Creating Astonishment with Chicago Bears CEO Kevin Warren

Do you remember the last time you felt truly astonished? Being so surprised by something incredible you just had to stop and take it in. That same feeling that kids get when they see a magic trick or a rainbow. For Kevin Warren, feeling astonishment is sort of a secret ingredient for why he loves his job.

Kevin is the president and CEO of the Chicago Bears. Prior to that, he was the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference and prior to that, he was the CEO of the Minnesota Vikings, but simply he's pretty remarkable. So when talking to someone like Kevin, a serious high performer, you think you'd hear stories of discipline and structure running on four hours of sleep.

And though I'm sure some of those things are there, that's not what he talked about. He talked about the importance of pulling over to take a photo of a full moon and sending it to his friends. He talked about making sure a new employee has their name on their cubicle and new business cards waiting for them on their first day of work.

It turns out being astonished and creating astonishing experiences for others is the missing piece of magic in so many of our careers. This is a bit of optimism. You've never written a book, right? I have not written one, I have I have a draft of a book that I wrote and I have a promise to myself that as soon as our season ends this year, hopefully after the Super Bowl, I'm going to pick it up and it probably take me just a couple of weeks to finish it.

What's the book about? It's called Build Your Own Pool and it's a story about my journey as a ten and a half year old kid. I was run over by a car and I spent almost a year in active. I was in a couple of months in a traction and then more months in a full body cast. The lesson is all the things that I learned and the reason why I called it Build Your Own Pool is when I got out of my body cast, I got a relatively small settlement but the doctor who I had was a skilled doctor but he had his bedside manners were interesting.

And that was the first time I learned in life that you got to listen to what people are saying, not how they're saying it. Because the way he said it to me was in a very aggressive manner and one could have taken it as he doesn't care about you but what he told me on my last appointment and leaving the hospital, he said the thing that will give you the best chance for recovery will be if you spend time in the pool and in the water because it will have the less pressure on your body and it will give you a chance to want to get back in shape but give you a chance to get stronger.

So the way he said it was like I said aggressive especially at that time talking to a ten and a half 11 year old kid and but I went to my parents and told them you heard what the doctor said and I would like to build a swimming pool in our backyard and my parents said we don't have the financial resources to do it.

I said yeah but I presume I'm going to get a small settlement so I'd like to take that settlement and put it toward the pool which my parents refused to allow me to do for about three days and that was my first real negotiation in life happened after that and I finally had the tell them to say that I was the one who got hit by the car, I was the one who endured traction, I was the one who endured a full body cast so therefore it's my money I know I'm not a wage and because of my money I can spend my money on what I want and I want to spend my money on saving my life and after that conversation they looked at me and said wow and so I spent the majority of that settlement and built a swimming pool

my parents backyard and six years later I was able to play division one college basketball and kind of the rest is history but that's when I learned the importance of being passionate that was my why and then that's when I learned it's one thing to have someone invest in you but it's another thing for you to invest in yourself.

It's so amazing I think how life turns out and sort of the things that happen in our childhood and in your case the pain of being hit by a car and spending a year in traction and a body cast you never want to go through that again and you wish that upon nobody but at the same time it turned out to be a blessing you probably wouldn't be the person you are today if it weren't for that experience.

I would tell you unequivocally I wouldn't be sitting in this seat today but for that accident it changed my life it was the most painful traumatic dramatic consequential event in my life and what it did it took me from a kid to an adult at 11 years old it taught me to understand the importance of time management that we all have 1,440 minutes in a day that's it regardless of our financial position education health who we know we all got the same amount of minutes and then also it taught me the fragility of life that every day you need to make sure when you lay down and go to bed that you can look back and say that I didn't I didn't waste it so I can tell you unequivocally there's no way that I would be sitting here today

but for that accident and so I've learned in life that some of those times that we think are really painful is really fuel I know that's been my fuel even as I sit here today here's a challenge we have in life or let's say it more positively here's the opportunity we have when I believe when you're born there's a certain amount of reaching your capabilities that exists is there and so I've always looked at is that what can I do to make sure that whenever my time on earth ends that I look back and literally the cupboard is dry and that's how I look at my life what I think the worst thing and you've been around me we spent time together you know me I don't like wasting anything I don't like wasting water I mean I did it yesterday at the airport you

know I was already over hydrated but when I got into the going through the line of security you know that you have to empty your bags and and I had about eight ounces of one of those small little bottles of water so I forced myself to drink it just to make sure that I can maximize every gift from God from a higher being that has been given to me and so why is that important is my goal every single day is what can I do in my own track that when my day when my last day goes out here that I can look back and say I maximize everything we will better serve our young generation by putting them in a position where they have to struggle where they have to pay for some things and I'm I'm talking to myself on this one of the reasons why I embrace my graduate

