Creating Astonishment with Chicago Bears CEO Kevin Warren
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Do you remember the last time you felt truly astonished being so surprised by something incredible? You just had to stop and take IT in that same feeling that kids get when they see a magic trick or a rainbow? For Kevin Warren, feeling astonishment is sort of a secret ingredient for why he loves his job.

Kevin is the president CEO of the chicago bears. Prior to that, he was the commissioner of the big ten conference. And prior to that, he was the CEO of the minnesota vikings.

But simply, he is pretty remarkable. So when talking to someone like Kevin, a serious high performer, you think you hear stories of discipline structure running on four hours of sleep. And though i'm sure some of those things are there, that's not what he talked about.

He talked about the importance of pulling over to take a photo of a full mood and sending IT his friends. And he talked about making sure a new employee has their name on their cubicle and new business cards waiting for them on their first day of work. IT turns out, being astonished and creating astonishing experiences for others is the missing piece of magic in so many of our careers. This is a bit of optimism.

You've never written a book.

right?

I not written one. I have I have a draft of a book that I wrote, and I have a promise to myself that as soon as our season in this year, hopefully after the super bowl, i'm going to pick IT up and probably take to be just a couple weeks to finish IT. What's the book about is called build drone pool.

And it's a story about my journey as a ten and a half year old kid, I was run over by a car, and I spent almost a year and active. I was in couple months and in traction, and then more months in a full body. As and so is the lesson, is all the things that I learned, and is why I called the bill joran pool, is when I got out of my body case, I got a relatively small, small settlement.

But the doctor who I had was a skill doctor, but he had his beside manner were interesting, saying, then I was the first time I learned in life that you got to listen to what people are saying, not how they're saying IT, because the way he said that to me was in a very aggressive manner. And one could have taken IT as he doesn't care about you. But what he told me in my last appointment to live in a hospital, he said, the thing that will give you the best chance for recovery will be if you spend time in the pool, in the water, because IT will have the less pressure on your body, and that will give you a chance, want to give back in shape, but give you a chance to get stronger.

So the way he said, he was, like I said, aggressive, especially at that time talking to a ten and half eleven year old kid. And but I went to my parents and told them you heard what the doctor said, and I would like to build a swim pool in our backyard. And my parents said, we don't have the financial resources to do IT.

I said, yeah, but I presume i'm going to get a small settlements. I'd like to take that settlement and put IT toward the pool, which my parents refuse to allow me to do for about three days. And that was my first real negotiation in life happened after that.

And I finally had to tell him to say that I was the one who got hit by a car. I was the one who endure traction. I was the one who endured a four body cars.

So therefore it's my money. I know i'm not of age, and because of my money, I can spend my money on what I want. And I want to spend my money on save in my life.

And after that conversation, they looked at me and said, wow. And so I spent the majority of that settlement and built swiming pull my parents backyard. And six years later, I was able to play the vision one college basketball.

Kind of. The rest is history. But that's when I learned the importance of being passionate. That was my y and and and and that's when I learned this one thing to have someone invest in you, but it's another thing for you, invest in yourself.

It's so amazing, I think, how life turns out, and sort of the things that happen in our childhood, in your case, the the pain in of being hit by a car in spending a year in traction in a budget. Ast, you never want to go through that again, and you wish that upon nobody. But at the same time, IT turned out to be a blessing. You probably wouldn't be the person you are today. If IT weren't for that experience.

I would tell you unequivocally, I wouldn't be sitting in the seat today. But for that accident, IT changed my life. IT was the most painful, dramatic, dramatic, consequential event in my life. And what I did IT IT took me from a kid to an adult at eleven years old.

He taught me to understand the importance of time management that we all have one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes in a day that sit regardless of our financial position, education, health, who we know. We all got the same amount of minutes. And then also, I told me the fragile ity of life, that every day you need to make sure when you lay down and go to bed, that you can look back and say that I didn't, I didn't waste IT.

So I can tell you, on equipped, there is no way that I would be sitting here today, but for that accident. And so i've learned in life at some of those times that we think are really painful, is really feel I know that's been my fuel even as I sit here today. Here's the chAllenge we have in life or or it's let say, IT more positively, here's the opportunity we have when I believe when you're born, there's a certain amount of reaching your capabilities that exists, is there.

And so i've always looked at, is that what can I do to make sure that whenever my time on earth is that I look back and literally the covered is dry? And that's how look at my life. What I think the worst thing and you've been around me, we spent time together.

You know me, I don't like wasting anything. I don't like wasting water. I mean, I did IT yesterday at the airport. You know, I was already over hydrated IT.

But when I got into the going into the line of security, you know, you have to input your bags, and and I had about eight owners of one of those small little bottles of water. So I forced myself to drink IT, just to make sure. But I can maximize every gift from god, from a higher being that has been given to me.

And so why is that important? Is my goal every single day is what can I do in my own track? And when my day, when my last day goes out here, that I can look back and say, I maximize everything, we will Better serve our Young generation by putting them in a position where they have to struggle, where they have to pay for some things.

And i'm i'm talking to my cell phone. There's one of the reasons why I embraced my graduate degrees is because I paid form. I paid for all of them.

