#and it's been absolutely FASCINATING because he goes in a sort of chronological order and talks about some of the more historical aspects

[catholic-on-main]

It is SO important to read or hear about the history and political climates of different eras when reading the Bible. It gives so much more context and depth as to the meanings behind certain laws and traditions in both the Old and New Testaments.

[sadoeuphemist]

“So this is a library,” said Shaw, wrinkling up his nose at the faintly musty smell of parchment. He peered up into the high arched ceilings, the flat of wrymsbane resting cold against his nape. “Not particularly defensible, what with all these massive windows and all.” He felt obligated to end on a complimentary note. “Lots of books, if you like that sort of thing.”

“Oh, yes, and it’s in these archives that I’ve discovered exactly what we’ve been looking for,” said Annalthea, bustling between the rows and rows of shelves. The librarian was a plump, unimposing woman who, as could be expected, looked utterly unsuited for the task of dragon slaying. “If you’ll just give me a minute - I’ve got them right here …”

“Take your time,” said Shaw. He casually twirled his blade, admiring the gleam of it. “We’ve got this whole ‘chosen one’ business down to a craft. Sure, you’re the one fated to kill the Writherdrake, but no one said you had to do it on your own, yeah? You say the word, I can put together a party of the finest dragon slayers you ever seen. You want ballistas? Faefire? You want a team of trained harriers to claw his wings to shreds?” Already his blood was pulsing with the possibilities. “I promise you this: I’ll have you driving a blade into the dragon’s heart even if I have to hold the bastard down myself.”

Annalthea poked her head out from between the shelves. “You ... you did read that part in my note about the Amulet of Destiny?” 

“Oh, yeah, yeah, boss told me about that. Amulet, that’s fine too. Always did admire that sort of sideways thinking, not letting fate box you in.” He stood in the open lobby, taking a few practice swings. “So if it’s a heist we’re planning, I know just the rogue for it, Sylvas Slyphfoot, fellow could steal the shadow off a cat. But if we’ve got magics involved, temple guards and that sort, we’re going to need to be recruiting a Gray Warder - there’s a few of them to be found in Breath’s End, but you generally need a line with the Underguards for that -”

He fell silent as Annalthea emerged from the shelves, hidden behind a massive stack of books that she set down with a thump on one of the tables, dusting her hands off triumphantly. “Uh,” said Shaw, looking the pile of books up and down much in the way a man might scan a corridor for traps. “What’s all those for, then?”

“Research!” Annalthea said, swiftly subdividing the stack into smaller piles, flipping books open and arranging them in front of her in quasi-military formation. Finally satisfied, she sat down, surveying her domain as if preparing to march into battle. She turned to Shaw. “Shall we begin?”

---

“Now, the Amulet of Destiny,” Annalthea said. “Of course, everyone’s heard of it, it’s appended to the end of all Skein prophesies - ‘and so the Amulet of their Destiny shall weigh heavy around their neck.’ The current High Knot of the Priesthood of Ludd is claiming it’s nothing but a metaphor, that every prophesy they make is immutable, but even a casual perusal of Ludd’s 64 Strings - much less the entire history of the Priesthood! - shows that’s clearly not true! The Amulet was considered for centuries to absolutely be a real artifact, with multiple Knots affirming the fact of its existence. Ludd himself writes in interweaving 9, verse 4 of the Strings that ‘the Amulet hangs on the Skein, and only by grasping this may a man change his fate.’” She looked up expectantly at Shaw.

Shaw furrowed his brow, made himself look as serious as possible. “Mm. Yeah. Like you said.”  

“Now the thing is, mentions of the Amulet of Destiny actually predate the creation of Ludd’s Blood’s Skein - it’s part of a much older tradition that got absorbed by the Ludd Priesthood. I was cross-referencing different versions of the legend -” She held up a thick volume bound in dull red leather - “Geoffrey Rymer’s Assorted Tales and Legends of the Northern Isles - an invaluable resource - and the Amulet has been placed everywhere from Mount Hyperboreax to the Living Tombs of Ebon. So, using Parcefalus’ A Genealogy of the Second World - plus a bunch of other minor historians who aren’t part of the standard curriculum,” she added apologetically, as if she was depriving him of a particular involved leg of the hunt - “I’ve traced the earliest oral traditions of the legend to the Chalk Giants, who according to Rymer say - hold on -” she said, darting to the left and flipping furiously through another book, finding her place and putting on a scholarly affect- “’say in their dusty tones that the amulet is buried in the barren cleft of the earth, and is so responsible for the slow advancement of the continents upon one another, in that dreary part of the world we call the Wastes.’”

Shaw blinked. “Uh-huh,” he said, leaning over her shoulder and squinting at the incomprehensible squiggles she kept eagerly pointing out. “Okay, so, it’s in the Wastes, right, that’s the whole upshot of that?” He put his thumb to his chin. “Bit more complex than I thought, then, we’ll need a Waste-tracker for that -”

“But that’s not all!” Annalthea said. She slid to another section of the table. “So, Wastern literature is notoriously inaccessible, and what little we do know about their culture has been filtered through the self-serving biographies of would-be colonizers, like Castafez and Pinafetta. Notorious stories about rampant cannibalism, sacrifices to the Elder Wurms, the supposed ‘canals of blood’ made famous by Pinafetta’s infamous Report to the Imperial Committee - ”

“Hold on,” said Shaw. “Supposed? So you’re saying the canals of blood and all the rest, that’s not true?”  

“They’re unreliable sources!” said Annalthea. “What I wanted to do was find firsthand sources for Wastern culture, because if the Amulet of Destiny is indeed buried there, surely they’d have some native accounts of it! Now, in the Chronologies commissioned by High-Mother Gortel, who was of course sympathetic to Wastern culture, having a son-in-law from those lands, it says - Hold on a minute,” said Annalthea, scrabbling for another book.

“Is this - Is this all relevant?” said Shaw, looking with a growing dismay at the massive expanse of words across the table. “We started with the Ludds, fair enough, but now I don’t know why we’re talking about that Gortel, and Parsifus or whatever his name is -”

“Parcefalus,” she said, looking at him concernedly. “You know, the Genealogies? Indirectly responsible for the whole dynasty of the Sun-Kings, it’s where they drew their authority from?”

“Whatever,” said Shaw, ignoring her tone. “And that old witch Gortel’s been dead for ages! Ruled over a completely different continent! What are we doing, hopping around the world, then?”  

“Oh, but don’t you see!” said Annalthea, looking up at him brightly. “If we’re assuming the Amulet is in the Wastes, we need to find accurate accounts of the region to make our plan, and that involves a marshaling of historical data in order to figure out which sources can be trusted! There’s really no other way to do it other than going through the archives.”

“But we could just hire a Waste-tracker …” Shaw protested weakly.

Annalthea raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you read the Travelogues of Hyxeramminnieax? Across the Boiling World by P’tarri Fnordottir? Fnordottir in particular exposes the Waste-tracker system as little more than a fraud, perpetuated by generations of liminists who make their living as glorified tour guides showing off deserted portions of the Wastes!”

She stood before him, backed by her tremendous ramparts of books, and Shaw found himself utterly unarmed on this particular battlefield. “All right,” he sighed, and reluctantly sheathed wrymsbane, slumping down on one of the library’s many chairs, “Go on, then.”

“Right,” said Annalthea, already drawn as if magnetized to another tome. “Now, as I was saying, we see the Amulet of Destiny reappear in the Chronologies, obliquely, this time, in the form of a logical paradox supposedly etched into stone by the Oracle of the Wastes - no such etching is actually known to exist, of course. But the riddle, I think, is informative in how Wastern philosophy was viewed at the time. It goes, essentially: How can such an amulet ever change your destiny unless your destiny to begin with was to obtain the amulet!” She looked to Shaw, and not finding the reaction she had been expecting, turned back to the books. “Hold on, I suppose it loses something when not in the original Diretongue, let me find the translation by Aoi Iidii here - it’s by far the best attempt to really grapple with the lexicon, I think, by throwing some Quaennya into the mix -”

Shaw could feel the library’s shelves implacably closing in on him. The entire world could be bound between the covers of a book, apparently, and soon so would he. “Uh-huh,” he said.

“- but how could they have claimed such history with Wastern culture?” she was saying. “If we go back to Parmodines’ accounts, and all the others contemporaneous to him, there’s no trade, there’s no cultural exchange, there’s no nothing! The most there is, is this text supposedly dictated by the blind philosopher Jaenus to his disciple -”

Shaw looked on with glazed eyes. “Uh-huh.”

“- the direct words of the Oracle Morag herself! See, according to Torvid of Irridia’s writings, his master Jaenus would slaughter sheep and drag them out into the Wastes for her, and while she sucked the bones clean they would discuss philosophy, and he would memorize each word precisely as she said it! Of course, she also ate him eventually -”

“Absolutely fascinating,” Shaw said, stifling a yawn.

“- amulets made from his bones being sold, according to Torvid’s journals, which were called aloun, meaning protection, supposed to protect their bearers while journeying into the Wastes. Now, if we trace the original legends from the Chalk Giants about the Amulet of Destiny, we can see that Torvid’s mission to Qarilan coincided with the earliest recorded mentions of the legend -”

“Uh-huh.”

“- Torvid, being the tutor of the Princess Catalana, is widely accepted to have influenced her religious awakening and the subsequent founding of the Flower of the Eternal Now, a short-lived cult during the Majal Period. Rumor has it that he even had an affair with her, although this of course cannot be proven -”

“Mrhmm.”

“- and here, in Book Four of The Bliss-Touched Nectar, she says, ‘Cede not the desires of your heart, for it is the shell’ - and that’s how Poryphys translates it, shell, but in the original text it’s aloun! Torvid’s aloun, and Jaenus’ aloun!” Her voice rose in excitement, and Shaw was roused blearily from his stupor. “See, she says, ‘Cede not the desires of your heart, for it is the shell, aloun, that shall be consumed in the blooming of the seed, to form the plant that grows without restriction!’“ She was beaming at him. “Don’t you see? That’s it! That’s the Amulet of Destiny! It’s the answer to the riddle! How can you come to possess the seed of your fate, unless it was your fate to possess it to begin with?”

Shaw stumbled to his feet, groping vaguely for his sword. He was certain he had missed something terribly vital. “Uh, so?” he said. “What’s the answer to the riddle, then?”

“It’s in the desires of our heart,” said Annalthea, earnestly pressing both hands to her chest. “The Amulet of Destiny, it was a metaphor for free will all this time, corrupted by centuries of oral folklore into an actual mythical artifact! It was in us this whole time!“

Shaw blinked at her, his hands falling to his sides. “Uh...”

“That’s how we change our destiny!” Annalthea said. “Of course, it’s such an obvious philosophical and narrative tradition dating back to the Irridians! The artifact, and then the quest, only to discover in the end that you were the bearer of the sacred truth all along - That’s the true value of an archive like this one,” she said with satisfaction, “being able to see how people before us went through their lives, pick out the patterns, so that we can learn from what’s come before! To think, we might have spent weeks on some fruitless quest, exposed to the elements, harassed by all sorts of ne’er-do-wells, only to learn what was available to us this whole time! Entire continents and centuries are accessible to us, just by opening a book!”

“Uh, of course, of course,” said Shaw, befuddled. “So, I - Well we’re not going after the Amulet now, definitely -” She beamed at him, tapping a hand over her heart. “So …” He struggled to get back on familiar ground. “We’re back to the slaying the dragon plan, then?”

“Oh!” she said. “Heavens, no!”

“Then, uh, what?”

“Well, I don’t need to do anything now, do I?” Annalthea said, and began briskly stacking the books back in piles for reshelving. “That whole prophesy nonsense - I’ve already changed my destiny by refusing it.” She bustled past him, her arms full of books. “I’m sure you’ll be much better off without me getting in your way, anyhow.”

“But -” said Shaw. “But, no, you can’t -” His hand went instinctively to the hilt of wyrmsbane, and he found himself wishing that there was something productive to stab with it. “But what about the Grey Skies! The Writherdrake! The only one who can pierce his heart!”

“Oh, goodness,” said Annalthea, and put a hand on her cheek, looking at him sympathetically. “I’m just a librarian, dear. I tend to the books. What would I ever have to do with a dragon?”

---

Annalthea stood over the smoldering remains of the library, her clothes and skin stained with soot, ash gritty beneath her feet, raised blisters on her hands. She was looking into the depths of a building that no longer existed: every rafter, every shelf, every floorboard, every scroll, every page, incinerated and reduced to ash.

Her fingers were hooked into rigid claws, lined with weeping blisters. A low moan came from her throat.