degrees is because I paid for I paid for all of them I earned my undergraduate degree with my athletic ability but my master's degree in business and my law degree I paid for so it means a lot to me because I had to write the check it's like building your own pool I wrote the check and so when I wrote the check is 11 year old kid for someone to build a pool in my parents backyard my parents never had to tell me to make sure to get the leaves out of the pool because I knew if I didn't do it it would clog it up and then I'd have to spend more money to do it my parents and have to tell me to tell my friends don't eat in the pool because I wrote the check and so many times in life when you write the check on something whether it's you know it's an education it's a

degree or something it just means more and and so I think we need to let our our young people write checks more because it will it will it will me more I read a thing not that long ago that one of the most fulfilling jobs that the the group of people that some is contractors because they do the work to build something then they get to see the thing that they built right right we live largely in a knowledge economy right yeah with it the idea of building something with our hands and the struggle and the effort is it diminished in the knowledge economy or can you have that feeling you can have the feeling but when you build something and that's one of the reasons why I like this organization I'm so passionate about you know when I look over my

career then even I watch the every time I see the Vikings play at US Bank Stadium yeah they're we're in the same division they're a competitor I want to beat them every time we play them but there's something unique to know that when I was thinking back how many actual hours that I invest in the building of US Bank Stadium it yeah it's thousands I mean it could be five or six thousand hours so there's something even on TV when I look I'll look does that sign hung properly you know is the light shining through the way that we envisioned it boy how does that feel that needs to be tweaked because we built something you know at the big 10 you know every time I see one of those games on on television it's not even a sense of pride it's

the fact that you know we were involved in building something and now as a Chicago Bears that that's one of the reasons why I took this I don't even call it a job I took this Y to use one of your terms and I'll say it if the Bears were coming off a playoff team or Super Bowl victory at a stadium done everything organization was in place I wouldn't have taken this this Y I took this Y because you know we needed to come together as a group to build it we're not there yet we're making really good progress but it's something special when you can pour in your hours put in the time and be able to see it start to germinate and come to life did you is there are there any Easter eggs in the in the stadium in Minneapolis did you secretly sign your name in the concrete

hidden underneath the chair somewhere no what what I did do is that we had a brick program out in front where you could buy a brick my inscription that I had in there was may god bless all those who enter this building that was kind of my you know my signature but but it is something special and when you think back about you know some of the things that even that we laugh about today when you talk about college you know what do you talk about you talk about those all nighters are in law school you reason why people love rallying around the bar exam because that's when it was grimy and gritty and and I always say you know if you can in this world be able to operate operate successfully with gravel and dirt in your mouth those are the things that you you remember those

are the experiences that that you remember it was that time that your suitcases were lost and you had to go x number days without clothes or or your bed didn't get delivered and you slip on the floor it's all those experience so it's an interesting dichotomy for every human being that we want comfort ability but we thrive in uncomfortability yeah and the things we remember most are those pain points in our life and it's when relationships get stronger right yes it's when it gets stronger struggle struggle shared shared hardship brings people together you know you look at military training the Marine Corps does this which is you you take a group of people and you put them for basic training together to boot camp together and they be they become a unit in struggle yeah that's why child

birth is such a powerful component you know that's one thing that makes women so special is that they're able to experience something that we as a man can experience but it's that struggle and childbirth and that's why that that relationship between a mom and a kid is a bond that's powerful it's funny it's funny you say that because the chemical that creates human bonds human feelings of love and trust and and all of those things is this chemical oxytocin and when women give birth they have a huge surge of oxytocin through their bodies which is responsible for the mother child bond oxytocin is also released through times of shared struggle so so it's biological your analogy is biologically accurate wow wow now that's a that's a good that's why the pain the pain

that I felt that day in my accident I'd never experienced it before and I've never experienced after and I've broken bones and you know things have happened I've never experienced it but it was a pain that really I would say it elevated my spirit and my heart to a level that I know that I could always go to it I mean even in that even in that instance that first 24 hours I grew up and then for sure over that next year and the other thing it pain teaches you is that it can happen in an instance you could wake up and everything's clear and sunny and and in two or three hours that you're you're in an environment that you'd never even dreamed and you're learning medical terms from people that you don't even know existed and then you become almost an expert in that

area and so that's one of the reasons why I'm grateful for every single good day but I'm grateful for challenging times but what I went through it the big 10 during COVID 17 72 days on the job to be thrust into that made me an even better leader than I ever thought I could be because of the the pain that we had to go through of trying to figure it out it's so funny you say this like as you're as you're talking about it I'm reminiscing it's like my first job in the real world as an adult after college I stayed till 10 o'clock at night my first day because we had to and like every day after that was easy you know and I remember I got to another job later on a few years later and I went home at seven and I was like oh my god you guys go home you guys go home early here right you know

