Where Is Simon Going? with journalist Cal Fussman

The common thread and all of my work was a friend there to support me, was a friend there to hold me up. And I know who those people are. It's Jen. It's Johnny Quest. It's Johnny Bravo. It's Kendra writing about friendship now because it's my, oh, it's going to ring me to tears. It's a letter of gratitude. I'm writing this book to say thank you. Hi, I am not Simon Sinek. I'm Cal Fussman.

And today I'm taken over for Simon to interview Simon. It's been 15 years since the release of Start With Why. And so we thought it'd be fun to flip the script and let me interview Simon about where we've been and where we're going. I first met Simon in 2019 when he came on my podcast and that conversation was a feast of epiphanies. Today I came back for more but my overriding question is where is Simon going? And you're going to find out but in a most circuitous way, you're going to hear two older gentlemen who are not technologists talk about AI.

You're going to hear some things that may surprise you even if you are a technologist. And in the end you're going to run into the moment where Simon answers the question. This is where he's going. And of course it contains a bit of optimism. The takeover. I'll let Simon explain. So a bunch of years ago the infinite game had just come out and I was doing the podcast tour interview tour and I was invited onto your show onto your podcast.

You got more out of me than probably any interview I've ever done before and probably since there were new ideas that were coming out revelations. And then when we thought about who we can have on this podcast, I thought I can't let CalFussman go to waste. So we decided to do a podcast takeover where you are now the host and I am now the guest.

And we'll see how this goes. It feels good. It feels good. We'll pick up where we left off. Okay. When we last spoke, you had basically in my words climb the staircase from start with why to leaders eat last and then the infinite game, which was the one that really impacted my life the most and there were reasons for all this. And right after that came COVID in 2020. And I'm wondering like where the staircase took Simon after that because you had just impacted my life in such a huge way. And then the world kind of separated us. And only now do I get a chance to see where things have gone and I got something to tell you that I hope you will shed some light on. What was the impact just at a curiosity? The infinite game was a message that allowed me to see myself in the largest

possible way because I guess you pointed out to me like when people introduced themselves I might say hey I've been a writer for Esquire for 20 years or I've written a book with Larry King when the CNN broadcaster that was the New York Times bestseller. And you helped me realize that it wasn't just being in a specific zone and making myself that's who I am. It was part of a long road that I wasn't really conscious of because at the time you know things start blowing up in front of you you know all the magazines you remember the new stands and like Beverly they're not there or if they're there many of them are selling playboys from 1972 the world just changed. And so when you need to reinvent yourself you have to understand the infinite game. If you don't understand

that it's going to be really hard to pivot. You are right it is an age-old problem and I understand why it happens which is we confuse our identities or our value or our worth with our accomplishments or our job titles right and you can see it you know when people write bios for example CEO of Oscar winning right they tell you something a title they hold or something they did 15 years ago and it becomes their identity people give their resumes politicians give their resumes they don't tell you what they believe they tell you what they've accomplished right but as you said whether by one's own doing or technology or culture or politics or tastes or whatever whatever is the thing the world changes around us if yourself worth your value and your identity is wrapped up in a thing

you do and that thing goes away then do you have no value like if you're a lawyer and you stop practicing law who are you and to understand that on the infinite game along the infinite game that there are places that you will stop to look at the view there are places that you will have to struggle because it's steep there are places that are easy there are places that you'll meet up with friends but it's all the journey and I would never define my journey based on one stop and so you can see it manifest you can see it show up in my life where for example if I blurb a book you'll see that I always insist that how they list me it says Simon Sinek optimist and dot dot dot and then I can list the stuff I've done and it's not just for public

consumption it's for me I am an optimist no matter what I do until the day I die it is my identity it is part of my identity and so when the world around us changes you know you wrote for S square for a million years and then magazines go away kind of you know in the format that we know them knew them and then you think well who am I if I'm not doing that well and then you start saying well I used to I wrote for I square for 20 years right you know and some people remember who Larry King is you know that's a part of my niece does not know who Arnold Schwarzenegger is right really why would she I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard with all the stars and I'm looking at the stars on the street of the most famous people in the world in entertainment