Shaw came running up, There was a wound across his scalp, his hair dangling gristly with blood, scorch marks streaked across his armor. Blackened burned flesh bubbled across his left arm. “Oh good, you’re alive,” he muttered. “Dragon’s gone. Razed us clear to the ground and veered off to the west. More safeholds to pillage, I suppose.” He peeled his hair out of his face, taking in a breath, and found a bit of rubble to sit on. He grimaced at his left arm. “It’ll heal. Didn’t even give me the chance to stab him a good one, the bastard. I mean, town’s burning, but any fight you can walk away from, right?” He looked over to Annalthea, let his gaze drift over the former site of the library. “Ah.”

A tremor began in Annalthea’s shoulders, shook her rib cage, made her hands tremble so badly that she clenched them into fists. “Look,” Shaw said awkwardly, half-standing to raise a hand over her shoulder, and then deciding better of it and sitting back down. “You can’t blame yourself for this, all right? You weren’t trained for this at all, and these prophesies - well, I don’t hold much stock in them myself! Chosen ones, huh!” he said, and snorted. “Why’s it never a professional who gets chosen, I ask you? You, and your books - Why, no one could have expected it of you, it’s a completely unfair ask -”

“I’m going to kill that dragon,” Annalthea said.

“Uh?” said Shaw.

“I’m going kill. That fucking. Dragon,” Annalthea said, each word forced viciously out of her throat. “Every book. Every last one of them. Burnt. Burnt to the ground.”

“Oh,” said Shaw, and then leapt to his feet. “Oh!”

“Lost,” said Annalthea. “All of it. The irreplaceable archive of generations. Burnt to the ground by a fucking overgrown lizard.” She looked at Shaw, her eyes blazing through her blackened face. “I’m going to slit his fucking throat.”

“Yeah,” said Shaw, nodding along. He drew wyrmsbane again, slightly tarnished but still deadly. “Yeah!”

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to claw out his eyes. No - I’m going to carve out his heart and make him watch as I eat it while he’s still alive, make him watch each bite with his last gasping breaths as I taste the brimstone on my tongue. And then I’m going to kill him,” she said, “and then I’m going to rend. His. Soul.”

“Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah!” said Shaw, excitedly kicking up ash. “I can still get a party together, won’t take two ticks - I know this warlock, you should see what her eldritch blasts can do to dragonscale -”

Annalthea swung her head to him. “You said he went west?”

“Uh-huh,” Shaw said, “but if you just hold on -”

She was already heading westward, trailing a cloud of ash in her wake, moving quickly but implacably, as if she would never tire. Shaw watched her in wonder, his spirits much buoyed, and was about to run to catch up with her when he let his gaze drift once more to the ashen field, the burnt remains of the library. He felt, vaguely, like he ought to say something in memorial of his encounter with this odd and fateful institution, some testament to the fallen before embarking on their valiant quest.

He bowed his head, put one hand over his chest. “Too bad I never learned to read!” he said, and set off.

[cricketnationrise]

Books Read in quarantine: Part 2

part 1 is here.

26. Free Little Library by Naomi Kritzer: tor.com short story. there’s a magical being that uses the free little library as the ultimate resource in gaining power and bettering their society. cute with a vengeful twist.

27. Sinew and Steel and What They Told by Carrie Vaughn: tor.com short story. i don’t remember this one super well but i remember the structure being cool

28. The Naming by Alison Croggon: book 1 in The Books of Pellinor series. cool magic system, some chosen one and mistaken identity, family LITERALLY found. looking forward to the next one

29. CHECK, PLEASE!, BOOK 2: STICKS AND SCONES BY NGOZI UKAZU: volume 2 of an amazing web series turned graphic novel about a college hockey player who likes to bake and falls in love with his captain its FANTASTIC and i recommend this series to literally everyone i know

30. Eric by Terry Pratchett: Discworld #9. Faust retelling as the premise. guy tries to summon a demon. gets Rincewind and his Trunk out of the demon realm instead. hijinks ensue from there. you probably need some discworld knowledge to follow this one

31. The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper: middle grade coming of high school novel. Sparrow Delaney can see and talk to ghosts, but she’s keeping her powers from her family (also ghost seers) because she just wants to be normal. a new family moves to town after their oldest son dies. oldest son’s ghost is hanging around his little brother and meets sparrow

32. An Explorer’s Cartography of Already Settled Lands by Fran Wilde: tor.com short story. what can you map? just geography? how sad for you. this narrator can map all sorts of things from bird migrations to emotions of a city

33. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner: book 2 in the Queen’s Thief series (complete now). i got into these because of a few different fanfics mentioning them and they are AMAZING I’m very annoyed i didn’t know about them sooner. political intrigue, gods, competent people doing their jobs, everyone underestimating said competent people

34. A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict by John Baxter: so i stopped reading this one about halfway through because i didn’t need to read about the various orgies thrown by authors/literary agents this man attended. also he’s not so much into reading as collecting and that’s boring to me.

35. Love Charms and Other Catastrophes by Kimberly Karalius: book 2 in the Grimbaud series. definitely need to read the first book for context. but its a really sweet series with a dark underbelly that gives a nice contrast. think the paper magician series but milder on all fronts.

36. First Kisses and Other Misfortunes by Kimberly Karalius: set after book 1 in the Grimbaud series it expands on what happens to the main couple from book 1 before book 2 opens. read on swoonreads which is now fiercereads.

37. The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle: goblin king retelling. first in a trilogy. i enjoyed it, especially as the narrator sticks it to abuse family members

38. The Golden Specific by S.E. Grove: book 2 in the mapmakers trilogy. fascinating world building that you absolutely need the first book to understand. aimed at high schoolers. across the world there are different times existing at once. middle ages, technological age, 1800′s, and more times are interacting depending on where in the world you are. sometimes the lines shift.

39. The Crimson Skew by S. E. Grove: book 3 in the mapmakers trilogy. back in america a war is brewing that has managed to weaponize some sort of airborne disease/??? that explodes people. yeah. satisfying close to the series.

40. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik: why why WHY was this my first Novik book. what was i waiting for??? polish folklore inspired. theres a winter (elf? goblin?) king who needs gold and wife. a fire demon trying to escape his (metaphorical) chains to take down the winter world. and a girl who can turn silver into gold. (by trading). politcal intrigue, magic, a really heavy crown. well worth the read. on a wavelength with the winternight series.

41. The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History by Buzbee Lewis:  I picked this up because its about a bookstore and the author’s name is buzbee. cute little memoir with an overview of the history of books/bookstores from ancient times to now

42. All Systems Red by Martha Wells: book 1 in the murderbot diaries. this was actually a reread for me, but it had been long enough that i wanted to refresh and its a novella so its a fast read. A Security Unit (SecUnit) that calls itself Murderbot has hacked its own governor module so that it can watch its soap operas. Now if only the humans it was responsible for would stop being so dumb.

43. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells: book 2 in the Murderbot diaries. Murderbot has freed itself from its government contracts and is working on its own. Murderbot gets a lift to a planet from its past from an empty transport vehicle, named Asshole Research Transport (ART) by Murderbot.

44. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells: book 3 in the Murderbot diaries. Murderbot’s story continues. pretty crucial that you read these in order. Murderbot continues to be put off by humans and their behavior. Still just trying to consume the media it wants without being bothered.

45. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells: book 4 in the Murderbot diaries. Murderbot meets back up with the humans from book 1. chaos ensues while trying to escape the company that Murderbot used to be contracted to.

46. Network Effect by Martha Wells: book 5 in the Murderbot diaries. first full length novel in the series. another one to come in April 2021. Murderbot gets kidnapped from its human friends. turns out ART needs some help and doesn’t have any other friends.

47. Airborn by Kenneth Oppel: steampunk pirates in airships. kind of similar in vibes to the aesthetic of the leviathan series, but strictly mechanical advancements. cool worldbuilding. teenage girl scientist protagonist. first in a series.

48. The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón: book 2 in the cemetery of forgotton books series. very atmospheric. like you can almost see the fog while you read it. supernatural/elements of magical realism. helps if you read book 1

49. I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell: memoir told out of chronological order. each titled with the body part that almost caused death (neck, spine, blood, lungs, etc). by definition, not a happy read, but powerful. trigger warning for the neck story for an almost abduction/assault. content warning for chronic illness/disease.

50. Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks: yes that Tom Hanks. series of short stories. some of them are connected. i can’t remember anything super upsetting, and some of them are straight up comedic. elements of the absurd. in one a group of friends goes into space. like without nasa or any organization. they just. build a rocket. and go to space.

[heyktula]

Closer, Chapter Four: Kink - Bonus Features

Chapter four of Closer, the first installment in Somewhere in Canada (the Terror kink AU)... is now up! It's a plot-heavy chapter! There's some platonic kink! There's the plot to an entirely different story if you squint!

Technical notes first, story notes after, line notes to finish it all up.

Alright, here we go.

Technical Considerations:

Chapter Titles: So I didn't have any particular chapter titles in mind when I started this story. The original structure I'd planned for was one chapter for Friday, one for Saturday, one for Sunday, with Jopson POV at the very beginning of chapter one, and then again at the very end of three.

Obviously, uh, there was too much story for that to fly. So I cut it where I needed to cut it, and swapped my structure to have Jopson POV at the beginning of every chapter (and bonus Jopson POV at the end of the chapter). So I needed five chapter titles. First I couldn't think of anything good, and then it occurred to me that I could name four of them after the RACK acronym (Risk Aware Consensual Kink), and then it was super fascinating from a storytelling perspective because of the way the chapters lined up. Like, Risk deals with the risks that Edward didn't take because he totally ducks out of talking to Jopson that first night. Aware covers them starting to know each other. Consensual covers the dungeon scene, Kink covers platonic kink, and also the very normal way that both of them have integrated kink into their regular lives, and how it leads to these intimacies that are normal for them, but would be strange from a vanilla perspective or in a vanilla relationship. And then, finally, since I needed a fifth chapter title, Aftercare seemed like the obvious solution, which cracks me up because the entire chapter is, uh, well. I mean, it's aftercare for them. But yeah.

Mornings: So I wanted the structure of this fic to be all chronological in order--ie, no re-covering events that have already happened from someone else's POV within the same fic. (The Tozer/Irving fic, obviously, will be covering many of the same events, but it'll be different enough that it won't matter.) Which led to an icky bit for me, because I split the chapters differently than I anticipated (see above), and needed to start the day out with Jopson-POV even though I already had this lovely Little-POV drafted out.

Thankfully, Jopson came in for the win with that one, because he's a morning person, and Ned isn't, and their alarms were set for different enough times that I could go right from Jopson's wakeup to Ned's wakeup without having to retread the same information or the same section of the day (technically, there's a small chronological overlap, I think Jopson is probably eating breakfast when Little is trying to resurrect himself from his bed, but I've decided I Don't Care).

The Three Bears' Bed: This is such a smol technical note, but I wanted to bring it up because it's one of the really fun things that you can do with deep POV. It's implied (and confirmed in the next chapter) that Jopson and Edward are in essentially identical hotel rooms. But if you squint--they both describe their beds very differently. Jopson's bed is "too big", ie, he clearly sleeps on a single at home, and it's probably not as nice as the hotel bed. Edward's bed, a carbon copy of the queen bed Jopson is sleeping in, is "too small", ie, he's clearly got a king-sized monstrosity for himself back at home. I absolutely live for these kinds of things that are literally too minor to be noticed (nor should they be, they're meant to fade into the background), but which communicate so much about the characters.

(Ah, god, there's going to be so much adjusting for them to do in London. Their lives are very, very different. Jopson is starting to clue in, and he's going to have to sit with that once he has a clear head and lets all the subconscious stuff he's been picking up on actually gel together. Right now, he's very much in the 'whoa that looks expensi--hooooly fuck Ned Little is hot' phase. He'll have a Moment in London, though, where he'll sit bolt upright in his single bed and go wait a minute he put fifties in the donation bin when I blacked his boots and didn't even blink, he just casually throws large denomination bills* around.)

*I grew up low income, and I never carry anything bigger than a twenty in my wallet. People who are used to having more money, in my experience, tend to carry larger bills in their wallets. I know a fifty isn't actually a large denomination bill, but it is when you aren't used to carrying that kind of money around. Fifties make me tense until I break them. If I have a hundred, it's because someone gifted it to me, and I am gonna stress about it until I get it to the bank to deposit. Twenties are good for me, thanks.

Story Considerations:

Jopson's Work Ethic: Jopson's work ethic is in full force here, and I love to see it. I also love to see how firm he is about not hiding it. Like, Blanky understands how rare it is for Jopson to find someone he connects with the way he connects with Nedward, and was perfectly willing to skip the dungeon* to give Jopson another go at it. But Jopson, at some point, has transitioned from 'perfect, a weekend hookup' to 'perfect, I would like Ned in my life always'. (Gonna guess it was that post blowjob cuddle-nap that tipped it over, to be perfectly honest.) And Jopson knows that for Ned to be in his life always, Jopson needs to be realistic with him about what his life actually looks like--so he's going to work the long hours that he usually works, and he's going to run Blanky's booth so that Blanky can head to the dungeon tonight, and when Edward asks to be told literally anything about Jopson's life, Jopson moves immediately to telling Ned about his job.

