Simon Sinek is an author of several books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, and his latest The Infinite Game. He is one of the best communicators of what it takes to be a good leader, to inspire, and to build businesses that solve big difficult challenges.

* Note about the new addition on the table: Hedgy is a stuffed hedgehog toy that I got in a thrift store many years ago. He jumped out at me because he seemed to be deep in thought and bothered by something profound, in stark contrast to other stuffed animals that usually have an aloof, empty smile on their face. I gave away almost all my stuff in the name of minimalism a couple of times, and he survived all of that. There's a longer story there. If you're curious, ask me and I'll do one of the AMA videos about Hedgy. In general, people asked to put more stuff in the scene. I don't have much stuff. So what you get is Hedgy.

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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
3:50 - Meaning of life as an infinite game
10:13 - Optimism
13:30 - Mortality
17:52 - Hard work
26:38 - Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and leadership

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The following is a conversation with Simon Sinek, author of several books, including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, and his latest, The Infinite Game.

He's 1 of the best communicators of what it takes to be a good leader, to inspire, and to build businesses that solve big, difficult challenges.

This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.

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When I first heard about Masterclass, I honestly thought it was too good to be true.

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And now, here's my conversation with Simon Sinek.

In the Infinite Game, your most recent book, you describe the finite game and

So from my perspective of artificial intelligence and Game theory in general, I'm a huge fan of.

Finite games from the broad philosophical sense is something that in the robotics, artificial intelligence space, we know how to deal with.

And then you describe the infinite game, which has no exact static rules, has no well-defined static objective, the players are known, unknown, they change, there's a dynamic element.

So this is something that applies to business, politics, life itself.

So can you try to articulate the objective function here of the infinite game or in the cliche broad philosophical sense, what is the meaning of life?

So James Karras was the philosopher who originally articulated this concept of finite and infinite games.

And when I learned about it, it really challenged my view of how the world works, right?

Because I think we all think about winning and being the best and being number 1.

But if you think about it, only in a finite game can that exist.

A game that has fixed rules, agreed upon objectives and known players like football or baseball.

There's always a beginning, middle and end.

And if there's a winner, there has to be a loser.

Infinite games, as Karst describes them, as you said, have known and unknown players, which means anyone can join.

It has a changeable rules, 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.

In other words, there's no such thing as being number 1 or winning in a game that has no finish line.

And what I learned is that when we try to win in a game that has no finish line, we try and be number, we try and be the best in a game that has no agreed upon objectives or agreed upon metrics or timeframes, there's a few consistent and predictable outcomes.

The decline of trust, the decline of cooperation, the decline of innovation.

And I find this fascinating because so many of the ways that we run most organizations is with a finite mindset.

So trying to reduce the beautiful complex thing that is life or what politics or business into something very narrow.

And in that process, the reductionist process, you lose something fundamental that makes the whole thing work in the long term.

So returning, I'm not gonna let you off the hook easy, what is the meaning of life?

So what is the objective function that is worthwhile to pursue?

Well, if you think about our tombstones, right?

They have the date we were born and the date we died.

But really it's what we do with the gap in between.

It's what we do between the time we're born and the time we die that gives our life meaning.

And if we live our lives with a finite mindset, which means to accumulate more power or money than anybody else, to outdo everyone else, to be number 1, to be the best, we don't take any of us with us.

The people who get remembered, the way we wanna be remembered is what kind of people we were, right?

Devoted mother, loving father, what kind of person we were to other people.

Jack Welch just died recently, and the Washington Post, when it wrote the headline for his obit, it wrote, he pleased Wall Street and distressed employees.

A finite player who is obsessed with winning, who leaves behind a legacy of short-term gains for a few and distress for many.

And every single 1 of us gets the choice of the kind of legacy we wanna have.

Do we wanna be remembered for our contributions or our detractions?

To live with a finite mindset, to live a career with a finite mindset, to be number 1, be the best, be the most famous.

You live a life like Jack Welch, you know?

To live a life of service, to see those around us rise, to contribute to our communities, to our organizations, to leave them in better shape than we found them, that's the kind of legacy most of us would like to have.

So day-to-day, when you think about what is the the fundamental goals, dreams, motivations of an infinite game, of seeing your life, your career as an infinite game.

I mean, I guess I'm sort of trying to stick on this personal ego, personal drive, the thing that, the fire, the reason we want to wake up in the morning and the reason we can't go to bed because we're so excited, what is that?

So for me, it's about having a just cause.

It's about a vision that's bigger than me, that my work gets to contribute to something larger than myself.

You know, that's what drives me every day.

I wake up every morning with a vision of a world that does not yet exist, a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day.

And so that we still have work to do is the thing that drives me.

You know, I know what my underlying values are.

You know, I wake up to inspire people to do the things that inspire them.

And these are the things that, These are the things that I, these are my go-to's, my touch points that inspire me to keep working.

You know, I think of a career like an iceberg.

You know, if you have a vision for something, you're the only 1 who can see the iceberg underneath the ocean.

But if you start working at it, a little bit shows up.

And now a few other people can see what you imagined, be like, oh, right, yeah, no, I want to help build that as well.