and like it was the it was the fact that my first job was ridiculous that made the rest of the jobs a blessing yes there's one thing I want to go back to when you talked about nothing left to waste yeah no second left to waste no minute left to waste I'll be honest with you as you're saying it it scares me to some degree because I one of the things I learned during lockdown was I became addicted to productivity like so many other people where if I wasn't being productive I was a loser and I one of the things I gained from lockdown was no I value unproductive time I value doing nothing I value relaxing or letting my imagination run wild and I actually I'm okay being unproductive now and when you talk about not wasting any minute how does how does doing nothing

factor in or does it ever yes that's that's a great question and you know what what you just said part of the growth process is when I say not wasting anything that doesn't mean just activity all the time you know I was raised in a household to breed productive you had to be active but just within the last couple years I'm talking about two to three years have I recognized the importance of rest and frivolity because what it does is makes that activity even better right and I wasn't raised that way so it was hard for me I was one of those people to say oh if we're not doing something or we got to go from this to that to other and now I recognize that it's that rest I mean even even just this morning I was bragging to myself and that I was able to get seven and a half

hours of sleep for four straight nights like I've never done that but but I now have recognized that rest is part of the journey and it would be like getting in your car and driving a hundred miles an hour every single day you you're going to end up in the shops you know better than than letting the rest and so I've recognized the importance of rest we even in recovery it makes that that time a productivity even more productive so that's something that I'm just even learning at a older age let me approach you a little because this this goes beyond sleep red and I think I think now I think people finally realize that bragging that you got four as a sleep is not cool yeah it's not right like I think we I think we're all I think we get that one now that the

important sleep but I'm talking about getting to the end of the day or an afternoon yes on a weekend yeah and you look at it to do list and nothing is checked off and you feel fine you know it's like the addiction of productivity the addiction to checking things off a list the addiction to saying look what I built look what I did look what I accomplished over these hours to be okay with the fact that for the last three hours I did Lego yes or you know and like does that contribute to anything in my household zero but I think it does I think I think it does and in clearing your mind and you know what I've noticed I was one of those individuals that no matter where I was flying to what I was flying therefore I had to have my briefcase I had to have files and I had to work on a plane

and I had to do something so when I came back to say it wasn't wasted now I've recognized and I've challenged myself I've even recently I've packed my briefcase for a trip like I've been doing for years yeah and then I will say I'm leaving this at the door I'm not I'm only taking out what my essentials I need my passport I need my wallet you know whatever essentials that I need and I have found when I've done that and I just did it in the last couple days those trips have been much more productive so yeah I can argue that putting together Lego set for three hours will help you because one you may notice some structures in that Lego set that even when you come back to what we call work makes you even more of a clear thinker but the biggest thing it it allows you to be

able to think and see things spatially that you may not have given yourself time to do because you just been so busy or I've been so busy so I do so what I've tried to do now is I've matured in life is I've tried to just follow the flow of the river now there's some trips I get on a plane and I say yeah this is time that I really am going to lean into a project I want to work for and explain it and then there are other times I say I've been carrying this briefcase around and it may make me feel good and even if I do open it up it's not going to be productive so the best thing I can do is just to leave it at home and I found when I do that over a couple of days here when I come back I'm even more sharp than I was before I left this is important right because

you're one of the highest performing people I know you're intense you're a go guy you're a big personality you're you're a commanding force in a room and it's like all your energy is forward right yes what epiphany did you have that the most go high performing person that I know said I think I'm going to just watch movies and read a book on the plane what was the conversion that you were okay spending seven hours eight hours just watching movies a couple things happen one of them was with you you raised the issue with me no I'm gonna tell you you raised the issue with me about cell phones and I was always sensitive of making sure I was in tune to relationship but you made a comment of not even turning your phone over on the table that doesn't do any good because

that still says that it's there but you said that to me and it caused me I was speaking at someone's wedding yeah and my whole theme at the wedding was if we treated each other the way we treat our cell phones this world would be a much better place because because what do we do before we go to bed we plug it in so we make sure it's charged up when we wake up in the morning we check it when the screen is cracked we go get a new screen if your cell phone doesn't work you literally will drop everything and go wait in line for three hours to get a new cell phone and when you get off a plane on a plane out of a car anywhere how many times are you checking your pockets to make sure that you have your phone and I said if we treated our relationships like that with our significant

others wow to this day I'm still getting notes from that wedding to people say I never thought about it because you'll come to work and say how's your day oh my god I'm busy I got 14 meetings stacked I have no time for anything and then let your cell phone stop working and then what do you do you're you're saying you're going to the nearest store you're telling you're whoever you work with you got to hold my meetings if you don't have a car you're you're going to get in a a ride to go there and so it's all about priority and so that's one of the things that I learned and I said in our relationships if we leaned into our children our parents our grandparents our partners our significant others our spouses as much as we lean in our cell phones this would be a