(You'll note that Jopson has a schedule for working in the morning, the afternoon, and also the evening, ie, decidedly more than an eight hour day/forty hour work week. He did not mention that he frequently goes to Terror, and then shows back up at three am to do more work in a haze of subspace, but I'm sure he'll get around to it.)

I think it's important to Jopson that Edward accept him as he is--that is, no arguing about what comes first (it's work), or what Jopson's priorities are (also work), or how much availability Jopson has for a relationship (all of it...after work). So in that sense, this is pretty much a trial by fire--Jopson is saying 'look, this is what my life is like, and if you fit, you can stay', and Edward, in turn, is saying 'please just let me sit next to you, I like it here'. (I'm sure Tozer would be irritable about Edward's changed loyalties if he weren't currently sorting out, you know, every bad decision he made the previous night).

*This is not a Blanky-specific thing. If Esther were here instead, she and Jopson would have the same arrangement. I think either Blanky or Esther would be equally fun to play with, don't you?

Duty and Responsibility: I also love the differing approaches to duty and responsibility, as displayed by Joplittle--Edward talks, multiple times, about his duties and responsibilities here as something that he needs to shoulder, like it's a too-heavy pack that he's hauling around behind him when he would really rather just pull the covers over his head and stay there. Jopson, however, is thriving under his.

I would posit that, perhaps, if Edward managed to distance himself further from Hickey's bullshit, that maybe his responsibilities wouldn't suck so much. But for Edward to get away from Hickey's bullshit, that would mean Tozer would also have to put his foot down, and Tozer has been ambivalent about doing that, so far.

Sadomasochism, and the ‘Gold-Star’ Dom: Oh, Edward, my sweetheart, my dear, you have a track record of dating terrible people, and hanging out with people who kinkshame you, and I am so sorry that it's come to this.

There's this really fascinating (by which I mean it's incredibly toxic) culture difference between old guard spaces and the "newer" spaces. For people Francis' age who grew up in old guard leather kink scenes, they would have come up in the scene submitting first, and then either continuing to submit, or transitioning into being a dominant as they gained experience. However, for newer spaces--and here, I'm talking about something that was starting to happen for people around Fitzjames' age--there started to be a shift toward just doing one or the other*. By the time we get to people in the same age range as Little**, Tozer, and Jopson, the emphasis on picking one or the other is much more prominent. You should 'know' your orientation when you enter the scene--and then that's typically where you stay. There's no requirement for a dom to have ever subbed--and there's no requirement for doms to be familiar with the business end of their implements either. (If I had a dollar for every talk I'd been to where a dom was proud that they've never actually tested gear on themselves, I would have a lot of dollars.)

This leaves Little in an awkward spot--he's got no interest in submitting (as per the way he nopes out of any sort of cuffs or protocol with James Clark Ross), but, unlike Tozer, who tolerates getting hit in the context of fighting but doesn't particularly like it, Little actively enjoys the pain of getting hit. Based on how awkwardly he discloses that to Jopson, we can infer (correctly) that it's gone down badly in previous hookups.

(The general stereotype that dominant-sadist-top*** and submissive-masochist-bottom are one scale instead of, you know, three different scales, is not helping Ned at all here.)

So Ned is in this spot as a sadomasochist dom where he's had a hard time finding a partner that is willing to accept that he has a masochist streak as well. Enter Jopson...

*I think, though I'm not sure, that part of this shift was kink culture moving into the straight scene as well. Heterosexual kink tends to avoid the formalized learning process, and focus strictly on I Have Always Been A Dom.

**For the purposes of kink!AU, I'm going with approximate show ages for everyone--I think I saw somewhere that historically, Little was older than Fitzjames--but I'm going with an older Fitzjames and a younger Little here, for Fitzier Reasons.

***Note that I’m talking about top and bottom in a BDSM sense here--the one who wields the flogger vs the one who has the flogger used on them. The penetrator/penetratee during intercourse is an entirely separate thing, which....you guessed it....is also unrelated to the above-mentioned scales.

Service: Jopson thrives when he's engaged in acts of service. I really loved working with the translation of canon-to-kink!Jopson, because it's really fascinating to dig into how those canon aspects of his personality translate. Like, the long hours as a steward translate directly to the long hours that he works for Francis. But those acts of service translate really easily into submission as well. (I would posit that, for people who pursue more 'lifestyle' kink as opposed to 'bedroom-only' kink, there's a great chance that they'll pursue jobs that play to those strengths.)

The particular benefit to this that's working in Ned's favour here is that Jopson loves nothing more than to arrange things for people to make sure they have what they need. So this intersects perfectly with Ned's typical methods for managing his top drop--if Jopson can leverage his connections to make sure that Ned has access to people that will let him bottom-but-not-submit for them when he needs it, well, that's a win for both of them.

(I would hazard a guess, if you squinted, that Ned is sexually monogamous, and generally dates other monogamous people, which sometimes makes the negotiation of play with other people outside the dyad a non-starter. I would also guess that Jopson wouldn't consider monogamy to be a particular value of his, and so anything he can do to make sure Ned is looked after is perfect for him.)

Top Drop: Pretty much any kink conference that even slightly touches on educational aspects will have a talk about subdrop, typically led by a sub or a panel of subs, or sometimes by a dom/sub pair, discussing how to properly care for one's sub, how to deal with subdrop, and all those coping kinds of mechanisms. I can guarantee Edward has attended a number of those talks, written at least one blog post, and probably could speak on it if you really bullied him into it.

Those same conferences typically do not talk about top drop. I've been to lots of talks on sub drop. I've only ever been to one on top drop, and it was so horribly done that we’re still talking about it years later. Even googling when I was brushing up on my research for this fic didn't give me much.

Anyways, it's good that Jopson works for Crozier, who treats drop as something that can happen to anyone regardless of position. In turn, this means Jopson is able to recognize it happening to Ned, and will just merrily bulldoze and/or gently bully Ned until he gets the information he needs to be able to help.

RACK and SSC: Ah, look, it's the author picking a pedantic fight in the middle of their fic using their POV character as a mouthpiece. SO. When I was first getting into kink in the early two thousands, SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual) was the name of the game. It essentially means that the activities you do under the BDSM umbrella should fit all three of those criteria.

The issue that I and many others have with the acronym is that it doesn't particularly fit that well for a lot of the activities in BDSM. After all, what's really safe? You can trip walking down the same stairs that you've walked down every day of your life if your shoelace is loose, or if your ankle goes weird, or if you're just not paying attention. What's sane? No, really, what is it? What defines sane? Should we be using mental health terms to determine whether or not something is a good idea? What's the opposite of 'sane' in this context?

(I'm not gonna bicker about consensual, obviously, that one I still hold to.)

How do you practice edge play under SSC? Can you safely punch someone? Is it sane to do so? (God, I hate the inclusion of 'sane' in the acronym so much.) Can you consent to something that doesn't fit the first two criteria? If you decide an activity fits all three criteria, does that guarantee nobody gets hurt? (Absolutely not.)

So, there's a shift in the scene to use RACK instead--Risk Aware Consensual Kink. RACK is more focused on assessing the risks to specific activities, and consenting to do those activities even though the risk exists. You can definitely punch someone under RACK--because RACK supposes that you've discussed the risks of punching them, you're both doing your best to manage those risks, and you've both consented to the activity while recognizing that it’s inherently risky to do it and you’ve taken as many precautions as you can.

Sir John 'actually the expedition is outfitted for seven years and we don't need any rescue' Franklin is clearly focused on SSC, with an emphasis on no further risk assessments once a particular activity is deemed to be safe. This isn't to say that everyone who practices SSC ignores possible risks--but it is to say that the acronym doesn't encourage active risk assessment the same way that RACK does. (Doing X is safe, therefore, I don’t think about the risks while I do X, because it’s safe.) I personally think that RACK is a more robust way to assess kink activities, but, as you can probably infer from, you know, the entirety of this fic, I take part in a lot of activities that don't fit under SSC, so I'm biased.

I do not blame Edward one bit for getting into that argument with Sir John. I do feel pretty certain that Blanky surreptitiously filmed it, though, so that he can send it to Francis. I also am pretty sure that Francis’ own stance on RACK, which comes through pretty clearly in his books, would have informed Edward’s stance as well, so, you know, full circle there. (Do you have any idea how many people you’ve informally mentored via your books, Francis? It’s *cough*JamesFitzjamesAlso*cough* a lot.)

Florentine Flogging: Here's the reference video I was using for Florentine flogging! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGCQGsxbwtw

Sharp eyes will notice that this is a very similar skillset to spinning poi, which I thought was really neat.

Line Notes:

Jopson will be back in six months to give his talk, and Edward is going to be right there in the front row to support him, and that means that nothing can go wrong this weekend.

It...doesn't actually mean that. I mean, obviously, yes, not being banned from Canada is a requirement. But not having the booth open wouldn't have killed anybody.

Irving dragged you home—please advise how, he’s half your size?

This is funnier once I did some googling and realized that Ronan Raftery is six goddamn feet tall, which makes him two inches taller than Matthew McNulty, but I decided to let Edward's inaccuracies stand because they're pretty goddamn funny. Also, I maintain that Irving gives off smol energy.

“Oh, good,” Irving says, the tension instantly melting off his face. “I’m so glad he made it to bed.”

Tozer did not make it to bed, but, tbh, I wouldn't correct Irving at this particular moment either. Especially not in front of Lady Jane Franklin.

“Who’s this, then?” Lady Franklin asks. She’s wearing a vintage dress from a decade Edward should probably recognize, but doesn’t. (Jopson would, he’s sure of it.)

The 1950s, Edward. It's literally the most easily recognizable decade.

“…he’s fine,” Edward says, more confused than ever.

Edward, Edward, Edward. Both more confused than ever--and completely unwilling to do any followup on this whatsoever, because why ask questions when instead you could eyefuck Jopson. (In a sense, though, this is Tozer's problem, so Edward's ability to disconnect from it completely is probably an improvement from, say, Edward of a few years ago.) Normally, leaving plot threads hanging like this would bother me extensively, but because I'm drafting the Tozer/Irving fic as we speak, I'm comfortable just letting all of this just hang for a bit. These plot threads are important to include because they happened, but they're not important to resolve, because Edward doesn't give a shit.

Nothing fancy—just Ned, with a little handwritten squiggle next to it that’s almost a heart, if you squint.

It's definitely a heart. Jopson just channeled the patented Francis Crozier technique of 'if I make a vague line here, people can interpret it how they want'. Not very characteristic of Jopson--but, as we discussed last week, poor boy is carting around some baggage re: his affection, so we’ll just let him have this.

It’s probably the goddamn bruise from yesterday’s fuckup. Well, that, and the fact that Tozer isn’t there. Or maybe Edward’s just fucking up something else that he’s completely unaware of.

I'd like to propose option four, which is that Edward is hot as fuck, dressed in leather, and was part of a scene that gathered a respectfully distant crowd in the dungeon the night previous. Edward is not aware that option four is an option, but I would like to reassure him that option four is, in fact, an option.

“What do you do for aftercare?” Jopson asks curiously. “Like—what did you do last night, after you walked me home?”

Bold of Jopson to assume that Edward spent two seconds looking after himself. (He won't make that mistake again--Edward's blog entry on aftercare was detailed enough that last-night!Jopson made the endorphin-blurred call that Edward had his own routine sorted, and is now finding out that Edward has no such thing.)

Edward sighs, starts to mentally assemble an apology. He’s done it again—let his guard down, said too much. The apology has never worked in the past. But he’ll have to try. There’s always a chance Edward will get it right this time, even though he’s not remotely ready for this (it was going so well), but he has to, he has to start, he’ll just—he’ll start by—saying—

In true Ed Little fashion, Edward is assuming that the reason this conversation has never gone well in the past is because of him, instead of the more rational suggestion that perhaps he's just trying to hook up with people who aren't actually compatible with him.

Jopson’s face is very pink. “Quite the mental image,” he says. He swallows, visibly. “You and Tozer were, uh. Both holding back during the demo yesterday, then.”

Ah, yes, the look and sound of a man who is rather quickly realizing that a wank fantasy he'd watched unfold in real time yesterday was actually just the tip of the iceberg.

Jopson’s eyebrows shoot up. “Why?” He scrunches his nose, frowns. “Was that meant to be a joke?”

Can't get all sad about Edward's past of attempting to have relationships with people he wasn't compatible with until we also get sad about Jopson's history, which apparently includes men he thought were tapping into his fantasies, only to find out that they were kidding. Ouch, my heart.

“Only if you want,” Jopson adds. “We could also, um. Go for a run?”

I don't believe that Jopson has ever gone for a run in his entire life. I appreciate that he's trying to help, though. That's very kind of him.

Jopson turns. “Hi, yes.”

