And the answer, is no.

I don't feel I am,

because I am trying to build a world that doesn't exist yet.

When you're driving in your car,

and you get a text, and your phone goes beep,

we hate email, true.

We love the beep, the buzz, the ding.

- Have you gone and talked to

a company that's been in trouble,

and then spoken to their team,

and then checked in on them

after you've spoke to their leadership team,

and what did that look like?

Did you notice a noticeable change?

- You mean, does my (audio cuts out) work?

(audience laughing)

- Hello, Believe Nation!

I'm Evan Carmichael, my one word is believe,

and I believe that entrepreneurs are going to solve

all of the world's major problems.

So, to help you on your journey,

today, we're going to learn from

author and speaker, Simon Sinek,

and my take on his top 10 rules for success, volume two.

Rule number five is my personal favorite,

and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best.

And as always, as you're listening,

if something really resonates with you,

there's a message that really holds true to you,

please leave it down in the comments below

and put it in quotes

so that other people can be inspired.

And when you write it down,

it's much more likely to stick with yourself as well.

Enjoy.

(loud whoosh)

(dramatic orchestral music)

- People are always talking about

visions and missions and all this stuff.

And, when people ask me,

"What example should I look to, what company?"

I'm like, here's an organization with a vision, a cause.

It was founded with a cause.

It's an entrepreneurial venture.

America is an experiment.

It's an entrepreneurial venture

where a bunch of people got together and decided

we needed to start our own country

because there were certain obstacles

that were getting in the way of the vision that we had

of a better kind of country, a kind of company, right?

And they stated it right out of the beginning,

"All men are created equal,"

endowed with these inalienable rights,

amongst which include life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness.

And it's not just a competitive statement,

like, "To be the best.

"To be the most respected."

That's not what it was.

And I'm amazed how many companies

start their visions or missions with those,

that terribly egocentric language.

It was an ideal.

And the amazing thing is

we've been good at it and bad at it in our history,

but it's endured for 240 plus years

because we fundamentally believe

that we are at our best when we're pursuing that.

But it is an ideal.

We will never achieve all people are equal,

but we will die trying, and that's the point.

And it's the same for a company,

which is true vision inside a company

is something that has nothing to do with your product.

It is an ideal to which you will

attempt to build and advance that ideal

through your company with your product.

You will never achieve the ideal but you'll die trying.

And this is what gives our work meaning.

This is what gives our lives purpose.

The difference between a vision and a goal

is the finish line.

A goal is 26.2 miles.

You can simply count the metrics

and know when you completed your goal.

A vision is having a crystal clear sense

of what the finish line looks like

but no idea of how far away it is.

And the reality is, you will spend your entire life

never actually crossing the finish line,

but the joy that every marathon you complete

you feel like you're getting closer

and every milestone that you accomplish

makes you feel like you're getting

closer and closer to the ideal,

and this is what gives our life and our work meaning.

Success is an elusive thing, right?

What is it?

And I think it's very interesting

that if most people kind of define success,

"Well, it means you've made X amount of dollars,"

but if you make X amount of dollars but you spend more,

are you successful?

Or, "Well, it means you come home happy every day."

Okay, how do you know when you're happy?

So I think success is a funny thing,

which is we all seem to pursue it,

but we don't know how to measure it

or actually how to define it.

So how do you pursue something that you can't measure?

Fascinating.

So when people say to me, "How do you measure success?"

the question we all have to ask ourselves, am I successful?

I don't know.

I had a good year last year.

And what does that mean?

Does it mean I made a lot of money?

Does it mean I was really happy?

Well, I'll let you decide.

Maybe neither, maybe both.

I had a good year last year, but am I successful?

And the answer, is no.

I don't feel I am,

because I am trying to build a world that doesn't exist yet.

I'm trying to build a world in which

90% of people go home at the end of the day

feeling fulfilled by the work that they do.

So I definitely took a big step forward towards that goal,

but I'm still so far away.

