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This is Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast. More what you hear

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weekday afternoon is on the Drive.
Simon Cinek is misnamed. I'll explain why

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in just a minute. He's written
best selling books including Start with Why and

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New York Times best selling leaders,
Eat Last, and The Infinite Game.

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His podcast can be heard on the
iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get podcasts called

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a Bit of Optimism. That is
why I say he's misnamed. Simon,

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You're not a cynic at all.
I think he can be optimistic and cynical

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at the same time. Okay,
I'll beat the future bright, but sometimes

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it's a cynical That's one thing you
and I have in common. I always

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try to look a little on the
bright side, even when there are darker

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things. I would prefer to focus
on what AI can control and b I

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can control for the positive absolutely.
You know, people call me naive because

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I say that I'm an optimist.
In find myself as an optimist. But

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I think people confuse optimism and blind
positivity. Blind positivity we think everything's good

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all the time. That's not healthy. But optimism is the undying belief that

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the future is bright, and we
can be in a dark tunnel. Things

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can be difficult and hard. But
optimism is it sounds like, you know,

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hey, look, these are hard
times. It's going to be difficult.

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I don't know how long it's going
to be like this, but I

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noted that if we stick together and
help each other, we're going to get

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through this and come out of this
better than we went in. That to

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me is what optimism sounds like.
Yeah, that positivism that you the blind

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positiveism you described. They made a
movie out of that. It was called

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Pollyanna. If you remember it,
Yeah, yes, you want to bring

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her. Not helpful, But at
the same time, we are living in

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a very negative world, and we
have negativity no matter where we turn,

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and it's now infiltrating the palms of
our hands. The very palms of our

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hands have a device where negativity rains. You know, it's really funny where

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we live in a world now,
where where we used to sort of give

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our opinions. We used to like
read the news and be angry or sad,

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and we'd call a friend and invent
that sadness or anger. And now

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we read the news and we go
online and we vent our anger and we

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express our sadness. And people no
longer react to the news. We're now

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online reacting to each other's reactions,
and it's this like vicious cycle that it

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can't go well. And nobody's ever
read a comment on social media. And

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but you know what, I'm going
to change my mind, said, no

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one ever, right, no,
But you can change what goes into your

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mind. You can also change how
you react to that. For instance,

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I have people call my program all
the time, and they emailed me and

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bombard me with messages, Oh my
god, look at this. The last

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one that I tackled was about some
articles regarding artificial intelligence and how oh all

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the bad things that can happen as
a result of artificial intelligence. And I

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made a lot of jokes about it
because it is a little funny artificial intelligence

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really, but I also looked at
Wow, can you imagine an electronic micro

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device that can actually hunt down and
devour cancer cells without hurting other sales because

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it can learn what is good and
what isn't good and cure cancer. I

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mean, that is on the horizon. As a result. Look like so

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many things, these things have positives
and they have negatives and it's about amplifying

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the positives of mitigating the negatives.
But putting any kind of technology out there

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unrestricted, I think is a dangerous
thing. I mean, we can see

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what's happened with sort of unrestricted Internet. We still have Internet laws from nineteen

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ninety six governing how the Internet should
be used in the responsibility of it.

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So I think we have to just
like implement these technologies responsibly. But as

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you said, we can choose to
have a doomsday approach to it, or

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we can choose to be polyanna about
it, neither of which is helpful.

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There is a balance somewhere in there
well, and you can be cautious of

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the negativity but also cautious of the
positivity. I think. So I'm in

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Cynic with Us and he is the
best selling author and host of the podcast

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A Bit of Optimism on the iHeartRadio
app but everywhere you get podcasts. I

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see you are a trained ethnographer.
What is that? That's correct. Ethnography

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is a discipline within anthropology, and
really simply it's the opposite of a focus

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group. So like a focus group
is like you bring people in to your

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space to ask some questions. Athnography
is going out to study people in their

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natural environment. So it's the answropologist. It should be uncomfortable, not the

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people coming to talk to them.
And so that's all it is. And

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I learned to sort of observe the
world I lived in, and that's what

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I studied in college and it's definitely
served me. Well, where do you

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get your positivity? Do you have
that in your family? Or are everybody

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in your family kind of optimistic?
I think we're pretty I mean I've always

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been happy to go lucky with a
kid. I don't know. I think

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my mother dropped me on my head
when I was a baby. Maybe you

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know, it's I just like I
said, there's not a naivete and there's

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not a naive pay to it.
It's just this. It's just I just

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believe the future is bright, and
but it's it's I also believe that the

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way you stay positive and the way
you stay optimistic is true friendship that I

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don't think anybody has naturally sort of
the unlimited wells of positivity. I think

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when you have people in your life
who care about you and who have your

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back, and you feel like,
no matter what, you're never alone.

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I think that's what that's what makes
us optimistic in the world. And so

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if to be optimistic, I think
you have to like nurse nurse your friendships,

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be there for your friends, to
ensure that your friends will be there

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for you. I think that's all
it takes to be quite honest. Well,

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and there's a little bit of belief
too. You have to have people

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who believe in you, or at
least people you believe believe in you absolutely.

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I mean, like if you if
anybody needs the courage to make a

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difficult, difficult decision or to stay
optimistic, all you need is one friend

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who puts their hand on your shoulder
and say, you got this. I

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believe in you. You got to
do this. And it's amazing the courage

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that we can find. Simon Senek
is with us. The podcast is a

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bit of optimism. How do you
approach people who do come to you with

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lots of negativity about well, well, for instance, it could be all

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right if this happens. How do
we handle it positively? So it's number

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one is I don't fight with people. I don't want to convince them that

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they're wrong. I don't want to
convince them that you know, they have

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to see the world differently. It's
about listening and so developing those human skills,

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including listening skills, to make to
give somebody the space to feel heard.

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And what's amazing is when somebody is
in a bad place, they're negative,

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they're you know, approaching a situation, you know, in a certain

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way. If I just let them
feel heard at that point, they can

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come around themselves and or they're open
to advice from others. But it's really

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all about letting people feel heard first, which is a skill unfortunately a lot

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of us need to learn. Oh
I know that so well. I know

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that so very well. One of
the things I say on this program is

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is when I'm doing all the talking, I'm not learning anything. It's true,

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true, I know the feeling.
I know the feeling, but it's

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you know, you just look at
the world that we live in today.

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You know, we're all shouting at
each other, but nobody's listening. And

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it's the amazing power of listening.
I didn't think people realize that when you

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give somebody that. And I talk
to people about like I shouldn't have to

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listen to them, they should listen
to me, And like, well,

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that's never going to happen. Yeah, so one of you has to go

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first. And in my world,
the person who goes first, I call

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that person the leader, because that's
what leaders do. They lead the way,

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they show us how to do things. They lead by example, and

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it's the leader who listens first and
creates the space where conversations can actually happen.

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Simon Senek a bit of optimism.
We all could use it. Get

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it regularly on his podcast, heard
on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get

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podcasts. Now, go out and
have a great day. Simon Sinnek,

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thanks so much, you too.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews

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Lee Matthews podcast, and remember to
listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from

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five to seven. An iHeartMedia presentation