Jopson cannot let a customer go unserviced, and I, for one, admire his dedication to looking after other people's booths as well as his own. I also think, although this action here is entirely instinctual, it's also a good checkpoint--had Edward reacted poorly to Jopson stepping in, well, that might not have been awesome. As it is, Edward is grateful, so he just keeps landing in Jopson's long-term prospect box.

“You know that huge guy they have on security?”

It's Tuunbaq! Also, Tozer should cool it on the whole "he doesn't speak English" thing, because it's not like Tozer speaks Inuktitut. (And while we're talking about Tozer, yes, he is wearing the equivalent of his mutineer hoodie.)

“And I’m like, yeah, I know him, I was drinking with him last night. And they just look at me. And they look at each other. And then the doctor guy is like ‘we had some concerning reports about his behaviour’, but I don’t know who would have said anything, the only other person there was Irving. Fuck, man, I was answering questions for an hour.”

Tozer, look, buddy. You can have a pass because you're as hungover as shit and I'm sure you've been contemplating death since you woke up, but you answered your own question there. The only other person there was Irving.

The only other person there was Irving.

One would hope that this might, you know, cause you to rethink your association with Hickey, considering that someone else's assessment of his behaviour has resulted in all of this, but I guess we'll have to chill on that for now until we get some Tozer POV.

Edward frowns. “He doesn’t drink?”

Pulled this bit directly from canon, and because I also think it's a fascinating bit of character development. Adam Nagaitis had such insights into his character in the AMC interview (https://www.amc.com/shows/the-terror/talk/2018/04/the-terror-qa-adam-nagaitis-cornelius-hickey) and I really think it's interesting working with that in a modern AU as well. So--this version of Hickey doesn't drink either. I think it's also interesting in how Edward and Tozer deal with this--Edward has known Hickey for years, and never noticed. Tozer knows--and still gets shitfaced anyways, even though he's drinking alone.

Tozer’s eyes go distant. “It’s the weirdest thing,” he says after a moment. “I think I told Irving about Heather.”

We can assume, for better or for worse, that Tozer's memory of last night is a bit spotty. I am sorry, though, that this is one of the things Tozer remembers. It's further away in kink!AU than it was in canon, but I don't imagine Heather's death was any easier for Tozer here than it was canonically.

(Also, the choreo of Tozer physically shifting Edward's hand off his arm was a late addition, and I hurt my own feelings adding it.)

Tozer raises his eyebrows, and then winces, goes back to squinting. “Hanky code,” he lectures. “Black is for S&M. Your proclivities aside, I don’t figure you meant to flag sub. And stuff it if you tell me it’s a fashion choice, I ain’t got headspace for that bullshit today.” He glances upward. “I swear they turned the fucking lights up in here, Jesus. I’ll see you after, I gotta go.”

Edward, you absolute himbo of a man. Jopson has been trying so hard, and I'm sure that you have a blog entry about hanky code buried somewhere back in your archive, but you also buried the information in your head, and thus did not access it, and all of Jopson's efforts were wasted.

“No, you misunderstand me,” Edward says. “I love that. Christ, the fuck did he finally do?”

Edward, Edward, Edward. Jopson has the right of it with his missing stair comment--but you're just as complicit as Tozer is in this, because by saying nothing and waiting for the problem to go away, you've been rubber-stamping Hickey's behaviour. I feel as though there's going to be Discussions about this in London.

“Honestly, Thomas, after all we’ve been through.” Sophia sighs, and then turns to face the table, braces her hands on the edge of it. “You know you can still call me Sophy.”

One of the things that really sucks about breakups is the part where there are ripples out into the rest of your social circle as well. I have the feeling that Jopson and Sophia might have gotten along really well--but Jopson's loyalties are with Francis, and so he's been pulling back since the most recent breakup in an effort to, you know, not hurt Francis any more than Francis is already hurt. I think it's significant that Edward is allowed to see this interaction, to be honest--because this is insight into who Jopson is as a person when he's not working or submitting.

Ross has a firm handshake, and a bright smile. He’s dressed casually—jeans, and a tshirt—and Edward feels horribly, awfully overdressed.

Edward is not appreciating casualdom!JCR nearly as much as I would like him to, and this is really, really upsetting me, because I would like to appreciate casualdom!JCR a lot.

I also really, really appreciated the opportunity to include some platonic kink here, because platonic kink is really important to me too. Sometimes you’re just in it for the experience, you know? And there’s no additional emotional or sexual connection there.

“Some kind of a multi-tailed flogger,” Edward says. “Little polished leather cord knots on the ends? Punches like a son of a—er, it’s a fairly sharp sting.”

Look, I wanted to include a reference picture for this. I did some googling. I like this style of flogger. But in the course of my googling, I found out that Walmart sells a twenty four dollar version of this in the states (I’ve since been informed it’s a third party seller BUT IT THREW ME OKAY), and I'm too Canadian to handle this, I can barely even handle American Walmarts selling alcohol, okay? So there's just. There's just no pictures. Anyways, good ball end floggers start at about two hundred Canadian, and they punch pretty fucking hard.

Good, Edward thinks. “So, the shower. I went up to the hotel room, figuring, ah. You know. Strip naked, step under the water, all that. And that’s what you should imagine, because I opened the door to our room, and...well, yeah. I’m here.”

Edward is going to need to update his dirty talk game, because this is Not Great, buddy. It's Not Great. And, let's be honest here. I'm sure you have years and years of filthy stories. You're going to need to learn how to tell them, because Jopson will appreciate and value every single one.

Phew. That's it for this week! Chapter five, Aftercare, goes up next Friday, and it is the very last chapter, can you believe. That's not it for this verse, though--I'm starting work on the Tozer/Irving story that runs parallel to this story. There's also a Fitzier that takes places in six months' time (during the winter conference). I have things to say about that Gore, Le Vesconte, and Cracroft situation. I have a story about Peglar and Bridgens. I might have some things to say about Goodsir. I could talk about Edward Little and Thomas Jopson until my tongue falls off. I just have a lot of feelings about kink, okay? And we're very lucky with The Terror because we have an extremely rich background of source material, both historical and tv show.

And if you have questions or anything in the meantime, you can always drop me an ask on tumblr or Curious Cat.

See you next week!

[sarazanmai]

Stuff I loved in 2018.

Its that time again. The end of a year and a look back on all the stuff I enjoyed. Honestly I almost wasn’t going to write this because I feel these posts are a lot of effort with very little reward, but there was a lot I experienced this year that I think was interesting and worth sharing. So let’s go.

Roger Ebert once said “artistry can redeem any subject matter”. While I’m not sure any subject matter can be salvaged through an artistic eye, it can certainly help. If someone approaches a certain material with a clear vision and purpose to what they do they can create something truly fascinating. The Monogatari series is a very strange one. Its told in a non chronological order, there’s characters who say they’re one thing and reveal themselves to be something else, there’s a lot of references to other anime, the visual style changes sometimes radically, its incredibly meta, some moments of fanservice have a deeper meaning to them while others not so much. Me personally I think the series goes through periods of being brilliant as well as periods where it just is not up to the same standard as before. That said I kind of like that, I like that you go through so many different moods and style shifts. Not everyone will like that, some will get frustrated with the weaker seasons, but for me I think it all comes together and really made for something I won’t forget. I watched the entire series within a week and then later in the year I rewatched it all barring “Koyomimonogatari” which is one of those weaker seasons in my opinion. Despite its bulk, despite its tendencies, the Monogatari series just kept me hooked.

There comes a time where we all must accept certain truths. One of them is a lot of you don’t really understand mecha. I still see all of these reviews and comments claiming that mecha before “Evangelion” were all just light fluffy Saturday morning cartoon fare with little substance. This could not be further from the truth. The Gundam franchise from the very beginning was serving what I am going to refer to as a human element. It was not this soulless creation who’s only goal was to sell model kits. Whether it was Amuro’s PTSD from piloting the Gundam or Kamille and his tragic romance with Four or Char’s true motives during the original series there was always more going on than just giant robots shooting things. This isn’t even taking into consideration other installments like “War in the Pocket” where its a story of war from the point of view of a child and soldier. I have not watched every Gundam anime, I am sure there are some that were just there to exist as another installment in the franchise and didn’t necessarily push the franchise or genre into new areas. But what I have seen in “Mobile Suit Gundam”, “Zeta Gundam” “War in the Pocket”, “Unicorn”, “Iron Blooded Orphans”, and even the polarizing “ZZ Gundam” which I admittedly dropped were all very interesting and very unique experiences. Tomino really hit on something when he created the series and now we’ve come so far that we have a franchise so massive and large it needs an entire wikipedia article devoted to its cultural impact.

Once again, mecha that came before “Evangelion” were still displaying that human element many critics are convinced wasn’t there. In “Macross” its very prominent to the point where it feels like a driving force to the entire show as well as its film “Do You Remember Love”. We spend as much time with the characters and their developing relationships as we do with the mecha battles. The emphasis on music and culture as something that can create a change in the world is one of the themes synonymous with the franchise. While there certainly were times in the show where it leaned a bit into a comical area, I didn’t mind this. It was a show aimed at a younger audience and was trying to communicate these themes on their level so at times things can be a bit silly, but I appreciate what is being said so much that it does not feel like an issue. The heart is still there, the human element is still there. And more complex and serious sub plots are there too. Regardless when it comes to the film “Do You Remember Love” and the OVA “Macross Plus” things were certainly approached with a more mature voice, bringing the franchise to new places. I watched this prior to any Gundam anime in an attempt to get a better feel for the mecha genre. I wanted to expand my tastes and I’m very happy I did because not only did I love this I also want to really explore the genre now more than ever.

With the release of “Lupin III Part 5″ this year I was really turned onto that franchise. I ended up getting this massive itch to explore it when that anime wrapped and while not everything I found was a masterpiece it was a worthwhile endeavor. There’s something to Lupin the character and the series at large that manages to be both fun while also evoking a sense of coolness in spite of his goofiness. It was interesting to go through the various TV series and the movies and some specials and get a sense for how its evolved through time. Rewatching “The Castle of Cagliostro” I really enjoyed it a lot and other installments like “The Fuma Conspiracy” and “The Hemingway Paper Mystery” were hugely entertaining. I really liked “Lupin III part 4″ and “The Woman Called Fujiko Mine” too and the original “Lupin III” anime. I can still hear that voice singing “Lupin...he’s a nice man...but he’s cool...”. And objectively speaking green jacket is best jacket. I feel like this is a series that has undergone so much evolution through the various people that came in to work on it that there’s bound to be something that appeals to somebody. You just have to find it.

I spent a lot of time ignoring “Gintama” and its a bit of a shame that I did because this is a really fun series. Despite how long it is I really didn’t feel like it took me a terribly long time to finish it. And even though its goal is more on the comedic side of things, the series surprised me with how strong of an emotional punch it can provide. The cast of characters is one of the most likeable and fun that I’ve seen in a while and the seiyuu cast was very impressive. Everyone plays their character well and I get the sense they really enjoy working on it. Akira Ishida in particular seemed to really get a kick out of playing someone as ridiculous as Katsura when so many of his other roles lean more serious. And of coarse everyone loves Tomokazu Sugita as Gin. His voice just feels so right for a character like this and it was great having him for something this big when in other anime I’ve seen him in he’s only around for so long. I’ve also got to give the series credit for its female characters. There’s a really sturdy amount and they’re all occupying their own place in this world with distinct identities. This is something that makes this world feel more alive and expansive. Kagura is a character I need to applaud for the fact that she wasn’t there for some sort of lolicon fanservice or to have a really awkward crush on Gin or Shinpachi. No she just cares about food and her dog. What a queen. Speaking of Shinpachi he was the MVP of this series, good boy. And there’s our Shinsengumi boys and of coarse Gin himself, so many great characters. I am sure a lot of people look at how much there is to “Gintama” and get nervous at the size of it, but there’s really no need to. When it clicks with you then there’s no putting it down.

“Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju” might be one of the greatest anime in recent years. It takes you through so many periods in this man’s life and the people around him and manages to hold you the entire way. Once again Akira Ishida is someone I need to give major credit to. He’s a very talented seiyuu and in this anime his performance was so impressive I was almost beside myself. Given the performance style the series is built around the cast all needed to be really great at reciting these stories and articulating them. And for the scenes where the characters are not on stage, when the interpersonal drama comes out, everything just hits in such a powerful way. I can’t remember how often I cried during this anime, but it never felt like I was being manipulated. It all felt as if it came through organically and easily. Even more subtle scenes like a character finding out he’s having a child hit on just the right emotions. If you are in the mood for a fantastic character driven drama this is absolutely one I’d recommend.