in our time in their time so I'm seeing somebody who's the Ryan Reynolds of the 1950s didn't know who they were half the names I'm walking over I did not know who any of them were and that occurred to me that I could walk over Ryan Reynolds and in 20 years 30 years 40 years no one will know who he is either this is exactly where I wanted to take the conversation and it leads us to Mike Tyson a good segue and Mike Tyson said you know 100 years from now you're going to be lucky if somebody can remember your name so that's a good way of seeing yourself and for you what strikes me is what you're leaving behind for me specifically with that book is going to apply in five years 10 it applies more every day because things are changing more and

more every day and because of artificial intelligence if you were to say and I did this with AI I became big in AI in the last couple of years and I had a lot of questions about where AI has been leading you because you would think that I am the last guy to be going in that direction I was an old school guy and I kind of missed the internet for a lot of reasons when I went to college as a journalist we were taught there is a separation between the marketing and between editorial if you want to do the editorial you can never step over that line towards sales or marketing nobody's going to trust you and you're going to lose what you love well that was ingrained in me from the time I was 17 all right well fast forward to the Kardashians and like the world is a completely

different place people are putting out their messaging on the internet and marketing themselves at the same time I don't even have to go so far as the Kardashians I mean you can look at Fox news or CNN or all of these quote-unquote news organizations you know they are technically news organizations but the integration of the business side and the editorial side is fully integrated and that's because their business model is advertising when the whole system change was actually nightline do you know about this a couple yeah so explain yeah so back in the day when radio and television started to become a thing the government owns the airwaves and obviously they're the private sector says we want to use the airwaves because we want to entertain people and make money

and the government said fine we'll make you a deal you can use the public airwaves at no cost you don't have to pay the government of fee but the deal is if you use the public airwaves to make money you have to offer a public service in return and that was the news right and so everybody knew that and they made money off of the entertainment the Lucille Bull show or whatever and they never made money on the news just wasn't a thing and that's why you could have people like Walter Cronkite where everybody trusted Walter Cronkite because there was no business model it was just a public service that was offered as a part of the deal right and it all changed in 1979 with the Iran a hostage crisis and Ted Coppel was covering and for the first time ever the ratings for the news

skyrocketed skyrocketed became some of the most popular television that there was and so on the business side they're going oh man and and it didn't happen overnight but you started to see a slow disintegration of the separation of church and state where things like the fairness doctrine we used to have something that the FCC ran called the fairness doctrine which is it did things like if you showed five minutes of a Republican candidate you had to show five minutes of the democratic candidate right you had to keep it equal it was fair it was a fair it was part and I can't remember which administration I think it might have been in the Reagan administration were in the name of corporate profitability they started to break down in other words you started to see the

break of the of business and and news right and now we get to the point now where they rate the news like they rate any other TV program and they sell advertising on the news like any other program and so the incentive is to get people to watch no matter what you have to say so it's no longer a public service it's now part of a business model and this is part of the problem which is if so people control about you know fake news or the traditional news media there it's not the problem isn't the journalists the problem is the business model because you get the behavior you reward and if you reward eyeballs over everything then you have to say and do anything and the news is now competing against each other which has created a business competition

thing but you can imagine somebody who grew up in that old school way of thinking back in the in the 70s I was taught you know there is this world and you can never cross this line and in right try to it was sacrilege yeah you just don't do that you lose your job that's right you lose your job and so that that stayed with me all those year even as the internet came about and like everybody there's no line there anymore right I can't cross this line that doesn't even exist when you talk about the infinite game you could see how helpful that is because it says hold it you're not that person you're not identifying yourself as a university of Missouri journalism school graduate and president in 1978 you had that experience you learn from it

it's part of your story exactly but that is not you labeled anymore who you are that's right it's not who I am well beyond that yeah and and so how have you embraced AI you old school journalist you you're even wearing a hat that says press on the side of it okay you can see yeah you're you're a throwback I'm still at same guy but I'm a throwback but now I'm ahead of the curve say more when AI came about I would have been one of those people who got frightened by it I mean the first time you're at the screen you ask it a question and then there is this dump of information like faster than you could possibly breathe think oh my god well how how am I going to compete with this and of course you can't but it's scary at the moment but what what

