill, set is if we're all moving to a swipe dating scenario that there's forget about men versus women, like everybody's losing
Skill set of mustering up, courage, to ask somebody out. Be rejected, try again because we don't have humiliation anymore in an online dating scenario.
I don't even know where to start unpacking this thing,
I'm just the messenger.
What you choose to
share? Here's what I think is interesting about it that there are skills that we build is kids that become invaluable as adults. There's no question it because of Technology.
There's an entire generation of kids that are missing out on essential skill sets that are required as adults amongst, which include the skill of how to build deep meaningful connection.
I agree. A hundred percent what I would say. And I think it Bears digging into the story a little bit because I do think that if we look at shame triggers by masculine and feminine which I try to use that language more, if we look at masculine shame triggers the number one shame trigger.
For masculinity is don't be perceived as weak. So rejection to your point is really tough when that is your shame trigger for feminine. And these are culturally bound expectations, right? And so, for those seeking them in and Norms. The number one, shame trigger is perfection, do it all, do it perfectly and make it look effortless. And so I do think shame the
Of feeling weak the fear of being imperfect. Sure, let me just tell you kids do not pick up the phone. I don't know that. My kids ever picked up the phone and called a friend, they text. I do think the point that we're not experiencing emotional conflict, emotional hard, things emotional. Great things in person has really shifted our skill set. I see it because I'm talk graduate school for 20, something.
Years. The number of people that can look you in the eye and give you a firm handshake. And deliver information that you don't want to hear is just decreasing by the minute in terms of women and men. I don't know what the data say about who's more successful in entrepreneurship. But what I do know is that there's also a lot of expectations at the table when the woman speaks up and doesn't have it perfectly or the person of color shares, an idea that's not flushed out.
Lately, there's a lot of generosity toward the white guy who shares that idea. The number white, guys at the table, who are receiving that idea, probably out member that would number of women at the table. And then, if you start talking about people of color and Indigenous, people, black people, then you've got a real difference narrative on your hands. I remember one day sitting down with Steve and I told Steve that I was really afraid that what made us successful in our careers were struggle that we went through that. Our kids will never have to go through and
And we started talking about it in my husband's, a pediatrician and he said, we had a lot of trauma growing up. We had a really bad fighting parents, vicious divorces, like things. He said, I think the key for parenting and I'll never forget, this is make sure they experience the adversity, but they don't need the trauma. That most of us went through, and I think from a parenting and educator situation, we haven't made the clear distinction between
Versity really teaching some skills that we need and Trauma really setting us back. Does that make sense? So I think the adversity piece is real that you're mentioning whether it's asking people out for a date whether it's not being asked out on a date whether it's not getting invited. By a group of friends to go do something making up stories about what's happening is we're using social media as our narrator and it's happening in the adult world to, and I'll tell you why. Let's say, I lose my job and I get home and I'm distraught.
Thought and I post on Facebook lost my job today and I get 30 comments from people saying God. So sorry, I'll keep my eyes out, you know, that does not require any where the amount of vulnerability of me getting home and picking up the phone and saying, hey Simon you have a second? Yeah, what's going on? I got laid off today. That is a much more vulnerable active connection. We call it a big for connection. That is a bid for connection. It is not a pinata.
Hit with the bat to see what candy Falls. It is calling you and asking you for your time and making an intimate bid for connection and we don't know how to do that. Would your conversation with your military buddy had been the same instead of a called? He would have texted saying everything, good dude, yeah, everything's good here. Take care. Would have been the same? Now,
what common practices are young people, engaging in now that have become acculturated half
To change for them to learn the skills that they need to be successful adults, and better deal with stress that it doesn't lead to.
Trauma
people always ask me what the best parenting advice is that I came across in the 20 years of research and everyone gets pissed off. When I say it, the best parenting advice, I can tell you is hard as shit. We need to be the adults. We want our children to grow up to be,
Just like, we need to be the leaders that we wish we had. Yeah, so if we want our kids to grow up and be able to have a look, you in the eye hard conversation, they need to see us doing that. They need to see us, put our phones down, if my daughter walks in the room and my son walks in the room and says, hey, do you have a minute if I'm in the middle of something on my computer? I don't go. Yeah, what's going on? Don't look up. I say, give me just a second. Let me finish what I'm doing.
One minute. I finish what I'm doing? I close the laptop. I turn toward them and say what's going on?
We have to be the adults and let me tell you, the adults are tapping out of hard conversations with the same frequency that the kids are because they're hard because they're hard, like, we just have to practice. You have to have them. You have to fuck them up.
You have to redo them. You have to. I have to say, hey Simon, I try to have a card conversation with you yesterday and I don't think I did it very well. I don't like the way I showed up. Can I, can I have another shot? I really care about you. Our relationship is important to me.
And I didn't say it the way I wanted to say it. It goes back to the very first thing you said is people underestimate the power of the
truth. I hope I'm not romanticizing the past but it seems these days more and more we choose easy. You know, shared hardship, shared struggle, brings us together. Texas suffers this catastrophe because of cold weather and politics. Don't matter. Nobody cares. If your bread or blue, nobody cares. It's like we're all United. We have to
And help keep each other alive. Yeah. And it's a bonding experience. Covid is a bonding experience
could have been
World War II is a bonding experience.
