This is Why “Motivational Speakers” Like Simon Sinek Shouldn’t Succeed | His Opinion about Millennials is the Result of Cognitive Mess

The title of my post is the expression of an automatic, flawed thinking pattern. So is most of Simon Sinek’s message about/for the Millennial generation. I will explain why that is and how these thinking patterns can turn messages otherwise intended as motivational, witty, and inspiring into damaging, misleading, and highly demotivational collections of words.

The Motivational Speaking category in the Personal Development industry is generating billions of dollars each year due to the alleged value that the speakers provide for their audience. The field itself may indeed be beneficial to those seeking guidance and inspiration on how to achieve their goals, but its promise of easy-and-almost-instant fame and fortune attracts many individuals who desire to hold such roles and titles, but who lack the knowledge and skills to provide valuable assistance to their public.

I had no idea who Simon Sinek is, but his name and various thumbnails portraying him did show-up several times in the suggested videos section on YouTube when I was watching personal development-related videos. I never clicked on any of them, until one title caught my attention: “This Is Why You Don’t Succeed! A Message For The Millennial Generation“. When a publication or content creator uses “Millennial” in a sentence, it is rarely good and often biased. My curiosity and annoyance clicked Play.

A few minutes in, curiosity disappeared, annoyance reigned. Here’s why.

• According to Sinek – by the way, I still don’t have a clear picture on what recommends him professionally in the business segment, I’m only getting the “Known as a business expert because he said he is a business expert and stuff caught on” vibe – those born between 1981 and 1996, a.k.a. Millennials, seen by his sources as “tough to manage, [..] entitled, [..] narcissistic, self-interested, unfocused, lazy”, fail to accomplish significant things professionally, and he knows why. 

I love it when a presentation of arguments starts with a generalization and vague sources.

I also find it incredibly telling when someone decides to position themselves in a place of authority on a subject. “I have yet to give a speech or have a meeting where somebody doesn’t ask me the Millennial question”, said Sinek in the opening. It’s an interesting tactic, often misleading, that attributes the perspective regarding the authority of the speaker to external sources, with the aim to make it act as social proof. In other words, he could have said “Other people think I know many things about Millennials and the professional issues linked to that generation, so they come to me for advice/opinion”, but that would’ve seemed boastful, the bad kind of self-promotion and would not activate the social proof element in the audience as subtly as his formulation did, where people drew the conclusion themselves.

He also separated himself from those who consider Millennials to be all of those bad things, something he kept repeating in a more direct manner throughout the presentation – It’s a presentation, not an interview as one may think from the thumbnail. The host only had one intervention, toward the end of the video. He’s the perfect host for this kind of a speaker, really.

• He goes on to say that when leaders ask Millennials what do they want when it comes to the workplace, their response includes “[sense of] purpose, make an impact, free food, and bean bags”.

He portrays Millennials, again via proxies, as idealistic, puerile individuals who lack a sense of reality when it comes to evaluating themselves, their goals, and the work environment. The “free food and bean bags” structure – conveyed as a joke, helps paint that image in the beginning, but he also adds, again as a joke, that Millennials have unrealistic expectations, not only from others but also from themselves. “I want to quit. [..] I’m not making an impact” – “You’ve only been here eight months”.

Once more the judgment is attributed externally, it’s not Sinek’s, he is only an observer.

Sinek thinks that Parenting, Technology, Impatience, and Environment are the elements that explain why Millennials don’t succeed.

PARENTING

• “Failed parenting strategies.[..] Not my words.”

Do you start to see the pattern? Not his words, not his opinion, no disclosed, verifiable sources.

• Then he goes on to explain what he meant by failed parenting. It has to do with the fact that Millennials, as kids, were “being told they were special, all the time. Told they can have anything they want in life, just because they want it”. According to Sinek, Millennials got into honors classes even when they did not deserve it because their parents complained, and have gotten A’s because “the teachers didn’t want to deal with the parents”. They also got participation medals – “They got a medal for coming in last”, and he claims that science provides evidence that in such situations that devalues the medal, the reward for those who work hard. He even says that the person who comes in last ends up feeling worse because they know they didn’t deserve the medal.

The Generalization is obvious and not valid, just like any other Cognitive Distortion. Not all Millennials grew up being validated by their parents, so the unsubstantiated-praise-for-everyone approach is even less likely to have been the reality of those children.

Many Millennials grew up being involved in more than one type of extracurricular activity, and many of those activities required extra effort from the child. Definitely not compatible with “do nothing and you’ll get everything in life just because you want it”.