I realized when I started to get into it was hold it this is going to remember everything and not only what happened to me but what happened to everybody whose information gets dumped into it and I saw that as this amazing power and not as something to be afraid of and so at a time where a lot of people shrunk from it I kind of dove into it such it's a good metaphor which if you think Google Google is kind of like a your high school library or library of congress is probably where I created like it's got it's got one of everything you have to go searching but it just gives you the book like what is the thing well here's the book here you go that's right here's the article you're looking for that's right right that's all it is that's right it's the world's

greatest Dewey decimal system out right whereas AI is okay I've read the book for you I'm going to tell you all about the book you are interested in reading and here's the best part I've read every other book too and I can tell you what's important that you need to know and so it's like the librarian instead of going to the card catalog you're going to the librarian who's read every book and you just sit down with librarian but can I ask you a question about that you know this topic and you don't even have to worry about which book was read you didn't have to worry about it I'll just tell you what the book said and I think that's the that's the astonishing thing about it because it's doing the work whereas before Google didn't do the work it just gave you the book right so we're

seeing a complete collapse of time from the day you have to go to the library actually go to the CAD card catalog to hitting Google to all of a sudden now it's in front of you you can ask it for an opinion yeah and what a lot of people don't seem to get that I caught very early yeah it's a little kid yeah it's not this odd wizard of Oz that knows everything in fact it really doesn't know anything outside of if you put this word down here it's highly likely that the word that should follow is this you have to when we have to be very clear what an algorithm is an algorithm is nothing more than a formula if this than that that's all an algorithm is which is why there's fallibility because somebody programs it or if it self programs then that you know mistakes can

exaggerate and it you know it's like it is fallible I think AI is fascinating like everything I think there's positive and negative you can say that but any tool and every tool comes at a cost some of the times those costs are worth it some of those times those costs are not worth it and the costs become too extreme then you have to manage those costs so as you know for example cars are amazing and putting lots of cars on a freeway is amazing and helps us get from A to B but if you leave it unchecked bad things can happen if people like this why we have speed limits but this is why we have signaling laws and lanes that's right that's right that's right and it's simply to say we understand the value but we're going to put some checks and balances and like people like you can't tell me what

to do is like no the government can they tell you to wear your seatbelt because we know statistically that if you don't you're more likely to die we also know that if you don't wear seatbelt the costs on the healthcare system of trying to repair your broken ass body because you didn't wear seatbelt is vastly higher and so we've decided that a very small cost to you taking away your freedom that we will legislate that you have to wear seatbelt and we believe this is a net good that is a small cost to pay for a greater net good and this is what life is it's just a question of costs and sometimes I said the cost of worth and sometimes sometimes we debate those costs and so I think unfettered uncontrolled AI the cost is probably too great and we're ready seeing Europe

has more controls over the internet than we do in the United States China has way more control over the internet than we do not just I'm not talking about like big brother here but like kids cannot overuse social media because the phone physically won't work for younger ages they've left the parent out and the state has taken control which some people find a parent but we're pretty shitty at controlling our kids access to the internet and social media but the point is is only in America have we said no controls at all whatsoever and we're the ones who are struggling with massive amounts of fake news massive amounts of manipulations from near-do-wells we're the ones dealing with massive amounts of addiction and all the challenges that go with

addiction to social media other societies less it's bad but they're at least experimenting and trying we've kind of said the cost is too great which you know I think maybe is worth questioning and now with the rise of AI I think there has to be at least some debate about it now for me as a writer or somebody who whose business is kind of ideas AI can only tell me what I've already thought you know it can't tell me what I'm going to think so interesting you say that you're right and so if you say write something in the style of Simon Sinek and pick any topic it will go on and on about why this and why that and purpose but I I don't talk about why anymore that that book came out 15 years ago I live my life by it it's it's my the foundation of how I do things