I earned my undergraduate degree with my athletic ability, but my masters degree in business and my law degree I paid for. So IT means a lot to me, because I had the right to check is like building your own pool. I wrote the check.

And so when I wrote the check is a lemon year old kid for someone to build a pool of my parents backyard. My parents never had to tell me to make sure to get the leaves out of the pool, because I knew if I didn't do IT IT would clog IT up. And then i'd have to spend more money to do IT my parents and have to tell me to tell my friends don't eat in the pool because I wrote the cake in so many times in life. When you write to check on something, whether it's you know it's uh, an education is a degree or something IT IT just means more. And and so I think we need to let our our Young people write checks more, because if you will, IT will IT will be more.

I read a thing not that long ago that one of the most fulfilling jobs, the group of people that some is, is contractors, because they do the work to build something that they get, to see the thing that they built.

right, right?

We live largely in A A knowledge economy, right? With the idea of building something with our hands and the struggle in the effort is IT diminishing the knowledge economy. Or can you have that feeling?

You can have the feeling, but when you build something, and that's one of the reasons why, like this organization i'm so passionate about. You know, when I look over my career, even I watched the every time I see the the vikings played U. S.

Bank stadium yeah, they're wearing the same division. They are competitor. I want to beat them every time we pay him.

But there's something you need to know that when was thinking back how many actual hours that I invest in the building of U. S. Bank stadium? Yeah, it's thousands.

I mean, IT could be five or six thousand hours. So there's something even on TV. When I look, I looked as assigned hung properly. Is the light shining through the way that we envisioned.

But how does that feel? That needs to be tweet because we built something, you know, at the big teen, every time I see one of those games zone on television. It's not even a since of pride.

It's a fact that, you know, we were involved in building something. And now as the chicago bears that that's one of the reasons why I took this. I don't be call to a job. I took this why to use one of your terms.

And i'll say that if the bears were coming off a playoff ff team or super bowl Victory had a stadium done, everything organza was in place, I won't taken this is why I took this wide because, you know, we needed to come together as a group to build IT. We're not fair yet. We're making really good progress, but is something special when you can pour in your hours, put in the time and be able to see IT start to germinate and come life.

Did you is there, are there any easter egs in the, in the stadium in in mini apples? Did you secretly sign your name in the concrete hidden underneath somewhere?

Now what what I did do is that we had A A brick program on front where you could buy a brick. My inscription that I had in there was, my god bless all those who inner this building. That was kind of my, you know, my signature but but IT is something special.

And when you think back about, you know, some of the things that even that we laugh about today, when you talk about college, you know what do you talk about? You talk about those all nighters are in law school. You really want people love ranging around the bar exam, because this, when IT was crime and greedy.

And always say, if you can, in this world, be able to Operate, Operate successful with gravel and dirt, your mouth. Those are things that you you remember. Those are the experiences that that you remember was that time that your suitcases were lost and you had to go x number days without closed or or your bed and get delivered and you slip on the floor.

It's all those experience. So it's interesting dichotomy for every human being that we want comfortable ly, but we thrive and uncomfortable, leah. And the things we remember most are those pain points in our life.

And it's when relationships .

get stronger, right?

Which stronger struggle, red shared hardship, brings people together. You know, you look at military training, the marine court knows this, which is, you take a group of people, you put them for basic training together, the books hand together, and they they become a unit and struggle.

That's why childbirth is is such a powerful component. One thing that makes women so special is that they're able to experience something that we, as a man can experience. But is that struggle in chabert. And that's why that that relationship between a mom and a kid is a ban that's powerful.

It's funny. It's funny. You say that because of the chemical that creates human bonds, human feelings of love, interest and and all of those things, is this chemical oxide tosa.

And when women give birth, they have a huge surge of oxytocin through their bodies, which is responsible for the mother child bond. Oxytocin is also released through times of shared struggle too. So it's biologically your analogy is biologically accurate.

Wow, wow, that's that's a good. That's why the pain, the pain that I felt that day in my accident, i'd never experienced before and i've never experience after. And i've broken bones and you know, things have happened i've never experienced.

But IT was a pain that really that I would say IT IT elevated my spirit in my heart to a level that I know that I could always go to IT. I mean, even in that, even in that instance, at first twenty four hours, I grew up and then for sure, over the next year. And the other thing that pain teaches you is that they can happen in an instance, you could wake up and everything's clear and Sunny. And in two or three hours that year, year in an environment that you'd never even draining and you're to learn medical terms from people that you don't even know exist IT, and then you become almost an expert at area. So that's one of the reasons why I am grateful for every single good day, but i'm grateful for chAllenging times when I went through with the victim during coit seventeen, seventy two days on the jo B2Be thr ust in the tha t mad e me and eve n Bet ter lea der tha n I e ve r tho ught I c ou ld be bec ause of the the pai n tha t we had to go thr ough of try ing to fig ure tha t out.

It's so funny thing is like as as you're talking about I am reminisce. It's like my first job in the real world as an adult after college, I state to ten oclock at night my first day because we had to and and like every day after that was easy. So and I remember I got to another job later on, a few years later, and I went home seven, and I was like, my god, you guys go home.

