I was watching the Olympics this last Summer Olympics and I was amazed at how
bad the questions were that the reporters would ask all the athletes and
almost always they asked the same question whether they were about to
compete or after they competed were you nervous right and to a tee all the
athletes went no right and what I realized is it's not that they're not
nervous it's their interpretation of what's happening in their bodies I mean
what it what happens when you're nervous right your heart rate starts to go
you're you know you sort of get a little tense you get a little sweaty right
you have expectation of what's coming and we interpreted that is I'm nervous
now what's the interpretation of excited your heart rate starts to go you become
you're anticipating what's coming right you get a little sort of like tense it's
all the same thing it's the same stimuli except these athletes these these
Olympic quality athletes have learned to interpret the stimuli that the rest of
us would say is nervous as excited they all said the same thing no I'm not
nervous I'm excited and so I've actually practiced it just to tell myself when I
start to get nervous that this is excitement you know and so where when
you used to be speaking for the large audience and somebody'd say how do you
feel I say little nervous now when somebody says how do you feel like
really excited actually and it it came from just sort of telling myself no no
this is excitement and it becomes a little bit automatic later on but it's
kind of a remarkable thing to deal with pressure by interpreting what your body
is experiencing as excitement rather than nerves and it's really kind of
effective it makes you want to rush for is rather than pull back and yet it's
the same experience I think successes is is seeing those around you work to their
natural best and creating momentum for a vision towards a vision that will last
beyond yourself so a guy is driving a bus for 20 years got to retire he's on
Madison Avenue in New York packed every day is people getting on that bus and
getting off mm-hmm he has two kids wife lives in Queens
he might call himself successful another guy might be vice president of that
company who call self unsuccessful so his success what you make of it so it's
so this success is defined its successes of feeling it's not it's not a series of
check marks and goals a lot of people set financial goals I'm successful when
I make my first million okay now I have to make my second million its success is
a feeling and and it's the feeling of contribution so you were bus driver in
Queens if he has decided that his job as a bus driver is to ensure that everyone
who gets on his bus feels better about themselves because they got on his bus
and not another bus and so he greets them with a smile he says good morning
he says goodbye that people remember that that that that ride that they took
with him versus the this vice president of the company who's made it about
himself and his financial goals he's the one who's unhappy as opposed to
seeing those around him succeed and those around him go home with a love of
their their day you know because they come to work in his company every day so
I still believe success and and good leadership are about service to others
you'll find is that that the better you are at communicating your why people
will want to work for you regardless of the opportunity that you afford them
like they want to be a part of it yeah we do a little thing which we've been
doing for years and years and years called a give and take whenever there's
any kind of relationship whether it's a an outside partnership or even somebody
who joins our team we do something called a give-and-take where we want
somebody to be selfish and selfless within the relationship so not give and
get but give and take so we'll ask them what is it that you have to give to us
that you have that you think that we need right and they'll tell us and then
we'll say great what is it that you selfishly want from us
and we want them to tell us what they can get from us and that's so many when
those when those things match you have a balanced relationship because so example
I've had it with people you know they'll tell me what they what they have to
offer and that's awesome because that's what I want
and then they'll say what they have what they want to take and they go oh I want
to work with smart people I'm like plenty of smart people what is it you
want to take from me they're like I want to help build something wonderful do
that anywhere what do you want to take selfishly from me that you can get into
and if they can't answer the question I won't engage in a relationship and the
reason is because in time the relationship is unbalanced they're gonna
be giving but they're not taking and I don't even know how to get them what
they want then they'll complain that I'm making enough money or that because it's
not balanced that's right vision here's the here's the thing that's always
boggled my mind right why is it unbalanced unbalanced not always but
unbalanced why is it that small companies tend to be more innovative
than big companies right small companies that are under-resourced you can't
necessarily get the best and brightest they're gonna go to business any day and