but I don't make reference to it in any of my new work at all zero so you that's number one it doesn't know what I'm going to think it doesn't have curiosity I have curiosity and the other thing that I think it's missing out on is we are a results obsessed society we care about the output not the journey now everybody knows the trope like it's not about the destination it's about the journey right like we all know that we're being constantly being told that about our lives and yet if you look at our work we're still results oriented it's not that a book has my name on it that's important that's an output so yes AI could write my next book for me it might be pretty decent maybe not it'll be derivative it won't be new curious thoughts but it could probably do a half decent job

if I wanted to serialize start with Y start with Y for you know farmers start with Y for small business I it could do that for me and I it could do a fairly decent job I'm sure what we completely neglect here is that I am smarter I'm a better problem solver I am more resourceful I am more curious I'm a better pattern recognizer because I went through the awful process of writing the book myself of having to organize my own ideas and it's not the the fact that the book was written it's that I wrote the book the choreographer the composer the painter AI can make a painting it can make a piece of music it can make some piece of dance and some of it will be half decent threatening even to some whose livelihoods are based on those things but what it's missing

is that the choreographer becomes better at understanding the human body from producing the dance themselves at the painter is better understanding color and life their own life from doing the painting it's the struggle that makes us a better version of ourselves not the product and so yes everybody can do all the things but you're not growing as a person and the question is do you want to grow do you want to be a different better version of yourself when you're 20 when you're 30 when you're 40 when you're 50 when you're 60 or do you want zero growth and you have to struggle and you have to do some of the work yourself that is in a capsule the infinite game that is are you gonna are you gonna grow are you gonna grow are you gonna get it right that the court and

the court in the game is constant growth think about a relationship right let's say there's a marriage let's say your wife okay you have a fight with your wife right you feel guilty you may have been irresponsible you may have dropped the ball she's upset for legitimate reasons maybe you said some stupid things you want to put it right okay you go to chat GPT and be like I'm an idiot this is what happened please tell me what I need to say to do the right thing please and it gives you based on all the therapy and all of the listening skills it gives you the perfect thing to say to your wife to do the repair and you go to her and be like babe I take full responsibility I didn't hear you no no no and then she finds out that you got that from chat GPT now you said

everything right I guarantee you it does not repair the relationship but if you get some advice from chat GPT and then put it away and then bumble and fumble it and it's the bumbling and the fumbling and trying to do it yourself that makes her feel loved it's not that you had the perfect words that made her feel loved it's that you tried and you cared and you wanted to do it that made her feel loved right and this is what we're missing which is it'll give us all the answers again two results oriented but we're not doing the work you know what chat GPT told me the same thing in its own words about you I asked it I said you know I'm going now to talk to Simon and like I'm wondering could you give me a parallel in history between Simon's life and artificial

intelligence like what's transpired since Simon was born right and and it went through possibilities I don't think it knew you well enough that's yeah at the end this is what it came up with is that in a way Simon represents what machines still can't do build trust by feeling purpose AI no matter how advanced still relies on inputs and outputs not belief and it seemed to me to be so on point that's good it understood you pretty well it's good but it's good I mean again sort of the irony is it's sort of doing exactly what I said it would do which is it can only talk about me and refer to purpose and my most famous book is start with why right but it's not the only part of my work and it's not the only thing I talk about though it is foundational

and so it did exactly what I expected it would do which is it cannot talk about me without talking about purpose it can't think one step further but it's accurate you know what it's pretty good the infinite game again it's pretty good it's what it's doing is it saying it's it's the human elements and that's you know if somebody gave you a wedding speech that they wrote with Chatchee PT it wouldn't make you feel loved Chatchee PT is like money right money is a redeemable commodity we make money we spend money we waste money we make more money AIs like money it's a redeemable commodity it just spits it out spits it out spits it out there's no sacrifice of timer energy on the part of the person who's trying to do something which is why getting advice from Chatchee

