Simon Sinek is an inspirational motivational speaker. You may know him for his talk on How Great Leaders Inspire Action or his latest book, Find Your Why and the enlightening Ted Talk which followed. I love taking time out to listen to his talks and interviews as I feel whenever I listen to him speak, I always learn a new lesson or am reminded of a thought-provoking subject which really resonates with me.
 
A few days ago I stumbled across a YouTube clip by Evan Carmichael which was a bit of a Simon Sinek mash up. The hour-long clip was a recap of Simon Sinek’s 10 rules for success.
 
If you have the time to watch the clip, I highly recommend it. If you’re short on time, here’s a summary of Simon Sinek’s 10 rules for success:

1. Break the rules.
   “The rule is this – you can go after whatever you want, you just cannot deny anyone else to go after whatever they want.”
2. Train your mind
   It’s important to differentiate the difference between being excited and being nervous. The interpretation or perception of being excited or being nervous is the same stimuli, so instead of saying that you’re nervous, say you’re excited. It’s a very effective change in habit, as it makes you want to rush forward, instead of pulling back, yet it’s the same experience.
3. Be patient
   Too often you come across young millennials who become disengaged in their job, early on in their tenure at the company, because they feel they aren’t making an impact. They treat the sense of fulfillment as if it were a scavenger hunt. We have an entire generation which has an Institutionalised sense of impatience. Do they have the patience to go on the journey to maintain love, to feel fulfilled or do they just give up and go onto the next chapter?
4. Take Accountability
   As much as you may not want to admit it, sometimes it’s you who’s the problem. We’ve seen this happen all too recently with the global financial crisis in 2008. They blamed everything else except themselves. Take accountability for your actions. You can take all the credit in the world for the things you do right as long as you also take responsibility for what you do wrong. It must be a balanced equation.
5. Outdo Yourself
   The infinite player understands that sometimes you’re ahead and sometimes you’re behind. Sometimes your product is better and sometimes it’s worse. The goal isn’t to be the best every day, the goals aren’t to outdo your competition every day. Finite players play to beat the players around them infinite players play to be better themselves. Wake up every day to see how you can create your company to be better today than what it was yesterday. Create your product to be better today than it was yesterday. How do you outdo yourself? It’s about making sure the work your producing today is better than you did before. You are your competition and that is what keeps you in the game longer and ensures that you find joy, because the joy comes from advancement, not your competition.
6. Stack the deck
   Put yourself and your company in a position of strength. Choose to be in an environment where your strengths are recognized. Where you are present in an environment around people who want you to be there.
7. Be the last speaker
   Nelson Mandela across the world is universally regarded as a great leader. He was the son of a tribal chief and when asked how he learned to be a great leader he responded with his memory of going with his father to tribal meetings. He learned 2 things. Always sit in a circle. His father, being the tribal chief, was always the last to speak. The skill of allowing everyone in the room to speak before you provide 2 things. 1. It gives everyone in the room the feeling that they have been heard, offering everyone the ability to feel they have contributed. 2. You can hear what everyone has to say before you give your opinion. It provides you with the opportunity to simply sit there and take it all in. You need to ask questions so you can understand what they mean. Why they have the opinion? Why are they speaking from where they are speaking? It sounds easy, it’s not. It’s important to practice to be the last to speak.
8. Be Authentic
   Say and do the things you actually believe. By doing this, you build trust and it creates symbols of who you are. You attract people who believe what you believe. The more you can give of yourself and give what you believe, great things start to happen.
9. Find your passion
   Where does passion come from? Passion is the feeling you have when you’re engaged with something that you love. The goal is to find something, both at home and work, that you’re truly excited about. Finding the things that you love to do and being able to make a profession out of it, is the goal.
10. Start with why
    When asking yourself what is your why, you’re asking yourself what’s your purpose, what’s your cause? To make a profit is a result, it’s not your why. The goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe. Read our previous blog on What’s your Why for more insights.

1. Listen to understand not respond:
   “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. Most people listen with the intent to reply”. It’s important to ask yourself if you’re truly listening to what others are saying or if you’re being distracted by a pre-conceived answer based on an assumption that you already know what the person is going to say.
2. Listen with curiosity:
   If you’re willing to listen, everyone has a story to tell. There have been many occasions where I think I have heard something before and almost go into auto pilot with a response. I have learnt to let my curiosity take over and see where the conversation is going to go. You’ll be surprised, there are many times where I’ve learnt something new.
3. Don’t listen with just your ears:
   Listening effectively is giving your undivided attention. It means that you listen with more than just your ears. Communicate with your eyes, heart and body language.
4. Listening is like a muscle:
   The more you use it, the more it develops. This doesn’t mean that the more you use it, you will automatically become a better listener, but it’s a great start. By making a conscious effort to be a more effective listener will train your brain to be so.
5. Listening makes you a great leader:
   As an entrepreneur, I pride myself on being a good a leader. It’s essential to listen to your employees, shareholders and most importantly your customers. By listening to what they have to say, you can grow your business and become a great leader.

I challenge you to take notice of your behaviour next time you’re engaging in a conversation. It’s an eye opening experience, very quickly you realise whether you are a good, moderate or a bad listener. You will start to take notice if you are making assumptions or interrupting the person speaking and with that allows you to take the steps to move towards being a more effective listener.

1. It’s all in your demeanour:
   Your demeanour is the way in which you behave. If your behaviour comes across as a confident person, people will believe that you are confident. It’s in your poise, maintaining eye contact, staying true to yourself, your appearance, your tone and doing what is right.
2. The confidence formula:
   Jeff Thomas has a theory about what it takes to project self-confidence. It’s all in a very simple formula: Confidence = Calm + Certainty. Sounds so easy right? It really is that easy. Stay cool and be certain of yourself, your actions and your words.
3. Practice:
   “Confidence is like a muscle, it gets stronger the more you use it”. If you can practice being the confident version of yourself on a daily basis, you will become that person. It’s all in the saying “fake it till you make it”. A huge benefit of working out of a coworking space allows you to do this on a daily basis without it making you feel uncomfortable are silly. Each time you go to grab a coffee or walk to the balcony for some fresh air, there is a like-minded person present which you can practice on.
4. Know your why:
   People believe and buy into the story you tell not the product or service you are selling. You need to know and understand your purpose. What’s your why? Once you know your purpose and have a powerful story behind your why you will feel and be so much more confident in selling it.
5. It starts with you:
   You need to believe in yourself, your business and the value in which you are creating through your product or service you are selling. You need to harness the self-belief to really take you confidence to the next level.

 
For many people, confidence can take a lifetime to build, with it taking only a few moments to shatter into a million pieces. It’s so important to eliminate the excuses and have the conviction to power through any situation which may arise. I’ll end with a power quote by Thomas A. Edison “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”