You guys go home early here, right? You know?

And like I was that I was the fact that my first job was ridiculous that made the rest of jobs a blessing. Yes, there's one thing I want to go back to when you talk about nothing left to waste. No, no second left to waste, no minute left to waste.

I'll be honor with you. As you're saying that IT scares me to some degree because I one of the things I learned during lockdown was I became addicted to productivity, like so many other people, where if I wasn't being productive, I was a loser. And I want of things I gained from lock down was, no, I value unproductive time.

I value doing nothing. I value relaxing or letting my imagination run wild. And I actually, i'm OK being unproductive now.

And when you talk about not wasting any minute, how does how do you doing nothing factor in? Or does IT ever? Yes.

that's that's a great question. And you know what would you just said? Part of the growth process is when I say not waiting anything, that doesn't mean just activity all the time. You know, I was raised in a household to breed productive, you had to be active.

But just within the last couple years, i'm talking about two to three years of I recognized the importance of rest and for value because what IT does this makes that activity even Better. And and I wasn't raised that way. So I was hard for me.

I was one of those people to say if we're not doing something or we got to go from this to that to other and now i've recognize that is that rest. I mean, even even just this morning, I was bragging to myself that I was able to get seven and a half hours of sleep for four straight nights, like i've never done that. But but I now have recognized that rest is part of the journey.

And IT would be, like, get in your car and driving a hundred miles an hour every single day, you, you're gonna up in the shop, know Better than than less than rest. And so i've recognized the importance of rest were even in recovery. IT makes that the time of productivity even more productive. So that's something that i'm just even learn in at an older age.

Push a little bit goes beyond sleep, right? And I think I think now I think people finally realized that bragging that you got for as a sleep is not yeah not right. I think I think we're all I think we get that one now that the importantly ly, but i'm talking about getting to the end of the day or an afternoon.

yes.

on the weekend. And you look at IT to do list and nothing is checked off, and you feel fine, you know, like the addiction of productivity, the addiction to checking things off a list, addiction to saying, look what I built, look what I did, look what I accomplished over these hours to be OK with the fact that for the last three hours I did lego, or, you know, and like, does that contribute to anything in my household? zero.

But I think IT does. I think, I think he doesn't. In clearing your mind, and you know what, i've noticed I was one of those individuals that no matter where I was flying to, what I was flying there for, I had to have my brief case.

I had to have fails, and I had to work on a plane, and I had to do something. So when I came back to say I was wasted now i've recognize, and i've chAllenged myself, i've even recently, i've packed my briefcase for a trip like i've been doing for years. yeah.

And then I will say i'm leaving this at the door. I'm only taken out what my centres, I need my passport, I need my wallet, whatever is sync als that I need. And I have found when i've done that and I just did IT in last couple days, those trips have been much more productive.

So yeah I can argue that put together legal safe for three hours will help you because when you may notice some structures and the legal set that even when you come back to what we call work, makes you even more about the clear thinker. But the biggest thing that allows you to be able to think and see things specially, that you may not have given yourself time to do, because you just been so busy, or i've been so busy, so I do. So what i've tried to do now, i've matured in life, is i've tried to just follow the flow of the river.

Now there's some trips I get on a plane and I say, yeah, this is time that I really, i'm going to lean into a project I want to work for and a splinted. And then there are the times, the sad, and Carry in this brief case around and IT may make me feel good. And you unify.

I do open IT up is not going to be productive. So the best thing I can do is just to leave at at home. And I found when I do that over a couple days year, when I come back, i'm even more sharp than I was before I left.

This is important, right? Because you're one of the highest performing people I know you are intense, you a good guy, you're a big personality, you're commanding force in a room, and it's like all your energy is forward.

right?

What a pic did you have that the most go high performing person that I know said, I think i'm gonna watch movies and read a book on the plane. What was the conversion that you were? Okay, spending seven hours, eight hours just watching movies.

a couple of things happen. One of them was with you you raise the the issue me none tell you, you raise the issue with me about cellphones. And I was always since of a making sure I was in tune to relationship, but you made a comment of not even turn in your phone over on the table that doesn't do any good because they still says that it's there.

But you said that to me. And if IT calls me, I was speaking at someones wedding yeah. And my whole theme at the wedding was if we treated each other the way we treat our cell phones, this war would be a much Better place.

Because, because what do we do before we go to bed? We plugged IT in. So we make sure is charged up. When we wake up in the morning, we check IT. When the screen is crack, we go get a new screen. If your cell phone doesn't work, you'd literally will drop everything and go weight in line for three hours to get a new cell phone.

And when you get off a plane, on a plane, out of a car, anywhere, how many times are you checked in your pockets to make sure that you have your phone? And I said, if we treated our relationships like that with our significant others and are to this day, i'm still getting notes from the wedding to people say, I never thought about IT because you'll come to work and say, how is your day? Oh my god, i'm busy.

I got fourteen meeting stack. I have no time for anything and then let your cell phone stop working. And then what do you do here? Here .

you're same.