Generalization and Mental Filter – cognitive distortions – found expression in the claim that parents’ complaints got the children into honors classes. This definitely happened on occasion, just like many other unethical contexts that were also a reality in the lives of some of the kids born prior and after Millennials, but there is no evidence to support that that was the main way in which a kid could get into those classes. Taking a negative element out of a context that also presents plenty of positive ones – most children deserved being part of those groups -, and considering it the main characteristic of that context, it’s the expression of a cognitive distortion called Mental Filter.

The argument regarding the participation medals is even more feeble. The participation medal rewards the effort of being part of an event, competition or not. Those who perform better than others also get different medals that certify their results. I don’t know where Sinek gets his “science” from, but not all studies are valid, so it helps to know at least the basics of research methodology, to be able to tell the difference between them, or at least consider the implications of the specific results.

The comments regarding the children who get participation medals even if they come in last are the most disturbing in this segment and, in my opinion, an insight into a problematic view on a specific segment of life and performance.

He states that the person who comes in last and still gets a participation medal ends up “feeling worse because they know they didn’t deserve it”.

First of all, the participation medal, in this case, is more than deserved. There is a difference between this kid and the children who preferred to stay at home and play on their phone instead of putting in the effort to train or learn a skill. It may not be their strength, but simply being there is definitely better than a passive attitude.

The disturbing part here is the idea that participation alone shouldn’t be celebrated or encouraged. 

A mentality such as this one is based on Dychotomous Thinking, a cognitive distortion that implies a view of the world in which only the extremes exist. In the argument presented by Sinek, the extremes are “win” and “lose”. So, according to this perspective on life, when you don’t win, you’re a loser and therefore, worthless. It goes with “What’s the point in participating if you don’t win?”. 

It’s a mindset that generates high levels of anxiety, lowers self-esteem and self-confidence, and builds unrealistic goals and a distorted self-image.

It inhibits initiative, curiosity, and creates passive, fearful individuals who can no longer enjoy the journey, but only the destination. Ironically, it’s exactly the type of mentality he projects onto Millennials at a later time in the presentation.

• Sinek then states that thrust into the real world, Millennials realize that “they’re not special, moms can’t get them a promotion, you get nothing from coming in last, and you can’t just have it ’cause you want it’ “.

The wake-up call Sinek claims Millennials get when they get into the “real world” – by the way, “thrust” in this context is rather violent, is, surprise-surprise, not definitory of a generation. There are contexts in which the child is ill-prepared by their primary environment for the challenges an adult has to face, but those are exceptions, not rules.

Some Millennials are special, most of them got their job without their moms or other interventions and can get that promotion on their own as well, you get to have a constructive experience and journey even when you come in last, and while most people work hard for everything they get in life, there are also exceptions and some people get everything they want simply because they want it. 

• “And in an instant, their entire self-image is shattered”.

Well isn’t that Catastrophic Thinking? Why yes, yes it is. 

I could probably teach the Cognitive Distortions segment of my Assertive Communication course using Sinek’s presentation. But I won’t. Definitely won’t.

Catastrophic Thinking is a cognitive distortion that refers to the projection of the worst possible outcome related to a situation when other results are also possible and no evidence supports the worst of them all.

• “And so you have an entire generation that’s growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations.”

Contradiction. He stated earlier that Millennials grew up being told that they were special, all the time. And that this image gets shattered only when they are “thrust into the real world”. Therefore, the Millennial kid’s self-image couldn’t have been marked by low self-esteem. Also, young adults don’t “grow up” after they get jobs, they learn how to deal with stuff, like everyone else.

• He claims Millennials try to project toughness and that they have it all figured out, when in fact there’s “Very little toughness, and most people don’t have it figured out”.

I have no idea what he means by toughness in this context and most young adults, regardless of their generation, need time to “figure it out”. It’s part of a transition process, easier for some, really difficult for others, but a normal element in someone’s life.

• “When the more senior people say “Well, what should we do?” they sound like “This is what you got to do.” And they have no clue.”

It seems like they respond to a task, and also that Sinek makes yet another generalization. Also, question: Why would those with senior roles ask the Millennial what should be done if they don’t trust the judgment and background of that Millennial?

• “And so you have an entire generation that’s growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations. Through no fault of their own. They were dealt a bad hand.”

This is something that he would repeat several times during the presentation.

He seems to see an entire generation of passive individuals with an external locus of control – people whose life is being shaped by external factors, not by their own wants and decisions.

