Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek explores how leaders can inspire cooperation, trust, change, and show empathy. He's the author of the classic "Start With Why," and his new book is "The Infinite Game."

Expert on

  • Business
  • Teamwork / Teambuilding
  • Inspirational
  • Leadership
  • Entrepreneurism
  • Best-Selling Author

Fee Range

$140,000–$175,000

Travels from

NY, US

Biography

A trained ethnographer, Simon is fascinated by the people and organizations that make the greatest and longest-lasting impact in the world. Over the years, he has discovered some remarkable patterns about how they think, act, and communicate and the environments in which people operate at their natural best. He has devoted his life to sharing his thinking in order to help other leaders and organizations inspire action. 

Simon may be best known for popularizing the concept of WHY, which he described in his first TED Talk in 2009. That talk went on to become the second most-watched TED Talk of all time and is still in the top five with over 50 million views. His interview on Millennials in the Workplace broke the internet in 2016. With over 80 million views in its first week, it has now been viewed hundreds of millions of times. This led to Simon being YouTube’s fifth most searched term in 2017. 

His unconventional and innovative views on business and leadership have attracted international attention. From the airline industry to the entertainment industry, from finance to fashion, from big business to entrepreneurs to police forces, Simon has been invited to meet with a broad array of leaders and organizations in nearly every industry. He has also had the honor of sharing his ideas with multiple agencies of the US government and with the senior-most leaders of the United States Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, Army, and Coast Guard. 

Simon is an adjunct staff member of the RAND Corporation, one of the most highly regarded think tanks in the world. He is also active in the arts and in the non-for-profit world (though Simon prefers to call it the for-impact world). 

Speaker Videos

THE INFINITE GAME

In finite games, like football or chess, the players are known, the rules are fixed, and the endpoint is clear. The winners and losers are easily identified.

In infinite games, like business or politics or life itself, the players come and go, the rules are changeable, and there is no defined endpoint. There are no winners or losers in an infinite game; there is only ahead and behind.

The more Simon started to understand the difference between finite and infinite games, the more he began to see infinite games all around us. He started to see that many of the struggles that organizations face exist simply because their leaders were playing with a finite mindset in an infinite game. These organizations tend to lag behind in innovation, discretionary effort, morale and ultimately performance.

The leaders who embrace an infinite mindset, in stark contrast, build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations. Their people trust each other and their leaders. They have the resilience to thrive in an ever-changing world, while their competitors fall by the wayside. Ultimately, they are the ones who lead the rest of us into the future.

Simon now believes that the ability to adopt an infinite mindset is a prerequisite for any leader who aspires to leave their organization in better shape than they found it.

START WITH WHY

Simon starts with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?

People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it.

Start With Why shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

FIND YOUR WHY

With Start With Why, Simon started a movement to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. Millions of people now understand the concept of the Golden Circle.

This paperback workbook is designed to help those inspired by the message find their WHY and bring it to life in both their careers and organizations. Now, along with two colleagues, David Mead and Peter Docker, Simon has created a guide to the most important step any business can take: finding their WHY.

This easy-to-follow guide starts with discovering your personal WHY, and then expands to articulating your organization’s WHY. With detailed instructions for every step of the process, the book also answers common concerns, such as:

What if my WHY sounds like my competitor’s?
Can I have more than one WHY?
And, if my work doesn’t align with my WHY, what do I do?

Whether you’re entry level or a CEO, whether your team is run by the founder or a recent hire, these simple steps will lead you on a path to a more fulfilling life and long-term success for you and your colleagues.

LEADERS EAT LAST BOOK

In his work with organizations around the world, Simon Sinek noticed that some teams trust each other so deeply that they would literally put their lives on the line for each other. Other teams, no matter what incentives are offered, are doomed to infighting, fragmentation and failure. Why?

The answer became clear during a conversation with a Marine Corps general. “Officers eat last,” he said. Simon watched as the most junior Marines ate first while the most senior Marines took their place at the back of the line. What’s symbolic in the chow hall is deadly serious on the battlefield: Great leaders sacrifice their own comfort-even their own survival-for the good of those in their care.

Too many workplaces are driven by cynicism, paranoia, and self-interest. But the best ones foster trust and cooperation because their leaders build what Simon calls a “Circle of Safety” that separates the security inside the team from the challenges outside.

Simon illustrates his ideas with fascinating true stories that range from the military to big business, from government to investment banking.