You going on to the newer store, you're telling your whoever you work with, you've got to hold my meetings. If you if you don't have a car, you're you're going to get in a uh, uh, uh, uh A A ride to go there. And so it's all about priority. And so that's one of the things that I learned and I said in our relationships, if we lean into our children, our parents, our grandparents, our partners, our significant others, our spouses, as much as we lead in our cell phones, this would be a magical war.

Oh my god, that's so good idea of recharging, the idea of checking in before bed, you know.

like checking on when you wake up.

checking when you wake up, like, and teaching cof IT.

And you know what's crazy about IT? The last time that I got a phone, I was waiting in their for an hour and a half and I was the nicest person ever. I was as their negotiation, sorry, you're waiting will be right to as in no problem.

That's okay because i'd needed to make sure that was right. And if someone have we've met someone in the meeting, they made us wait now to have, we would have laughed him cinema sti gram and said they were disrespectful. So we just have to keep in mind that we have to just take care of our relationships. And so since that day, you said, IT, I have turned off my cell phone in my meetings. I don't even turn IT over on the table because I have recognized the importance of being engaged with each other.

Does does this mean that I have to upgrade my friends every two years?

No, no, but you know what? Because I think i'm like nine phones behind because they keep testing me. Do you have this one day? I'll see all these numbers, just I don't know the them I just need to charge or that that will work.

And then there were something else that happen. I've collected art, and I love art, but we had a piece art in our house in minnesota that I walk by for seven years, and I knew was there. And I like to when we bought IT, but IT wasn't until someone came over and start asking questions about and talked about how special was that.

I really recognized how beautiful piece IT was. And there are so many things in life that are in our environment every single day that we don't even pay attention to. And and that would really woke me up to say there's things that we have even in our home that we walk by.

We look at IT, but we we're gazing at IT. We're not really looking at IT in studying. And that's when I just said that, you know what? I'm going to take the next couple hours and go look and really study each one of these pieces of art that we bought IT because when we bought IT at the time, admit something and you .

I stood there in the gallery wherever you're brought IT staring at you like, I want this in my home and then you're hanging in your home.

You never look at IT and you never look at IT. And IT takes someone else to come into your home to ask you questions about that. We had what you do, you know, you going to paris.

We have a beautiful piece that we bought, so much so that we bought two of. We bought one for my wife, parent home and for our home. This is basically a sculpture of some nude adults in the night graphic.

But IT was beautiful. And I remember when we bought that in the love in paris. IT was my first trip with my wife, and there was her first trip to the love I had.

You know, my mother was a live bran. And as I said, we didn't travel with kids. We took one vacation every year in the station wagon we drove from fenix to the gona, bese, california. Now was our vacation. And I didn't going to plan my mom.

And because I had a lot of high energy as a kid, he would tell me, go spin the globe in her library, close my eyes, put my finger and weird lands, then i'll get a book off the shelf and read IT. And this is no internet, this is no google, among of that. And so I remember reading about paris in the love and all those different things you want to go.

And I remember the first time we MIT, we went to to to the love. I couldn't sleep the night before I was in paris. yeah.

And I couldn't sleep because I was so looking forward to IT. And so to go there and we got this sculpture and shipped back home, and I made at home was in crack. And i'd loved that.

I hung up on the wall. I looked at IT. And then on week goes by and a month goes by, years go back.

And I never really looked at IT. Then someone came to the house and said, wow, that piece tell me about IT. Would you give IT? And that was able to tell whole story, and that's what I recognized. We're got to start enjoying these things that are right in our surrounding instead of trying acquire new stuff.

You're talking like one of the reasons i'm a happy person is I find joy and very little things. Yes, you know, it's not this idea of if only IT were big, if only IT were impressive, but only IT were in its like you I have an art addiction and I treat my home like like a gallery where I will walk up the stairs and I will stop on my way of the stairs very often. And just take one of the pieces in, not all of them.

I'll just take one in. I've seen at one hundred times, seen in a thousand times. But I always find something new, a brush joke I didn't see before, a detailed agency, before an armor or leg I didn't know was there. And I think that goes for life, which is, which is also ferney going from a to b, that we forget that there's beauty on the root. There's beauty on the root, going from my kitchen to my bedroom.

Yes, yes.

the joy of the of going through life, from getting from a to b. We think the joy is the destination and there is join the destination. But we forget that what if you don't reach the destination or IT doesn't go according to plan or somebody else gets the job or somebody else gets the winner else somebody else, that there's so much joy on the way. And like I said, I think one of the reasons i'm a happy person, I had just enjoy very little things, I mean obsessively, like, for example, when i'm making coffee in the morning, not every time, but occasionally I become hyper tune to all the sounds .

that are .

making sound, right? So as if, as if i'm fully as adding sound effects to a movie, we have to add each sound individually to make IT sound real. Like I hear the cup click on the ground, I hear the coffee grind or go, I hear the coffee shaking into the coffee filter, I hear the water dripping.