yet there's they come up with brilliant ideas and big companies full of
resources full of amazing people by the little companies that come up with a
good ideas that's usually how big companies innovate they buy the smaller
ones right why is that why is it that the most resource companies tend not and
I think it's a question of reality and what I mean by that is small companies
their vision is is more distant than their grasp right
they have delusions of grandeur we're gonna change the world change industries
reinvent this reinvent that we have no money and no people but so what my point
is is the grasp is shorter than the vision and I think what happens is as
companies get bigger and bigger and bigger with more and more resources what
they start to do is one of two things either their grip their vision to become
well within their grasp and they don't rien or they actually
bring the vision back to put within their grasp s' right make things very
achievable difficult but achievable for vision to truly be vision it should feel
unachievable when a small business gets together it says here's our vision
everybody goes like this in big businesses we use a vision maybe goes
all right yeah got it we'll do a back plan and I I firmly believe that
innovation is born out of the struggle innovation is born out of the the
resourcefulness that you are forced to figure out because literally the
vision is way beyond your grasp regardless have many resources you have
it should always feel overwhelming and impossible take a group of people with
tons of resources to give them a vision they're gonna go okay I mean is the
feeling that you found something you're looking for or do you accomplish
something you set out to accomplish so you know that feeling you get when you
cross something off your to-do list that's dopamine feels awesome you know
when you when you have a goal to hit and you achieve that goal you're like yes
you feel like you've won something right that's dopamine the whole purpose of
dopamine is to make sure that we get stuff done right the historical reason
for dopamine we would never eat if we only waited to get until we got hungry
because there's no guarantee that we would find food so dopamine exists to
help us go looking for food we get dopamine when we eat which is one of the
reasons we like eating and so when you see something that reminds you of
something that feels good we want to do the behavior that helps us get that
feeling right so let's say you're out there going for a walk and you see an
apple tree in the distance you get a small head of dopamine and then what it
does is it focuses us on our goals and now we start walking towards the apple
tree and as the apple tree starts to get a little bigger we feel like we're
making progress you get another little shot of dopamine and another little
shadow dopamine until you get to the Train you're like yes okay this is why
we're told you must write down your goals your goals must be tangible
there's a there's a biological reason for that we were very very visually
oriented animals you have to be able to see the goal for it to biologically stay
focused right if you don't write down your goals if you can't see your goals
it's very hard to get motivated to get inspired for example think about
corporate visions right a corporate vision is have to be something we can
see right that's why it's called a vision you can see it right to be the
biggest most respected to be the fastest-growing are not visions they're
nothing right what does that even look like respected by whom your mother
yourself your friends you shareholders who knows what's the metric
dunno its Amorphis doesn't motivate us just like I can't tell you you will get
a bonus if you achieve more you're gonna ask me how much more I'm gonna say more
doesn't work you need a tangible goal you need a tangible goal right here's a
great vision Martin Luther King I have a dream that one day little black children
the little white children will play on the playground together and hold hands
together we can imagine that we can set our sights on that and every time we
achieve a goal and achieve a metric and achieve a milestone that makes us feel
like we're making progress to the the vision we can see we keep going and
going and going until we achieve something remarkable you have to be able
to see it dopamine like I said dopamine is the feeling you
get when you set out to find something you're looking for as well talked about
the to-do list I came home from a trip just a couple days ago and I had a bunch
of errands to run and I wrote down a little list of things I had to do and
off I went right and as I was walking past I think was the dry cleaner I
remember I was walking past something I remembered oh I have to do that and I
hadn't written it down on my I hadn't written down on my to-do list so I went
in and finished what I needed to do and then when I came out I then wrote it on
my to-do list and then crossed it out because I wanted the dopamine feels good
dopamine comes with a warning dopamine is highly highly highly addictive here
are some other things that release dopamine alcohol nicotine gambling your
cell phone oh you think I'm joking okay we've all
