The Evolution of the WHY.os (WHY, HOW, and WHAT)

Hello, everyone and welcome to Y2Y for the month of September. We have an amazing guest today. Jamie Durrack is one of our initial why coaches. He's been with us probably as long as anyone. The only person who's been here longer is Gary Sanchez and so we're so excited to talk to him. And we have a great topic this month. A lot of you know it as the why, how and what, and Jamie knew it as the why stack. So glad to talk to Jamie today. Welcome, Jamie.

Thank you, Dan. Pleasure to be here.

You know, we have one of the things I like to do before we begin, Jamie is kind of go over the title, which is today we're going to talk about the origin of the yos. The other thing I like to do is review the nine whys and make sure that for those that are listening for the first time, they understand what we're talking about as we get into the yos. So the nine whys, as all of you know, is the basis of the Y operating system. The first one is contribute people with this why. I love to contribute to a greater cause, make a difference, add value or have an impact. That also happens to be the why of our guest, Jamie and my own. So we've got two of us in here today. The second why is trust. To create relationships based on trust. The third is make sense to make sense out of things, especially if they're complex or complicated. The fourth is better way to to find a better way and share it. That's the why of our founder and CEO Gary Sanchez. The fifth is right way to do things the right way in order to get results. Sixth is challenge people with this why. Like to think differently and challenge the status quo. Number seven is mastery. To seek mastery and understanding. Number eight is clarify to make crystal clear and understandable. And number nine is simplify to decrease complexity. So those are the nine whys. If you don't know your why, head over to why institute.com you can discover your why there. And since you're listening to the show, you can use the code Y2Y and get 50% off the Y discovery. So without further ado, let's get to our amazing guest, Jamie. Jamie, your why, how and what are contribute, make sense and clarify. And you're the founder of Lifework Integration. You're a global leadership leadership chair at EO and you're also a national fencing champion. So you've got a diverse background, a tremendous role in leadership and you work with a lot of high level people. How does your why how and what work into that?

Well, it's exactly as you said. EO is the entrepreneurs organization. It's a global organization of 15,000 entrepreneurs from around the world. And that's really there to build a better entrepreneur. We in that capacity, I'm a volunteer, so I'm fulfilling my why of contributing. And what I do is to help create clarity, to clarify things. And how I do that is make sense of the complicated complex. So in volunteering and leading through the Entrepreneurs Organization, it's really how I'm living it. So it really comes together well for me personally with the volunteer work that I do for the Entrepreneurs Organization, in addition to the coaching and facilitation work that I do on the professional side.

Excellent. Excellent. So, you know, I've known you since I joined the My Institute in December of 2019. So we've had some conversations and I love when I talk to our coaches, a lot of them, I tell them about how. Jamie is the person who helped us figure out that everybody has a how and a what and that we can use the nine whys to put the how and the what together. So let's start with a very basic question, Jamie. When did you discover your why and how did it feel when you found out what your why was?

I know exactly the month. I don't remember the day, but I remember the month and the year. It was November of 2013. I actually was at an EO event in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and they had a Y coach there who did the why process, who did it right there. It was a visceral moment. When I found out that my why was to contribute, I actually felt it sort of in my core. It wasn't something that I was thinking about. And on the way back from the. On the playing back, I basically much stayed awake the whole time just writing out things that were coming to me and floods of information because I finally unlocked something that I hadn't been aware of for so many years.

And like a typical contribute right, you, you became. You not only discovered your why, you ended up working with our founder and CEO and started helping him help others discover their why.

Absolutely. I went, I became certified, I believe, in the first group. It was 2014, right around there. And then I did it again in 2015. So I went through it twice.

Yes.

And then what happened was along the way, how this why, how and what all came together was after having worked with Gary with a particular group, I was. I was sort of stuck. They were saying, well, okay, the why is great. Well, what else is There at the time, I didn't have an answer, and I was put on the spot. So that's one of those moments where it's an inflection point and you kind of run into the wall or you jump up over it. And I saw that opportunity, that within the nine whys, all of a sudden, it sort of came to me, if you will. I just saw the bigger picture. And because I strive to seek clarity through clarifications, and at the time, it was not making sense. It all came together where it suddenly made sense in that moment that the why, how, and what are all come from the nine whys. And that's where I felt again, a similar moment to the first time that I. That I connected with my why. And I called Gary up and I said, gary, have you thought about this? And he said, wow, that's really great. And of course, Gary did what he does. He went and found a better way and created the whole yos after that. So he's taken it again to another level, which is what Gary does best.