Speaking of character driven drama “Sangatsu no Lion” is another one to tune into. It initially presents itself as a very intense and dark story, but as the viewer stays involved you find that this is not about wallowing in self loathing but healing. The family that has taken this very troubled young man in and helped him navigate through his mental illness is so likeable and endearing. You find yourself wanting to see him get better and hope that these girls, as well as the other shogi players, find happiness for themselves too. Its not always simple though. There are ups and downs to the characters and their arcs, but it never feels bitter or angry. It feels like reality. Over the coarse of its two seasons it manages to do what so many other shows about a character with depression fail to do. It never feels exploitative or like it has no sense of how to handle such a topic nor does it feel hopeless. As difficult as things in Rei’s life can become you know deep down this isn’t the end of the line, things can get better. It also does a very good job at holding your attention whether you understand the intricacies of shogi or not. You’re told what feels like the essential basic rules to the game and you aren’t thrown into a state of culture shock if you’ve never looked into the game before. I feel like what we have here is a modern masterpiece and more people have been watching it and celebrating it as a great achievement and that makes me so happy.

“Galaxy Express 999″, pronounced “three nine” because why not, is quite the space opera. I watched every episode of the original TV series as well as the two films directed by Rintaro and while they have some flaws or areas that did not age well, they’ve remained famous for a reason. The TV series did a really great job at pulling at your emotions and showing you different worlds. Some felt similar to others, but then there’s so much creativity in other areas. The concept of a space train was inspired by the popular Japanese children’s book “Night on the Galactic Railroad”, which would receive its own anime adaptation, and what Leiji Matsumoto did with this inspiration ended up taking on an identity all its own. You really feel for this bond between Tetsuro and Maetel. You spend so much time wondering just who Maetel is and what her goal in all of this could be. She’s kept just vague enough where I feel we were told all that we needed to. Tetsuro is someone I’ve seen reviewers describe as a little frustrating due to his naivete, but he’s a child. It makes complete sense for him to place his trust in the wrong person or make a mistake like he does. Masako Nozawa, the future voice of Goku and all his male relatives barring Raditz, voiced Tetsuro and I think she really brought a strong likeability to the character. We feel for him and also have a lot of fun seeing him travel through space. Its hard to say what version is stronger, I’d argue the show but know its not easy to recommend something that hefty. Whether someone watches the films or the show or both I think they’re still getting something great out of it.

And they say you can’t sum up a show in one image. So “Madoka Magica” what are we to do about you? Its kind of hard to explain, but I rather purposefully chose not to watch it for this long. Mostly because I was tired of the hype and the fandom basically pulling an “Evangelion” and acting like no magical girl anime or manga prior to this served emotions. But its presence never really died, this anime is almost a decade old now and people still care. And while I don’t regret not tuning in while it was running, I am very happy to have experienced it on my own terms. It gave me one of my new favorite characters with Homura, its visually stunning and marvelously directed. the music is so enchanting, and the story really is good. I think the show from start to end was a great watch and really kept me going and the bittersweet nature of it did work for me. As far as the movies go I did watch “Rebellion” and while I think its good it does complicate what the message to the series is in my opinion. Either way its just the same as “End of Evangelion” where I don’t see it as canon. I think the big question a lot of people have is if this lives up to the hype and I’m not totally sure how to answer that, but it is an anime worth your time all the same.

This will be easy. I have a review already written out for “Slam Dunk” so if you want my more expanded thoughts there you go. This really is a fantastic anime.

Last year I watched the movie “A Silent Voice”, but failed to put it in my year end review out of pure laziness. I am not making that same mistake again. “In This Corner of the World” is a film I am very grateful to have seen. Its a very interesting take on a WWII story. Not that we haven’t had movies about the war from the perspective of a civilian before, but there is something to the way its approached through our protagonist that feels especially powerful. She experiences so much during those years and tries her best to keep living with keeping her family alive as her main motivation and eventually is met with tragedy. Its produced by a studio called Mappa who’ve gained a lot of attention for “Yuri on Ice” and this year’s “Banana Fish. I did not like those anime very much, but I really loved this film and have to applaud them for trying different types of stories. I hope the projects they have lined up for 2019 are as enjoyable as this. I’ve heard the director has an interest in releasing an extended cut and if that happens I’ll be very interesting in seeing what it offers.

Again I will not make the same mistake twice. “A Silent Voice” was directed by a woman named Naoko Yamada. She also directed “K-On” and “Tamako Market”, two series that made it on my post for last year. She has an incredible talent and in my opinion is the director in anime to watch. After the success of “A Silent Voice” a lot of people wanted to see where she would go and what she gave us is nothing short of amazing. “Liz and the Blue Bird” is a film more people need to pay attention to. Those who’ve seen it adore it, fans have given it very high scores and glowing reviews. But I think this movie needs even more attention beyond that because compared to movies like “Doukyuusei” this feels like it made a smaller splash in the community. Yamada’s approach to love and drama is so effective without being forceful, you really feel for these girls and the longing between them. Yamada is a director who cares deeply for respecting the emotions of her characters which is why she has successfully created so many famous emotional scenes without them feeling melodramatic or feeling staged. This is especially clear with this film where she manages to communicate everything we need to know, but in very few spoken words. And the animation as one expects from a Kyoani project is just lovely. It also manages to work very strongly with its blue toned color palette. So many people make these blue toned movies look dreary, but not here. Things still have a brightness to them and even a warmth. I feel very lucky I was able to see this movie this year when so many anime films take so long to be made available elsewhere. When it reaches the US on bluray I am definitely buying it.

When it comes to the seasonal TV anime for the year, this was my favorite.”Sora yori mo Tooi Basho“ or “A Place Further than the Universe” is a very interesting installment in the “cute girls do blank” genre of anime. Here its cute girls go to the arctic. It sounds like a weird premise to a show, but when you see it put into practice its impressive how much you feel invested in these girls and what they’re doing. Its directed by a woman named Atsuko Ishizuka who was once identified as one of the great talents at the famed studio Madhouse. I think, like Yamada, she manages to work within these character heavy stories while avoiding any unnecessary melodrama. A lesser director would have made some scenes so cheesy or so over the top sad and that can take you right out of the experience. At first I was unsure of how big of a hit this anime would be given how many huge shows came out this year, but its managed to top the bluray sales in Japan for quite a while now. I feel really happy it became such a success. People say the cute girl sub genre is played out and that if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, that is not true. Sometimes you need a talented director, an off the cuff premise, and you can get something fresh out of a genre that sometimes over saturates the market.

“Pop Team Epic” is an anime the like of which we’ve never seen before. And we will never get it again. A lot of people have said that in order to understand or get the jokes you have to know what it is they’re parodying and that really is not true. This isn’t referential humor like in “Gintama” where the impact of the joke relies on you knowing that material. If you don’t know "Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” you won’t get it when Gin references Joseph and Caesar’s training with Lisa Lisa. Here the approach to the comedy is so surreal that if you don’t know the reference it just registers as a bizarre thing they did. Sure I know they referenced things like “Hikaru no Go”, but someone who doesn’t would just think its “Pop Team Epic” being weird again. And if you do know what they’re referencing then you know the layers to the joke. The anime is also in a lot of ways very visually strong to the point of being almost avant-garde. It was expensive and time consuming to make even if people don’t realize it. All of these different animation styles, the mixed media approach to certain scenes. They even brought in Miyo Sato, the woman who does the paint on glass animation for “Mob Psycho 100″, to work on the show for a few segments. To a lot of people this show was a meme, but in a lot of ways I think it was doing more than that. We’re not going to get another season or anything out of it, but I’m happy something this strange was able to exist and grab hold of such a large scale audience.

I have an in depth analytical review out for "Berserk”, if you would like to read such a thing there it is. However it does contain spoilers. My unspoiled and condensed opinions are that its fantastic, with gorgeous art, well developed and amazing characters, and tons of soul. Its very intense and not exactly for everyone, but its definitely a masterpiece. Unfortunately it also has a very foul fandom which turned me off reading it for years. I genuinely expected my review to garner a lot of negative feedback given how this fandom is, to my surprise this never happened though. If you can remove the toxic fandom from the equation, which is surprisingly easy to do, then you’re golden. Also this is a romantic manga and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise because they’re cowards.

“Golden Kamuy” is fantastic as a manga. I watched the anime too, but I feel like that works best treated like a companion piece to the manga. I’ve best described the plot as “One Piece” meets “Silence of the Lambs”. This is also something that probably comes closest to evoking the same kind of strangeness that “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” has. The best way I can put it is that characters will say things that are weird, but nobody acts like they’re weird. There is also a lot of information fed to the reader about aspects of the Ainu culture and hunting and weaponry. At first it feels as if you’re being given a lot of information on topics that aren’t going to be important, but they end up having more significance than you realize. The same applies to the characters. I was surprised at how many characters I expected to be left behind were made relevant later on. And they’re memorable. Sugimoto, Asirpa, Shiraishi, Ogata, Tsurumi, Tanigaki, even that little girl Osoma was memorable. One thing the story really excels at is how you have a large amount of characters chasing the same prize, but with their own reasons. Nobody loses sight of their own motivation, some we still haven’t learned their true gain in all of this, and we see how this effects the flow of the plot. For such a large cast this would under a different writer feel very cluttered, but not here. And visually the manga looks amazing. Noda’s art is a little odd at first, but when you really look at it he’s got a lot of talent. Everyone looks distinct, the backgrounds look great, the animals look good (we’re not gonna discuss the anime’s CGI). If I had to recommend just one I’d say the manga as the anime does skip material, some due to networks being incapable of showing such things others honestly feel skipped because they wanted to streamline the plot at the expense of characterization and world building. I do still recommend taking in both as this sort of bundle deal though because the anime really is entertaining and has such a strong seiyuu cast it would be a shame to pass it by completely.

Takehiko Inoue is an absolute master at this stage in his career. In an interview with Akira Toriyama he was called someone with a real sense for manga and its amazing to see how he went from “Slam Dunk,” where he had not yet drawn a bare foot, to something like “Vagabond”. The art in this manga is deserving of all the praise it gets, its so detailed that it just leaves you stunned. The story also shows just how on point he is as a writer. I’m sure through the many movies and shows about Musashi Miyamoto a lot of Japanese audiences have a certain way they tend to view him and then here comes Inoue offering a different approach to the man. One where he is still working towards an enlightened state and trying to reign in an animalistic rage. Working in themes of being the strongest under the sun, what it means to live for the sword, how these choices effect the people left behind, its really fascinating stuff. There’s even an entire long stretch of chapters where we break away entirely from Musashi to focus on a young Kojiro and his adoptive father, its a very sudden break away yet it doesn’t feel random or jarring. I think because Inoue knows how to craft compelling characters so effortlessly it made that shift in focus work as well as it did. Its one of the most successful manga in terms of sales and with good reason, its a masterpiece. This is one of those manga that currently is on an indefinite hiatus and I can only hope Inoue is able to finish it. And if for whatever reason he can’t then at least we can say we got what we got.

Behold your new shonen king! Not Izuku, not Hinata. Open your arms for the next great shonen! “Dr. Stone” is a manga that at the moment doesn’t have the largest of audiences, but everyone I know who’s read it absolutely loves it. And with the anime being released next year I can only hope that will be the push that people need to experience it. The story is focused very heavily on innovation and discovery which feels so fresh compared to a lot of things Weekly Shonen Jump has been producing as of late. And the level to which things have been thought out really impresses me. In recent chapters it was revealed that in that period of time humanity was petrified the terrain has changed drastically and the maps from the past are now worthless. So that means finding a way to survey the land and get a better sense of the world. Its so exciting to read this sort of thing. And the characters are so fun. Senku is a very interesting character to place at the center of this story. He’s a genius and approaches things as logically as possible, sometimes he can be a jerk and self serving, but he’s always going to do what he can to further civilization because he just loves science that much. Chrome is a really funny character to bounce off of him. We recently were introduced to a new member of the cast that has great potential. I like Asagiri. Its written by the same mangaka behind “Eyeshield 21″ and while I have not read that I can say through this manga that he’s really got a great sense of story telling. I also really like Boichi’s art, he pulls out some hilarious extreme faces and also some really dynamic scenes. Next summer can’t come fast enough because I am so hyped and ready for this anime to start.

“Kimetsu no Yaiba” is another manga that will be getting an anime next year and I am extremely excited. If I had to compare it to anything I would honestly say its like if “Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood” and “Hunter x Hunter” got crossbred. Its mangaka Koyoharu Gotouge really feels very influenced by Yoshihiro Togashi in both her writing as well as some of her character designs. Togashi actually said this manga along with “Dr. Stone” is one of the ones in recent years to read which I’m sure made her thrilled to hear. I feel like this is something that does a lot of the things people generally want to see in anime and manga. You have a strong sibling dynamic at the center of the story (and it isn’t one of those relationships), there’s female characters that are involved with the action and its treated like a real fight, there’s themes of family that are always really endearing, aesthetically its very beautiful while still being able to pull off a more intense body horror style moment, fanservice aside from a couple moments is at a minimum, and it is also very funny. There’s a lot of personality to our main characters as well as the Pillars that we have gotten to know and it doesn’t feel crowded. She knows when to use a character and when to keep them out of a certain arc. She also has a lot of respect towards Nezuko who I feel another writer would have shoved aside in favor of her brother. But Nezuko is shown to still retain her autonomy in spite of her predicament, she fights and is sometimes vital to defeating a demon, and the more recent events in the story show a lot of potential for furthering her as a character. The anime is to be released for the spring and its made by Ufotable, based on the PV we have at the moment this show will definitely be gorgeous. I am very excited for what they’ve done with this material and I can only hope other people will be watching too because I do not want this to be a series people sleep on.

