“Start with Why”, why don’t you?

If you’ve ever thought you needed general clarity, better traction for your marketing, a stronger feeling of leading your team, a killer pitch for your business, a greater way to articulate your passions, desires and dreams:

Enter Simon Sinek… He may well rescue us all.

Over Christmas New Year I watched Simon Sinek’s Ted talk and Oh. My. God. I developed an instant ‘genius’ crush on the guy. In the space of 20 minutes my mind had ‘cleared up’ – it’s the only way I can describe it. The way I analyse things, lead my team and talk about my biz or my blog is all much clearer. Why? Because I’m clear on the fact that you need to express a purpose, a reason and a belief for something now, far before sweating the details and how things are going to happen. He explains in his talk the power of starting with why, then talking about how and finally what. He calls it his Golden Circle. In leadership, when we start with why, we can build a trust and following – we become magnets for our beliefs.

 

There’s no point in moving forward if we don’t know what we’re moving towards and who’s coming with us and how to build that trust around us! In the space of a Ted talk, he’s managed to help me cut hours and days of re-writing copy, shuffling adjectives around on quotes and story boards and detailing every last little canapé or blog post. Instead I am simply starting with WHY.

We’re on fire when we have purpose, whether it’s for a personal hobby, leading a team or business, relationships… I think about areas in my professional life and experience so far and when I’ve really been on fire, is when I’ve been really clear on WHY.

Being someone who wants to do so much and achieve so many different things in life, I find I need to force myself to get my ‘WHY’ crystal clear on things. It helps settle my busy, often wayward brain. It is in fact a great help for the busy people everywhere – You might find there’s no sense of purpose in a few things you’ve got going on and you can let them go and free up time!

I’d love to know your thoughts if you’ve read his book or seen the talk. Here are a couple of links…

https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action THE Ted Talk.

http://vimeo.com/26774102 “If you don’t understand people, you don’t understand business”. Take half an hour to watch this. Loved it possibly more than the Ted talk.

‘It matters not what you do. What matters is why you do it’. Simon Sinek.

Bon weekend!