Author: Simon Sinek

When I was in college I had to make a choice, did I want to do a thesis project or not?

I like research, I like learning and I like difficult problems. But I ended up deciding not to do a thesis project for one simple reason: 100 pages sounded like a lot of writing and—this is a little embarrassing—I was too lazy to do that work.

Flash forward a bunch of years and turns out I’m an author now. I’ve written hundreds of pages…more than once!

How did that happen?I was never one of those people who “thought they had a book in them.” Writing books was not my dream or my chosen career. So how did I go from being too lazy to write 100 pages to writing books?

The one thing that changed was Cause. Namely, I found one (or it found me).

A Cause is not a goal. It’s not like an ambition. A Cause is more like a membership club. Not everyone wants to be in the club, but if you find yourself in it, you’re more than happy to do whatever you need to do to serve the other members.

I still can’t say that I enjoy writing books, but every one I have written was worth it because it was not ever about the writing. It was always about contributing to something bigger than myself.

Careers are like a shark. To be successful we have to keep moving forwards.

In order to breathe, most sharks have to keep moving at all times. The forward motion allows the oxygen-rich water to pass into their mouths over their gills and out through the gill slits. If they stop moving forwards, their gills won’t work, they won’t be able to breath and they will sink to the bottom and die.

This system is called “obligate ram ventilation.”

Obligate: As in obligatory, as in they need to do it.

Ram: As in forward moving.

Ventilation: As in air.

We’ve all been at points in our careers when we feel like we have trouble getting air. We’re suffocating doing whatever we’re doing. What resuscitates is often something very simple: moving forwards.

Sometimes that means getting a new job, sometimes that means taking the bull by the horns with the job we have. But it always means looking much further beyond where we are now and swimming in that direction. It doesn’t matter if we go in a straight line to get there, as long as we’re moving.

Stop moving, we die. Keep moving, we live. It’s that simple.

To keep alive, we need to make decisions. We can’t sit around and wait…or we die.

To keep healthy, we need to know where we’re going, we need to have a purpose or a cause or a belief, a reason to get out of bed. Without something to swim for…we die.

To innovate, to have ideas, to contribute, we need to do things outside our job specs: read books, watch movies, travel, meet new people, do new things. If we do the same thing everyday over and over with no forward momentum….we die. 

To make progress, we need to execute, produce something, ship. If we spend all our time trying to make it perfect and never get it out the door…we die.

So the next time someone asks you the secret to a good career, tell them it’s simple: obligate ram ventilation.

On this particular night, Michael ordered the soup. “Is it vegetable stock or chicken stock?,” he asked the waitress. “Vegetable,” she replied. “Are you sure,” Michael said, “I can’t have it if it’s chicken based.” “It’s vegetable,” replied the waitress again confidently.

My friend Michael is a strict vegetarian. He loves going out for dinner with his friends and never complains. He can always find something to eat, he says. When we went out for dinner recently, I witnessed a little trick he uses to ensure he stays a vegetarian when he’s not doing the cooking himself.

The soup arrived. It looked good and smelled even better. Again Michael asked the waitress, “you’re sure this is vegetable stock, right? Because I’m really allergic to chicken and if there’s any chicken in it I will have a seizure.”  And with that the waitress’s eyes got a little bigger. “Lemme just check,” she said as she went off to ask someone else. Within less than a minute, she walked back and took the bowl of soup away from Michael. “It’s chicken stock,” she said.

Until the waitress was accountable for Michael’s health, she didn’t seem too interested in ensuring that her answer was indeed right. The time it took her to find out was seconds. Giving Michael what he preferred didn’t seem to motivate her until she thought she may be responsible for anything more than disappointing a customer.

But this is not a story of how we sometimes have to lie to get someone to care about us. It’s actually something more positive. As soon as Michael shifted the accountability to the server, she was much more willing to invest more time and attention to Michael’s needs. In other words, when we make others accountable for what could be even negative results, people rise to the occasion.

We could all do a bit better at giving others accountability for things at work. If we give someone responsibility but then double check their work a hundred times before sending it to the client, then they are no longer accountable…we are. If we demand that someone ask us permission before doing anything, then we are the ones giving permission as opposed to assigning responsibility.