And if you have a lot of success, then you have a lot of iceberg.

And people can see this huge iceberg and they say, you've accomplished so much.

But what I see is all the work still yet to be done.

Yet I still see the huge iceberg underneath the ocean.

And so the growth, you talk about momentum.

What drives me is the realization, is realizing the iceberg, bringing more of the iceberg from the unknown to the known, bringing more of the vision from the imagination to reality.

And you have this fundamental vision of optimism.

I mean, in this world, I have a sort of, I see myself a little bit as the main character from The Idiot by Dostoevsky, who is also kind of seen by society as a fool because he was optimistic.

So 1, can you maybe articulate where that sense of optimism comes from and maybe also try to articulate your vision of the future where people are inspired, where optimism drives us?

It's easy to forget that when you look at social media and so on, where toxicity and negativity can often get more likes, that optimism has a sort of a beauty to it.

So can you try to articulate that vision?

Yeah, so I mean, for me, optimism and being an optimist is just seeing the silver lining in every cloud You know even in tragedy it brings people together and the question is can we see that?

Can you see can you see the beauty that is in everything?

I Don't think optimism is foolishness I don't think optimism is blindness.

Though it probably involves some naivete, the belief that things will get better, the belief that we tend towards the good, even in times of struggle or bad.

You can't sustain war, but you can sustain peace.

I think things that are stable are more sustainable.

Things that are optimistic are more sustainable than things that are chaotic.

I mean, some people may disagree that you can't, you can sustain peace, you can't sustain war.

I mean, you don't have to, I think war is costly.

You know, it involves life and money and peace does not involve those things.

I'm not saying it doesn't require work, but it doesn't drain resources, I think the same way that War does.

You know, the people that would say that we will always have war, and

historian of Stalin, is, you know, would say that conflict and the desire for power and conflict is central to human nature.

But something in your words also, perhaps it's the naive aspect that I also share, is that you have an optimism that people are fundamentally good.

I'm not a fool to believe that the ideals that I imagine can come true.

Of course, there'll never be world peace, but shouldn't we die trying?

You know, I think that's the whole point.

Vision should be idealistic and it should be, for all practical purposes, impossible.

And it's the milestones that we reach that take us closer to that ideal that make us feel that our life and our work have meaning and we're contributing to something bigger than ourselves.

You know, just because it's impossible doesn't mean we shouldn't try As I said, we're still moving the ball down the field.

We're still making progress Things are still getting better.

Even if we never get to that that ideal state.

You know in the word infinite game 1 of the beautiful and tragic aspects of life, human life at least, at least from the biological perspective, is that it ends.

Fine, it's tragic to some people, or is it ends...

I think some people believe that it ends on the day you die, and some people think it continues on.

And there's a lot of different ways to think what continues on even looks like.

But let me drag it back to the personal, which is how do you think about your own mortality?

I definitely haven't accomplished everything I want to contribute to I Would like more time in on this earth to keep working towards that vision.

Do you think about the fact that it ends for you?

I know that my life is finite, and I know that I have a certain amount of time left on this planet, and I'd like to make that time be valuable.

Some people would think that ideas kind of allow you to have a certain kind of immortality.

Maybe to linger on this kind of question, so first to push back on the, you said that everyone's cognizant of the mortality, there's a guy named Ernest Becker who would disagree that you basically say that most of human cognition is created by us trying to create an illusion and try to hide the fact from ourselves the fact that we're gonna die.

To try to think that it's all gonna go on forever.

But the fact that we know that it doesn't.

Yes, but this mix of denial, I mean, I think the book's called Denial of Death.

It's this constant denial that we're running away from.

In fact, some would argue that the inspiration, the incredible ideas you've put out there, your TED Talk has been seen by millions and millions of people, right?

It's just you trying to desperately fight the fact that you are biologically mortal.

Your creative genius comes from the fact that you're trying to create ideas that live on long past you.

I mean, I would like my ideas to live on beyond me because I think that is a good test that those ideas have value in the lives of others.

That others would continue to talk about or share the ideas long after I'm gone, I think is perhaps the greatest compliment 1 can get for one's own work.

But I don't think it's my awareness of my mortality that drives me to do it.

It's my desire to contribute that drives me to do it.

It's the pleasure and the fulfillment you get from inspiring others.

If your name wasn't attached to it, do you think you would act differently?

I mean, for years I hated that my name was attached to it.

You know, I had a rule for years that I wouldn't have my my My face on the cover the front page of the website You know, I had a fight with the publisher because I I didn't want my name Big on the book.

I wanted it tiny on the book because I kept telling them it's not about me, it's about the ideas.

They wanted to put my name on the top of my book, I refused.

None of my books have my names on the top because I won't let them.

They would like very much to put my name on the top of the book, but the idea has to be bigger than me.

But I also am aware that I've become, I've become recognized as the messenger.

And even though I still think the message is bigger than me, I recognize that I have a responsibility as the messenger.

And whether I like it or not is irrelevant.