Like it's really funny. Like for the for like two minutes, I hear each individual sound, and I often catch myself smiling at all these little sounds that I am taking in. And so for me, the joy of making my coffee in the morning isn't just getting to the cup of coffee, which is wonderful, but it's the sounds and the smells along the way.

yeah. And again, it's not every time, it's not an obsession. It's just that these tiny little details, I think, make life so much more fun.

They also amazing how many times have you gone to a funeral. And when either you're reading about the person's life journey, they're why, or you hear people tell stories and you say, I work with that person for fifteen years, twenty years yeah, and never I never knew that. And so one of the things that I chAllenge myself lately is to say, I don't want to be surprised at any funeral.

And the only way you're not surprised is you got to take the time to learn that person. Because i've gone to funerals recently and i've got Better over the last couple of years because this has been heavy on my heart and say, i've never knew that I never I never knew that they play the piano really. And you know why I didn't know IT is because we were so focused on work, we didn't take the time to do IT because of, as the case, we were walking through an airport.

Now that makes sense because that person, we were walking through airport and when they had a penis in the airport, they stopped and listen because they play the piano. But because I hadn't taken the time, I won't been cooled to say one of you sit down and play a song or maybe when i've seen they're agonizing over what gift to give them. Maybe I could have gave them a mozart can share toe. I mean, there's there's things right there. But IT comes about spend in time, about putting away our phones and really getting the chance to learn what makes people tick.

I have two questions. I wanted know where where you learn that and what to a lot of people. When they hear that, they say, i'm on, look, that's all finding good for your friends.

But this is a workplace. This is professional. I don't have time or energy to start finding out about everybody y's personal lives and what instruments they play. A M Q is when you learned IT and be, what value does IT provide you as a leader?

I think when I learned IT, there was a year in the last eighteen months I did like three, you logie two of my brothers and my father in law. And IT was during that period when I was preparing for those eligible. And the one that really blew my mind is when my wife's family asked me to you, logie is my family and law. There were things that in that research that I learned that I did know, and that's when I really, when you really hit me, is that there's always so much depth to a person.

And so I ask myself, two more dinner would i've learned that? Or two more conversations, would i've learned that? Or one more trip alone, what i've learned that and that's when I really started leaning in to saying, I really want to focus on that night not getting people's business, but just spend in that quality time with that, this one where I learned IT.

And why is that important as a leader? Because I think people will follow you with joy, not with judge gerard, if they know that you really care about them. They're significant other, their families. Their key is their nephew people. People understand that.

And I says all the time, what you do for me is important, but what you do for my kids or my wife, you you capture my heart forever, is not giving them anything, but just. Just even recognizing what I was. And next one, I really learnt that because I I think back now, these the things that I think back all the time, what makes special leader special? These are people that don't focus on the the in game.

They focus on the journey when you get people that really focus on the journey and focus on the people for not the in game, the whether the in game comes or goals that they focus on that. And and that's when I started to really recognize, recognize, i'd even more so in life that that's really important to to spend time on IT. And so IT makes you a Better leader because those are people that I would follow. IT was those leaders that truly not did IT did IT for a reason to try to play kate, me or anything, but truly do understand and take the time on IT.

So I know a guy named jack daily who he believes one of the most important thing we can do company is actually on boarding. Because usually when somebody shows up at the first day of work, it's like, ah you're going to sit here. You will set you up with the H R, though you know the tech will give you a computer, uh, I think you need to make some meeting to fill out your insurance. That's usually what on boarding looks like, you know and he when he doesn't, he like everything's ready to go on their desk. There's a pad with their name on IT.

There's a printed thing that is welcome, like they make them feel like there was his preparation done for them on day one and makes them feel amazing like they do all these things for them on day one, right? But at the same time, their spouse SE back home, they find out their spouse's name, and they send a bottle of wine or something to the house that same morning that says, we are so glad to have your spouse come work for us. Consider yourself part our family as well, you know, ba ba, ba ba. So when he or SHE gets home from work from the first day of work, they say, honey, i'll never about how amazing my first day work with. And the spouse pose out this botas look at they look, they sent home and they.

and that's day one, that's day one. And that's one of the things we have tried to do here at the chicago bears. One thing I am there, there only a few things i'm neros about, but i'm erratically.

When the new employee starts won, their name needs a bee, either on their door, yes, or on their cube. Their business cards need to be ready, yeah, and you need to touch someone at home. One of things I started doing even far as senior leadership during this process, ninety months of hiring people, i've been bringing in the majority of the families.

There are some people, if they're open to do IT ah i'll bring their significant others and their children well in town for the interview just to get a sense because what I found always used to focus on early in my career that IT was the employee that you were hiring who was making the decision, but he was really the family that was making the decision. And if this the significant other partner was comfortable and had a good feeling and the kids had a good feeling, then they made the transition easier. Or if they were uncomfortable, just the opposite.

So yeah, I saw that in even hiring. There are some people that some could you do IT, but that was really important to them. And even so much so that when you sit down and you have an interview with the potential employee in their partner, they're significant other.