magical world oh my god that's so good the idea of recharging the ideas checking in before bed you know it's like checking on them when you wake up checking when you wake up like my brother so good and teaching care of it and you know what's crazy about it the last time that I got a phone I was waiting in there for an hour and a half and I was the nicest person ever I was there and I go sir I'm sorry your waiting will be right to you I said no problem that's okay because I needed to make sure that was right and if someone if we met someone in the meeting they made us wait an hour and a half we would have left and send them a nasty gram and said they were disrespectful so we just have to keep in mind that we have to just take care of our relationships

and so since that day you said it I have turned off my cell phone in my meetings I don't even turn it over on the table because I have recognized the importance of being engaged with each other does this does this mean that I have to upgrade my friends every two years no no but you know look as I I think I'm like nine phones behind because they keep telling me do you have this one day I see all these numbers I don't know the number I just need a charger that will that will work and then there was something else that happened I've collected art and I love art but we had a piece of art in our house in Minnesota that I walked by for seven years and I knew it was there and I liked it when we bought it but it wasn't until someone came over and started asking questions about and

talked about how special it was that I really recognized how beautiful a piece it was and there's so many things in life that are in our environment every single day that we don't even pay attention to and and that's what really woke me up to say there's things that we have even in our home that we walked by we look at it but we're we're gazing at it we're not really looking at it and studying and that's when I just said that you know what I'm gonna take the next couple hours and go look and really study each one of these pieces of art that we bought it because when we bought it at the time it meant something and you stood stood there in the gallery wherever you brought it staring at it like I want this in my home and then you hang it in your home and you never look at it

and you never look at it and it takes someone else to come into your home to ask you questions about it we had a where you know you know you're talking about going to Paris we have a beautiful piece that we bought so much so that we bought two of them we bought one for my wife's parents home and for our home it's these these is basically a sculpture of some nude adults and then not graphic but it was beautiful and I remember when we bought that in the Louvre in Paris it was my first trip with my wife and it was her first trip to the Louvre I had you know my mother was a librarian and as I said we didn't travel as kids we took one vacation every year in a station where I can weekdrove from Phoenix to Laguna Beach California that was our vacation I didn't

I didn't go on a plane my mom and because I had a lot of high energy as a kid she would tell me go spend a globe in her library close my eyes put my finger and wear it lands then go get a book off the shelf and read it and this is no internet this is no google none of that and so I remember reading about Paris and the Louvre and all those different things and one to go and I remember the first time we met we went to the to the to the Louvre I couldn't sleep the night before I was in Paris and I couldn't sleep because I was so looking forward to it and so to go there and then we got this sculpture and shipped it back home and it made it home wasn't crack and I loved it I hung it on the wall I looked at it and then a week goes by and a month goes by years go by and

I never really looked at it and someone came to the house and said wow that piece tell me about it where'd you get it and they was able to tell the whole story and that's when I recognized we got to start enjoying these things that are right in our surroundings instead of trying to acquire new stuff you're talking like one of the reasons I'm a happy person is I find joy in very little things yes you know it's not this idea of if only it were big if only it were impressive of only were and and it's like you I have an art addiction and I treat my home like like a gallery where I will walk up the stairs and I will stop on my way up the stairs very often and just take one of the pieces in not all of them I'll just take one in I've seen it a hundred times seen it a thousand times

but I always find something new a brushstroke I didn't see before a detail I didn't see before an armor a leg I didn't know was there and I think that goes for life which is which is also frenetic going from A to B that we forget that there's beauty on the route there's beauty on the route going from my kitchen to my bedroom yes yes the joy of the of going through life from getting from A to B we think the joy is the destination and there is joy in the destination but we forget that what if you don't reach the destination or it doesn't go according to plan or somebody else gets the job or somebody else gets the win or somebody else somebody else somebody else that there's so much joy on the way and like I said I think one of the reasons I'm a happy

person I just enjoy very little things and I mean obsessively like for example when I'm making coffee in the morning not every time but occasionally I become hyper tuned to all the sounds that I'm making sounds right right so as if as if I'm fully as if I'm adding sound effects to a movie where you have to add each sound individually to make it sound real like I hear the cup click on the ground I hear the coffee grinder go I hear the coffee shaking into the coffee filter I hear the water dripping like it's really funny like for the for like two minutes I hear each individual sound and I often catch myself smiling at all these little sounds that I'm taking in and so for me the joy of making my coffee in the morning isn't just getting to the cup of coffee