Yeah, I was going to say that. Isn't that great? Because a lot of people ask me the question, how can we use the why and the yos in our teams? And you just brought a perfect example. You're someone who loves to contribute by providing clarity and ultimately helping people make sense of things. And you did all of that. You took the nine whys, you helped people understand that their how and what came from those nine whys. Then you shared it with Gary, who's a better way, clarify, simplify guy. What he did is he took all of that. He found a better way to use it. Right? And then he clarified it along with you, and then he found a simple way to do it. And this is exciting because, you know, sometime maybe by the time this we were talking about this, we're going to have the automated yos, which is a better way to do things. Right. So I can't wait to talk to you more about that, but tell me how you went about doing that. What sparked that with you?

I think really what sparked that was the strive for clarity. Because when we do the coaching work, so many of our clients are stuck. They come to us because they don't have that clarity. They don't know where to go. And then we dig into our bag of tools and we try to find maybe this will work, maybe that will work. I found out that when I bring the why, how, and what, they always work. Now. There'll be challenges, there'll be pushback, which is Great, because that leads to conversation, that leads to validation, that leads to testing of assumptions. And if we can carry that conversation throughout, when finally the person says, yes, this is me when I'm at my best and when I'm out of alignment, this is sometimes me when I can be at my worst or not so best. And for me, that's an indication that those three, whatever order they may be, whichever three of the nine that has come together to make who you are, then it can be a very effective coaching tool.

So you've probably done this instinctively. Jamie, one of the things I have found when I work with people, when we figure out their why os, their why, how and what, I ask them to tell me about a time when you, for example, in your case contributed by clarifying and making sense of things. And if we got it right, the stories just flow. They can tell you so many times where they did that. How did you verify the yoshi?

For me, how I tend to do it is I go back to a place to tell me about time when you felt. So I really focus on the feeling and have them share the story and I look for key words and then I ask a little bit more, tell me more about this or a bit more about that. And by peeling back the layers of the onion, if you will, they can get to that core as to why they're sharing the story in the first place and then get them to connect that to their why, how or what. And I use the Y as. It's my non negotiable.

I don't negotiate on that.

The what is the gift that I give to others and then the how is how I express myself and that's the connection between my what and my why is how I do what I do.

Yeah, so that's a great. You know, a lot of people that are going to be listening to this, Jamie, are new coaches. They've recently gotten certified. So these are great stories to share with them because they that should give them an example of ways they can go about doing. I love how you talked about the what is your gift. The why is non negotiable. That is your why and your how is how you go about it. Right. And that probably had a little bit to do with how you use the nine whys. Was it a process of elimination that you started seeing? Hey, you know what, when people discover their how, it tends to be this and their what tends to be one of the other eight whys. Tell me about that process.

It's generally a process of elimination. For example, we say, okay, if this one is your why, you have eight more to work with. If this one is your how, you have seven more to work with. And sometimes the what is a little bit more interchangeable. The why isn't how, maybe. And at the end of the day, we all live those nine whys. We have all of them within us. It's just which ones do we access the most easily, the most naturally? And those become the components of the yos, knowing that we still have to use the other six at different times of our lives.

And I love that you said that, Jamie, because a lot of people get stuck on like, well, you know, I have a little bit of that. And Jerry, one of our partners at the Y Institute, is very good at saying, you know, maybe that's your number four or your number five. So. So it's really strong. It's strong in you. But even myself, who I'm going to contribute, challenge makes sense. Sometimes I clarify. Right. Sometimes I need to clarify. So I'll pull on that. It's not what I go to first. The first thing I go to is how can I contribute? And the way I do that is by challenging. And then my gift is I help people make sense of things. But sometimes I do clarify. And so that's a great clarifying point that you made is the other nine exist in us. And now one of the other thing we talk about is the fact that we all have a number nine. What's your. Do you remember your number nine, Jamie?

It's. It's probably to do things the right way.

Yeah.

I'll find a hundred different ways not to do things the right way.

Right.

At the same time, there are definitely times when I believe my way is the right way.