been told that you know if you wake up in the morning and you crave a drink you
might be an alcoholic well if you wake up in the morning the first thing you do
is check your phone before you even get out of bed might be an addict if you
walk from room to room in your own apartment holding your telephone you
might be an addict when you're driving in your car and you get a text and your
phone goes beep we we hate email true we love the beep the buzz the ding aw right
you'll be there in 10 minutes and yet you have to look at it right now you
might be an addict and even if you read it and it says are you free for dinner
next Thursday and you have to reply immediately you can't wait the 10
minutes you might be an addict and for all you Gen Y is out there who
like to think that you're better at multitasking booze you grew up with the
technology then why do you keep crashing your cars when you're texting
you're not you're not better at multitasking you're better at getting
distracted in fact if you look at the statistics a DD and ADHD have diagnosis
of a DD and ADHD have risen 66% in the past ten years okay a DD and ADHD is a
frontal lobe disorder right are you telling me out of nowhere sixty-six
percent of our youth has the frontal lobe problem where did that come from
no it's a misdiagnosis right what what are the what are the symptoms of a
dopamine addiction to technology distractibility inability to get things
done easily easily distracted you know shortness of attention it's all the same
things so we misdiagnosed things it's this it's the addictive quality of
dopamine we can also get addicted to performance in our companies when all
they do is give us numbers to hit numbers to hit numbers to hit and a
bonus you get and a bonus you get and a bonus you get all they're doing is
feeding us with dopamine and we can't help ourselves all we do is want more
more MORE it's no surprise that the bank's destroyed the economy because one
of the things we know about dopamine addict is they will do anything to get
another hit sometimes at the sacrifice of their own resources and their
relationships ask any alcoholic gambling addict or drug addict just ask them how
their relationships are doing and if they've squandered any of their
resources it's an addiction dopamine is dangerous if it is unbalanced it is
hugely helpful when in a comfortable and balanced system but when unbalanced it's
dangerous and it's destructive a few months ago I stayed at the Four Seasons
in Las Vegas it is a wonderful hotel and the reason it's a wonderful hotel is not
because of the fancy beds any hotel can go and buy a fancy bed the reason it's a
wonderful hotel is because of the people who work there
if you walk past somebody at the Four Seasons than this and they say hello to
you you get the feeling that they actually wanted to say hello to you it's
not that somebody told them that you have to say hello to all the customers
say hello to all the guests right you actually feel that they care now in
their Lobby they have a coffee stand and I one afternoon I went to buy a cup of
coffee and there was a barista by the name of Noah who was serving me Noah was
fantastic he was friendly and fun and he was
engaging with me and I had so much fun buying a cup of coffee I actually think
I gave a hundred percent tip right he was wonderful so as is my nature I asked
Noah do you like your job and without skipping a beat Noah says I love my job
and so I followed up I said what is it that the four seasons is doing that
would make you say to me I love my job and without skipping a beat Noah said
throughout the day managers will walk past me and ask me how I'm doing if
there's anything that I need to do my job better he said not just my manager
any manager and then he said something magical he says I also work at Caesars
Palace and Caesars at Caesar's Palace the managers are trying to make sure
we're doing everything right they catch us when we do things wrong he says when
I go to work there I like to keep my head under the radar and just get
through the day so I can get my paycheck he says here at the four seasons I feel
I can be myself same person entirely a different experience from the from the
customer who will engage with Noah so we in leadership are always criticizing the
people we're always saying we've got to get the right people on the bus I've got
to fill my rung my team I gotta get the right people but the reality is it's not
the people it's the leadership if we create the right environment we will get
people like Noah at the four seasons if we create the wrong environment we
will get people like Noah at Caesar's Palace it's not the people and yet we're
so quick to hire and fire you can't hire and fire your children if there's if
your kids are struggling we don't say you got to see a school you're up for
adoption
so why is it that when somebody has performance problems at work why is it
that our instinct is to say you're out we do not practice empathy
what does empathy look like here's the lack of empathy this is normal in our
business world you walk into someone's office someone walks into our office and
says your numbers have been down for the third quarter in a row you have to pick