This achieves two things: Sinek seems to provide a reasonable explanation for a bad outcome – no one questions it because he told you he’s an authority on the subject and has already quoted “science” in his support, and it is also highly likely that he will get the sympathy, support, and approval of Millennials themselves, at least those who indeed have an external locus of control and would rather decline responsibility for their choices and results. Double win for Sinek.

Socially though, thinking that the others are not able to responsibly control and shape their own lives is an aggressive stance.

As a Millennial, working with someone like Sinek would mean to accept that you are where you are because of your parents and other external agents who did not prepare you well for your professional life, nor for your personal one, and that Sinek – in this case – is the type of savior that you need to get out of that “unfortunate” context.

You would be dependent on this person, and the only people who would want others to feel dependent and consider them their salvation, are those who entertain mainly aggressive attitudes. Many business environments create that dependency feeling – employer/employee, leader/team member, etc.

It is the kind of environment many try to escape now via freelancing/solopreneurship. You would think Sinek, a business expert, would be familiar with the trend that’s been increasing in the last years.

TECHNOLOGY

• “Putting filters on”, as Sinek summarizes it.

This is a reductive view. In this segment, his arguments only refer to the use of social media and “gadgets” such as smartphones. He completely leaves out all the beneficial effects of technology, including those with major roles in business and the way people can become more productive and engaged through the use of “the right or proper technology”.

This omission serves Sinek’s purpose in this context because the elements that would not support his argument are completely dismissed and only those who would provide validation for his opinion are being presented. In science, this is known as a form of Researcher Bias called Confirmation Bias or cherry-picking.

• He throws science in the mix again and displays some knowledge regarding one of the neurotransmitters, dopamine, a “numbing chemical” and links it to the use of social media, which is highly addictive. He then mentions that this is the same chemical that makes us feel good when we smoke, drink, or gamble.

Associating social media with harmful behaviors, addictions that we know can cause devastating effects in a person’s life, is causing the audience to see the first in the same light, especially since only the negative aspects and effects of social media are being presented.

Also, before social media, those addictions were active for previous generations as well. The “Addictions can ruin your life” structure is not valid just for Millennials, and from a medical perspective, the severity of the effects and the implications of the factors mentioned previously are highly debatable.

Actually, this is the biggest issue with citing “Millennial studies”: most of them are not valid, but only sensational, from a very simple reason – they only focus on this specific generation when measuring “effects and causes of” and the results say absolutely nothing about whether the same “effects and causes of” are similar for members of other generations.

“Social media use is linked to high levels of anxiety and depression in Millennials” is a sensational, highly shareable title, but the results may be the same for previous generations so the news could be just “Social media is linked to high levels of anxiety and depression”. That would not make it a Millennial problem, but a socially general one.

Sinek also keeps saying “Right?” at various times throughout the presentation. It’s a technique – marketing, persuasion – meant to trigger approval and heightened engagement from the other person. Result: the host and audience confirm agreement on active topic with Sinek.

• “And we have no age restrictions for social media and cell phones”.

Wrong. It’s in the terms of use and main user agreements in function on basically every website. And phone use when it comes to children should be monitored – not tracked, by parents or caregivers.

• He continues the social media-addiction comparison and also mentions that social media becomes the “go-to method to deal with stress and anxiety. They’re not turning to a person, they’re turning to a device”.

That’s not always a bad thing. For many children, the online environment offered an alternative for the bad environment they had at home or in their schools. Many of those who were bullied at school could find other children online, children who shared their interests and who would gladly spend time with them and be their friends. Many times, these online friendships have transferred to the offline environment as well. In fact, many marriages started like that as well.

• He also says that Millennials are “turning to social media, for temporary relief”.

Many other things, such as hobbies, also offer temporary relief. Nothing bad about it. There are many viable coping mechanisms.

• “Too many kids don’t know how to form deep meaningful relationships. Their words, not mine. They will admit that many of their friendships are superficial”.

Again, the responsibility for the criticism is attributed to someone else, in an attempt to validate the observation. But the thing is, most of the human interactions fall in the “superficial” category, for Millennials and for everyone else. On average, we entertain just a few close, meaningful relationships, and all the other ones are contextual, and not as meaningful.

• “The science is clear [..] We know that people who spend more time on Facebook suffer higher rates of depression than people who spend less time on Facebook.”

The science may seem clear to Sinek, but for those of us who can tell the difference between correlation and causation, things in the description above may generate some alternative hypotheses and interpretations.

