Authenticity Starts With Knowing Your WHY

People are like, what's my work why? And what's my personal why? No, you have one why. Well, my why has changed. No, it hasn't, because we are products of our upbringing. You are who you are because of the experiences you had when you were raised. And I am who I am for the same reasons. And you can't change who you are. You can either be authentic or not. You can either live in balance with who you are, but you don't get to just change it, right? So you only have one why, and it's fully formed by your mid to late teens. That's it. The youngest person I did a Y discovery with was about 16. And now the opportunity for your life is to make choices and decisions that allow you to be your natural best. And that's the hard part, right? The hard part is implementing it. We think to ourselves, do I even have a why? It's not because it doesn't exist. It's because the part of the brain where the why exists in the limbic brain controls all of our feelings. Like inspiration, like trust, like love, like loyalty. It controls behavior, right? But it doesn't control language. And so it's very hard to verbalize feelings, right? Like when you sit down with somebody you love or somebody you're angry with, it's. These are complicated, difficult conversations sometimes because it's hard to verbalize feelings, right? It's just a problem with being human, right? So it's not that. It's just hard to put into words, which is why it sometimes feels like I don't know what mine is, right? But there's multiple ways you can do it. I've tried to put as many of them out in the world as possible. But I can tell you one fun exercise that you can do with your friends. I call it the friends exercise. Basically, find a friend you love and who loves you. The kind of friend who, if you call them at three in the morning, you know, they pick up, and you would pick up for them. Do not do this with a spouse, a sibling, a parent, okay? Those relationships are too close and it won't work. A friend who loves you, and you ask them this question, why are we friends? And they're gonna look at you like you're crazy. Because it's hard to verbalize why we're friends with each other, right? And so they'll start. They'll look at you like you're nuts, and then.

You weirdly stop asking the question why? And you ask the question, what? Because you want to engage the rational brain. So you say, come on, come on, come on. What specifically is it about me that I know that you'd be there for me no matter what. And they'll start describing you. You're funny. You're always there for me. I trust you. And you play devil's advocate. Good. That's the definition of a friend. You have that with lots of people. What specifically is about me that I know you'd be there for me no matter what. And they're going to go through a few rounds of this, but they keep going. And it's still depressing. And it's going to get more frustrating, right? And at some point, they'll give up. At some point, they'll give up and they'll start describing themselves. And this is what my friend said to me. My friend said, I don't know, Simon. All I know is that I can sit in a room with you, I don't even have to talk to you. And I feel inspired. And I got goosebumps. Right? In other words, what they're doing is they're articulating my value in their lives, which is the thing that I give to the world, which is my why. And the reason I had an emotional response is because it's deep inside of me. So you will get to something where they'll say something about themselves and you will either get goosebumps or you'll well up with tears, have an emotional reaction. I did it with multiple friends. They say very similar, if not the exact same thing, because the space I fill in their lives is my why. That's the thing I work hard to give to the world.