up your numbers otherwise I can't guarantee what the future will look like
how inspired you think that person is to come to work the next day here's what
empathy looks like you walk into someone's office someone walks into your
office and says your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row are you
okay I'm worried about you what's going on
we all have performance issues maybe someone's kid is sick maybe they're
having problems in their marriage maybe one of their parents is dying we don't
know what's going on in their lives and of course it will affect performance at
work empathy is being concerned about the human being not just their output
and we have to practice empathy there are known and unknown players you don't
know all the competitors necessarily in one industry to another the rules are
changeable we haven't all agreed what the rules are and there is no winning
the game of business right the game just perpetuates in fact the game of business
has existed longer than every single company on the planet today and it will
outlast every single coming up company on the planet today if you look at the
Dow index of 30 something odd companies that make up the down decks something
like 70 or 80 percent of those companies are 35 years or younger right so it gets
me thinking if you listen to the language that companies use they don't
know what game they're they talk about being number one talk about beating
their competition based on what agreed upon criteria based on what agreed-upon
timeframe is it market share is a profits is it revenues square footage
number of employees over what one month five months six months a year five years
ten years the life of the company I haven't agreed to those rules and so
companies can arbitrarily declare themselves number one and anything they
want if they set the standards of the time
and the only reason we do these things on annualized basis we tend you we tend
to compare ourselves to other organizations annually
there's only because we pay taxes annually if we pay taxes every 18 months
that would be sort of the standard but again we still haven't agreed what the
metrics are to be number one that means the companies that are playing the
infinite game are playing against most of the others were playing the finite
game means those finite companies find themselves in quagmire almost every
single bankruptcy not almost everything every single bankruptcy is a company
that's run out of the will or the resources to play they drop out of the
game the game will persist another company will fill their space it's not
like it's not like the business stops of the industry ends and the companies that
are playing the infinite game will frustrate those finite players which I
absolutely adore so I spoke at an education summit for Microsoft I also
spoke in an education summit for Apple now I would say about 70 to 80 percent
of the executives at Microsoft spent about 70 to 80 percent of their
powerpoints talking about how to beat Apple at the Apple summit a hundred
percent of the executives spent a hundred percent of their presentations
talking about how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn one was
obsessed with their journey with their vision with their cause the other one
was obsessed with their competition guess who's stuck in quagmire guess
who's frustrated by their competition I did a little experiment with them with a
homeless person not like on them it's not like electrodes with them
voluntarily helped me because the whole idea of giving right give it give it you
we you've all walked down the street and you've all seen someone begging and you
either have or haven't thrown a few pennies in their cup when you do you
feel good you bought that feeling that is a legitimate commercial transaction
you know commercial transactions are defined as the exchange of consideration
there was an exchange of consideration here you gave money
you got the feeling of goodwill you paid for that feeling if you didn't give
money you either feel nothing or you feel bad you can't feel good by not
giving all right you paid for that feeling so now the question is how is
that person encouraging us to give the joke is they act like every corporation
in the world they talk about themselves me me me me me me me right like they sit
there with their little outdoor advertising little sign right and it
says I'm homeless I'm hungry I got 12 kids I'm a veteran god bless
they got it all in they're trying to appeal to somebody the religious vote
the veteran vote you know the child sympathizer surround yourself with lots
of pets go for that one too right all in an attempt to get something from someone
takers not givers right all about me well what what corporations do we've
added more RAM we've added more ROM we've added more speed this one's number
one we're the biggest we're the best we've been around since 1969 we're
better than them we're faster than them we're more efficient than that one me me
me me me me me me me me and so even if we buy their product guess what yeah I
mean we're gonna feel much so I did this little experiment I found a nice
homeless lady on the streets of New York was willing to help out and I learned
that with her sign which was pretty typical I'm homeless I'm hungry