Right.

So those, let's call them 4 through 9 kind of are sort of intertwined. And at the end of the day, nothing happens without trusted relationships to anything. And everything we do if we don't have trust, nothing moves. So I really like to see all of those together in one way that support the my why, how and what.

Perfect. And that's another thing that, you know, I've often heard, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. People that rank trust, for example, number nine, they say, well, does that mean I'm not trustworthy? And that's not what it means. It just means that if someone violates your trust, it's not as big a deal to you as someone who's why is trust for somebody who's why is trust or who has trust in Their top three. It's a deal breaker. You violated their trust. It's going to be really hard to work with that person again. What are your thoughts on that in terms of what your number nine is versus how you compare it to the others?

Trust is probably one of those. I will work hard to establish trust that I can be trusted. And at the same time, if someone takes advantage of my trust, it's okay. I mean, I move on. I kind of. I put part of the blame. I shoulder myself maybe having been too trustworthy. At the same time, I'm not going to compromise on what it means for me to be trustworthy.

And that's probably your contribute. Right? Because I find myself, my wife says you're so forgiving. And that I think is probably the contributor to us. Okay, what part did I play in it rather than blaming someone?

Exactly. I'm similar in that way.

So let's talk about something else because I want to talk about your work. People talk about work life balance all the time, but you have a mission. Your work is life work balance. So. Or life work integration. Tell me more about that work and how you your yos plays out in that.

Absolutely. I found that when it was work life balance, that work always came first. And I'm trying to fit my life into my work. And I've been very intentional about it, calling it life work integration. And if you were to look at a traditional Venn diagram and you have, you know, the three circles and you have your why in one, you have your how in the other and you have your what there and in the middle, where they all intersect, that's when your life and work become integrated as one. And you really want really gets to live to and through their purpose when. When one is clear on that. And therefore, I intentionally try to live an integrated life. Not so it's easy. Not always easy, because I have to say no to a lot of things that, oh, I'd love to do this, I'd love to do that. It focuses me, helps me focus on what matters and what is most important. And to me, that's more integrated life and not a juggling act.

So one of the things we talk about, and Jerry Lujan talks about it, Gary talks about it, your yos kind of becomes a filter for you. Right. The things you will want to do are things that fit your Y operating system. So can you talk about how you use your yos as a filter or do you use it as a filter in terms of what you get involved in?

In its simplest terms, I asked myself, can I make, can I create clarity out of the situation that's here? Am I able to help? And does the situation itself actually make sense?

Yes.

If I don't hit three out of three, it's usually a no, thank you or let me get back to you later. Whereas prior to that it always used to be yes. Yes, because I just wanted to help. Yes, I still want to help. I'm much more. My filter is higher as a result of knowing my why, how and what.

I love that you taught me that, Jamie. I love that you said that because you taught me that. One of the things I needed to learn to say is let me get back to you because as a contributor you always want to say yes. And you said, you know, Dan, here's here is an easy way. Let me get back to you. And it gives you time to think through it. You run it through the filter. For me, it's a contribute. Am I going to have an opportunity to be creative and challenge the status quo and does it make sense? And if it doesn't do those three things, then it's probably going to be a no. Where before, like you said, I would say yes and then figure out a way to contribute which was a lot more work than when it fits my yos. I can contribute very easily and in a much bigger. In a much bigger way. So thank you for that. I remember that that was December, probably January, February 2020, when we had those conversations. Thanks for that reminder.

You're welcome.

So tell me this, Jamie. What drew you to the Y Institute? We talked about how you discovered your why. There was a Y facilitator that you worked with and then you were drawn to work with Gary. What, what drew you to the work that we do at the Y Institute?

I think as everything is said so often in so many different ways that everything starts with knowing your why. And I see that's the essential first step to self awareness is really knowing that. And the way the WHY Institute has been able to pull these different resources together, pull coaches together from all around the world and seeing that the importance that if you have these three, then you can add all your other skills, all your other tools, all your other clients. On top of that, short of that, it was a struggle for me when I didn't know my why, how and what and why Institute really helped. It's got a good program, there's a good process and there's ongoing and continuing education.

So.

I love that you talk about what drew you and what about your work as the global leadership chair at eo, how do you incorporate why or your Y certification and your work with the Y institute into that work?

