Start with WHY to Restore PASSION for Your Life with Simon Sinek

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in people more than they believe in themselves. And my sincere hope is that if you see in yourself what I see in you, you'll be able to go off and change the planet. Now, we started the Mentor Me series to try to learn from people who've done a lot more than us. And by hanging around them and absorbing their wisdom and their knowledge, some of their mindsets, their beliefs, their attitudes, their way of seeing the world, seep into us to help us become the best version of ourselves. So today we're going to learn from Simon Sinek and how to start with why. Mentor me, Simon.

The why was born out of pain.

It was never an academic or commercial exercise. It was born out of a time in my life many years ago, 10 years ago, where I had lost my passion for what I was doing. I owned my own small business, I was living the American dream. Superficially, my life was fantastic, and yet I didn't want to wake up and do it again, and I was embarrassed by that. You know, who am I to complain about my life? My life seemed perfect, and yet I hated it. And so I kept it to myself. Every ounce of my being, every, all the energy that I had was invested in pretending that I was happier, more successful, and more in control than I felt. And it was debilitating, quite frankly. Exactly. Strange things start to happen when you put yourself in that cycle and the stress starts to build. You start to become paranoid. So for example, I was convinced that my employees hated me. I didn't go out much, and it was really, it was really a bad time. There was a confluence of events, and I made this discovery that every single organization on the planet, even our own careers, always function on the same 3 levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. And it was based on the biology of human decision-making. It wasn't some highfalutin management theory. It was based on brain stuff. And I realized I knew what I did. I was good at it. And I knew how I did it. I could tell you what was different or special about the way I did things, but I couldn't tell you why I was doing it. That was the missing piece. You have to have all three. I became obsessed with this thing called the why. I figured out how to find my why, and it restored my passion to levels I had never experienced before. And more importantly, I figured out how to help others find theirs. And I did what anyone would do when you discover something beautiful: you share it with your friends. And my My friends started making crazy life changes themselves, and they started finding happiness and passion that they'd never experienced before. It was me solving my own problem that happened to help others solve it for them too. And people just kept inviting me, and I just kept saying yes. I was making huge decisions that were really easy to make. Like, I shut down my office and started over again because I realized the business I had built was so inconsistent with my why. All my friends thought I went out of business, and they worried about me. It was the easiest, easiest decision I ever made. In other words, when you know your why, the filter It's not like there are options. The option is obvious. There's only one option. Share, give, inspire.

