Simon Sinek on How Military Leadership Inspires Loyalty and Purpose

In Chapter 14 of 16 in his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, author Simon Sinek shares why United States Air Force (USAF) General Lori Robinson's leadership style, humility, & purpose has created a loyal following. "Start With Why" author Sinek deconstructs General Robinson's leadership style and its empowering affect on others, including himself.  Simon Sinek is a trained ethnographer who applies his curiosity around why people do what they do to teach leaders and companies how to inspire people. He is the author of "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action". Sinek holds a BA degree in cultural anthropology from Brandeis University.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen: Through your journey, you have spent some time working with the United States Air Force and met some incredible people there that inspired you.  One was Brigadier General Lori Robinson.  What did she teach you about humility and inspiration?

Simon Sinek: Lori Robinson is one of the most gifted natural leaders I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  What is remarkable about her is that she is not what you would expect.  It is not about power or fire and brimstone.  She is very humble and, in fact, self deprecating a lot of the time.  She has an undying belief.  She knows her job is to show up and clear a path for others so they can succeed.  She says I`m in the Air Force because I want to leave this country in better form than I found it.  It is because she shows up to work everyday with that purpose it has accelerated her career but more importantly created a following for her.  She is going to leave the Air Force in better shape than she found it and because of her this country will be left in better shape than when she found it.  She is pretty remarkable.

Simon Sinek on Why the Past is Relevant to Why We Do What We Do

In Chapter 15 of 16 in his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, author Simon Sinek elaborates on the purpose discovery process on why we do what we do is built around past success patterns, themes, and motivations. Simon Sinek is a trained ethnographer who applies his curiosity around why people do what they do to teach leaders and companies how to inspire people. He is the author of "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action". Sinek holds a BA degree in cultural anthropology from Brandeis University.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen: Simon, in your book, "Start With Why" you write:  "The WHY does not come from looking ahead at what you want to achieve and figuring out an appropriate strategy to get there.  It does not come from extensive interviews with customers or even employees.  It comes from looking in the completely opposite direction from where you want to go.  Finding WHY is a process of discovery, not invention.  And it usually starts with a single person." Can you elaborate on that?

Simon Sinek: Why you do what you do comes from you.  We are products of our own upbringing.  We are products of our own cultures.  How your parents raised you, where you lived, your childhood experiences formed who you are.  A miserly CEO who grew up in the Great Depression grows up to be miserly. That's not because he read a management book the importance of being miserly, it is because he grew up in the Great Depression.  To understand why we do what we do, we have to go back into our own past and see what our own patterns of success have been and when certain circumstances exist, when we are motivated by certain things we excel, naturally, and when they are not there, we struggle, naturally.  Projecting forward are aspirations.  To have it truly be lasting it has to be from within you.  

Simon Sinek on How to Identify Your Passion and Create Results From It

In Chapter 16 of 16 of his 2009 interview with Capture Your Flag host Erik Michielsen, "Start With Why" author Simon Sinek shares why passion is a result and not an action. Finding one's passion requires creating a process to make it actionable. Sinek shares why the first step is to identify what you love and then to continue to enable this root element through action.

Simon Sinek is a trained ethnographer who applies his curiosity around why people do what they do to teach leaders and companies how to inspire people. He is the author of "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action". Sinek holds a BA degree in cultural anthropology from Brandeis University.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen: What are your thoughts and what is your approach in finding and building upon passions?

Simon Sinek: Passion is not an actionable word. It is correct that those who do what they are passionate about do better, but it is not helpful advice.  The question is where does passion come from?  Passion is a result.  Passion is an energy.  Passion is the feeling you have when you are engaged in something you love.  Passion is the feeling you have when you would probably do this for free and you can't believe someone pays you for it.  We mistake that passion is something we do in our private lives but it shouldn't be done in our careers.  I'm a firm believer in you are who you are and anyone who says they are different at home than they are at work then in one of those two places you are lying.  The goal is to make everything you do at home at work something you are excited to do.  So how do you find the thing that you are excited to do?  It is easier than you think.  What are the things you would do for free?  What do you do when nobody tells you to do them? How can you recreate that feeling and be paid for it? I'm very involved in the art world.  I love to go to museums and galleries and I love to go see dances and performances because I want to see how others are interpreting the world.  That inspires me.  New ideas, new thoughts, new ways of looking at the world are things that interest me, privately, and I seek it out and pay money for it.  So, does that mean I have to have a career in the arts?  No.  That means I have to have a career where new ideas are explored, where people are experimenting and trying things out and I have to explore new ideas and try things out and I'm just as excited to go to work each day as I am to go do something on a Saturday night.  The idea of finding your passion is ironically simple. You should be doing something you love sometime. What is the stuff that you enjoy and what is the stuff that you love?  Who are the people you love and what do they all have in common?