she makes between 20 and 30 dollars a day for you know for a day's worth of
work eight to ten hours of sitting there selling goodwill 8 to 10 hours she'll
make 20 to $30 $30 is considered a good day I changed her sign and the new sign
made her $40 in two hours and then she left
it's one of the reasons she's homeless is because she's decided that she only
needs 20 to 30 dollars a day to live if she stayed she would have made $150 the
point is she made 40 bucks in two hours where the signs say the sign said if you
only give once a month please think of me next time it has nothing to do with
the taker it has everything to do with the giver and what are the objections
people give when they don't give I can't give to everyone how do I know that they
really need it and so I addressed both those concerns I know you can't get to
everyone so if you only give once a month my cause is legitimate I will
still be here when you're ready to give 40 bucks to ours make it about them not
about you the fact of the matter is 100 percent of customers are people and 100
percent of clients are people and 100 percent of employees are people I don't
care how good your product is I don't care how good your marketing is I don't
care how good your design is if you don't understand people you don't
understand business we are social animals we are human beings and our
survival depends on our ability to form trusting relationships do you ever watch
Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel slipping through channels one night and
Deadliest Catch came on and on this episode just random they were in a huge
storm now for those of you who don't know Deadliest Catch they take these
crab fishing boats out in the Bering Sea which is like terrible and they put
cameras on them and we watch right the reason that's I guess significant is
because these crab fishermen have I think one of the top 5 deadliest jobs in
the world you know I don't know what the exact number is but dozens of fishermen
die every year doing doing this we apparently find that entertaining which
it actually is so they have cameras only on five or six of the ships even though
there are many many meas ships that go out fishing every season and they don't
really come into proximity with each other because you know that the oceans
huge and they usually sabotage and and give each other false information
because they're all competitors they're all looking to get the crabs and you
know make sure that they find them somebody else doesn't and yeah it's
business right it's just business it's okay
we all do the same thing in our own companies and in this one episode this
big huge storm was so violent that they had to bring all the pots which are the
big cages that they catch the crabs and they'd to bring all the pots back on the
boat and wait out the storm and just by dumb luck one of the boats
that had cameras on it was in proximity of a boat that didn't have cameras on it
and so they filmed they had secured all their pots on the deck and so they
started filming the other boat and they filmed a guy climbing on the outside of
the cage securing the pots and all of a sudden a huge wave hits the side of the
boat and the guys not there anymore and the people on the boat with the camera
starts screaming Man Overboard Man Overboard Man Overboard and they turned
our boat towards where they think he might be he's a stranger they don't know
him they don't know the crew members of the other boat and yet they react and
they turned towards him and they find him in the drink and for those of you
don't understand how dangerous this is if the water is so cold that if you're
in the water for I think that it's a minute or a minute 30 hypothermia will
set in and you die and they come upon him and he's screaming don't let me die
don't let me die and they pull him on board not out of the woods yet they
strip off his clothes because it's wet and cold and they wrap blankets around
him to prevent hyperthermia from setting in and he survives and it's overwhelming
and the captain comes down and this is all I mean you can go watch it on TV the
camera comes the captain comes down and he honks this stranger this young man
his competitor he hugs this guy as if he's his own son I lost it everybody is
crying and you realize what happened here was a human interaction and the
reason they risk their own lives to help this other person even though they spend
every other day trying to get ahead and sabotage is because at the end of the
day they're all crab fishermen and they know something about each other and they
know something about the risk that they all take to do this and when push comes
to shove they will put themselves out there to help each other for no other
reason than they get it there one of the same I will promise you that every
single member of that crew that day went home with a feeling of fulfillment I
promise you that every single person on that crew that day felt more good in
their hearts and in their jobs than the richest day they've ever pulled in my
question is is what are you doing to help the person next to you don't you
want to wake up and go to work for the only reason that you can do something
good for someone else when you want them to do that for you