As it turns out, there's a pattern. As it turns out, all the great and inspiring leaders and organizations in the world, whether it's Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright Brothers, they all think, act, and communicate the exact same way, and it's the complete opposite to everyone else. All I did was codify it. And it's probably the world's simplest idea. I call it the golden circle. Why, how, what. This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren't. Let me define the terms really quickly. Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do, 100%. Some know how they do it, whether you call it your differentiating value proposition, or your proprietary process, or your USP. But very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by why, I don't mean to make a profit. That's a result. It's always a result. By why, I mean what's your purpose? What's your cause? What's your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? Well, as a result, the way we think, the way we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in. It's obvious. We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations, regardless of their size, regardless of their industry, all think, act, and communicate from the inside out. You know, sometimes you can give somebody all the facts and your figures, and they say, "I know what all the facts and details say, but it just doesn't feel right." "Right?" Why would we use that verb? It doesn't feel right. Because the part of the brain that controls decision-making doesn't control language, and the best we can muster up is, "I don't know, it just doesn't feel right." Or sometimes you say you're leading with your heart, or you're leading with your soul. Well, I hate to break it to you, those aren't other body parts controlling your behavior. It's all happening here in your limbic brain, the part of the brain that controls decision-making and not language. But if you don't know why you do what you do, and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will anybody— how will you ever get people to vote for you or buy something from you, or more importantly, be loyal and want to be a part of what it is that you do? Again, the goal is not just to sell people who need what you have. The goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to hire people who need a job. It's to hire people who believe what you believe. I always say that, you know, if you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they work for you with blood and sweat and tears. And nowhere else is there a better example of this than with the Wright brothers. Most people don't know about Samuel Pierpont Langley. And back in the early 20th century, the pursuit of powered man flight was like the dot-com of the day. Everybody was trying it. And Samuel Pierpont Langley had what we assume to be the recipe for success. I mean, even now, when you ask people, "Why did your product or why did your company fail?" and people always give you the same permutation of the same 3 things: undercapitalized, the wrong people, bad market conditions. It's always the same 3 things. So let's explore that. Samuel Pierpont Langley was given $50,000 by the War Department to figure out this flying machine. Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian, and was extremely well-connected. He knew all the big minds of the day. He hired the best minds money could find, and the market conditions were fantastic. The New York Times followed him around everywhere, and everyone was rooting for Langley. Then how come we've never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley? A few hundred miles away, in Dayton, Ohio, or Vermont, Orville and Wilbur Wright. They had none of what we consider to be the recipe for success. They had no money. They paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycle shop. Not a single person on the Wright brothers' team had a college education, not even Orville or Wilbur. And the New York Times followed them around nowhere. The difference was, Orville and Wilbur were driven by a cause, by a purpose, by a belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying machine, it'll change the course of the world. Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He wanted to be rich, and he wanted to be famous. He was in pursuit of the result. He was in pursuit of the riches. And lo and behold, look what happened. The people who believed in the Wright brothers' dream worked with them with blood and sweat and tears. The others just worked for the paycheck. And they tell stories of how every time the Wright brothers went out, they would have to take 5 sets of parts, 'cause that's how many times they would crash before they came in for supper. And eventually, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight. And no one was there to even experience it. We found out about it a few days later. And further proof that Langley was motivated by the wrong thing, the day the Wright brothers took flight, he quit. He could have said, "That's an amazing "Listen, Discovery guys, now I'll improve upon your technology." But he didn't. He wasn't first, he didn't get rich, he didn't get famous, so he quit. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And if you talk about what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe.

People often say that they think they have their why, or more than that, that they feel it, that it feels right, and they know they're in the ballpark, but they're struggling to find the words. That's okay. The most important part about this why process is that indeed it feels right. Remember, the why exists in the part of the brain, the limbic brain, that controls our feelings. It also controls all our behavior and decision-making. And so we don't want to think that it's right, we want to feel that it's right. And once you have that gut decision that that's it and you get goosebumps when you start telling the stories that you think push you towards your why, then you know you have it. If you start to well up or have an emotional response, you definitely know you're in the ballpark. Then the trick is to find the words. And it's the words, it's the ability to articulate your why that makes it actionable. And so absolutely, the why, the words will evolve. The words will adapt and change, but the meaning cannot. It's the meaning of those words, those words that give you that visceral feeling, those goosebumps that make you well up, whatever the feeling you have is, that's what's paramount. But the words you can tweak and change absolutely for the end of time. I've tweaked my why multiple times over the years, but the meaning of it and the basic direction is still exactly the same. It's like a submarine. When the captain orders the submarine to go north, the submarine doesn't go in a straight line. It kind of goes like this. And your why is the same thing. You need to know the direction it's heading, but it's okay if it goes like this as you're tweaking the words as long as you're moving in the right direction. Learning to start with why it really is, especially in a business context when you're interviewing for a job or pitching your services to someone, it really is remarkable. I get so many letters from people, you know, all excited that they went into a pitch or they went into a job interview and they started with why, and they were so excited that not only did they get the job, but the person who hired them actually said, "We love..." and they repeat their why back to them. They don't talk about their qualifications or any of these things. In other words, it really does drive human behavior. And the more you get good at it, the more you start to feel and see the results of starting with why. What you'll find is that the better you are at communicating your why, people will want to work for you regardless of the opportunity that you afford them. Like, they want to be a part of it. We do a little thing which we've been doing for years and years and years called give and take. Whenever there's any kind of relationship, whether it's a an outside partnership or even somebody who joins our team, we do something called a give and take where we want somebody to be selfish and selfless within the relationship. So not give and get, but give and take. So we'll ask them, what is it that you have to give to us that you have that you think that we need, right? And they'll tell us, and then we'll say, great, what is it that you selfishly want from us? And we want them to tell us what they can get from us.