For example, from what Sinek presented, we don’t know whether the increased use of social media has the potential to cause depression, or whether those who are already depressed are more inclined to isolate themselves from the real world and use the online environment even more.

From the same statement, we don’t know whether Instagram or Twitter use is safe, and not linked to depression at all. Maybe we all should just stay away from Facebook and that will keep us safe from depression.

The point is we don’t know. That phrase can mean several things and Sinek is using the meaning that serves his argument best, disregarding the alternatives.

One of the very few things that I think we could agree on, if not the only one related to this topic, is that there is nothing wrong with social media in itself, but that the issue may be posed by imbalance regarding its use.

• He says that if you’re having dinner with someone and you’re texting someone who is not there, that’s addiction.

That could also be friendship and an attempt to include the person who is missing in the dynamics of that encounter. Again, generalization is a bad, bad thing. Complex contexts support nuances.

• Also on phone use, Sinek thinks that if you use the phone in a room, in a meeting, it sends the message that “you’re just not important to me right now”.

That is Mind Reading – yet another cognitive distortion – you assume attitudes and reactions before an event occurs. In this context, the person may have reasonable motivations to use the phone – maybe getting a hold of a really important client. Why Mind Reading is bad for your social relationships is that you will react in a way that is based on your erroneous assumption and not on real events. Here, you would treat the person as someone who does not respect you or who does not want to spend time with you, when in fact their behavior may be the result of something else. Verify first, react later.

• “So you have a generation growing up with lower self-esteem that doesn’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress.”

He learned to summarize his points when he gives presentations. That’s nice. Also, he has no training or experience to help him assess what the optimal coping mechanisms would be. And as far as sources go, he is yet to offer one.

IMPATIENCE

• Here is where he talks about instant gratification. And he links impatience to contexts and behaviors that are very common nowadays – buying online, watching movies online, binge-watching entire seasons and not having to wait for the next week’s episode.

While I may understand the romantic and almost nostalgic approach of how things were back in the day, prior to the internet and its effects, just because your generation got things the hard way does not mean that the future generations should have to go the same route to understand the full meaning of life or something like that.

Also, some of these perks of the modern age may actually help a person be more productive and structure their time resources better. Full seasons of movies on weekends, side hustle after work on weeknights.

Don’t just assume the motivation and implications of a certain behavior. While we may express our opinion regarding all of these phenomena, it’s informed opinions, especially those based on evidence, that will matter the most. And if you want to be seen as an authority figure in a domain, opinions don’t really last you the whole trip.

• Here he talks about a subject that’s going to get everyone’s attention: dating in the online world. He says that because “you don’t have to approach the person [..] you don’t have the skill”. “Just swipe right. [..] You don’t have to learn the social coping mechanisms”.

Just like in the case of social media use, he seems to only assume the effects of online dating, without actually looking at the world around him.

The mechanisms of meeting someone online – romantic partner or not – might be different from those pertaining to the in-person approach, but the context is not necessarily less difficult to deal with. The competition in the online world is way higher than the location-dependent competition. In your neighborhood or workplace you may have to compete with only a few people who match the traits your love interest is looking for, but online, possibilities are pretty much endless and the variation of traits, significant. Short-term encounters aside, getting the attention of the person you like when several hundred/thousand others want to obtain the same attention, is not that easy.

Also, the offline environment does not guarantee the best chances at a serious, meaningful, fulfilling relationship, nor is it the context in which only the non-superficial connections happen.

Again, Sinek is reducing a complex phenomenon to a trivial element that does not define it.

• Sinek believes that when it comes to job satisfaction or strength of relationships, instant gratification should not be the expectation of Millennials. “They are slow, meandering, uncomfortable, messy processes”.

Sometimes. For some. This is the expression of Emotional Reasoning – cognitive distortion, what else? – Considering that our feelings or emotional responses to certain situations must be an intrinsic characteristic of that situation. In this context, if for Sinek job satisfaction and strong relationships implied uncomfortable steps and results appeared later in the process, he assumed that the processes themselves must be difficult, that it is in their very nature to be hard to achieve. And that is not valid. For some people, who possess the right set of skills required for a certain context, results may come easy or easier than for everyone else. Yes, I agree on not having unrealistic expectations of success when you have nothing or have very little to base your expectations on, but simply assuming that everything must be achieved through high effort is just as biased.

• In the same idea, he says “So what this young generation needs to learn is patience. [..] That some things that really really matter, like love, or job fulfillment, joy, love of life, self-confidence, a skillset, any of these things, all of these things take time. [..] Sometimes you can expedite pieces of it, but the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult.”