which is wonderful but it's the sounds and the smells along the way and again it's not every time it's not an obsession it's just that these tiny little details I think make life so much more fun you know it's amazing how many times have you gone to a funeral and when either you're reading about the person's life journey they're why or you hear people tell stories and you say I work with that person for 15 years 20 years yeah I never I never knew that and so one of the things that challenged myself lately is to say I don't want to be surprised at any funeral and the only way you're not surprised is you got to take the time to learn that person yeah yeah because I've gone to funerals recently and I've gotten better over the last couple of years because this has

been heavy on my heart and say I never knew that I never I never knew that they played the piano really and you know why I didn't know it is because we were so focused on work we didn't take the time to do it because if that's the case we were walking through an airport now it makes sense because that person we were walking through airport and when they had a pianist in the airport they stopped and listened because they played the piano yeah but because I hadn't taken the time it would have been cool to say why don't you sit down and play a song or maybe when I've seen their agonizing over what gift to give them maybe I could have gave them a Mozart concerto I mean there's there's things right there but it comes about spend and time about putting

away our phones and really getting a chance to learn what makes people tick I have two questions I want to know where where you learn that and what to a lot of people when they hear that they say Simon look that's all fine and good for your friends but this is a workplace this is professional I don't have time or energy to start finding out about everybody's personal lives and what you know what instruments they play I am curious when you learned it and be what value does it provide you as a leader I think when I learned it there was a year in the last 18 months I did like three eulogies two of my brothers and my father-in-law and it was during that period when I was preparing for those eulogies and the one that really blew my mind is when my wife's family asked me to

eulogize my father-in-law there were things that in that research that I learned that I didn't know and that's when it really when it really hit me is that there's always so much depth to a person and so I ask myself two more dinners would I've learned that or two more conversations would I've learned that or one more trip alone what I've learned that and that's when I really started leaning into saying I really want to focus on not not not getting in people's business but just spending that quality time with it that's one where I learned it and why is it important as a leader because I think people will follow you with joy not with drudgery if they know that you really care about them there's significant other their families their kids their nephew I think people people

understand that and I say it all the time what you do for me is important but what you do for my kids or my wife you you'll capture my heart forever it's not giving them anything but just just even recognizing what it was and that's when I really learned that because I think back now these are the things that I think back all the time what makes special leader special these are people that don't focus on the the in-game they focus on the journey and when you get people to really focus on the journey and focus on the people for not the in-game and whether the in-game comes or goes that they focus on that and and that's when I started to really recognize you know recognize that even more so in life that that's really important to to spend time on it and it so it makes

you a better leader because those are people that I would follow it was those leaders that truly not did it did it for a reason to try to play Kate me or anything but truly do understand and take the time on it so I know a guy named Jack daily who he believes one of the most important thing we can do in a company is actually onboarding because usually when somebody shows up at the first day of work it's like yeah you're gonna sit here we'll set you up with HR the you know the tech will give you a computer I think you need to make some meeting to fill out your insurance that's usually what onboarding looks like yes right you know and he when he does it he like everything's ready to go on their desk there's a pad with their name on it there's a printed

thing that says welcome like they make them feel like there was this preparation done for them on day one and make them feel amazing like they do all these things for them on day one right but at the same time there's spouse back home they find out their spouse's name and they send a bottle of wine or something to the house that same morning that says we are so glad to have your spouse come work for us consider yourself part of our family as well you know blah blah blah so when he or she gets home from work from the first day of work to say honey you'll never believe about how amazing my first day of work and the spouse pulls out this bottle and says look what they look what they said home and like and that's day one that's day one and that's one of the things we've tried to do

here at the Chicago Bears one thing I am there there are only a few things I'm neurotic about but I'm neurotic when the new employee starts one their name needs to be either on their door or on their cube their business cards need to be ready yeah and you need to touch someone at home one of the things that start doing even for our senior leadership during this process my 18 months year of hiring people I've been bringing in the majority of the families there some people if they're open to do it yeah I'll bring their significant others and their children wow in town for the interview just to get a sense because what I found always used to focus on early in my career that it was the employee that you were hiring who was making the decision but it

was really the family that was making the decision yeah and if the if the significant other partner was comfortable and had a good feeling and the kids had a good feeling then it made the transition easier or if they were uncomfortable just the opposite so I I saw that in even the hiring there some people not some couldn't do it but that was really important to them and even so much so that when you sit down and you have an interview with the potential employee and their partner they're significant other yeah that's what you want because those are the ones who are going to ask the most questions you know they really have the questions that when the person we interview gets back home and they go well how'd they go oh when good well what did you ask is I forgot to ask

