Why You Feel Like a Failure (Even If You’re Successful) | Simon Sinek on Burnout & Purpose | Be Well Moments

0:00Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers improve their health and well-being.

0:10I think curiosity is one of the best traits one can have because you kind of, you end up making your own life through your curiosity. But when I opened your workbook, Start With Why, and I'm very, I don't want this conversation to go into things that you have gone into before. I want this to be different and I want this to be new. But something that I literally opened a page on was one of the first. And it said, the concept of why is a deeply personal journey born out of pain. I discovered the idea at a time when I'd lost any passion for my work. So I'm kind of looking at this notebook, not workbook, sorry.

0:44And I wanted to know from someone who has changed millions of lives with your idea or start with why, before you got to this concept, where were you in your life and how and what is your why i was living what some people would argue was a dream

1:01Simon Sinek:which is i own my own business i was doing the entrepreneurial thing um we had good clients we did good work you know we had amazing clients we had no business having um and that's a really exciting insane journey to sort of go on that entrepreneurial ride roller coaster is more like it. And after four years in business, my fourth year in business, where I'd now beaten the statistic that over 90 % of all small businesses fail in the first three years, I'd beaten that statistic. I was now part of a very elite group of people who survived. All the love and passion just drained out of me. And I was faced with, you know, success is sometimes more difficult than failure.

1:45Simon Sinek:Failure you can learn lessons. Failure you pick yourself up. Failure you learn grit. Anybody who's had any kind of failure will say, I don't want to ever go through that again, but I'm glad it happened. It's a very common phrase. But success we don't talk about, like the challenge of success. Because now it's working, but I actually had Peter principled out. Because success means the organization was bigger than I could do by myself. and I had no skillset on how to build the structure to build a business because all the businesses is a structure that's all it is right and I had no no skillset and so I could no longer run on force of personality I stayed in business for three years on force of personality I could be in every pitch I could make all the decisions I could you know be with all the clients and now I couldn't and I didn't know what to do and instead of just admitting it and asking for help, I was lying, hiding, and faking every day thinking that all of my credibility came from my ability to have all the answers and know what to do, which I had no answers and didn't know what to do.

2:48Simon Sinek:And when you're lying, hiding, and faking every day, that is a stress. And there's no joy in being in that mindset. But you have to keep up appearances. And for anybody who's ever been in a dark place knows if you keep it to yourself, it only gets worse and lonelier and lonelier and darker. And all of the horrible things started to seep in depression, paranoia, fear in all of it. And I felt all of it and it was a bad time. And I'm very lucky that somebody who loved me, a dear friend didn't know what was wrong, but something was wrong. And she confronted me. something's wrong. Something is wrong.

3:30Simon Sinek:Nobody else. I was so good. Nobody, nobody else knew. And, uh, yeah, I came clean. I told her that I was struggling. I told her that I was lost. Not, no, because of the friendship that I had, you know, she offered me a safe space. She knew so much about me already. She knew all my, my secrets and skeletons. I mean, I had no fear with her, but I wasn't going to volunteer that information. That's for sure. but when confronted the I couldn't I couldn't bullshit her you know so I came out and it and was clean to her and it was a weight off my shoulders just talking about it and I think this is something people don't realize the value of friends and the value of honesty and the values of asking for help which is you don't actually have this to have the solution to relieve the stress you just have to have said it you just have to have named it and pointed to it and the stress goes down remarkably because I still didn't know what to do.

4:23Simon Sinek:But it was a weight off my shoulders that was a gift. One billion people worldwide are deficient in this nutrient that so many of you guys might not be aware of. And women, if you're listening, you are more at risk of being deficient in this nutrient. So I'm going to first of all explain what the physical symptoms are. If you have cold hands and feet, pale skin, extreme lack of energy or fatigue, then you might be suffering with iron deficiency or anemia. Now, first off, please go to your GP to get your iron levels checked. Secondly, please explore a good iron supplement. Many people that come to me are worried about taking iron supplementation because it can cause constipation or GI distress.

5:09That's why I'm so incredibly proud to be partnering for this episode with Spartone, the number one iron-rich water supplement. Now, I've personally been using these for years. The reason why is because they are naturally sourced, highly absorbable iron. That means it's much more gentle on your stomach. There's no harsh tablets. It's just one naturally sourced ingredient that works very well. You can pick it up in boots or buy online at Amazon, but please do not ignore this it is really critical to make sure your iron levels are in check what did you say to her did you just say i'm lost and i don't know how to go to the next

5:49Simon Sinek:i think the one of the ways it started it was it was not it wasn't this one single conversation it was a series of conversations and one of the ways i think one of the things that happened i don't know if it was the beginning or the middle i don't have a recollection but she she she um she saw a test in the back of a magazine like psychology today or something like that that said do you have adult adhd uh and she said she was really nervous and she brought me this test she goes i think this is you i think you should take the test so i took this little self-test at the back of a magazine and it said if you score something like nine out of 21 or something you should see a doctor i think i scored 20 out of 21 and so i went to the doctor and I sat down with my GP and I said I think I have adult ADHD and I went through all my symptoms and everything basically that I answered yes to in the back of the magazine and he went that's a good diagnosis and he wrote a script for me to go see a psychiatrist and I went to a psychiatrist and sat down and she basically asked me questions about my life as if she was a fortune teller things that I didn't even realize were symptoms so she would ask me things like um do you have struggle holding down relationships i'm like yeah how'd you know that like i haven't told you anything yet she says um do you have trouble cleaning your like keeping your apartment clean i'm like yeah how'd you know that terrible trouble keeping it clean good intentions never follow through she goes yeah and we she basically went through describing my life right back to me and at the end she goes yep you have adhd and again another weight off my shoulders because you start to realize, wait a minute, I can manage this.