“Revolutionary Girl Utena” is a masterpiece. I have frankly a really complicated opinion of Kunihiko Ikuhara. A lot of people think he can do no wrong, I am not one of them. There’s things that happened with “Sailor Moon” that I know weren’t his fault, but there’s also things that happened during S where he had the most control over the project that still bother me. I can never know for sure if these were his ideas or things Toei forced onto him as he did leave the show because of a lack of freedom to do what he wanted, but that said when he really commits to a project he can produce something amazing. He has said many things over the years regarding Utena and a big takeaway from them is that he does not want to tell us what to feel, he wants us to decide for ourselves. I think what Utena fundamentally is about is deconstructing romantic tropes, analyzing chivalry, and the lies men tell women. The series gets more complex and symbolic as it progresses until we get to the movie “Adolescence of Utena” where its refusing to hold your hand any step of the way. Unlike with “End of Evangelion” or “Madoka Rebellion” the “Adolescence” movie is not an attempt at a different ending, but more of an alternative retelling of the story. Its a pure visual masterpiece and a movie that I honestly think deserves to be seen with or without the TV show. That said I would strongly recommend both of them as not only is it one of the greatest shojo ever, it is also Ikuhara at his finest. Moo.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

yallnve realized by now that this is a fulltime 100% narnia blog...and as i havent slept since finding out someone somewhere was set on making "the silver chair" into a movie & the dynamic world of narnalysis is the best i can offer,

first of all im like.........ya rly gonna just jump into the silv chair!! im not really interested w the details on what anyone plans to do with the content b/c i donno, ive never been really interested in the book. not because its like bad or anything, actually it's probably the most cinematic in terms of things actually happening at a steady rate. i just like what i like, maybe because its sort of lower scale? whatever. its not like its hard to make into a movie i dont think, is what im saying. that would be either the horse and his boy or prince caspian, probably the latter b/c like a genuine 1/3 of it is an expository flashback. but all of the books are bit tricky to adapt coz theyre just short, you have to pad basically all of them in some way or another. but sure. silver chair. w/e

the thing is that you Have to assume despite starting afresh that theyre doing this one since the first three books have been recently filmed? and this being the fourth. but How Are You Going To Just Jump Into This One. thats an awful lot of exposition thats being built on, at this point in the game we're neck deep in the Lore. you'd really just have to have read the previous books or at least seen the movies. are they counting on the audience to have done that? but at the same time its really not fair to fully rely on that. in the book you can go "read the other books" and wave it off in a sentence of "and then they explained it all" which does tend to happen in the actual text a fair amt. its a bit awkward in movie form though? its a plot point right off that eustace knows who prince/king caspian is. so then you have to sum up dawn treader. and that has to do with what happened in prince caspian, in which the plot of lww is pretty important. like, alright, possibly you could just explain tvotdt & take it from the perspective of the girl who doesnt know crap about narnia yet? but thats not nearly as good a starting point as lww. on account of that ones meant to be a starting point! i'll see scholastic / any publishings that try to push magician's nephew as the first book In Hell, frankly. strongest narnpinion right there. the published order over the chronological order

anyways i'm sure it can be figured out, its just.......Interesting to think how the silver chair intro might be made into Intro To Narnia v.2.0? will they even try or will it be "ok but seriously just have read the books or whatever before you come in here." mystery unfolds

another thing thats interesting is that lww is clearly abt like, hey kids here's a version of the resurrection for you. whereas silver chair doesnt have anything to do w any Biblical Events at all (tho of course neither does prince caspian, tvotdt, or the horse & his boy). it is instead about how atheists will try to steal your firstborns for.................reasons. (no reason, theyre just evil.) this one is just a major amplified version of another particularly ridiculous CS Lewis Apologism Favorite that runs through the books: that when it comes to having no Faith (in aslan but you know also the abrahamic god) everyone who doubts aslan/god is like, actively lying to themselves, because they have that Gut Feeling telling themself that their faith is not only whats righteous but also whats true. the gut feeling of truth is a big theme in the books, shit hinges on it all the time and makes doubt all Clearly Sinful instead of a reasonable result of aslan effing off for centuries or whatever. and speaking of, god only knows if lewis is really suggesting that real life doubt or nonreligiousness is 100% populated by people who are clenching their fists like "i know in my heart jesus is real but i dont want to believe it so i won't, damnit!" which yknow makes no sense for like....life, and uh? i dont know what its supposed to mean for like....other religions? i dont think he's about putting the nuance that not every concept of religious Faith is the same as in christianity into this book, i dunno abt his thoughts irl. lord knows its a mystery how he thinks that "if jesus wasnt lying and jesus wasnt Insane then christianity is real" argument means anything. nothing in the world fits that argument for finding out if something is true or not........and also it hinges on that concept of "insanity" which......like.......i'm sure is all about nice 1940s ideas of how "insane" people act. its shit, throw it out, i mean. and besides? as though theres a Logic argument to prove christianity as truth? have you just Solved religion, lewis? have you? sometimes, i swear..

anyhow so in the silver chair its just a big ol festival of his "atheists are lying to themselves" and "atheism starts by someone who Knows The Truth (jesus is real) lying to others, likely aka the devil or whatever, and the stand-in for the devil is a witch again." and lewis really seems fond of the allegory of the cave. smh! like, in that allegory "knowing" that your faith is true is impossible! but youre also out here arguing its logically provable? and don't forget the gut feelings thing. but it makes NO sense for him to drop it into this book universe because in this allegory the prince captured by atheists & the protags are people who have hopped into the cave and seen the sun and shit!! they dont need to be the people who have only ever seen shadows who need to be convinced that an outside world can exist!!! bitch!!! get your allegory in order. silver chair just.....lord. the lying babysnatching atheists

a n y w a y s . . . thats a weird conflict to put in your third act, and its also a weird argument to make re christianity, that even though you acknowledge its impossible to know that your faith is in something thats real, you're willing to risk it? its sort of like that idea that you might as well be religious even if you dont "believe" any religion is true, because you lose nothing and potentially gain both comfort in life and reward in an afterlife. but its kind of a big deal in christianity that you're supposed to believe that what you believe in Is Literally Real. maybe apologists are allowed to do that sort of thing in their arguments, i suppose. its like in the last battle where he has a dude who believes in another deity accepted into the christian afterlife b/c despite a lack of belief, his virtuous nature is, from a practical standpoint, accepted to be for all intents and purposes to be equivalent to having believed in the christian god, like if he happened to follow all other rules except the Believing In Jesus one then he's good to go anyhow. interesting in that its also supposed to be pretty vital in christianity that one has to accept jesus as god in order to be Saved all up into heaven! i suppose that guy in the book was meant to have been converted right before death or whatever. at that point its very unclear who is exactly dead or not, but probably everyone. still, aslan clearly makes the argument that "basically you might as well have been believing in me, so you're good to go." fascinating stuff. another one to ask lewis abt

uhhhh another point is that i think theyre intending to make other movies also? but not all four remaining ones!! and if i had to guess which one they'd be leaving out uhh lets say....the horse & his boy....................which conveniently is the other sort of sparsely plotted one. two kids ride horses towards narnia, briefly have to have a shenanigansy undercover sneak through a crowded city, ride towards narnia some more, and then one of them stays at some guys house while the other kid goes into narnian battle where he himself doesnt actually do anything, but that fact is described pretty funnily. its still sort of a fun one, on account of the sneaking around hijinx, and the fact that it happens to give ANY of the details of what tf the pevensies did for like the twenty years they reigned over narnia's golden age which the lww just tells you absolutely n o t h i n g about! the answer is: a lot of battling probably, on account of narnia went from being ruled for a century by someone who could kill you in a second and also why would you have invaded narnia at that time, it wouldve been like trying to invade russia. but then a bunch of kids took the throne and upended the whole system and the snow went away, it seems like a destabilizey time to invade or whatever. imo. but then again they mightve bought themselves a few years on account of aslan having shown up and all. but lbr, they were just put into battle right off and coronated three seconds later, theres no reason on that front that they wouldnt shy away from having more battles. and the books said there were a lot of battles. and in thahb, its like, well we've been battling a lot lately and now we're in shenanigans and we'll just have to battle our way out of it, which they absolutely do. edmund straight up decapitates a guy. how ARE they supposed to just transition immediately into english schoolchildren after a couple decades of that mess??? they even have the fancy courtly speech. its magic i suppose

the point is its kind of a fun book, oh also, aslan is TOP shenanigans in this one. he straight up actually attacks one of the protagonists, for Reasons, but still. not that he doesn't murder the pevensies in the last book. i mean, i guess you could argue that its just like Divine Coincidence where what with the unaligned timelines betwixt england and narnia, aslan couldve just picked the moment everyone was gonna die anyway and just tossed them over to X point in time in narnia. but I Donno.....im kinda with that university student who's stressing about whether aslan cause ww2 for the purpose of sending the pevensies to the wardrobe. like, that train accident that killed everybody killed four people on the platform & five people on the train in different carriages and everything, or maybe the numbers are switched because i dont remember where lucy was. im saying, that was a hell of a crash. but sure. anyhow, even more fun, aslan appears as a cat to the Other protag while he's spending a night on the edge of the wilderness, and scratches him for saying he once threw rocks at a stray cat. like, hard #same, aslan!!! wtf dude why arent YOU being claimed by satan

whats also fun is that it doesn't really take place in narnia, which is also the reason besides pacing that you wouldnt really want to make this one into a film? because uhhhh the whole worldbuilding lewis crapt upon everyone for calormen is clearly racist as fuccck. if you arent already familiar with all the books (namely this one and i suppose the last battle) then its like.....i guess its some sort of vague notion of the ottoman empire? its really just a mashup of any number of white-english-variety racist notions. everyone is brown, is it an inaccurate stab at an amorphous amalgam of middle eastern culture? east asian? are people islamic or hindu? just try and guess what he was going for because its just. not based on anyone needing to know anything about reality. lewis was against seasoning food i guess, because it will mention i guess like, people cooking with onions like the heathens they are. (spoilers: this country just exists in the narniaverse to represent Those Heathens). its not necessarily an Evil place, they are noble savages ok!! with their formal seriousness and cutthroat customs.......b/c they are not as advanced and peaceful as the white northern christians, see. closer to the less developed violence of their inherently backwards ways and Cruel Society reigned by violence DONT CONVERT OR YOU'LL DIE, KIDS. but also.....you wont be white? the reason of calormens existence is really never explained. telmarines came from englandverse on accident thru a magic portal just lying around, possibly thats whats meant to have happened there too? its never attempted to be explained. anyways its basically the intro to the disney aladdin.

lewis is entirely inconsistent and self contradictory all throughout the series for the sake of the authors convenience. this is part of what makes the stories fun and the worldbuilding charming. it is also what allows him to pull stunts that have you pinching the bridge of your nose in exasperation and writing out essays to try to figure out how narnia is supposed to work. it is also what allows him, five books in, to be like, "here is the country to the south where the demon-worshipping gross scary brown uncivilized folk sit around hating narnia and confirming any racist notion you have about any nonwhite nonchristian country or culture." thanks, clive

its of course ludicrous and, of course, the protagonist shasta just so happens to be white despite being raised calormene. spoilers, he is narnian. or really from archenland, which isnt narnia but is still white and pro-narnia so its alright. i mean, technically narnia is allied with calormen at all points in time of the series? calormen just quietly tries an invasion in that book and also in the last book. so thats interesting. i suppose lewis is anti-crusades, which is big of him. the pevs arent out here trying to conquer calormen and convert them to narnianism. so that must not be the Destiny of the true christian? or are we meant to believe calormenes are beyond help? shasta who is of course secretly not "really" calormene is still representing someone undergoing "conversion," yet again, the guy is white. i suppose being brown is whats hopeless?

theres an inadvertently laughable line at the start of the book where a calormene expositorially points out that shasta is white by comparing him to the "accursed but beautiful" narnians. who are all white? is he just talking about the pevensies? the archenlanders (i cant remember where theyre meant to have come from either.) are like, all humanoid narnian natives white?? wtf, aslan. anyways, the dialogue is unnatural and funny enough, but its also like.....ok lewis, we got it, whiteness is the standard for all universes and everyone wishes they were white. stupid, sexy narnians.