there's a brilliant leader by the name of David mark hey who wrote a book
called turn the ship around and he had an experience as a submarine captain on
the USS scent effect where he realized that as much as he knew about
submarining you know he'd been a submarine or his
whole career that put on this new submarine he learned the hard way that
he actually didn't know how the submarine work he made an order that
nobody knew how to do it because there was that didn't exist on that sub and so
he realized he had no choice but to trust his people and he went through
this transformation as a leader of telling everybody what to do to allowing
people to tell him what should be done and I've learned a lot from him and I
highly recommend his book and and I've really learned that which is you know at
the top of the organization as David says the people have all the authority
the leaders have all the authority but at the bottom they have all the context
right and so you can't just push all the context up you have to push the
authority down and so the responsibilities of leadership is to
train people make sure that they have the skillset help build their confidence
that they have the confidence to do what needs to be done
to have competence and confidence and that's that's your job that's the only
job at the leader makes it's like like a parent
make sure they have competence and confidence you know make sure your kids
get schooling and make sure that they believe in themselves and then leave
them you know and so I've done the same thing instead of sort of showing people
how I would do it I want them to learn how it's done you know and feel good
about themselves and then just however they do it is how they do it yeah you
know and the result is remarkable um people feel better about coming to work
they feel like they have something to contribute they feel more valuable as
opposed to just being told this is how I would do it or I'm going to do it this
way or do it my way so yeah completely changing my
understanding of my job as more like a parent than a manager has had remarkable
impact speak to businesses and companies and leadership teams and employees and
stuff without mentioning names I don't want to put you on the spot but have you
gone and talked to a company that's been in trouble and then spoken to their team
and then checked in on them after you've spoken to their leadership team and what
did that look like did you notice a noticeable change did they come to you
and tell you that this has helped our organization out and our culture is much
improved because of it you mean does my work
I mean sure here's the problem with my stuff you got to do it and I am NOT I'm
not anybody's like you know mom or dad I'm not gonna do it for you and I have a
very less fair approach of it I once had a once at a client this is a bunch of
years ago that said what guarantee do I have that your stuff will work which my
answer was none like I'm giving you a tool you can it's like a hammer you can
use it broadly or narrowly you can build a table you can build a house it's the
same tool you can use it for marketing you can use it completely revitalize
your entire culture and even though I'm gonna sell you the most beautiful hammer
I'm not gonna guarantee the structural integrity of the house right it's your
business you won't ignore all my stuff ignore it
I don't care it's your and if your business collapses you know what happens
to me nothing like I don't mean to be cold about it like of course I want the
people I work with to do well but it's not mine
it's theirs and I take no emotional responsibility but the decisions they
make so yes there are many people that I've had the pleasure of working with
some who work for dysfunctional organizations that went on the hard
journey of completely changing the way they lead and completely revitalizing
their culture and it has great success it's not because of me it's because of
them right at the same time there are many people who came in like what an
amazing speech and did nothing you know thanks that was great you know and I
don't it's of course it's gonna fail you know so I I think that we we have too
much I'd especially in the consulting world or the design world
everybody's so paternalistic about it ein designers are famous for this right
they get so personally offended when the client chooses the wrong thing oh don't
they know we're trying to help them
or who cares like it's their freaking business right that's what you find
I've had that instead of arguing with somebody for them to the right choice
which cuz we genuinely want to help them what I have found is if you push the
accountability down to because when we argue we're taking accountability this
is better this will help you we're taking responsibility accountability but
if we say look we've been doing this a bunch of years we know more about design
than you do I'm telling you for every reason that I can outline for you why
this will help you more but if you don't want to do it that's fine it's your
business do what you want the minute you switch the accountability and put it all
on them amazingly they're much more open to your opinion because now they're
responsible
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