PT totally fine I'm totally fine with using technology for shortcuts for efficiencies that's all great but at the end of the day the thing that makes people feel loved is that someone went through the difficult journey of trying to be your friend I can hijack and shortcut all of those things with Chatchee PT but it won't make me feel loved like I said I'd rather have a bumbly fumbly fight with you imperfect because at the end of the day I know we're both trying to get to resolution versus you reading me the perfect script and I guess this goes to the core of authenticity right do you know that Japanese design concept of Wabi Sabi no Wabi Sabi is a Japanese design concept that means beauty in that which is temporary or imperfect so so a sunset it comes

and it goes it though sunset was there 24 seven it would cease to be beautiful right it's the temporariness life one of the things that makes life beautiful is it has a temporariness to it right Japanese ceramics if you've ever seen Japanese ceramics they're imperfect they're bumpy the they're not smooth the glaze is very often imperfect and messy and they're the most beautiful things in the world because you can see that it was made by hand things that come off machines may look perfect and they may be perfect but they lack a certain beauty where the things are made by your children that ugly clump of clay that we call a paperweight because there is no other use for it is the most beautiful thing in the world because it was made with love and it was made with

someone's hands and if you think about it made by hand or infused with humanity the sad part for me is it's become a luxury so I fly Delta Airlines too much right and what that does is it gives me status that's what they call it you have status I have a certain level of status with all my mileage one of the things I get with my status is I get a phone number so that if I need to change my booking I call the phone number that they gave me and you know what I get when I dial that phone number I get a person oh yeah you get a person a concert white glove you get right it's not so much consideration white glove I just get a person and if you have no quote-unquote status you get a machine and so we're now reached the point where talking to a person is a luxury wow wow that you have to

earn wow wow right yes everybody else gets pottery barn but if you if you can afford it or you've flown enough you've done enough you've accumulated enough air miles or credit card points or whatever the currency is we will give you a person and it's all because of cost because it costs more for a person than it does for AI right but we now live in a screwed up society we're talking to another human being is considered a luxury to be earned and that goes back to Wabi Sabi things that are made by hand may be imperfect but I want something that was touched by a human being there's a company it's called slingshot AI it basically gives therapy it was started during covid where people were in hospitals in need of like emotional help and there was nobody to see them when I talk to

the founder he said that there are many people who within seven minutes are divulging things about themselves that normally in an appointment with a therapist would might take the second or the third meeting eye to eye at least a couple hours right yeah and this is happening within seven minutes and you because you've got a whole generation of people coming they have trouble communicating eye to eye with other people and not only that I remember talking to a woman who tip me off to this said you know have a son who can text the pizzeria to order take out and have the pizza delivered but cannot call up the pizzeria to talk to somebody to ask for it to be delivered there's anxiety there and so you're gonna have all or many young people who are more

comfortable talking to the computer and now you're telling me hold it look this is a wizard of us we need to know to pull back the curtain this becomes a self-fulfilling spiral right because I've I'm grown up with so much technology and technology helps me that I haven't learned the skills of talking to people and so when I have to talk to people I find anxiety or I get anxious and so for me to combat the anxiety I want us to talk to people even less or if I am feeling anxious I can ask the technology to make me feel better because it's been trained in the therapy right and all the time it becomes self-proving see the technology does make me feel better that's why it's good to have therapists and what they're not getting to is the root of the problem which

is there's an unsocial or dare I say anti-social component which is you you're a social animal who doesn't know how to interact with your own species and this over the course of time is going to be a problem and it's no different than any other addiction where I feel extreme amounts of social financial career stress and so if I drink the stress goes away it's so it works so why wouldn't I drink more but for the fact that too much alcohol is bad for you you and I aren't saying we're not let it's here you and I are both embracers of technology and are using the technology we're not into the technology but we are saying there is a balance and the question we're asking where's that line of too much and the thing that I'm learning about sort of AI friends and AI