I'd rather have everyone I'd rather have everyone there ask your questions and you're hiring a whole person right you're hiring because we know we know this like if you have a bad day of it work you bring that stress home yes if you're having a bad day at home you bring that stress to work and so you're hiring a whole person but this work life balance thing is kind of fake right there isn't and so the fact that you bring the family in because the family will be affected by the stresses of the job and the job will be affected by the stresses the family so I love the fact that you consider the whole person even in the interview not just in the job that's so I've never heard of that I have my daily prayer routine and even for our senior executives I mean they're

significant others they're children and by name and why is that important because the greatest thing that that an employer a leader of an organization when I ask specific questions this one thing is how's your family doing that's great but when I can ask specific questions about your son or your daughter or your significant other or your partner ask specific questions that's how you build that relationship when you start talking to people about what's your why because then in fact and I've seen it over time and this is not why I do it and we do it is that when we really then need to shift down to that seventh or eighth gear and it may require for mom or dad to be gone or get home after midnight for 10 straight days yeah to get something built or

to close a deal I found that the the family at home is encouraging you to go do it because they know that we care and on the flip side of it when we can downshift and they can get extra time at home go do it I'm not talking about the big stuff as far as you know they go to don't miss this funeral or that funeral whatever but take your kids to school you know what your kids like to eat go go buy some deli sandwiches and just show up at your third graders class or order some pizza and go in there because those are the things that really at the end of the day back what we said when you're thinking about what matters as a young kid those are things that you remember I remember field trips that we took when I was in fourth grade that you know my mom made a set special

sandwich or showed up on the bus I mean those are things that you really remember so what I'm trying to do is to help our employees here to be able to make memories that's why I want to invite the kids here in the building the thing the reason why we love kids so much is because they are willing to show their astonishment and as we mature as adults for some reason or another maybe it's for protection or whatever we don't show that when we're astonished you see a kid and they see something a rainbow or star and they'll go and that's what we love so much yes and so what I'm trying to do is create that environment to be able to get people to be astonished I mean and we've lost that I so I had the opportunity to visit the the Lucasfilm archive a few years ago which I'm a

star wars nerd right like Indiana Jones is my childhood and like the arc of the covenant was there like I saw it you know and job of the hut was there and I saw it you know saw him and like the all of these props from all these movies and I I was like a little kid I lit up to your point that rainbow that the astonishment like every time we turn it corner and I saw something I got so visibly excited and as a result the archivists took me to see more and more and more yeah that's right and we were talking about the excitement and they said that they had a bunch of bankers come through and they knew that some of them were star wars fans and they all kept their astonishment close to the vest you know probably literally they were wearing vest and they showed no astonishment

right so they got the basic simple quick tour then that was over and so I think this is what we forget which is our joy of life our joy to leave the when you see the rainbow stopping to look at your own art that taking just enjoying the sounds of making coffee in the morning the smile you can get learning that someone plays the piano what we forget is that astonishment not only not only excites us but it's actually contagious to the people around us that's right I mean I did it this morning I saw that it was it was dark the moon was still up and I just stood there in our living room just looking at the moon the other morning last week I'm coming into office early is pitch black and I literally I pulled over it says I gotta take a picture this I send it to a group of people

to say that this was a full I mean to see a full moon and so one thing I promise myself is I'm gonna allow myself because it's in all of us to really be astonished and I think you can be astonished in life is special a sunset of you like I pulled my car over to like stare at a sunset didn't even take a picture I just pulled my car but just because I was gonna crash otherwise because I was looking at the side window and I think this is this is this is this is what I love about you I've never been able to put my finger on it you know you're this remarkable human being you've accomplished so much and I think people admire you for your accomplishments and your your a remarkable problem solver I know some of the problems you've faced in in work and your

creativity at solving problems is you know we've even we haven't even touched on any of them but I think this is what it is which is whenever I'm around you your energy for life is absolutely contagious and I find myself wanting to get more out of life just as soon as I get to spend some time with you and this is what it is it's this word it's this word I love it it's astonishment that there are things in the world that are astonishing and we are surrounded by people and experiences that are astonishing and there's astonishment to be found everywhere I stopped the other day and just stared at a cardinal I have you ever really looked at a bird the cardinal I mean you know and the other day you know because when I was going through that rough patch with my

accident I remember you know I was wondering what is life is a worth living what does it mean how long is this journey back and I remember I saw a cardinal so I've always loved cardinals the bird and the other day I saw one and I just I took about and it was almost like the bird knew I was looking at it because there's stayed steady there and I was looking at the colors and you know the little as I call it the little half out for the little Mohawk that they have and the to think about that I mean the colors of a cardinal it just it does it like it's like looking at a rainbow and I'm just every time I see I'm just astonished at the colors and how that comes out and that same color every single time and it astonished me I mean it really isn't so I just think that's one if you

