Simon Sinek
Simon Sinek
Simon O. Sinekis an author, speaker, and consultant who writes on leadership and management. He joined the RAND Corporation in 2010 as an adjunct staff member, where he advises on matters of military innovation and planning. He is known for popularizing the concepts of "the golden circle" and to "Start With Why", described by TED as "a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?"'. Sinek's first TEDx Talk on "How...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth9 October 1973
The U.S. Constitution protects our privacy from the prying eyes of government. It does not, however, protect us from the prying eyes of companies and corporations.
The world is a bell curve. Classroom test scores, employee performance in a company or how many people really, really like you. No matter the population you're studying, they always fit neatly across the standard deviations of the famous bell curve.
It's important to slow down, every now and then, for no other reason than to call someone to say 'Hi.' It doesn't have to be a long conversation. Just calling out of the blue does more to let someone know you still care about them than nearly anything else.
It is only from the people I've had the good fortune to meet that I am learning the lessons to guide me. Baz Luhrmann, director of 'Moulin Rouge,' for example, has a childlike curiosity about the world. He doesn't pretend to know all the answers - quite the opposite, in fact. He asks loads of questions of everyone.
In this age of omniconnectedness, words like 'network,' 'community' and even 'friends' no longer mean what they used to. Networks don't exist on LinkedIn. A community is not something that happens on a blog or on Twitter. And a friend is more than someone whose online status you check.
Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year. I have a strict rule: I don't work on Halloween and I won't travel on Halloween. Not for any reason.
The most effective leaders are actually better at guarding against danger when they acknowledge it that it exists. Cowards, in contrast, cling to the hope that failure will never happen and may be sloppy in the face of danger - not because they don't acknowledge that it exists, but because they are just too afraid of it to look it in the eye.
We live in times of high stress. Messages that are simple, messages that are inspiring, messages that are life-affirming, are a welcome break from our real lives.
A five minute call replaces the time it takes to read and reply to the original email and read and reply to their reply... or replies. And I no longer spend 20+ minutes crafting the perfect email - no need to.
Academic experts may not be good at doing what they are experts in themselves, but they are good at explaining the subject matter to others. They write books, teach courses and offer lessons and give steps others can follow.
Any parent who tells their kids that they can't attend a school play or go to a soccer match because they have to work is kidding themselves. It's OK to miss a game or two or a performance here and there, but it's not all right to miss the majority of them.
Entrepreneurs must be practical experts. They needn't set out to be subject matter experts in what they do; they must set out to solve a problem or pursue some cause or purpose greater than themselves.
Entrepreneurs see the thing they want or need, then try to figure out a process of how to get it. People who shouldn't be entrepreneurs see the standard process they need to go through to get the thing they want or need then decide if they want to go through that process.
I couldn't understand why my productivity went down when I had deliberately made more time available to write. Then I realized it was because I wasn't flying as much.