That's what you want cause also, the one who are going to ask the most questions know they really have the questions that when the person interview gets back home and they go how to go and when you go, what did you ask? Oh, I forgot to ask. I rather have everyone, I really have everyone there ask your questions .

and you're hiring a whole person, right? You're hare hiring me because we know this like if you have a bad day of at work, you bring that stress home. Yes, if you are having a bad day at home, you bring that was to work and so you're hiring a whole person that this worklife balancing is kind of fake right there.

right? And and so fact .

that you bring the family in, because the family be affected by the stresses of the job, and the and the job will be affected by the stresses the family. So I love the fact that you consider the whole person, even in the interview, not just in the job that's so cool.

I've never heard of that. I my daily yer e and even for are senior executives I made, they're significant others, their children and by name. And why is that important? Because the greatest thing that that an employer, a leader of an organization, when I ask specific questions, yeah this one thing to say how your family doing is great, but when I can ask specific questions about your son or your daughter or your significant other or your partner, ask specific questions, that's how you build that relationship and you start talking to people about what you're wide because then in fact, and i've seen IT overtime.

And this is not why I do IT and we do IT, is that when we really then need to shift down to that seventy eighth gear and IT may require for mom or dad to be gone or get home after midnight for ten straight days, no, to give something built or to close a deal, I found that the the family at home is encouraging you to go do IT because they know that we care. And on the flip side of IT, when we can and they can get extra time at home, go do IT not not talking about the big stuff as far as go to, don't miss this fund or that fund, whatever, but take your kids to school, you know what your kids like to eat. Go, go buy of some delhi sandwich es and just show up at your third greater class or order some pizza.

Go in there. Because also the things that really, at the end of the day, back what we say when you are thinking about what matters as a Young kid, there was the things that you remember. I remember filled trips that we took when I was in fourth grade, that, you know, my mom made a set special sandwich or showed up on the bus.

I mean, those are things that you really remember. So what i'm trying to do is to help our employees here to be able to make memories as why I want to invite the kids here in the building. The thing, the reason why we d love kids so much is because they are willing to show their astonishment.

And as we mature as adults, for some reason, another maybe it's for protection, whatever. We don't show that when we're as not as you see a kid and they see something rainbow star logo and that's what we love so much yeah and and so what i'm trying to do is create that environment to be able to get people to be stonished. I mean and we've lost that.

I so I had the opportunity to visit the the lucas film archive a few years ago, which i'm a star .

wars nerd.

I like inDiana Jones is my childhood and like the art of the covenant was there like I saw IT job a the hut was there .

and I saw IT no, saw him.

And like the all of these props, all these movies, and I I was like a little kid, I lit up to your point, that rainbow, that the astonished ment, like, every time we turned corner and I saw something, I got so visibly excited. And as a result, the archivists took me to see more and more and more, right? And we were talking about the excitement, and they said that they had a bunch of bankers come through, and they knew that some of them, more star wars fans, and they all kept their astonished ment close to the west, you know, pretty literally.

they were invest, and they .

showed no astonishment. And so they got the basic, simple, quick tour. And that is over. And so I think this is what we forget, which is our joy of life, right? To leave the, when you see the rainbow stopped to look at your own art, that taking, just enjoying the sounds of making coffee in the morning, the smile you can get, learning that someone plays the piano. What we forget is that astonishment not only not only excites us, but it's actually contagious to the people around us.

S, that's right. I mean, i'm I did IT this morning. I saw IT. I was dark. The moon was steal up. And I just stood there in our our living room looking at the moon the other morning last week, i'm coming in office early, is pitch back. And I literally, I pulled off ford.

So I got to take a picture, as I seen to a group of people to say that this was a fool, I mean, to see a full moon. And so one thing I promise myself is i'm gonna allow myself, because this in all of us, to really be astonished. And I think when you can be astonished and life, especial a .

sunset of view, like I pulled my car over to, like, stare at the center that didn't even take a picture, I just pulled my car, but just because I was going to crash other's, because looking at the side window, and I think this is, this is, this is what I love about you. I ve never been able to put my finger on IT. You know, you're this remarkable human being.

You ve accomplish so much. And I think people admire you for your accomplishments and your your a remarkable problems solve. I know some of the problems you face in in work and your creativity solving problems is, you know, we've even we haven't touched on any of them, but I think this is what IT is, which is whenever i'm around you, your energy for life is absolutely contagious.

And I find myself wanting to get more at a life just as soon as I get to spend some time with you. And and this is what to do. It's this word.

It's this word. And I love, in its astonishment, that there are things in the world that are astonishing, and we are surrounded by people and experiences that are astonishing. And there's astonishment to be found everywhere. I stopped .

the other day and just stared at a cardinal. I have you really looked at a bird? The cardinal.

I mean me, yes. I mean .

not me really. And the other day, you know, because when I was going through a rough patch with my accident, I remember, you know, was wondering, and what is life is a worth living? What does IT mean? How long is this journey back? And I remember I saw cardinal, so i've always love cardinals, the bird.

And the other day I saw one. And I just I took about and was almost like the bird knew I was looking at IT because he stayed steady there. And I was looking at the colors and little as I call that for the mohawk that they have.

And to think about that, I mean, the covers of a cardinal IT just IT does IT like it's like looking at a rainbow. And i'm just every time I see you, i'm just astonished at the colors and how that comes out in the same color every single time. And IT astonished me.