With regards to the entrepreneurs organization and this is a volunteer role so it rotates in and out in terms of being a committee chair for a couple of years, what I found was that the more people, the more leaders I was able to bring clarity to, the better they were able to do what they do. And that could be personally family, business and community. At the end of the day, the entrepreneurs organization is a community of entrepreneurs, a global community of entrepreneurs with 15,000 members around the world. So I believe that when I can work one on one with those who work one to many, then they can lead and live with greater impact. And the why is foundational to that.

So do you use that with almost everyone you work with? I know you have a very successful coaching organization that you had. Is that a, is that something you do with everyone you work with? Discover their why?

It's a non negotiable.

For me. That's where we start. And then everything else builds and moves up from that because we always have that point to refer back to in the coaching practice. Remember when we share. You shared that your why was this? What about that is pulling you off track or what about that is lifting you up? Has that changed? Did we not do this correctly in the first place? Let's revisit that. Why are we going off track or how are we staying on track? Congratulations. You're doing this really well.

Yeah. No, and you're. And you're really good at that. You know, I think it's the contributing you, the clarify holds you accountable. Right. And then you make sense of it. And I remember working with you, you're so good at gently prodding the right answers from the people you work with. So. And I think that has to do with your yos. But I think regardless of what your yos is, I'm sure you work with other coach coaches, Jamie, with different Y oss. I know, I know hundreds of coaches with different Y oss and they all find a way to incorporate their gift. Whether their why is challenge, contribute mastery, simplify. They incorporate their gift into the work that they do and then they help attract people that are looking for that. So for you, the ideal client is looking for someone who wants to help them. They need clarity and they want somebody to help them make sense of it. Right, exactly.

And that's what's the beauty about the whole Y institute because there's so many different coaches with so many different approaches. And no one approach is more right or better than the other ones. That's what's what makes us so different. And a client that may not be attracted to my style of coaching will be attracted to the other yos's style of coaching rather because of the way their. Yes. Lines up. The why, how, and what lines up.

And what we found too, is it may be what you need. Right. Because a lot of times there's. There's. There's whys that you would think are opposites. For example. Right.

Institute. Because there's so many different coaches with so many different approaches, and no one approach is more right or better than the other ones. That what makes us so different. And a client that may not be attracted to my style of coaching will be attracted to the other yos's style of coaching rather because of the way their why lines up. Their why, how, and what lines up.

And what we found too, is it may be what you need. Right. Because a lot of times there's whys that you would think are opposites, for example, right way. And challenge. Right. You would think, oh, they're not going to be a match. However, somebody with the why of challenge. The reason they may need a coach is they need some structure in their life because they've got stuff going on everywhere. And so they may be attracted. They may initially say, oh, gosh, that guy is so by the book. I don't want to work with him. But that may be exactly what they need. So it's understanding the whys and each other. Have you found that to be true with people you work with?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And sometimes we need someone who is completely opposite of our way to get the best out of both. To get the best out of the coach and as well as the client.

Yeah. Here's the other part. We didn't even talk about this, but you wrote a book On Guard and On Point, and it's about your experience as a champion fencer. So tell us about your book a little bit and how you live your why through the fencing community.

Absolutely. The book is basically, it's Mastering the Duel between Life and Work. Because so many of us struggle sometimes, it's really, how do we integrate the two? So it goes back to that core foundation of integrating life and work. I've been a competitive fencer for over 45 years now. I'm still competing in my age group at the world level. I was able to get a individual bronze and a team silver in 2019 at the Veteran World Championships in Egypt and the book helped me take a lot of what was in my head and theoretical and turn it into something more concrete. And I work closely with Gary and the nine whys on that. Actually, Gary wrote the foreword to the book and I actually have nine chapters as well. So that number nine keeps showing up in magical ways. And yes, it's really that as fencing is a metaphor for how we handle life under pressure and you can swap out fencing for archery or dance or art or piano or anything that we want to do in life and the principles still apply.

Yeah, that was one of the first books I read when I joined the Y Institute and I had met you, read your book and then we spent some time working together. So recommend the book to anybody who's listening, on guard and on point. And it's on Amazon. I know because I was looking it up earlier, came up in my in my order history. So thank you so much for that, Jamie. What a great contribution and I know that Gary contributed to the forward. So if you're, you know, you are looking to see some of the origins of the Y Institute and you are a fan, great book. You will get some perspective from Gary. You are going to get some great perspective from Jamie and some great life lessons in there. So thanks for sharing that, Jamie.