what alllllmost suggests that being a poc isnt an automatic fastpass to hell is that im fairly sure the second protagonist aravis is a nonwhite calormene?? i dont remember it ever saying she was "fair" like the narnians the way the book immediately points out that shasta is. she is of course escaping an arranged marriage (the calormene plot to sort of vaguely try to invade narnia is also based on forcing susan to marry a dude she doesnt like yet who she apparently genuinely considered as a suitor when he wasnt acting like a jerk? so not only a dude who isnt white but a dude who isnt aslanian christian. its a whole complicating element to just toss out in this otherwise flat af worldbuilding, dude!! not to mention? despite the battles and shit, susan was out here considering marriage? how absolutely fucked up would it have been if any of them married and then effed off back to england. moving along) but she is from the start portrayed as equally sympathetically as shasta and nothing about her is pointed out as being Bad and Reprehensible, which the narration has no qualms about doing. she even gets to spend some time with her calormene friend, who is not exactly meant to be as sympathetic or noble but certainly isnt portrayed as at all evil. like...theres at least the occasional exception apparently, in which maybe not every person is inherently evil and violent and cruel. who knows

also aravis definitely later marries the white protag?? but apparently interracial marriage isnt entirely Unthinkable here. wait, also, aravis claims to be somehow a direct descendant of the calormene god tash? first of all, is that true, comma, possible? in the last book its confirmed that tash is real, albeit, like, a demon. dunno what c.s. is telling us with that one. is aravis related to a demon. we can only guess on account of the theme of Inconsistency

anyways. i suppose you could make it into a movie if you just threw out the racist shit. but the "calormen is also distinguished from narnia via its religion" element is also a touch janky. can it be thrown out too? if they intend to produce the last battle, will it be thrown out then. it kind of comes up again. if you get rid of those elements though, the stakes get a little blurrier and more political and more "wait well why would they have any beef with each other in the first place" if you cant just easily point out that the calormenes are shaking their fists at the narnians and their demon worship and their jealousy at not being white. again, are all centaurs white or something? wtf

truly calormene is the most racist ass shit in the whole series, but the concept comes up in less painfully direct ways other times, too. why are there native species in narnia that are considered inherently evil?? sure, the white witch as the stand-in for the devil wasn't originally from narnia. was she creating shit too? i dont remember what she was up to on account of i havent read the magicians nephew in a hot minute. i know they had to take a pegasus into a garden of eden type shit to smoke her out of wherever she was lurking for some reason or another. still. whys there whole types of creatures who are universally and unilaterally condemned? i know we're meant to believe that they just have evil intent according to their nature, but uh....theres no point at which any of these creatures are given a chance? maybe they served the white witch because she was nice to them for once. you're not given the chance to know. EXCEPT for the fact that you get shit like: giants are evil save for the occasional exception, like in lww when a "good" giant is described as having like, a long family line, and "traditions." not like Those Sorts. they do talk in like prince caspian and shit, when their numbers are miserable and theyre discussing tactics, whether to get help from the gross hags and harpies and etc and ppl will talk about Those People and Sorts and Rabble and its like...jfc. b/c apparently sommme of them can be decent! if theyre a giant or whatever. and meanwhile the dwarfs are always chaotic neutral or whatever. not believing in aslan but not necessarily being anti-narnia coz they live there. but sometimes being good guys!! but sometimes being bad guys, and jadis was cool to them apparently. like.................theres definitely cases of Types of narnians who fall outside the "born good / born bad" system, and thats pretty fucked. wolves too? theyre the Talking Beasts aslan definitely created, but on the side of the white witch? how was she having trees be on her side, too? whats going on around here. whats the moral meant to be. smh

uhh well anyhow, you could do a nice essay on gender re narnia. on account of sometimes its staleass typical sexist tropes like uhh, say,, the devil stand-ins keep being women? witches, ok. and the idea of "women need to be protected as pure creatures" as a basic sexist notion, and even lewis taking a relatively subdued jab at the idea of calling that sexist. susan being the miniature mom character type, and of course the infamous last battle bit where, in an attempt to describe her lack of spirituality as a self-insert of what lewis considered his own period of fake maturity via rejection of christianity, she's of course not only described as not believing in narnia (which????? what is anyone supposed to make of that. again, in the allegory of the cave shit, she's been outside the cave!!! she lived in narnia for YEARS AND YEARS and then WENT BACK. how are we supposed to believe she just convinced herself it wasnt literally real? its not quite the same as someone losing their faith in christianity.) but as like, wearing makeup, damn her. even if he wasnt trying to make the point that "look at boys and go to hell" which, i suppose he couldnt, as in narnia susan was being courted just fine as queen, yet i suppose also she didnt marry anyone—anyways, of course its still sexist to slight the way she decides to dress as some form of false maturity, even if its meant to be metaphor. just clumsy af & not great when again, devils are always witches around here. and being younger is to be more spiritually pure which like............mmm ok. this is sort of another one of those weirdly sexless fantasy universes, why do those keep happening. i mean sure this is a christian fairy tale for kids. but nobody even gets married save for in the last paragraphs of a couple books. its left a bit ambiguous whether thats even spiritually acceptable in the narnia rules, unless its to Continue the Line a la the telmarine monarchy from caspian the first to tirian the whateverth. hm

but also of course you get the young girl characters being...somewhat almost allowed to fight (archery mainly) but anyways at least being given equal status to the boys who are there also. theres even mention of once apparently narnia being ruled by a queen w no kings around. fantastic. and theres some non-witch lady characters on occasion. the human characters are where the dynamics are most at, i suppose, but anyways this at least has some nuance & at times seems to go just a bit beyond what you might expect from some old dude in the 50s. still not that surprising or innovative, but not completely flat, and seeming to contain at least a little reflection upon the topic

the essay of race re: narnia would be really short though. Its Racist Af. if you threw classism in too, you might get a bit more length out of it. but really its just so flat in this subject, and totally needless. there's the fact that even narnia is ruled by white english people but.....you can really do without juxtaposing this with the heinous nonwhite country somewhere over there. the rest of the books operate just fine w/o this

tolkien mentioned HIS scary brown backwards civilization to the south a lot more fleetingly in lotr but its....v much the same worldbuilding as narnia??? aka middle earth is pretty much an imaginary proto-england where you dont want to go too far east or south or you run into dangerous &/or inherently evil territory!! ok, jrr.....who was the other people in the inklings?? what did they write. could no one rein these guys in. coz lewis is over here with his Alternate Universe england. with uhhhh wilderness to the north and west and the dangerous evilish racismland to the south. and the ocean and dont forget narnia is a flat earth to the east. also? why are the lone islands like that. can aslan take care of some of that shit. for gods sake. anyways. the all-white good guys / evil poc should be thrown out of everything, thats not what makes the worldbuilding in either lotr or chronarnia at all interesting. yet is it is surely a subsection of the inherent Englishness of both examples........it warrants analysis but not "carrying on into films or anything based on either's precedence in the fantasy genre."

god who knows what im talking about at this point. im just saying "if they arent looking to even bother trying to wrangle the horse and his boy into something not ludicrously racist then i wouldnt be at all surprised." still, do you suppose theres like a curse where unless all narnia books are given some sort of film adaptation, the world won't know peace? more likely the world would end, maybe. the curse of clive. i dont really remember but that elder bbc series sure didnt cover the whole saga

well this is long enough but lets all set off in more endless, doomed narnalysis, such as

my thesis on trying to figure out what. the Fuck any reader is supposed to make out of edmund's role in the lww

whats the deal with merpeople?!

where are all these witches coming from, anyways

seriously if the narnians were just less murderous to the Undesirable species would they have been on the pro-aslan side all along

if there was only two humans staying in narnia at its birth, wouldnt their line like, die out immediately with their kid.

where did the archenlanders come from

where did the calormenes come from

oh yeah and like. are we seriously meant to believe that, at the end of the world, when aslan reveals that being goodnatured supercedes having the Wrong Religion, there is only one calormene in all of a) current existence and b) history who fits the bill? really. why even bring it up, then.

how did narnians react to their four monarchs completely disappearing......for real.....and what happened to the line to the throne?? was there just no ruler until the telmarines came in and took things over for the rest of the few centuries or whatevs.

when was that deep magic in lww written? at the start of narnia? coz thats the magicians nephew. again, how tf did the white witch get any leverage in that one. how was that supposed to be a good idea. wtf. see my thesis

whats the white witch supposed to represent as a stand-in for the devil? not helping that i dont remember the details of magicians nephew for shit, but she's definitely in the Multiverse lore of narnia as being from a different world as narnia and england. wtf is like...her nature

how weird is it in narnia that you have a god who drops in confused alien children to both go on personal journeys and save the world? is narnia-aslan/earth-jesus also dropping other children from other worlds into other other worlds? via other forms? hmm

lewis is all but inviting us the readers to be filling in the blanks with narnia fic. he's basically like, outright actually inviting fic with people wanting to speculate what happens with susan, who must inevitably return to narnia as lewis intends her to represent his own departure from (and obvious inevitable return to) christianity

a weird detail that is also never elaborated on: in addition to the narrator freely inserting loads of opinions into the narration, there's a time or two its made clear that like, the narrator has gotten this info from interviewing the characters. how'd you know about that last battle, "they all died and this happened in the afterlife" shit, huh. just another weird element

sussing out other lewispinions, like how he hates all schools apparently

narnia vs middle earth!! both quasi englands, both pre industrialization, both with christ figures running around some more than others, both with the need for rightful kings, totally different roles for humans tho. well, thats the whole comparison

and, inevitably, more.

[vidmarket32514]

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Transcript

John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

[seo75074]

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Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

[seo53703]

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Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

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Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

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Transcript

John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

[piatty29033]

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Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

[realtor10036]

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

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Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

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Transcript

John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

[vidmrkting75038]

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Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

[repmrkting17042]

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP

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Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

Transcript of How to Create Ridiculously Good Content

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Transcript

John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Sanebox. Get some sanity back in your inbox, take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff outta there that is dragging you down. I’m going to give you a special offer later in this show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Simon Sinek, he is the author of “Start with Why” – which many of you certainly have read or heard of. We’re going to talk about his latest book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”. So, thanks for joining me Simon.

Simon S: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: I wonder if you could start with a little background. I know a lot of people, particularly your Ted Talk and Pungent Sound and, then the book “Start with Why”, for many people was their introduction to your career and your work. I wonder if you could give us a little background before that period.

Simon S: Sure.

I was a career marketer. I studied cultural anthropology in college and was always sort of fascinated by human behavior. It was actually an experience I had in that world that sort of set me on the path that I’m on now. I had my own little marketing consultancy and the first few years went really well. I sort of had good clients and made a good living and all this stuff. After my fourth year in business I didn’t love it anymore. Even though superficially I should’ve been happy, right? Just living the American dream. I wasn’t feeling it. I was embarrassed to talk about that I wasn’t a happy person because superficially I had nothing to complain about. So, all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier than I was. But, the problem was, when you’re in that state it also … a lot of other things happen. I became paranoid. I thought I was going to go bankrupt. I thought my employees … I thought nobody trusted me. It was a crazy time and it was a friend that came to me and said, “are you okay?”

It set me on this journey to rediscover my passion. There’s a confluence of events and I’m so glad they happened. Where I made this discovery, this naturally laying pattern – that I later called the “golden circle” of these three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Everybody knows what they do. I knew what I did. Some knew how they’re different or better and I could tell you what my different [inaudible 00:02:32] value proposition was, but I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it. The best I could articulate was to be my own boss, or to make a living, or all these other things. But those aren’t really inspiring causes, you know? So I went on this journey to discover my why and it was profound and it changed my life. And I shared it with my friends and my friends started making these crazy life changes because of it. And my friends would invite me to their homes to share it with their friends. People just kept inviting me and I just kept saying, “yes”. So, the growth of all of it was very organic.

John Jantsch: That’s a really great story. I have not heard that before actually. So I appreciate you sharing that.

So did you change your business dramatically? Kind of on a dime? Or was it more that it evolved as you started writing some of this down?

Simon S: It was a combination of sudden and slow decisions. So, one sudden decision I made which is when I realized that this is the thing that I wanted to pursue – that I no longer wanted to do consulting work, to preach this cause, the very sudden decision to close my office and get out of my lease. To start from scratch because I wanted to do it pure. I wanted to make myself the guinea pig.

So, that was a pretty sudden decision. A lot of my friends thought I went out of business because I got out of my lease and didn’t have an office anymore. I didn’t have any employees anymore, like gone. You know? But I’d never been happier or more focused in my life.

Some of the slower decisions were, okay now that I’ve done that, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn’t know about public speaking, that came slowly as I started to get more invitations. I was still doing “Why” consulting. I was helping organizations and CEOs find their why. So, I started down that path. Over a course of a few years, I tried a couple of directions this way and a couple of directions that way until I found a stride. That’s the path I’m on now.