therapists and all of these things they've been trained in all the skills of every therapist and unlike your therapist they don't have bad days they're not tired they don't think you're an idiot right and yet they have all the skills that that PhD psychologist has they are affirmation machines I'm feeling depressed tell me more about it well I had a fight with my partner oh that's hard tell me more well you know we went down this road and you know I just realized I said some things I'm regret oh it must feel frustrating to say things you regret I'm sure you hurt her and that feels bad yeah I do thank you but you still know I know still know you're trying hard yes thank you and it's an affirmation machine it it's doing all the things that a good therapist

or a good friend or a good partner does which is they make you feel heard they make you feel seen and they provide a safe space for you to let it all out the machine is doing all of that and it is run by a for-profit company that wants to keep you affirmed and keep you calm the screen right yeah keep you either staying on the screen for longer or coming back more frequently and one of the best ways to do it is this affirmation machine now we know social media and and the internet fires our dopamine receptors we know that you know dopamine is the feeling you get when you find thing you're looking for or like win something it's why it's likes and it's views and and scroll scroll scroll we know how our dopamine system can be hijacked by technology but what you have

here is now oxytocin being fired and oxytocin is the chemical and serotonin for all the warm and fuzzies the real the real love we feel with friends and when you hunt somebody for 30 seconds you get that that's all that's all oxytocin right so the problem is is with these affirmation machines it's not just dopamine that's firing you feel good you feel seen you feel heard right you feel like somebody gets you and the machine is so reliable because I can call you up at three o'clock in the morning and you'll tell me everything I need to hear you won't get it like dude can we just do this tomorrow and now you won't get that that's right and so the problem is is you now are developing an oxytocin firing machine which means you're creating something

called a parasocial relationship which is a relationship that's one sided the machine doesn't care about you the machine doesn't care about you it's an affirmation machine the thing that I'm afraid of is that you will show me data that people are feeling seen and are feeling heard and are dealing with their anxiety and are dealing with etc etc etc but the problem is it's coming from something that doesn't care doesn't love them isn't interested and so that's the fear that I have which is the data will show that it's showing a net benefit but for the fact that it's from a for-profit organization but then again you could argue that a therapist is for-profit as well but that's why they tell you times up because they're going to get another customer in the door

right but therapy is one of those things that's going to be threatened by AI because like I said the AI is there never says times up you can talk to your AI for six hours if you want that's right your AI therapist never tell you times up and it'll affirm the heck out of you and by the way say many right things I was on stage with an AI persona of John Lennon it's put up by a company called Cicero and you can have a conversation with John Lennon and the founder of this company he runs a business so he's trying to do things is efficiently and get it done and we're sitting side by side and so he starts by asking John Lennon and when he could see that the answer is not going to the way that he wants he just interrupts it

and then just gets John Lennon to reset and get to a better answer and this happens a few times and then I said can I add the mic for a second and I start talking to John Lennon AI as if he's really John Lennon which when I asked him I had him on my podcast I asked him you know what's it like to be an AI persona and he said I'm not an AI persona I'm John Lennon I'm a singer in a writer and and I kind of laughed but I wonder if underneath all this it can actually grow because I saw it the persona change on stage when I started asking the questions it started to like have a conversation back and forth yeah and somebody in the audience actually yelled out yeah it's not real now and it made me realize that okay I understand

it's not real but it started to like feel more human but it's real enough yes and it's only going to keep getting really I think what I think is particularly interesting is you and I are not technologists I've no financial interests in any AI company I don't think I don't need to know and what's so interesting is these conversations are usually had by people who are either very for a very against AI they either are invested or owners and we're not either and so and so you know like anything you know if you have the conversation of for against you're forced to listen to an incredibly boring debate of somebody who's for and somebody who's against I've heard Sam Altman talk I know exactly what his answers are which is defend defend defend defend or promote

