I watched a TED Talk the other day by Simon Sinek titled, "How Great Leaders Inspire Action". First off, if you've never watched a TED Talk and you've got a passion like I do for expanding your mind, then TED Talks are a great place to listen to Ideas Worth Spreading.
One of the topics in Simon's speech is the idea of What, How and Why, or more importantly, Why, How and What. The more I've thought about this idea, I'm realizing that it's applicable to almost every area of my life. Family, profession, health, education, religion, hobby, the list goes on. With work; most of us focus on what we know, driving to learn more stuff. Then we learn how to do the stuff we're learning, this is the how. A lot of the time we stop there, with the What and the How a.k.a. knowledge and skills. But a select few, the inspirational leaders as Simon puts it, get to the Why. Why do you learn skills and knowledge? Why do you do what you do? Why get out of bed and go to work everyday? Why do you strive to achieve more? Answering these questions for myself has been an enlightening experience.
Starting with Why, then How and ending with What will allow you to discover that it almost doesn't matter what the How and What are. When you start with Why, you're starting with passion, drive, emotion and determination, and these things will take you anywhere you want to go.
Here's another way to think about it:
What = Knowledge, education, products, services, "stuff", features
How = Skills, abilities, systems, processes, company size, key performance indicators, tools, advantages
Why = Talent, paradigms, beliefs, character, passion, selfless, benefits
Don't start with What and How like everyone else, start with WHY and people will notice. People will follow. People will believe. People will take up your cause. People will be inspired.
START WITH WHY!!!
If you want to listen to the entire talk, here's the link. I recommend it. Enjoy!
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html
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