John Jantsch: So “Start with Why” was essentially a leadership book. I’m not sure everybody – even though it was in the subtitle, I’m not sure everybody viewed it as such. But, obviously, you’ve come back with a book the title “leader” in it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how those two books connect. Because, maybe I’m wrong, but I see them very connected.

Simon S: Sure. Well sure. My work is sort of semi-autobiographical. Their sort of the articulations of the solutions I’ve found to help me in my own journey. As we just talked about “Start with Why” was very much about the loss of passion and how to re-find passion and how to be inspired and inspire others. That was my story. The next book was as I was spending more time with these remarkable people and these remarkable organizations, I started to see differences in environments and differences in cultures. I was spending time with people in the military and I kept meeting these people that had risked their lives for others. Or people who would risk their lives to save the lives of sometimes people that they didn’t even like. Where in the business world, we don’t even like to give them credit for things. So I started to see these two different worlds of people who trusted each other and people who didn’t trust each other. Because I would rather live amongst people who trust each other, and I want to feel trusted and trusting as well, I started asking myself the question, “where does trust come from?”

Again, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book, it wasn’t with the idea of creating anything new. I thought I was a one-trick pony. It was a good trick, but one-trick pony. It really was, once again, just a personal thing where I was trying to direct my life to be amongst people and around people who I really wanted to be around. Who I felt safe around. So that journey led me in a couple of different directions and I was having dinner with my publisher – we have dinner every now and then and he says, “what are you working on these days?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really curious about this” and I told him. He goes, “that’s your next book”. So, that’s the journey I was on. “Leaders Eat Last” really does pick up where “Start with Why” left off. They don’t have to be read in order, they’re not sequels of each other, but from an intellectual standpoint it really does pick up where the other one left off.

John Jantsch: I think even from an equipping standpoint, if you read “Start with Why” and you get your message and you get that thing you connect with in some ways, what you talk about in “Leaders Eat Last” then becomes how you amplify that.

Simon S: Yes. You know, “Start with Why” is how do you inspire people and how do you attract people. Then, “Leaders Eat Last” is okay, good, you’ve done a good job at getting them all in. Now what?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: You’ve attracted all the people, now what are you going to do with them all? So, absolutely. There is a chronology to them.

John Jantsch: The title – you actually mentioned you started working with some military folks, it actually comes from a bit of an unwritten rule in some branches of the military. Or I wouldn’t even call it rule, but practice.

Simon S:  Yeah, its a philosophy. It is practiced in multiple areas of the military but the particular story came from the Marine Corps. I was having a meeting with Lieutenant General George Flynn, from the Marine Corps. He actually wrote the forward to the book. I asked him when I was starting this research, “what makes the Marines so good at what they do?” And he said simply, “Officers eat last”. If you go to any Marine Corps chow hole anywhere in the world, what you’ll see during chow time is that they line up in rank order. The most junior person eats first and the most senior person eats last. No one tells them they have to and it’s not in any rule book. It’s because of the way they view leadership. They view leadership as a responsibility, not simply a rank. The one in the leadership position, the one of higher rank, is responsible for those in their charge and it manifests in funny ways. Like the way they line up in the chow hole.

Now, what’s really interesting, what’s really important, is the leadership impact of that philosophy. For example – here’s a true story for you, that’s actually not in the book, there was a unit of Marines, they were deployed and it was chow time. As is the practice, the Officer ate last. Except on this particular day, there was no food left for him. When they went back out into the field, one-by-one all of his men brought him some of their food. Because, one of the things that is important to understand about the philosophy that Officers eat last, is the Officers never go hungry. This is really important because we translate these lessons into civilian world and to the business world, which is the practice of the leader of a company putting their people sometimes before themselves means that the people will commit their blood, sweat and tears to see that leaders vision is advanced. They will ensure that the company is well run and kept safe and going well because they want to make their leader proud.

Their leader has done right by them and they will do right by their leader. That’s the most important lesson of this, which is the Officers never go hungry. The people are completely devoted to their leaders.

John Jantsch: You, and I’ve heard you in other interviews make this parallel, and you talk a lot – mean to me it’s pretty clear that this is a lot like parenting, at least good parenting. I think a lot of people could relate to that, where they might look at their employees and say, “Well those so and sos don’t care, they won’t do anything, I’m here to watch them so they don’t steal from me”.

Simon S: Right.

John Jantsch: You think about how most parents, at least good parents, think about their children. It’s I’m here to nurture, I’m here to teach, I’m here to make sure that no harm comes to them and I think that’s pretty interesting. If people would actually be able to take that view into a place where they work.

Simon S: Well, leadership comes with a risk. It’s a lot of hard work, like parenting. It’s not the kind of thing that you turn on and turn off. Once you have kids you’re in, you’re a parent. You don’t have the opportunity – the choice to have kids is actually the wrong decision, that’s the fun part. The question is, do you want to raise kids? That’s the hard choice. Like I said, the choice to become a parent is a lifestyle decision. The choice to become a leader is a lifestyle decision. It means that you’re going to increase the time and energy that you have to commit to others. It means that you have to practice the qualities of leadership everyday. It’s not just a thing you do at work. Leadership is a practice, not an event. Parenting is a practice, not an event.

Making one big decision, even if it’s the right decision, doesn’t make you a leader. It just means you made one big decision. Its daily occurrence and it’s a daily struggle. It’s not always clear and, sometimes, we make the wrong decision. It’s the belief that I want my people to rise up and be better and stronger and more capable than they even believe they are.

John Jantsch: Do you think – believe this anyway, and I know that you’ve studied this probably extensively in some of the companies you’ve worked with, I think that some of these qualities you talk about, I think that some people just have them. They’re wired that way, or they were raised that way, or they just have always believed that that’s how you’re a good person. They’re not even thinking about it in terms of leading a company. It’s just that that’s how you treat people. Not everybody is wired that way. And they start a company and they start hiring people and they don’t even really think about it like, “I’m a leader” it’s more of an “I’m in charge”.

How does somebody change that view, or start kind of internalizing this, how to be a leader?

Simon S: When you talk about some people are wired that way … empirically, we’re all wired the same way. It’s the manner in which we’re raised and the lessons we learn from our parents that will set us on a course. Yes, some do because of their upbringing. They are sort of, they have a head start. They exhibit some of those leadership qualities earlier or more robustly than others, but leadership is a skill like any other. It is a choice. We can choose to become leaders. Then, as a practice. We can practice those skills. Like any other skill, if you work very, very hard at it, you will become a good leader. If you’re lazy and choose not to practice, then that muscle atrophies.

Really it’s a very simple practice. Not easy, but simple practice. It’s the practice of empathy. Its the practice of putting the well-being of others sometimes before ourselves. Especially when danger threatens. So, little little things we can do to practice leadership. For example, we’re driving to work and someone wants into our lane that we’re driving in. Do we move the car up or do we just let them in? Well, you let them in. That’s the practice of leadership.

You’re in the break room and you pour yourself the last cup of coffee, do you put the empty coffeepot back? No one will know. No one is there, it’s okay the next person will make it … Or do you sacrifice the extra five minutes, and the extra energy, to just refill the pot? That’s the practice of leadership.

If somebody is suffering at work, if somebody’s performance is down, do you sit down with them and say, “hey, listen, your performance has been a problem lately and if you don’t pick up the numbers I can’t guarantee you’re going to have a job here.” Or, do you say, “hey, your performance is down, are you okay?”

Again, this is the practice of leadership. This is the practice of empathy. It’s the concern about how others may feel, or where they’re coming from. The meaning of the things they are saying, as opposed to many of the knee-jerk reactions that we make on a daily basis.

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you also draw a conclusion that lack of leadership may be actually the greatest source of job dissatisfaction.

Simon S: Oh, completely. We’re social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Bad people that are put in a good environment are capable of good things. And good people that are put in a bad environment are capable of bad things. It’s leaders that set the environment. It’s leaders that set the tone. When we read statistics – and there’s any number of studies that have reported on this, I believe it was [inaudible 00:13:53] said that eighty percent of Americans don’t love their jobs. How disturbing is that?

John Jantsch: Yep.

Simon S:  I believe [inaudible 00:13:59] is a right, not a privilege. It’s not that the chosen few get to say, “oh, I love my job”, “oh, you’re so lucky”. We have the right to love going to work. We have the right to be fulfilled. When leaders choose to put numbers before people, then how can we ever feel safe at work? How can we ever feel fulfilled at work?

When leaders choose to use layoff as the primary means to balance the books, think about that for a second. They will send you home to your kids, to your spouse, to say, “I do not have an income to provide, because my company needed to make it’s numbers this year”. Right? The folly of that. And forget about the people who were laid off, think about the people who kept their jobs. How safe do you think they feel coming to work the next day, knowing full well that the company’s leadership would gladly sacrifice them simply to make a short term financial adjustment. So, we’re not getting the best out of people. We never will when these are the choices that we’re making.

John Jantsch: What do you say to that – and I’m tossing you a softball here because I’m certain you’ve heard this numerous times, what do you say to that middle manager who says, “yeah, but, if I don’t x the way I measured, then it’s me”?

Simon S: Yeah. That’s true. Again, remember, leadership is a choice. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of companies who are not leaders. They have authority. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us, but they’re not leaders because we wouldn’t follow them. You know? I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations, who have no authority, and yet they’ve chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they’ve chosen to look after the person to the right of them and they are leaders. Right?

So, the person who sits in the middle and says, “If I stick my neck out, I’m going to get my head cut off”, exactly. That’s what leadership is. It’s the willingness to go first. That’s why we call you a leader. Because you led, you went first. You were willing to put your neck on the line. You were willing to stand up for the right thing. You were willing to say, “hold on, there’s injustice here”. You were willing to try to work hard for the person to the left of you, to the right of you. We’re all so preoccupied with ourselves, with our own success, and our own happiness. There’s an entire section in the bookshop called “self help” and there’s no section in the bookshop called “help others”. You know? It’s the idea that you may actually think of the happiness of the person next to you, God forbid. Like you may actually concern yourself with the success of the person to the right of you. That is what it means to be a leader and sometimes it comes with risk. And sometimes it means that you will get your head cut off. That’s the price we pay sometimes to be the leader.

John Jantsch: In some ways, because this is a really hot topic, although it’s one that’s bantered around in sort of disheveled ways sometimes, is some of what you’re talking about is a healthy culture?

Simon S: Yes. It is a healthy culture. I mean, a culture where we show up to work everyday and we feel like the people we work with would watch our backs. Where we feel that the information that leadership and management is giving us is the truth and not being spun to make themselves look good. Leadership … the cultures in which we work is very much a feeling. The culture of a company is the equivalent of the character of a person. We refer to the character of a person, is he of good character? Is she of good character? Is she trustworthy? And we assess people. We say, “well, yeah I think she’s got a strong character, I like her”. It’s the same when we assess the culture of a company saying the same thing, are they of strong character? Are they of good moral fiber?

If the character of the person is good, they will make good friends and they will make good colleagues. If the culture of a company is of high moral fiber, they will make great places to work.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete email. Then I found a tool called Sanebox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off with taking everything you’ve got in there today, and figuring out what’s important, what’s not important, and creating folders and places for it to go that, in some cases, you’ll never see again. But, in other cases, you’ll quickly check. There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually incredibly accurate. I have worked with the folks at Sanebox to get you a discount, my listeners. If you visit Sanebox, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X .com/ducttape, you’re going to find that you can get a 25 dollar discount just because you’re a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X, Sanebox.com/ducttape.

One of the things that you’ve said, and you’ve used the word trust a number of times, and I think that’s really interesting, that you also – one of the mistakes a lot of leaders make is that they feel their job is to be liked, or they feel their job is to be feared. One of those maybe. You talk a lot about this idea that really their job is to be trusted, they don’t have to be liked necessarily. In fact, you talk about a lot of leaders that aren’t necessarily fun people to have at the cocktail party, but people will do whatever because they trust them.

Simon S: Correct. A good parent is not the same as a good friend. The worst parents are the parents that try hard to be their kids’ best friend. It doesn’t work that way. You’re their parent, not their friend. Any leader that sets out to be feared, well, that’s the same thing as a dictator. It might work in the short-term, but it’s not a very stable system, succession is really a big problem. At the end of the day, it’s a men’s revolution. It creates anxiety and you’re not going to get the best out of people in a dictatorship. I don’t think there’s a dictatorship on the planet that is an economic powerhouse. At least not for very long. You know?

John Jantsch: Yeah.

Simon S: It’s because we don’t get the best ideas out of people that way. People are willing to give their ideas and share what they’re learning when they believe that it will advance the greater good. If they believe that, by sharing too much of what they’ve learned … weak organizations are the ones where people keep all of their knowledge because that’s what they think gives them their competitive edge and protects them from losing their job because they know more than everybody else. Those are weak organizations. Those are very weak organizations.

John Jantsch: You use a..

http://ift.tt/2wiTrjP