Yeah, but that requires leadership that requires. Let's go back to your earlier point in order for covid, Texas tragedy, to become an opportunity of deep shared Humanity. Yeah, you have to have leadership that frames it as that narrative
and uses it to pull it.
Together. Not separate us.
That's exactly right. That's
leadership. And that goes back to what you were talking about. With Churchill for Martin Luther King or any of these who are considered great leaders in our history, which is they use their words. They use their bully pulpits to take hardship and make it a shared experience and use that hardship to bring us together and not use it as a wedge to drive in between us. One was about advancing greater good and the other was the use it as a wedge is for personal gain.
That's why I go back to this for
And the road other focused self-focused. Yeah, other Focus leaders servant leaders and Pinette mind leaders. Daring, leaders are other
focused, and I know what car said, car said that, the purpose of the infinite gain is to perpetuate the game and I hedge it a little bit when I talk about it. So that people will continue to listen, I say stay in the game as long as possible and then I say perpetuate the game. But the reality is to truly be an infinite.
Player you're actually playing not for the good of yourself, you playing for the good of the game and we can see this in the best businesses because the best businesses will come up with practices and then advertise and share what they're doing so that other businesses May benefit from what they triggered out. That's right. So they do these things for the good of business. They literally share proprietary things. Costco will tell you here's what we're doing, you should do this too because it works, it's not selfish because they recognize that two companies selling the exact same.
Product can both be really successful at the exact same time. So we lose Nothing by telling you how to make your business stronger. That's a true infinite mindset to leave this world in better shape than we found it.
Does it make sense to you? Why this framework of infinite versus finite mindset? Came out of a theological treaty like a theological book?
It makes sense. Yeah, I think our lives are finite
A'ight, but life is infinite and for many the idea of other worlds, our next lives our past lives, help us make tangible the infinite nature of the life were supposed to be living and I think that's a good thing.
Yeah, that's beautiful. I think so too. I don't
care what your mechanism is great. If you want to be philosophical and James Carr, see about it or if you want to be religious about it, whatever, whatever you framework you want to go to whether it's spiritual or rational. But I think having a
Framework to understand the infinite nature of life and our contribution to it. I think is really a good thing that this is not the end. This is just just part of the middle.
It's interesting because in my work, I had to Define spirituality because I didn't like any of the definitions of it. So I use the data to craft a definition that just said, that spirituality is really at its core belief, that we are inextricably connected to each other, by something greater than us. Some people call that God, some people call it fishing. I do.
Believe that part of the infinite mind set, the more I read and understood it, deeply buried in that Foundation of it is a belief about the inextricable connection of human
beings. Yeah, you and I think I've even talked about this my definition of Faith which I guess we could say spirituality which is knowing that you're on a team. Even if you don't know who the other players
are God, I mean people just are still emailing me about that.
Quote that to me is what faith is what spirituality is beautiful. And it's the same, it's the same definition.
I know and I think this is a beautiful way to sort of sum it all up which is the tangible. Things that we see the tangible World in front of us, is just a tiny, tiny fraction of the world that we actually live in the unknown, the uncertain, the intangible, the players that we can't see are all a part of our lives and all apart of the game, and to operate, and go through the world. Knowing that the stuff that I see, the stuff that I experience is only one or two data points, but the reality is,
Though, I am affected by an eye effect, the world, and I am affected by people. And I affect people in ways that I do not know, the way I say. Hello to the Barista, a, my dismissive or am I polite? Yeah. Do I ask the server their name and then address them by name for the rest of dinner. These tiny tiny little things have profound impact on Ripple through the lives of others and we are players in those games. It's a thousand rocks. Being thrown into the still water
at once.
I think that's true. I absolutely do not think that we can disconnect from each other stories. I always think to myself to you, even if it's a stranger, what kind of Steward am I being for this one moment? When I'm in this person's narrative
and it goes right back to truth and honesty again, which is we're quick to blame and simultaneously must also understand where we are to blame. They happened at the same time. It's totally fine to say you did this to me. I'm okay with that. But
but you also have to build to say and I did this to you to you but you can't have one without the other. And simultaneously people who put too much on themselves. I I did this and I'm such a bad person. Okay. Go through the self-flagellation if you need to end. Take a look. What the outside world is contributing as
well. It's so funny because the way blame is defined in the researches the discharging of psychological pain and discomfort. That's very clinical. Yeah. And it's very much an anger and I do think blame
Blame is a part of the finite mind Arsenal.
Yeah. Yeah. I use a little B, by the way,
a little be. Yeah. A little bit little heat with a curly
q. Yeah. A little be blame brene Brown. I adore you. I adore you.
I feel the same
you and I could do like a 15 hour podcast like I'm forcing myself to end it right now. But the reality is I don't really want to end it right
now.
I really really love you and I can't wait to talk to you again.
I can't wait, love you too,
brother. Bye-bye. If you enjoyed this podcast, and if you'd like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts until then take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