People are funny animals. When given serious responsibility, we tend to take it seriously and almost always rise to the challenge. The best organizations know this well. They don’t assign tasks to their people, they assign responsibility. And with shared responsibility, people tend to seek help from each other more often, increasing the quality of teamwork.  The reason is simple, when we work together, we’re more likely to succeed than if we work alone.

It’s the most poetic of paradoxes. The more individual accountability we give to someone, the more they are willing to accept the help of others to ensure everything goes right. Even the server knew that.

I felt sick. I wanted to curl up in a ball and be alone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

I was ashamed.

To most people, what I did would seem a trifle, but to me it was much deeper. I gave a talk to an organization that violates the very core of my beliefs.  In my mind, I felt like a sellout.

In my pre-engagement calls, I had a bad feeling about this group. They treated me like some vendor. I could barely get a question in because they were talking so much. They also sent an email telling me what to wear – dress pants and a jacket. Had they done no research on me? I always wear jeans. But I talked myself out of it, “stop acting like a diva,” I told myself.

I sat backstage waiting for my time to speak, listening to the executives give their talks to the group. They presented themselves as a company that sells financial advice, but in my opinion, they weren’t doing it in an honorable way. It seemed to me to be more like a pyramid scheme; a multilevel marketing organization that makes money on recruiting new financial planners and having them use their “system” to win clients. All they did was talk about money and who were the high performers. Never once did they talk about helping their clients – the people they are supposed to be serving.

I believe in helping people and doing right by others. This company preyed on people’s ambitions. They weren’t interested in helping people, they were interested in exploiting them and profiting off their risk. I felt sick. I didn’t want to be there and I didn’t want to be a part of it.

I made my choice. There was something I had that they didn’t: the microphone. They were going to put me on the stage, turn on a spotlight and let me speak, uninterrupted for 60 minutes. I would use that time to share my message. To preach. And preach I did.

I spoke of the power of trust. I spoke of giving to others as the most selfish thing any person could do, because the more we look out for others, the more others will look out for us. I chastised systems that manipulate (and I stared right at the senior executives when I did).

I told stories I had heard from my time with the military, stories of heroism and sacrifice. “They give medals to people who are willing sacrifice themselves so that others may gain,” I said. “In business, we give bonuses to those who are willing to sacrifice others so that we may gain. We’ve got it backwards,” I implored.

They clapped at the end, but I didn’t stick around. I walked off the stage, grabbed my stuff and walked straight out the back door. I didn’t talk to anyone and I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. I felt sick and ashamed that I was a part of this.

I joined the daily huddle call our little company has where we share what we’re up to for the day and ask for help if we need it. I didn’t follow the normal procedure. Instead, I confessed. I told them how I felt.

My team was amazing. “Don’t sweat it,” they said, trying to make me feel better, “we’re sure your message resonated and you converted a few.” One by one they took turns trying to help me see something good that may have come from this experience. But purpose cannot be rationalized.

I remember when I worked in the advertising industry and I asked one of the executives what societal good advertising does? “We help drive the economy,” was his response. So did the manufacturers of gas chambers during the Holocaust. Finding elements of good does not equal a noble purpose. It’s just rationalizing.

Providing jobs, driving the economy, serving the shareholder are not purposes. They are rationalizations used when a greater cause or purpose is not clear or not there.  Real purpose has a clear and definitive direction. It is a path that points towards a very specific vision of the future. Rationalizations have no destination, they are simply a calculation to demonstrate some benefit to justify the actions. Rationalizations are just that: rational. In contrast, purpose is deeply emotional. This is why we feel passion and intense drive when we are involved with something that has purpose. And it’s why we get that sick feeling when we do something in violation of that purpose. There is no sick feeling from violating a rationalized purpose…nor is there an invigorating passion to pursue it.

Because a true sense of purpose is deeply emotional, it serves as a compass to guide us to act in a way completely consistent with our values and beliefs. Purpose does not need to involve calculations or numbers. Purpose is about the quality of life. Purpose is human, not economic.