Autoinjunctions or “Should” Statements. The beliefs that people or the world itself should follow a certain rule or behave/present itself in a certain way. In this case “People should be patient”, “People should put in intense effort before expecting any results”, “People should only take the long road toward a goal”, etc. You guessed it, cognitive distortion.

• “And if you don’t ask for help and learn that skillset, you will fall off the mountain or … the worst-case scenario, we’re already seeing it [..] increase in suicide rates, drug overdose, kids drop out of school or take leaves of absence due to depression. Unheard of. This is really really bad.”

Yup, it is really, really bad, because it’s mainly manipulation – makes people think that they need help in learning a skillset, and Catastrophic Thinking – see above. Also, he is again validating his own arguments without citing sources – “we’re already seeing this”, and the reason why we’re seeing leaves of absence due to depression now  – “unheard of”, is that past educational systems did not factor in mental distress and did not take any measures in assisting children who struggle with its various forms.

• There’s also a “best scenario” in his vision: “[..] You’ll have an entire population growing up and going through life and just never really finding joy. They’ll never find deep fulfillment in work or in life. They’ll just walk through life and it’ll be just “It’s fine” “.

First of all, Fortune Telling – cognitive distortion. The person assumes things will unfold in a certain way.

Second, it’s not for him to say what joy and fulfillment are, at a personal level, for an entire generation.

Also, the term “clock-watcher” wasn’t coined during the Millennial era. Just saying.

The short version of this segment is “This is a generation of useless, idealistic morons, through no fault of their own”.

But that would be a bad thing for a motivational speaker to say and would alienate the Millennial paying audience, so he also makes sure to keep offering praise to these individuals, and keeps pushing responsibility for the negative opinion even further away from his own beliefs. He says they are “young, fantastic, idealistic, hard-working”, etc.

Meaning put together, no filter: “You’re fantastic, Joey_1987, but nonetheless a clueless, unskilled moron. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s through no fault of your own”. 😉 Great people skills!

ENVIRONMENT

• “We take these fantastic kids [..] and we put them in corporate environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids. Environments that aren’t helping them build their confidence [..] learn the skills of cooperation [..] aren’t helping them overcome the challenges of a digital world and having more balance. [..] overcome the need to have instant gratification and teach them the joys and impact when the fulfillment you get is from working hard on something for a long time, [something] that cannot be done in a month or even in a year.”

Just how aggressive is this formulation? “We take these fantastic kids [..] and we put them in corporate environments”. Who’s “we”? The previous generations? In a non-aggressive context, no one puts anyone in an environment, good or bad. People join an environment if they desire to do so. There are options, most Millennials know and make use of that. It’s their choice and all other generations should consider them just as capable of making those choices for themselves and take responsibility for them. It’s something that is valid for all people, in assertiveness-based environments.

Also, it’s not the corporate environment’s job, and definitely not Sinek’s, to build anyone’s confidence or teach – the Millennials or others – anything unless it’s directly related to the technical skills required for a job. Everyone and anyone can act in ways that promote well-being with all its factors and skill optimization, but the responsibility for who a person is and becomes ultimately stands with the individual. It’s controlling and narcissistic to believe that you’re some sort of savior for anyone, let alone for a generation.

And calling 30-something-year-olds “kids”… when he’s 40-something, based on Wikipedia… Senior as hell…

• “We’re thrusting them in corporate environments and the worst part about it is that they think it’s them. They blame themselves. They think it’s them who can’t deal and so it makes it all worse”.

Again, trying to side with the people he otherwise presents as mindless blobs, but that’s not even the main issue here. You may consider otherwise, but I’m here thinking that corporations shouldn’t shape people, but should adapt to them and accommodate the specific, reasonable needs of the people helping achieve their goals. – Yes, a should statement of my own, but I’d rather have this distorted expectation than the one presented by Sinek. It seems to be more in line with non-aggressive attitudes.

Also, I believe many people know when “it’s them” and when the real issue is the workplace environment. And more times than not, individuals accept responsibility for their decisions and actions.

• “I’m here to tell them it’s not them.”

… Thanks. I think they knew already.

• “It’s the corporate environments. It’s the total lack of good leadership in our world today that is making them feel the way they do.”

I think this is where he aims for the kill. Because it is my assumption that he wants Millenials to like him and corporations to actually pay him. The statement above serves both purposes. In other words “If you’re a corporation, I can fix your bad leadership. Millennials, I get you and have your best interest in mind”.