So somebody said to me,

"How do you know if you're successful?"

And the answer is if it can go by itself.

And so what is more interesting to me

as a measurement of success is not the markers per se.

It's not the financial goal

or the size of the house that you want to buy.

Those are nice things.

Go for it.

But those are not measurements of success.

Those are just nice things to collect along the way.

For me, it's momentum.

I want to measure momentum, which is,

when something is moving

and you start to see it lose momentum,

you're like, "Uh-oh, give it a push,"

because if you don't give it a push it's going to stop,

and an object in stasis is much harder to get going.

It requires a lot more energy to get something started

than it does to keep it going, right?

And so if you don't let it stop and you can keep it going,

it still might slow down down there,

but you can get it going again much easier.

And for me, the opportunity is to get the ball rolling

faster and faster and faster and faster and faster

and bigger and bigger and bigger.

It's like a snowball.

And my responsibility is,

because it's not rolling downhill yet,

it's not on automatic yet,

I need to still keep it going and find that critical mass

where it can go (imitates explosion)

And at the point it can go by itself without me,

then I will find something else to do.

And that may not happen in my lifetime.

I think we must all stop measuring

promotions, salaries, and these things,

but rather measure the momentum of your career.

Does my career have momentum?

Can I see it moving in the right direction?

Can I see it gathering mass?

Can I see that it's becoming

easier for me to keep the momentum,

it's becoming easier for me to grow the size of this thing,

it's requiring less effort?

That's the thing we need to measure.

That's the thing that we need to be cognizant of,

which is the momentum of our careers,

not just the markers that we think define our success.

I did a little experiment with a homeless person.

Not like on them.

It's not like electrodes.

(audience laughs)

With them, voluntarily helped me.

Because the whole idea of giving, right?

You've all walked down the street

and you've all seen someone begging,

and you either have or haven't

thrown a few pennies in their cup.

When you do, you feel good.

You bought that feeling.

That is a legitimate commercial transaction.

Commercial transactions are defined as

the exchange of consideration.

There was an exchange of consideration here.

You gave money.

You got the feeling of goodwill.

You paid for that feeling.

If you didn't give money,

you either feel nothing or you feel bad.

You can't feel good by not giving.

You pay for that feeling.

So now the question is,

how is that person encouraging us to give?

The joke is, they act like every corporation in the world.

They talk about themselves.

"Me, me, me, me, me, me, me."

Right?

They sit there with their little outdoor advertising,

little sign, right?

And it says, "I'm homeless.

"I'm hungry.

"I've got 12 kids.

"I'm a veteran.

"God bless."

They got it all in there, trying to appeal to somebody,

the religious vote, the veteran vote, child sympathizers,

surround yourself with lots of pets, go for that one, too.

Right?

All in an attempt to get something from someone.

Takers, not givers, right?

All about me.

Well, what do corporations do?

"We've added more RAM.

"We've added more ROM.

"We've added more speed.

"This one is number one.

"We're the biggest. We're the best.

"We've been around since 1969.

"We're better than them.

"We're faster than them.

"We're more efficient than that one.

"Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me."

And so even if we buy their product, guess what?

We don't really feel much.

So I did this little experiment.

I found a nice homeless lady on the streets of New York

who was willing to help out.

And I learned that with her sign, which was pretty typical,

"I'm homeless, I'm hungry, blah, blah, blah,"

she makes between 20 and 30 dollars a day

for a day's worth of work,

eight to 10 hours of sitting there selling goodwill.

Eight to 10 hours, she'll make 20 to 30 dollars.

30 dollars is considered a good day.

I changed her sign,

and the new sign made her 40 dollars in two hours.

And then she left.

(audience laughs)

It's one of the reasons she's homeless,

is 'cause she's decided that she only needs

20 to 30 dollars a day to live.

If she'd stayed, she would've made $150.

The point is, she made 40 bucks in two hours.

What did the sign say?