7:33Simon Sinek:I'm not broken. There's nothing wrong with me, that this is something I can easily understand and manage and learn about. And so this series of events, including that diagnosis, including her intervention, but it was all her and including her offering the safe space that I could go back to her and say, you were right. Thank you. And she admitted later on to me that she was unbelievably nervous to bring that test to me, unbelievably nervous. And so she gets a huge amount of credit for having the courage to bring it to me anyway. She didn't know if I was going to get mad or be defensive. You know, when somebody tells you, I think you're broken.

8:05Simon Sinek:I think there's something wrong with you. Of course, our instinct is to defend. But I knew she did it out of love and that was never my response. How old were you in this? All kind of transpired and you found out? That was, I was probably 31 or 32. So I went my whole life not knowing. Because I got diagnosed. I reached well into adulthood without knowing. So I've had a lot of conversations about this with people. And the later you find out, I mean, it's quite hard to digest because I think you have a lot of grief for the past. It's a very hard thing to explain because a lot of people go, well, you must feel very thankful that you now understand yourself.

8:43And yeah, you do. But you also look back at your life and go, well, that's why I didn't really understand myself. That's why I found it hard to articulate. But I actually have a theory that most people that sit here with me, and this has helped me personally, about 90 % of them are neurodivergent. Some of us come up on the show and they've never spoken about it before. Like Shane Parrish admitted to me that he was dyslexic on this show. And that to me blew my mind because I thought he was like human thesaurus. It's helped me come to understand myself more that actually so many incredible leaders have neurodivergent traits.

9:19And I don't believe it's just because they're neurodivergent. I believe it's because the friction that they have had to go against has made them so resilient. They've become incredible problem solvers and hyper-focused on what they're good at. And that friction has made them incredible leaders and incredible people.

9:36Simon Sinek:i mean yeah 100 i mean i i mean i think i've been espousing something very similar which is the solutions you find to the challenges you have when you're young become your strengths as adult and it's a survival instinct right which is i i can't read i mean i can physically read i'm literate but i struggle to read books and good luck reading textbooks in school that just was a non-starter i just had no attention to do so plus they're so boring you know which doesn't It doesn't help that they're boring. If they were fun to read, it'd be more fun, but they're so boring. And I wasn't curious necessarily about the thing.

10:11Simon Sinek:I read volumes of the encyclopedia for fun. That was the kind of weirdo kid I was. But they were articles, right? But I still had to pass school. So some kids don't find those solutions and they flunk out, right? But I had to figure out how to get through school. And so how do you get through school when you can't do the reading? You have to get really good at asking questions and you have to get really good at listening. You just don't have a choice, you know? And if you don't understand something, you have to get really good at asking for somebody to explain it to you differently. You get really good at reflective listening.

10:43Simon Sinek:Like, is this what you mean? Because I have to pass the test. It's nothing to do with my desire to be a good listener. It's an absolute survival instinct, you know? And so I didn't know it at the time, but you look at my career and my career has been being able to hear things that other people miss, be able to translate difficult things to make them simple. Well, of course, because I had to translate things so I could understand them, so I could pass the test. So absolutely, they were my superpowers. But going back to, you know, the number of neurodivergence you have on the show, I think the way we talk about the mind and the brain, I think is we've, everybody has something wrong with their body.

11:18Simon Sinek:Everybody. Like somebody's got bad knees. Somebody has low back pain. Somebody has one bum shoulder. every somebody has a weird elbow everybody 100 of people have something wrong with their body so why on earth would we think that nobody has anything wrong with their mind 100 of us have something with our mind just like we have something with our body so human because we're human and whether it's minor or severe whether it's you know a a known neurodivergence because when i was a kid There was no such thing as, we knew dyslexia. We had no such thing as ADHD. It wasn't even a thing, right? And so we're constantly adding to the vernacular and the glossary of what could it be in our brains that are making us a little different or a little unique.

12:09Simon Sinek:The tragedy of all of those neurodivergences is that we define them as deficiencies rather than advantages. Thank goodness I was an adult because I could process the information. I already had built a sense of self-confidence and all of that stuff. And so when you call it a deficit and a disorder, I'm like, whatever. I know. But when you said I was diagnosed, right? It sounds like you're diagnosed with a lifelong disease. Yeah. I mean, that's just the start of it. I mean, we are telling children you have a deficit and a disorder. That's what ADHD is. It's a deficit and a disorder. Yes, that's one symptom.

12:48Simon Sinek:It's also a freaking superpower that when I am in hyper focus, can't we just tell kids they have hyper focus? And sometimes that goes hyper focus, sometimes you're very distractible, right? Tell them they have a hyper, tell them they have a superpower because my ADHD is an absolute superpower. Does it have liabilities? Of course, everything in the world comes at a cost. You can't do anything in the world. You can't get anything in the world. You can't succeed at anything in the world for free. Everything comes at a cost. So the cost of my superpower, right? The cost of my superpower is that sometimes I'm distractible.

13:21Simon Sinek:Sometimes I struggle in relationships. Sometimes I struggle to keep my home clean. Okay. And so I can either delegate, ask for help, work me around them, find tricks and solutions. And those are very small prices to pay for the advantages that I get from my magical superpower. And by the way, I believe everyone's the same. I am not unique. Everybody has to figure out what it is that their neurodivergence, we call it divergence for heaven's sakes, but let's go with it. But everybody has to think about what their neurodivergence is that makes them better, smarter, faster than anybody else because of that unfair advantage.

14:01Simon Sinek:My ADHD is an unfair advantage against people who don't have it. Thanks so much for listening. To hear the full episode, there's a link in the description.