But he also might have stumbled upon one of the very serious reasons why more and more people, not just Millennials, choose self-employment over 9 to 5 jobs.

One more thing here: a person’s emotional reaction to an environment is their own responsibility – exception: highly abusive contexts in which the person has or sees no alternatives.

• “They were dealt a bad hand.”

Mhm, that chorus again.

• “I wish that society and their parents did a better job. They didn’t. So we’re gonna [..] we’re getting them in our companies and we now have to pick up the slack. We have to work extra hard to figure out the ways that we build their confidence.”

Put the cape back in the closet, Simon.

• “We need to work extra hard to find ways to teach them the social skills that they’re missing out.”

People can decide for themselves what is that they need to learn. And very likely, corporations are not going to be the ones providing intrinsically motivated learning. From my knowledge, even when the corporation has good intentions and, say, pays for online courses for their employees, those employees are not necessarily happy, nor grateful regarding the “opportunity”. Because it is not linked to a personal goal. Promotions and higher pay don’t matter either since they lower intrinsic motivation to perform a task or achieve a goal. “Science” tells us that.

• “There should be no cell phones in conference rooms.”

Why? It can all be solved through optimized habits. Also, I have a feeling it’s not just Millennials who bring their phones to a meeting.

• He then goes on to explain his perspective that meaningful relationships are only formed in face-to-face interactions. 

I have already covered that idea. Online environments can be just as good to start a relationship.

• He adds: “That’s how relationships are formed. That’s how trust forms. Trust doesn’t form at an event in a day, even bad times don’t form trust immediately”.

Tell that to those who have been saved by strangers when in a really dangerous situation and to those who had to rely on complete strangers to achieve various types of goals – like asking for directions.

Covert auto-injunction. “People should not trust someone immediately”.

• “We have to create mechanisms where we allow for those little innocuous interactions to happen.”

This could easily be the line of an evil mastermind in a movie. Anyway… this is why this whole thing is socially dangerous; it has to do with the idea of designing an environment that is going to produce specific desired social results – interactions, here. A design that refers to humans, who do not need the design services of a third party. They can create their own environment. That’s what people do. Shape their own environment. The design perspective is aggressive. This is not activism, it’s not leadership, it’s abuse wrapped in declarations of good intentions. Just to be clear, I’m not saying this is Sinek’s intention, I’m not trying to start a conspiracy theory. I’m just pointing out that the way he presented things is not aligned with assertive, nurturing principles, but rather with those of the aggressive type.

• In the last minutes of the presentation, Sinek tries to give an example of a behavior that he finds preferable to those he associated with Millennials. He says that when he goes out to dinner with friends, they all leave their cellphones at home and that maybe one will have a phone to call an Uber or – jokingly – take a photo of their meal. The host has here his first intervention – “You guys are insane, come on!”. It’s minute 13 out of 16. 

I find that hard to believe, but it’s a matter of personal choice. That would mean nothing to me if he wouldn’t present it as an expectation he seems to have from the world.

• Again, there’s a comparison to alcoholism. “When you take the alcohol out of the house it’s because you cannot trust our willpower. We’re just not strong enough, but when you remove the temptation it actually makes it a lot easier [..].”

Some of us trust our willpower. And it works. Generalization.

If you take Sinek’s presentation as a whole, he basically talks about bad habits that can affect any generation and presents them as a definitory problematic trait of the Millennial generation.

• “None of us should charge our phones by our beds. We should charge our phones in the living rooms”.

Consider it done! …Not.

Yes, auto-injunction.

• At the end of the video, he says: “Like it or not, we don’t get a choice now. We have a responsibility to make up the shortfall and to help this amazing, idealistic, fantastic generation to build their confidence, learn patience, learn the social skills, find a better balance between life and technology because quite frankly, it’s the right thing to do.”

I have already analyzed the formulations above, all but one: “it’s the right thing to do”. Dichotomous Thinking.

So, in conclusion, I really did not like this video. Could you tell?

I found the overall message and attitude to be redundant, condescending, lacking substance, and obviously biased. All wrapped in a pseudo-deep format that is really not my cup of tea. If I were to also add a more personal impression regarding the presentation: weak jokes, no charisma.

I have no idea why this type of content is popular in the sense of making the speaker world-renowned, best-selling author, an influencer or… employed. But then again many people become famous for rather trivial reasons, so, anything can happen in the online age. Better have the phone with you or you may miss the next “big thing”!