I mean, IT IT really is. And so I just think that one, if if you ask me two attributes that of people had that this world would be even more special than in, is that would be astonishment and just curiosity. But astonishment is, is, is an incredible attribute and an incredible gift.

So there's a thing that I I did for a while where you know we can calculate our the average of when we're supposed to die, right? We know we know what that averages and we can just count backwards and we know how many years we have. And if you want, you can calculate the weeks of the days, right? Like we know these things.

And so what I did was I calculated how many more a week I have statistically on the planet. And I, I, I filled a fish ball with marbles. I counted out the marbles that each marble represented a week.

And so this, this fish ball contained how many statistical weeks I have left on the planet. And the next to IT, I put an empty fish ball. And at the end of every week, at the end of every sunday night, I would lift up one marvel and say, was this a weak worth living? And I got to decide what the standard were.

In my standard was I had to have inspired somebody, right. Was this a weak worth living? And if the answers, yes, I went into the fish ball, and if the answer was no, I threw the marble in the garbage.

Wo, because I wasted the marbles, I wasted the week. You know, you can do IT for the day. You can do for the and your standards and your own standards. You can be know whatever whatever worth that is. And i'm very proud to say that old Simon would have calculated my productivity per marble and reform.

Simon was, am I giving to the world and I expanding energy for the good of others, whether it's a friend where there is a stranger, whether it's a colleague, you know, and did I make someone else fine value in life? Because, because I was there, you know, or I did anything, my work doesn't count. My work is is out.

They're doing one of my work. Does that had to be me, you know, and IT IT made me more self aware to be curious. I stop doing IT because, because, like everything in my life with A D H D, nothing last forever.

I do something for a few weeks, a few months in this way. But I did not for a long time before I stop, I did. I still have the balls in the marble.

That's the funny thing you can .

do with football home.

You can feel football. That's a good idea.

Did the bears do something? A value to the, to the world?

All right.

you go. One, one more question. What is something you've done in your career? One specific thing that a project that doesn't matter IT doesn't even have to have been commercially successful, but something that you are part of that if you look back and save everything that I do for the rest of my life, was like this one project, was like this one thing i'd be the happiest personal alive.

wow. So powerful question. I would. There have been a couple times at the rose bow, my last rose bow, at the victim. So would have been january second, twenty twenty three, OK. As I started here, April, joe cat, who's a broadcaster, you know, on fox, he had a son.

This Young man was the most mature Young person i've ever met, and he be literally like he wants to be a pastor. He said, Young guy, that was stunning to me. How shocked was.

And I remember that he moved my spirit so much in our sweet at the rose ble. Joe brought his son by the celo. I keep this praying cross in my pocket.

I've done IT. I bit you for the last twenty years. I keep this cross in my pocket and been around the world with me.

I've been through a couple of them, but I remember I reached in my pocket because the spirit movement I actually, and nothing do with foobar, I gave you to to his son. And I remember back to astonishment. A words to me were really powerful.

I think it's been just multiple those. And so I could be out in, have a pen and and know that I meet a fan has nothing do with football, but to share that, or a shirt or jersey, all these different things. But I just even recently heard the bears there was a Young lady who who was from wisconsin, who wrote me a letter about everybody and her family love the packers, but he was the only one to love the bears.

I don't know if you ever get this or write me back, but not only did a rider back, but I invited her in our whole family up to a game, you know, last year. And again, just being able to connect with fans like that, to be able to spread this, saying that we call the national foobar, leaving the chicago bears into areas to touch children and kids and families, you know, in a manner that, or nearly, I wouldn't give a chance to do if I worked a kind of Normal day job and to be able to see her on the sideline with her bear's girl that we sent, you know, proud to be. Remember the chicago bears, especially coming from wisconsin, and how I always say these games IT brings families together.

That's why build in a new stadium is just not a building. I said there will be a place where a person will say, boy, that was the last time I spent a weekend with mom or date, or grandma, grandma or my son or daughter or nephew was at a chicago bears game. Do you remember that when when we brought our person to a bears game that has such a great time, they ended up accepting a job in chicago, and now they would ve lived here for this many years. And so it'd be much more.

What was IT about giving the kid the cross that that memory stands out so much to you that .

you wanted that now yeah, I think what what was about IT was the fact that IT was almost like the game was the event that brought us there, and IT was going on in the background. But there were so many more things that we, an opportunity that change people's lives there. And I think, you know, you ask about what makes sports so special.

What's the gravitation school? The sports? yeah. Maybe the colors yeah maybe you know the talent that we see, but there's almost different layers. IT would be similar to going and watching Opera, listening to music in your ear and having a conversation at the same time is just multi layer.

And and that's why i'm since of about the food and the beverages and the ambiance s and the environment and the the gear and the colors and the music, you know, of the great bug grand, who was I kind of coach at the vikings for many years. So got got rest his soul, he said, some of the mikhail, I said, do you realize sports is what's kept the national anthem alive? He said, tell me another time that you hear the national anthem and I thought of about this sporting events.