ask me two attributes that a people had that this world would be even more special than it is that would be astonishment and just curiosity but astonishment is is an incredible attribute and incredible gift so there's the thing that I did for a while where you know we can calculate our the average of when we're supposed to die right we know we know what that average age is and we can just count backwards and we know how many years we have and if you want you can calculate the weeks or the days right like we know these things and so what I did was I calculated how many more weeks I have statistically on the planet and I I I filled a fishbowl with marbles I counted out the marbles that each marble represented a week and so this this fishbowl contained how many

statistical weeks I have left on the planet and then next to it I put an empty fishbowl and at the end of every week at the end of every Sunday night I would lift up one marble and say was this a week worth living and I got to decide what the standards were and my standard was I had to have inspired somebody right was this a week worth living and if the answer is yes it went into the empty fishbowl and if the answer was no I threw the marble in the garbage wow because I wasted the marble I wasted the week you know and you could do it for the day you could do it for the and your standards are your own standards you can be you know whatever whatever worth it is and that I'm very proud to say that old Simon would have calculated my productivity per marble

and reformed Simon was am I giving to the world am I expending energy for the good of others whether it's a friend whether it's a stranger whether it's a colleague you know and did I make someone else find value in life because because I was there you know or I did something my work doesn't count my work just is out there doing one of my work does it has to be me you know and it's it made me more self-aware to be curious I stopped doing it because like everything in my life with ADHD nothing lasts forever I do something for a few weeks or a few months and then it goes away but I did it for a long time before I stopped I did it for a long time I still have the bowls and the marbles that's the funny thing right you could do with football helmets you could

feel football that's a good idea right right did the bears do something valued to the to the world um one one more question what is something you've done in your career one specific thing that a project it doesn't matter it doesn't even have to have been commercially successful but something that you were a part of that if you look back and say if everything that I do for the rest of my life was like this one project was like this one thing I'd be the happiest person alive wow that's a powerful question I would uh there'd been a couple times at the Rose Bowl my last Rose Bowl at the big 10 so it would have been January 2nd 2023 okay as I started here in April Joe Klatt who's a broadcaster you know on Fox he had a son this young man was the most mature

young person I've ever met and he'd be literally like he wants to be a pastor he's the young guy and it was stunning to me how shocked it was and I remember that he moved my spirit so much in our suite at the Rose Bowl Joe brought his son by to say hello I keep this praying cross in my pocket I've done it I bet you for the last 20 years yeah but I keep this cross in my pocket and been around the world with me I've been through a couple of them but I remember I reached in my pocket because the spirit moved me and I actually and nothing to do with football I gave it to his son and I remember back to astonishment his words to me were really powerful and I think it's been just multiple those instances I could be out and have a pin and and know that I meet a fan

has nothing to do with football but to share that or a shirt or jersey all these different things but just even recently recently here at the Bears there was a young lady who was from Wisconsin who wrote me a letter about everybody and her family loved the Packers but she was the only one that loved the Bears I don't know if you ever get this or write me back but not only did I write her back but I invited her and her whole family up to a game you know last year and again just being able to connect with fans like that to be able to spread this thing that we call the National Football League and the Chicago Bears into areas to touch children and kids and families you know in a manner that ordinarily I wouldn't get a chance to do if I worked a kind of normal day

job then to be able to see her on the sideline with her Bears gear on that we sent you know proud to be a member of the Chicago Bears especially coming from Wisconsin is and then how it always say these games it brings families together and that's why even building a new stadium it's just not a building I said that will be a place where a person will say boy that was the last time I spent a weekend with mom or dad or grandpa or grandma or my son or daughter and our nephew was at a Chicago Bears game or do you remember that's when we when we brought our person to a Bears game to have such a great time they ended up accepting a job in Chicago and now they've lived here for this many years and so it'll be much more than a building what wasn't about giving the kid the cross

that that memory stands out so much to you that you want to talk about it now yeah I think it was what was about it was the fact that it was almost like the game was the event that brought us there and it was going on in the background but there were so many more things that we had an opportunity to change people's lives there and I think you know you ask about it what makes sports so special what's the gravitational spool to sports yeah maybe the colors yeah maybe you know the talent that we see but there's almost different layers it would be similar to going and watching a opera listening to music in your ear and having a conversation at the same time it's just multi-layered and and that's why I'm sensitive about the food and the beverages and the

ambiance and the environment and the gear and the colors and the music you know I've said the great bug ran who was a I kind of coach at the Vikings for many years so God God rest his soul he says something to me Kevin he said do you realize sports is what's kept the national anthem alive he said tell me another time that you hear the national anthem and I thought about supporting events and so when I go to sporting but it's always look at that there's about 12 of 15 different layers of what's going on you know in it all with the game as the as the kind of the centerpiece and so I think that's what happens and it brings I just believe that it has a chance for back to what we said before it allows people to spin time that you could spin and and you know Simon and I was thinking now that you