Absolutely.

One more thing, one more question I have for you. You are a coach who uses Gallup Strength Finders and you use that in conjunction with the why discovery. So you use the why, how and what in Gallup Strength Finders. How do those two mesh and how do you use them to get to know your clients better?

I use Gallup Strengths Finder is.

Really I use it as the bridge because they focus on how you do what you do. Everything that I go through actually they've changed it. It's now Cliftonstrengths. So everything that's Cliftonstrengths based on the 34 is all focused on how. So once I've worked with the client to get through their why, how and what, then we go deeper and extrapolate that. And so for example, my how is to make sense of things, how does that marry into the top five of my CliftonStrengths and then of those Cliftonstrengths, how do those poured into my core values in life as well. So we keep sort of extrapolating certain things out and then we'll go deeper into the strengths and cliftonstrengths. And any of those tools are good tools once you know your why, how and what because many of those other assessments focus on how you do and what you do, they don't always touch on the why in the way that the YOS does. So I feel they're great tools to take clients to the next level.

Perfect. Well, Jamie, that's all the questions that I have. Is there a question I didn't ask that, you know, as we were talking? Is there something else we want to make sure and cover today?

Yeah, absolutely. What excites you about the why? You just jumped into the deep end of this from the time that I've gotten to know you. And so tell me the why behind your why you're doing this.

You know what was very interesting. Thank you. Thank you for turning it around on me. Now I'm being interviewed, but, you know, in October 2019, I left a corporate job that I was not feeling fulfilled in. I was, you know, as far as everyone else knew, I was successful in leading a sales team for a major pharmaceutical and medical device company. But I just wasn't feeling like I was living my purpose. And I decided to take leave of that job and go find something else. Funny thing happened. I had a toothache, and I had to go see Gary. He was my dentist at the time. And he started. First thing, he says to me, dan, you're. You're. You're. I hear you're transitioning. You know, you're leaving your career. What are you going to do? And I said, I don't know. I said, gary, but whatever I do next, it's going to be something I love, and it's going to be something I would do even if I wasn't getting paid. And Gary said, well, Dan, do you know your why? Right? And he. And that's where the journey started. He discovered my why, we went through, found out my why was to contribute. And Gary says to me, well, Dan, so your why is contribute. So does that mean you love to help people? Is that true? And I said, well, yeah. Doesn't everyone? And he says, no, not everyone is driven by that. There are nine whys. He explained to me the nine whys we did with my how and my what. And what made me jump into the deep end. Kind of like you, Jamie. You said it was visceral for me. All of a sudden, my life made sense because I realized that everything I'd ever done whenever I was at my best was when I was able to contribute. I was able to do things my own way and look at things differently, and they made sense. When things in my life weren't helping, others weren't different and didn't make sense. I was in conflict. And so that was not a happy time in my life. And so for me, it was matter of Gary asking for help. Right. Because that's what you do with a contributor. He's very smart. He said, dan, I need your help. We need your help. We need someone with your sales experience at the Wine Institute. And you can, you can imagine this is a contributor. I said, what do I need to do? We didn't sign a contract, anything. I just started jumping in and started helping, went to the, to the meeting that we had at the Canyon Club in October 2019, and in December, I joined the team. So for me, it was that somebody said it to me yesterday, one of the coaches. It is your visceral compass, and I love that phrase. When you know your why, it is that internal compass that just guides where you, where you go and what you do and the way. We have worked it out thanks to your help having the why, how and what really completes the picture. And we just. I just want to help as many people as I can, the contributor in me figure that out for themselves because it makes such a difference in how I do everything that I do since I started working with Gary.

Well, that was my one question. So thank you for giving me a very clear answer.

I hope that was clear. We want to make sure we are clear with Jamie. So thank you everyone for listening. I want to thank Jamie for being our guest today. And don't forget, while you are listening, the code Y2Y is going to be available for the next 24 hours. You go to www.why institute.com and go just click on discover your why. Use the code Y to Y and you get 50% off the Y discovery. So if you don't know your why, you can discover it today. Thank you, Jamie.

Thank you.