And so when I go to sporting of its always look at that there's about twelve of fifteen different layers of what's going on you in IT, all with the game as as the kind of inner piece. And so I think that's what happens and IT brings I just believe that IT has a transfer back to what we said before that allows people to spin time that you could spin. And and you know, Simon and I was thinking, now that you've said this, a group in timper zone and my father was a professor is on the state, and this is something hope that won't get choked up on IT on my day is literally when he was iled toward into his life, a flu to see him in phoenix.

And I told him, I said that I got about ten questions that i've been hold in my whole life, that I just got to ask you, I should do a book on that one day. And so I had this list of questions. One of my second to ask a question, why did you park so far away when we went to air on state foobar games? You know, because he would park a mallowe, I mean, literally a mallowe.

And as a Young y you. And then even after my accident, that was like a long walk. We walk out of the game, go to the game, and we have to walk.

I, so why did you do that? I mean, you were a professor. We could have got some more own campus, and he said, because he was to spend time with you.

And so I was thinking about IT was skinner. He was trying to the efficient with his money and get a cheap parking space. He said that was a guaranteed way that I could hold your hand for my walk to the stadium in a marwah.

And so I just start thinking, for all of us, you know, with the personal people in your lives and everyone's persons people in your lives, what are some things we can do to be able to get that my a walk with someone that they would be thinking about for the rest lives? So, you know, those are things. So wasn't even about going to the football game.

That was his way of. I just spent the time. And at the end of the day, you know what people want more than anything.

And now as a parent is my kids get older. You know you when you have kids, you think that your kids will want your protection in your money. So you work like an animal just to create that.

And when you get older, you recognize what they really want is your time. That's all they really want. And because of you invest enough time in your kids or your significant others, all the other countries in life, the house is the cars and trips, the money in all that up IT comes along really easy.

But no one tells us that, you know, I just, you know, because there's no guide book of when you become apparent, there's no guidebook when you get married, you know, you just kind of just get IT and you go, I mean, you do a little councillor here and no one is out. So that's what I try to do to those Young people are doing that journey. Now i'm just trying to really give people time. So when you share that with me about the cell phone and really resonated with me in one way, you can say, tell someone you care bottom, especially in this world, specially in my position, when I sit in a meeting and I don't have my phone and i've had people come me with me like, hey, do you have here with your phone? Like, it's in my brief cases of you're .

important. I can tell you basing everything we have talked about today and just from knowing you, you have you are your father, you have become your father and you are working tirelessly to create these experiences for people, to create these long walks, whether it's coming to a football game or showing them are on your wall, or giving them your your cross, that you are finding these opportunities and finding these moments to be fully present with people and allow them to be fully present with you and fully present with each other, and fully present with their loved ones.

And I think that you, you have become your father, which is, you are creating long walk. Everybody has been time with people they love. IT is your gift to the world.

It's nothing short of inspiring. I can tell you that you, even with me, you like bring your neck w you said to me, like you didn't say, hey, come to the stadium someday. You said, nobody says that to me.

People say, hi Simon, you should come for a game someday. Your invitation was his time. You should bring your, you should bring your family to a game someday.

Yes, you are constantly encouraging others to include the people who they love in the magic of their lives. And IT is your gift to the world. You, you are, you are exceptional at IT and the world and our our lives are Better off having .

you in IT. I can tell you that part of the reason I became a lawyer, I had a dear friend in college and her brother was a Clark in the supreme court. And they let me look in some of the judges offices and seventeen year old freshman at the university of pennsylvania.

There's no lawyers in our neighborhood, was no lords of my family. And I was a premit major at the time. But IT changed the projector of my life.

When you start looking in supreme court, justice is office, and see where the good martial worked in and never met him. And so that's why i'm so kind changes here. And I tell me who's been with me for thirty four years.

If a Young person comes by this office on a tour and they want to see where I work, let them in, let him sit in the chair, because we know when they break my journey. I didn't come from wealth. I didn't come from money.

I didn't come from you privately. S education of boarding schools or whatever. And if i've been blessed, be able to do what they can do IT. But part of what is seeing IT, and this one, we talk about your nephew, nef. You may go on a fill before game at a bears game and fill the role of a crowd.

Who knows what that since him to do? He may be an owner in the nfl, he could be commissioner one day, he may coat, he may play, he may be a referee, he may create technology that we use one day. But i'm believe if you, if you can put people in an environment where they can become astonished, the magic that is made not only a net instance by five hundred and fifteen, twenty, twenty five, forty, fifty years down the road, kind of classic and and I think that's what I strive to do every .

day yeah finding times of two astonish people well, you are genius at IT. Kevin, I love you so much. Thank you so much for taking .

the time I ve and appreciate you beyond words. I look forward to our next moment together for you have safe travels. I just can't to wait, and I just love you on.

I just so grateful that you've astonied shed me and that you just keep astonishing people around the world. And I truly want to say, I love you you a minute. So I love you.

Thank you, my friend. If you enjoy this podcast would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcast. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, Simon senate dot com, for classes, videos and more.

Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other. A bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company. It's produced and edited by linsey gardenias, David jaw and David Johnson. Our executive producers are hindi, a conde and greg rooter.