said this I grew up in 10 years on him my father was a professor there's on the state and this is something hopefully I won't get choked up on it on my dad's literally when he was ill toward the end of his life I flew to see him in Phoenix and I told him I said dad I got about 10 questions that I've been holding my whole life that I just got to ask you I should do a book on that one day and so I had this list of questions one of them I said I got to ask you a question why did you park so far away when we went to Arizona State football games you know because he would park a mile away I mean literally a mile away and as a young kid you know and then even after my accident that was like a long walk we walk him out of the game go to the game then we have to walk I said why don't

you do that I mean you were a professor we could have got somewhere on campus and he said because it was the spend time with you and so I was thinking about it was you know he was trying to be efficient with his money and get a cheap parking space he said that was a guaranteed way that I could hold your hand for my walk to the stadium in a mile walk home and so I just are thinking for all of us you know with the personal people in your lives and everyone's personal people in life what are some things we can do to be able to get that mile walk with someone that they would be thinking about for the rest of their lives so you know those are things so it wasn't even a mile going to the football game that was his way of just spending time and at the end of the day

you know what people want more than anything and now as a parent as my kids get older you know you when you have kids you think that your kids will want your protection and your money so you work like an animal just to create that and when you get older you recognize what they really want is your time that's all they really want because if you invest enough time in your kids or your significant others all the other coachments in life the houses the cars the trips the money and all that stuff it comes along really easy but no one tells us that you know I just you know because there's no guidebook of when you become a parent there's no guidebook when you get married you know you just kind of just get it and you go I mean you do a little counseling here and there but

no one sits down so that's what I try to do to those young people are doing that journey and now I'm just trying to really give people time so when you share that with me about the cell phone it really resonated with me in one way you can say tell someone you care about them especially in this world especially in my position when I sit in a meeting and I don't have my phone and I've had people come meet with me like hey do you have your wish your phone I'm like it's in my brief cases all you're important I I can tell you based on everything we've talked about today and just from knowing you you have you are your father you have become your father and you are working tirelessly to create these experiences for people to create these long walks whether it's coming to

a football game or showing them art on your wall or giving them your your cross that you are finding these opportunities and finding these moments to be fully present with people and allow them to be fully present with you and fully present with each other and fully present with their loved ones and I think that you you have become your father which is you are creating long walks for everybody to spend time with people they love it is your gift to the world it's nothing short of inspiring I can tell you that even with me you're like bring your nephew you said to me like you didn't say hey come to the stadium someday you said bring your nobody says that to me people say hey Simon you should come for a game someday your invitation was hey Simon you should

bring your you should bring your family to a game someday yes you are constantly encouraging others to include the people who they love in the magic of their lives yeah and it is your gift to the world you you are you were exceptional at it and the world and our our lives are better off having you in it I can tell you that and I'll close with this Simon part of the reason why I became a lawyer my head a dear friend in college and her brother was a clerk in the Supreme Court and they let me look in some of the judges offices I'm a 17 year old freshman at the University of Pennsylvania there's no lawyers in our neighborhood there's no lawyers in my family and I was a pre-med major at the time but it changed the trajectory of my life when you start looking in Supreme Court

Justice's office and see where Thurgood Marshall worked and and never met him and so that's why I'm so conscientious here and I tell May who's been with me for 34 years if a young person comes by this office on a tour and they want to see where I work let him in let him sit in the chair because when you know when they greet my journey I didn't come from wealth I didn't come from money it didn't come from you know private education or boarding schools or whatever and if I've been blessed to be able to do what they can do it but part of it is seeing it and that's why when we talk about your nephew your nephew may go on a field before game at a bears game and fill the roar of a crowd who knows what that sends him to do he may be an owner in the NFL he could be commissioner one day he may coach

he may play he may be a referee he may create technology that we use one day but I'm believe if you if you can put people in an environment where they can become astonished the magic that is made not only in that instance but 5 10 15 20 25 40 50 years down the road is it's cataclysmic and and I think that's what I strive to do every day yeah finding time to to astonish people well you're a genius at it Kevin I love you so much thank you so much for taking the time and Simon I love and appreciate you beyond words I look forward to our next moment together pray you have safe travels I just can't wait and I just love you and I just so grateful that you've astonished me and that you just keep astonishing people around the world and I truly

want to tell you I love you I mean it so I love you be safe sure thank you my friend if you enjoyed this podcast would like to hear more please subscribe wherever you'd like to listen to podcasts and if you'd like even more optimism check out my website SimonCenic.com for classes videos and more until then take care of yourself take care of each other a bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company it's produced and edited by Lindsey Garbenius David Ja and Devon Johnson our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Routershan

Creating Astonishment with Chicago Bears CEO Kevin Warren

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