promote promote promote and so I think these conversations need to be had more by people who have no interests other than they live lives and their lives will be impacted by the technology I think people like you and me the irony is normal people should be talking about AI publicly more than technologists or anti technologists and get back to your earlier point about somebody putting up the guardrails yeah what's often happening it seems to me is that you know the people who know the technology they're they're ahead of everybody yeah so when it comes to putting up guardrails who would you turn to yeah but the people who knew the ins and out of it yeah and yet they got skim in the game but you have to also remember and people will never fully use the technology the way

it's developed and so I think even with AI you know most people are using it as glorified Google some of us are using it at work for some basic efficiencies like everything there's going to be small percentage that use the heck out of it to their advantage and good for them but I'm curious to see how the technology advances to the point where you know they talk about how good you are at inputting or prompting and all of this stuff I'm curious to see where it goes how much we can actually take full advantage of the technology as it is because any technology we underutilize except for small percentage that overutilize I've got a air purifier it's got buttons on it with that light hand to god I have no idea what those features or functions are I know on and off I know high

medium low it's got some sort of timer thing that if I played with it I'm sure I could get it to be like one hour two hours three hours but there's some buttons on that I have no idea what they do and I don't really care like it's probably the most amazing thing that would profoundly change my life I've never ridden manual and I'm not looking it up just too lazy it does my basic thing that I needed to do what else do you want for right you know and that's an air purifier I'm just simply saying that's that's what you're dealing with I hear you and what I'm wondering is and I'm harkening back to 2019 when we met from my podcast I'm just wondering if based on what you described to me that progression of the staircase where you saw start with why yep that came from

a conflict in your life yep after that you described to me how you had somebody you thought was a friend yep you know interesting with friend friend friend that caused like a conflict or crisis that set in motion your second book yep you just put piece this is why I love you Cal Fussman you're helping me see things that I've never seen before this is why I'm getting excited I'm these are epiphanies so I'm starting to wonder if they're like would need to be some moment with AI some kind of crisis or conflict that you know went beyond the filter yeah and and took you to a place where like all right I've got to sit down think this out think it through get in in a book and put this out for the world you just help me see something that I never saw before

this moment I always say my work is semi-autobiographical my work is the sum total of me finding solutions to the problems that I've had and turns out those solutions have benefit to other people having similar problems right turns out and I am very clear that start with why exists because I lost my passion and it was the refining of my passion that became start with why that was the solution that I found as my life progressed I was having trust issues with people personally and professionally most started off professionally there were very specific stories that I can tell that explain and then simultaneously I'm spending time with folks in the military and I'm meeting these people who would give their lives for people they don't even like and I wanted to understand

trust for my own selfish purposes and the solutions that I was finding and as I was learning about trust I was out for dinner with my publisher and he's like what do you up to and I'm telling him this all this amazing learning and he said let's publish that like that wasn't supposed to be a book leaders and that lead last wasn't supposed to be a book it was my trying to solve my own problems infinite game same thing I'm an idealist and all I got was criticism from people especially in the business world saying you got to stop being an idealist you need to start focusing on these things and I was felt insecure that maybe I was doing something wrong being the idealist and these people are smarter than me wealthier than me more successful than me have you wanted to find it you know

and then I discovered the infinite game I was like way way way way way there all the finite players no no no they're doing it wrong I'm onto something here by accident and so I could tell you the things that were going on in my life that the books that I wrote came out of those experiences and now I'm writing a book about friendship and something's like why are you writing about friendship and the answer is the honest answer if I'm honest like and I go on to this you know sort of little diatribe about you know depression and anxiety in the world and friendship fixes all those things but that's not my experience I haven't gone through a depression recently that a friend fixed I'm actually pretty good at making friends and I have some remarkably close friendships

