Skip to content
Home » Simon Sinek: Why Leaders Eat Last (Full Transcript)

Simon Sinek: Why Leaders Eat Last (Full Transcript)

Here is the transcript of Simon Sinek’s talk titled “Why Leaders Eat Last”. In this presentation, Sinek discusses how leaders eat last in order to motivate their employees and how this behavior reinforces the status quo. He argues that this system is flawed, as it can lead to instability and conflict among group members. He provides advice on how to lead effectively, emphasizing the importance of sacrifice and being willing to be open about one’s problems.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

So, the date is August 16, 2002, and flying over a valley, in Afghanistan are two A-10 Warthogs. An A-10 is a heavily armored, low-flying, slow aircraft designed to provide ground cover for troops on the ground. And on this night, it’s a very, very cloudy night, there are storms in the area, and these two planes hanging up above, just waiting in case anybody down below needs help.

Up there, it’s gorgeous. The moon is bright, there’s thousands of stars in the sky, the clouds look like the snow had just fallen. Down below in the valley, however, there were 22 special forces, special operations forces, troops, trying to make their way through the country, and they could feel that something was wrong. They could feel, they felt uneasy.

One of the pilots up above callsign Johnny Bravo, and yes, he stands like this. He could feel their unease listening to him over the radio, so he decides he was going to go down below the cloud and just have a look. He tells his wingman, ‘Hang out up here, I’ll go see what there is.’ And he points his plane down into the clouds.

And as he’s going through the clouds, the call comes over the radio. Troops in contact. Troops in contact is what they say when they come under effective fire. It means they’re in trouble. So Johnny Bravo points his plane straight down. The plane is getting thrashed about in the turbulence.

And when he comes out below the clouds, he’s less than 1,000 feet off the ground, and he’s flying in a valley. Cliffs on both sides. Now, this is only 2002, and the planes were not yet equipped with ground-hugging radar, and worse, they were using old Russian maps. That’s all they had at the time.

And the sight that greets him is something like he’s never seen before, not in training, and not in the movies. He sees tracer fire, fire coming from all sides of the valley, pointed right in the middle where the American forces are. And so he picks the point and starts to lay down suppressing fire.

And he’s flying, and he’s in danger of hitting the cliff, of course. He knows his speed, he knows his distance on the map, and he literally counts out loud while he lays down the suppressing fire. 1-1,000, 2-1,000, 3-1,000, 4-1,000, 5-1,000. Pulls hard on the stick, pulls back up into the cloud, comes down around again. 1-1,000, 2-1,000, 3-1,000, 4-1,000. Good hits, good hits, it says over his radio. And again, he comes around. 1-1,000, 2-1,000, 3-1,000, 4-1,000, 5-1,000.

He runs out of ammunition. Fuel is fine. Flies back up to the top of the cloud, tells his wingman, you need to get down there. His wingman isn’t sure about the conditions, so the two of them fly back down together. His wingman lays down the suppressing fire, and Johnny Bravo counts as they fly three feet apart from each other wing to wing… 1-1,000, 2-1,000, 3-1,000, 4-1,000, 5-1,000. Up and around again, 1-1,000, 2-1,000, 3-1,000, 4-1,000, 5-1,000. That night, 22 Americans went home alive with zero casualties.

My question is, where do people like Johnny Bravo come from? Who are they? Who would risk their lives for others so that they may survive? I asked Johnny Bravo. I asked him, why would you do it? Why would you risk your life so that others may survive? And he gave me the same answer that everybody in his position gives, because they would have done it for me.

Now, if you think about it, in the military, they give medals to people who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may gain. In business, we give bonuses to people who are willing to sacrifice others so that we may gain. We have it backwards.

Wouldn’t you like to work in an organization in which you have the absolute confidence, the absolute knowledge, that other people that you may or may not know who work in the same organization as you would be willing to sacrifice themselves so that you may survive? And I’m not talking about giving your life. I mean, we don’t even like to give up credit. You know?

So where do people like Johnny Bravo come from? Well, it’s an age-old question. They’re not born. They’re actually made. If you look at the human animal, the human animal is like a machine. There are systems inside our bodies that are trying to get us to do things that are in the interest of the survival of the human animal, right?

Just like in a business, in a company, if you want people to do something, you offer them some sort of positive or negative incentive to direct the behavior, right? So if you want people to achieve a certain goal, you offer them a bonus if they achieve that goal, and they’ll work towards that goal because they want the bonus. It’s a very simple system.

HAPPINESS BREAKDOWN (4 CHEMICALS)

The human body works exactly the same way. It works exactly the same way. Inside our bodies are chemicals that are trying to get us to do things that are in the best interest of us. If you’ve ever had a feeling of happiness, pride, joy, love, fulfillment, all of these feelings that we have are chemically produced feelings, and they’re produced by four chemicals, predominantly.