Simon Sinek Reflection

We recently watched an interview in class with well renowned author, and public speaker, Simon Sinek. He tells the host that he was in a very successful business that he built from the ground up, making very good money, but he found himself missing something. Stating that he no longer woke up very day, and loved what he did, quoted saying, “Waking up one day without the passion to continue”, and this seemed to really eat at Sinek’s emotional well-being. Frustrated and fed up with the way things were going, he decided to make a change.

The main point that was stressed throughout the interview, was finding your why. Something that Sinek also had to do. The rest of the interview goes on to show how he managed to change his life, and here are just a few of the things I found to be most interesting about his decision making.

Confusion

One thing that I found very relatable in the interview, was determining the differentiation between “happiness” and “fulfillment”. These are emotions that are very similar, but at the same time, incredibly different, and the way he talked about each was something I had never heard before. He also talked about the relationships of excitement and joy. Excitement, being a short term sensory stimulus, that humans enjoy very much; but the problem with excitement, is that it always fades, like pouring gas onto a fire, temporary. Joy on the other hand, is like a slow burning candle, something humans can enjoy doing over and over again without losing interest. This is exactly what happened to Sinek, he thought he had found his passion, but in turn, it turned out to be a stale career path.

Environment

I have always heard the term, we are products of our environment, but I never knew that our environment was the product of the leadership around us. I have fortunately been the product of positive environments all my life, but I know some are not so fortunate. The way Sinek described it, was that environments are the only variable we can control, and that really put things into perspective.

Takeaways

I took away from this interview that positions of authority are not justifiably leadership roles, and sometimes the best leaders are in the lowest positions. This short video, was somehow able to capture the emotional thought processes of a man going through huge life changes, and clearly explain that with the implementation of a proper leader, the positive environment will soon follow.