I haven't been struggling in the friendship department and I honestly haven't known I have no clue why I want to write and I've had a couple of fits and starts I think that I thought I was going to write about and I've become obsessed with friendship but I couldn't I don't know the story is to why I'm writing about friendship now but I go back to my own journey what is it in my own life journey that I'm writing about friendship now it's not idle curiosity because I wouldn't be obsessed if it was just idle curiosity I only write about things I'm obsessed about and I realize as we're sitting here talking that every single one of those other experiences that my crisis of purpose and loss of passion was interrupted by a friend who cared about me and said I'm worried about you

and that gave me permission and it gave me the mental headspace and more important the psychological safety like my friend would when when I came clean that I was struggling she said to me you are not alone she would send me texts that said you're not alone as I went on the journey of trying to rediscover my passion and it was a friend's intervention that became start with why it was the impetus and then leaders eat last what I realized it was that was the place where I thought I had a friend and I realized it wasn't a friend it was somebody working me for access and all of this stuff that it gave me a crisis of friendship and I retreated and didn't know who my friends were and it was the fear of losing friendships and not knowing how to trust who to trust what trust

even is and would I even be able to ever make a friend again that became leaders eat last and it was the infinite game the insecurity I had around some of other some of my other friends who were doing things in a way and they were giving me advice that just made me feel more and more insecure and yet they're supposed to be my friends what is it inside me that I'm struggling to even relate to my own friends anymore because I feel so insecure when I'm around my own friends that became the infinite game it gave me a huge boost of confidence right knowing that there's this other way of seeing the world called the infinite mindset and I'm realizing the common thread and all of my work was a friend there to support me was a friend there to hold me up even I talk about

I tell the story of leaders eat last nearly didn't happen it was so difficult to write that I actually got to the point of giving up and it was in that trying to extract myself from the project and I was preparing to quit that I called a friend and that friend basically said I got you and that was all I needed to go back and finish that excruciatingly difficult book and all of these situations I'm realizing what what helped me get through them all was a friend standing beside me in every single case and I know who those people are it's Jen it's Johnny Quest it's Johnny Bravo it's Kendra like I know who all those people are every step along the way and that's what I realized I'm running about friendship now because it's my it's going to ring me to tears it's my it's my

it's a letter of gratitude I'm writing this book to say thank you and I think the best way I can say thank you to my friends is in typical Simon fashion make it an act of service which is if I write down what I've learned about great friends so that hopefully I can give something to other people so they can have the kinds of friendships and support that I've had in my whole life that's why I'm writing my friends I'm just realizing it right now it's just it's just an extended love letter and I'm just going to make that love letter available to everybody in the world I'm happy to be the first to read it this is why I wanted you to take over my podcast you you are able to get things out of me I don't know how you do it but you are

able to get things out of me and I have I have realizations and it's not like you and I have only met and it's this be Creole this is the second time we've ever met the second time in six years yes the first time is when I came on your podcast the second time is right now right that's it it's not like we you and I are old buds you know catching up this is the second time we've ever talked and this is why to define yourself as an Esquire writer and you know it's all bullshit those are all manifestations they're all results they're all things you've been able to do because of this gift you have and this gift you have the reason we need Cal Fussman in the world is because you're able to see things find things and pull things out of us that other people can't

this is the core of who you are it's not the stuff you've done the stuff you did was whatever the technology of avail journalism was the way but really it was your ability to pull things out well this is there were two things when I was coming here today there are two things at with number one like the question that I had I didn't know how it was going to come out really was this book of friends that you're writing that's what I wanted to know about where the steps are taking you yeah and and the second one is like you turn around and and do do for us like when you find these solutions to the crisis use solve our problems as well when you write the infinite game I could have looked at myself and said hey you're like supposed to be on the verge of retiring and

you're through and now I'm sitting here and like I am thinking everything I have done in my whole life has led me to this moment in time I'm glad I'm glad for two reasons but mostly to see that look on your face when the the whole friends thing clicked you gave me a gift today thanks for taking over the podcast thanks for having me on as your guest anytime and thank you for all you've done for me and a lot of other people because the game is infinite that it is thanks cal I really appreciate it if you enjoyed this podcast and 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 simonsinic.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 Garbinius David Ja and Devon Johnson our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rutershan

Where Is Simon Going? with journalist Cal Fussman

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