I'm not sure how to phrase this, but there's a large part of the culture right now that emphasizes all the things that nobody disagrees with, which is health, sleep, diet, relaxation, meditation, vacation, are really important.

And there's no, you know, it's like, you can't really argue against that.

I often speak to the fact that passion and love for what you're doing and the 2 words hard work, especially in the engineering fields, are more important to prioritize than sleep.

Even though sleep is really important, your mind should be obsessed with the hard work, with the passion, and so on.

And then I get some pushback, of course, from people.

Is that just me, the crazy Russian engineer, really pushing hard work?

I think if you sacrifice your health for the work, at some point it catches up with you.

And at some point, it's like going, going, going, and you get sick.

Your body will shut down for you if you refuse to take care of yourself.

Sometimes more severe illness than something that just slows you down.

So I think taking, like getting sleep, I mean, there've been studies on this, that executives, for example, who get a full night's sleep and stop at a reasonable hour actually accomplish more, are more productive than people who work and burn the midnight oil because their brains are working better because they're well rested.

So, you know, working hard, yes, but why not work smart?

I think that giving our minds and our bodies rest makes us more efficient.

I think just driving, driving, driving, driving is a short-term strategy.

So, but to push back on that a little bit, the annoying thing is you're like 100% right in terms of science, right?

But the thing is, It's because you're 100% right, that weak part of your mind uses that fact to convince you, like what, so, you know, I get all kinds of, my mind comes up with all kinds of excuses to try to convince me that I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing.

And so what I have a sense, I think what you said about executives and leaders is absolutely right.

But there's the early days, the early days of madness and passion.

Then I feel like emphasizing sleep, thinking about sleep as giving yourself a way out from the fact that those early days especially can be suffering.

Sure, if you're investing all that energy in something at the beginning to get it up and running, then at some point you're gonna have to slow down or your body will slow you down for you.

Like you can choose or your body can choose.

So you don't think from my perspective, it feels like people have gotten a little bit soft, but you're saying

no, I think, I think that there seems evidence that, that, that working harder and later have taken a backseat in.

I think we have to be careful with broad generalizations, but I think if you go into the workplace, there are people who would complain that more people now than before, you know, look at their watches and say, oops, 05:00.

You're saying it's the people giving themselves excuses and people don't work hard or is that the organizations aren't giving them something to believe in, something to be passionate about.

You can't just tell someone be passionate.

Like if I believe in something and I wanna contribute all that energy to do it, we call that passion.

You know, working hard for something we love is passion.

Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress, but we're working hard either way.

So I think the organizations bear some accountability and our leaders bear some accountability, which is if they're not offering a sense of purpose, if they're not offering us a sense of cause, if they're not telling us that our work is worth more than simply the money it makes, then yeah, I'm going to come at 05:00 because I don't really care about making you money.

Remember, we live in a world right now where a lot of people, rather a few people, are getting rich on the hard work of others.

And So I think when people look up and say, well, why would I do that?

I'll just, if you're not gonna look after me and then you're gonna lay me off at the end of the year because you missed your arbitrary projections, you know, you're gonna lay me off because you missed your arbitrary projections, then why would I offer my hard work and loyalty to you.

So I don't think we can immediately blame people for going soft.

I think we can blame leaders for their inability or failure to offer their people something bigger than making a product or making money.

And start with why, leaders eat last, your books.

You kind of, you basically talk about what it takes to be a good leader.

And so some of the blame should go on the leader, but how much of it is on finding your passion, how much is it on the individual and allowing yourself to pursue that passion, pushing yourself to your limits to really take concrete steps along your path towards that passion.

I mean, we're responsible as individuals to find the organizations and find the leaders that inspire us.

And organizations are responsible for maintaining that flame and giving people who believe what they believed a chance to contribute.

So to linger on it, have you by chance seen the movie Whiplash?

Again, maybe I'm romanticizing suffering.

But people haven't seen, it's the movie Whiplash as a drum instructor that pushes the drum musician to his limits to bring out the best in him.

Like you've worked with a lot of great leaders, a lot of great individuals.

So is that toxic relationship as toxic as it appears in the movie or is that fundamental?

I've seen that relationship, especially in the past with Olympic athletes, especially in athletics, extreme performers seem to do wonders.

There's some of my best relationships, now I'm not representative of everyone certainly, But some of my best relationships for mentee and mentor have been toxic from an external perspective.

What do you make of that kind of relationship?

Okay, so you don't think that's a healthy, you don't think that kind of relationship is a great example of a great leader?

a short-term strategy, I mean short-term.

I mean, look, being hard on someone is not the same as toxicity.

You know, if you go to the Marine Corps, a drill instructor will be very hard on their Marines.

And then, but still even on the last day of bootcamp, they'll take their hat off and they'll become a human.

But of all the drill instructors, you know, the 3 or 4 main drill instructors assigned to a group of recruits, the 1 that they all want the respect of is the 1 that's the hardest on them.

And you hear, you know, there's plenty of stories of people who want to earn the respect of a, of a hard parent or a hard teacher.

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Simon Sinek: Leadership, Hard Work, Optimism and the Infinite Game | Lex Fridman Podcast #82