My career is an accident. It started when I set out to rediscover my passion and reignite a spark I’d lost — and that journey led me to the work I do now. If you know me from my books or my speaking, you know I’m fascinated by why people do what they do. What makes someone find joy and meaning in their life, or pursue something far greater than themselves? I started A Bit of Optimism to explore those ideas and expand my own perspective. This podcast is a trove of honest conversations, with…
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Maybe you know the feeling: everyone around you seems to be getting ahead, and every hour you spend on something "frivolous" — the hobby, the detour, the game on a Sunday afternoon — feels like falling behind. Brendan Hunt's career is proof those hours are never wasted. The detour turned out to be the path all along. Most of us know Brendan as Coach Beard and as the Emmy Award-winning co-creator…
Every lasting relationship has survived at least a few hard conversations. But most of us would still rather not have them... So we put them off and tell ourselves the tension will fade on its own. Instead it goes underground: into the stories we build about people, the resentments we quietly collect, and the side-texts we send about a colleague we won't talk to directly. But a hard conversation…
Everyone says they want more accountability at work… yet few of us think we're the ones who need to learn how to be more accountable. Most of us believe we already know how to own a mistake. We've all said sorry and truly meant it. But meaning it and doing it well are two very different things. And when we’re the first to apologize, we model to everyone around us how cathartic accountability can…
Giving and receiving feedback is one of the hardest things we do at work and most of us just... avoid it. But avoiding feedback has a cost. Everything you need to grow is already in the room and it's just sitting in your blind spot. Your colleagues can see it. Your boss can see it. And nobody will tell you, unless you learn to ask. Feelings at Work is a special five-part series from A Bit of…
The fastest way to improve your relationships isn't talking. It's listening. Most of us hear what's being said. Very few of us know how to make someone feel heard. Feelings at Work is a special five-part series from A Bit of Optimism, where Simon Sinek and Alex Simon, founder of LifeShop, explore the human skills that shape how we work, lead, and build relationships. Together, they unpack the…
Welcome to Feelings at Work, a special series from A Bit of Optimism with Simon Sinek. Work isn't just about deadlines, meetings, and getting things done. It's also where we experience frustration, excitement, trust, anxiety, belonging, conflict, and joy. If we want to build healthier teams and better workplaces, we have to get better at understanding the emotions that shape how we work together.…
Maybe this sounds familiar: you fall hard for someone, and over a year later you're fighting about the very things that drew you to them in the first place. And you can't figure out how the person who felt so right suddenly feels so wrong. Dr. Harville Hendrix has spent 50 years studying love. And he’s also lived through its hardest challenges: one divorce, two near-misses in his current marriage,…
We tell ourselves the reason we never chase the big dream is that we're not ready, not brave enough, doomed to fail. Nelly Attar would tell you she felt all of that too… but she chased them anyway. Nelly is a psychologist turned extreme athlete and mountaineer. She built Saudi Arabia's first dance studio, MOVE, at a time when women couldn't train publicly by sneaking classes into a warehouse and…
Sixteen years ago, an unknown CEO running a manufacturing company in the Midwest saw my TED Talk and recognized something in it. He sent me a letter and we made plans to meet. What started as a one-hour lunch turned into three, then four days touring factories together across the Midwest, and an idea I had only imagined turned out to already exist in reality. That CEO was Bob Chapman. Over five…
Be honest: AI makes you a little nervous. Maybe you're afraid it'll take your job. Maybe you're overwhelmed by all the advice about prompts and agents and which chatbot to use. Or maybe you're just quietly hoping it'll all slow down. Ethan Mollick says we're underestimating our own agency in the age of AI. Instead of worrying about what AI will do to us, we should focus on what we choose to do…