I thanked my team for their support, but insisted that we could not and should not try to rationalize making these kinds of errors.  They are mistakes and we should learn from them to avoid finding ourselves in the same position again in the future. We should feel ashamed when they happen and we should also hold each other accountable and support each other to avoid decisions that would leave us in a position where we are forced to compromise what we stand for. We’ve already implemented new checks and balances to avoid the same situation happening again.

The company I spoke for already signed a contract for me to speak at another one of their events later this year. The problem for them is, I won’t be there. There is no contract on the planet that can force me to violate what I stand for. I will lose money and I will certainly ruffle some feathers…and that’s fine by me.  They will all get over it in due course…I wouldn’t. They will rationalize why I was the wrong person for the job anyway. But I could never feel whole for showing up, no matter how much money they offered. Money is a calculation. My values are who I am.

“Our customers are our number one priority,” is the oft heard mantra of so many companies these days. “We put our clients first,” is uttered by so many CEOs one loses track.

But there’s a problem with putting customers first. It means that employees come at least second.

Customers should never be the priority. People should be the priority. Some of those people buy from us, some of those people work for us, and it’s only a behavioral difference. They are all people and all business decisions should be made considering the impact on the people who are on the receiving end of our decisions.

All customers and employees should both be treated equally and treated well. Not because of what they do or how they are seen but because they are both people. Customers and employees both bleed red. Customers and employees both feel happy and hurt. Customers and employees both live to feel valued for the effort they exert and the expense they put forth.

My whole life I have managed loneliness. It’s not the kind of severe loneliness or social isolation equated with depression. Mine is a kind of loneliness that goes with being physically alone, either living alone or being single. And for most of my life, I have been one or both of those things. My loneliness feels more like a gentle sadness of longing or being without. 

For years, when the feeling of loneliness would show up, I would yearn for the thing that made that feeling go away. If I was single, I yearned for a partner. If I was home alone, I yearned for the company of another. 

I recently had a conversation with my friend Ric, who is like a guru to those who know him. I asked him if he ever feels lonely. 

“I am never alone,” he replied, “I am always with myself.”

Ric’s perspective on loneliness set me on a new path. Instead of yearning for the thing that will make my loneliness go away, I am, instead, learning to understand what it is and how it fits in—even belongs in my life. 

Here’s what I’ve learned. 

My loneliness is not a bad thing that I have to get rid of. It is now a healthy part of a balanced life for me. One of the things that comes with being alone is total freedom. I’m not just talking about the freedom to go places, though that exists too. I am talking about a more mundane kind of freedom. I can watch anything I want on TV, for example. I can eat anything for dinner, even gross combinations of food on one plate. It’s a freedom to make any decision I want, any time I want. But this incredible freedom has a price, and that price is the feeling of occasional loneliness. And because I so appreciate my freedom, this seems a small price to pay. 

The opposite is also true. I love being in relationships and with friends. I love the feeling of companionship and togetherness. But when I have that, it also has a cost. And that cost is loss of freedom. When we are with others, we have to consider their needs and wants. Sometimes at the sacrifice of our own. That’s the price of companionship.

The best relationships, the best friendships, and indeed the best personal lives are able to find the right balance between freedom and companionship. It’s sometimes an imperfect dance, but it is not about eliminating feelings of sadness or yearning; it is about weighing costs and benefits. 

Being alone or being with someone is no longer a comparison I make. One is no longer more desirable than the other. They are simply different states of being that come with their own costs. And sometimes the cost for the thing we get is worth it. 

I try, try, try and fail. Only then will I learn and improve the way to do things.

I go, go, go and trip. I stand up, brush off my knees, look back at what I tripped over so I know what to look out for in the future. Now I don’t have to trip over those things again.

I run faster and faster and faster, then miss my turn and have to go back and try again. But now I know what signs to look for to keep me moving in the right direction.

I go alone, alone, alone until I find someone on the same path and we decide to run together. I share all my falls, trips and missed turns so they can benefit from my effort. They tell me about all their falls, trips and missed opportunities so I can learn from their experiences.

Then together, we can run faster, straighter and more confidently to the place we want to go.