And I believe in that so much.

And when those, when those things match, you have a balanced relationship. —because, for example, I've had it with people, you know, they'll tell me what they have to offer, and that's awesome because that's what I want, and then they'll say what they have— what they want to take, and they go, "Oh, I want to work with smart people." I'm like, "Plenty of smart people. What is it you want to take from me?" They're like, "Oh, I want to help build something." Wonderful. Do that anywhere. What do you want to take selfishly from me that you can get nowhere else? And if they can't answer the question, I won't engage in a relationship, and the reason is because in time The relationship is unbalanced. They're going to be giving, but they're not taking, and I don't even know how to give them what they want. Then they'll complain they're not making enough money because it's not balanced. That's right. Now it's time to put your why into action. Discovering your why is just the beginning. In order to enjoy all the benefits of having a clearly articulated why, you'll need to have the courage and discipline to use it. Like Thomas Edison said, vision without execution is hallucination. There is an ideal order for implementing your why, though sometimes reality does get in the way, and it all starts with you. Our natural tendency is to start with the tangible. We define our value by what we do, so it takes practice to start with why. Like riding a bicycle, at first we're unsure, unsteady. We're in our heads thinking about all the things we need to do: pedal fast, keep enough speed so we don't fall over. We have to really concentrate. We may even fall over, even scrape our knees, but we get back on the bike and try again, and eventually it becomes natural. Starting with why is no different. At first it feels awkward. It may not even work, but with practice it will become so natural that you won't even be able to imagine a time when you couldn't do it, just like riding a bicycle. In time, your why will act as a filter for many of the decisions and choices you make. It becomes a tool to help you find a job or seize an opportunity in which you're more likely to succeed. It removes a lot of the guessing. Here's a metaphor to show you what I mean. It's called the celery test. We're constantly asking people for their advice on what to do or how to do it. It's like going to a dinner party and somebody says, do you know what you need? You need M&Ms. We've done so well with M&Ms, you've got to use M&Ms. Somebody else says to us, rice milk. In this economy, you have to use rice milk. Someone else says to us, Kit Kats. You have to use Kit Kats. And somebody else says to you, it's all about celery. We go to the supermarket with all this good advice from all these smart people with brilliant case studies, and we buy everything. We buy Kit Kats and M&Ms, celery and rice milk. There's a lot of time we spend at the supermarket and a lot of money we spend at the supermarket. And when we get to the checkout lane, we're standing there with all these products in our hands, and no one can see what we believe, because we bought everything. But let's imagine we know our why. Let's imagine our why is to always be healthy and only do things that protect the health of our bodies. Now which products do we buy? Given all the same advice from all the same smart people, this time we only buy celery and we only buy rice milk. They're the only two that make sense. We spend less time and less money at the supermarket. And when we're standing there in line with only celery and only rice milk, now people can see what we believe. Somebody walking past can say, hey, I can see that you're healthy, so am I. You just attracted an opportunity or a referral or a friend simply by saying and doing the things that you believe. And the best part is it's scalable. As soon as I said the why, you knew exactly which products we were going to buy. This means the more you can articulate your why, the more others will know what you stand for and will be able to help you make the right decisions. From now on, you will work to ensure everything you do is a good fit. If you do too many things that aren't a good fit, you'll feel uncomfortable and people will feel that you're being inauthentic. On the other hand, when you start with why, your ability to stand out, find support, and work to all your natural strengths will flourish. With practice, you will learn to trust your why. You will eventually start to see your job and the things you do as ways to breathe life into your cause. And the better you get at it, the more you will feel that your life and everything you do has purpose. The best way to implement your why is to work at it slowly. You don't have to do all the tips we suggest. What is important is that you pick up to 3 and commit to practicing and using them now.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I'd love to know, what did you think? What did you take from this video from Simon that you're going to immediately apply somehow to your life or to your business? Please leave it down in the comments below. I'm really excited to see what you guys have to say. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.