The Power of Discovering Your Why
Hello, I’m Melahni Ake, founder of Everyday Leaders Professional Leadership Coaching and Consulting, and a guest blogger with Tomato Fish Marketing. Welcome to my third blog in our three-part series, Start with WHY.
In the last blog post I shared a little more about the process of gaining clarity around your “why,” so you can begin to understand the value in owning your authentic voice and live within your purpose, every day. In this final blog I will share the transformative power and value which is found when you’re living your why.
The Power of Discovering Your Why
Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk, Start with Why brought visibility to this critical topic and today is what has inspired the creation of the Why Assessment, so you gain more clarity around your own Why Coaching, you can also begin to understand the actions and next steps around how to bring your why to life.
Discovering your why is the essential first step to living a life of purpose. As Sinek says in his Ted Talk, it’s key to start here — honing in on the meat and potatoes of our own, personal why —Y because when we can identify what motivates and inspires us, we can better communicate from our WHY, and ultimately build loyalty and trust. This also wakes up the limbic part of the brain that’s responsible for making our decisions.
If you take anything away from this blog, it should be this: the magic of communication will help you excel at anything you choose to pursue. Being an effective communicator will help you in your relationships, in your career and simply in all areas of your life. But…we can’t effectively communicate if we can’t articulate, for ourselves, what truly drives us. Simply put, if you don’t know your why it’s much harder to achieve the same level of meaningful impact.
Identifying Your Unique Why
So, if there are only nine why’s… how do you identify your why, and is it possible to have more than one?
Well, let’s review the nine why’s that are identified in the Why Assessment:
1: Contribute: To Contribute to a Greater Cause, Make a Difference, Add Value or Have an Impact
2: Trust: To Create Relationships Based on Trust
3: Make Sense: To Make Sense Out of Things:
4: Better Way: To Find a Better Way and Share it
5: Right Way: To Do Things the Right Way
6: Challenge: To Think Different and Challenge the Status Quo
7: Mastery: To Seek Mastery
8: Clarify: To Create Clarity
9: Simplify: To Simplify
Okay, so now you might be thinking Well, this is pretty easy, I can identify with at least one… so is that all there is to this?
Before I took the Why Assessment, I would have bet a million dollars that I was a “Why of Contribute.” Not only because of the activities that I was involved in, but also because of my beliefs around how I was programmed to add value to the world. I knew I had a desire to show up, participate and bring my unique perspective to the table; however, when I took my 10-minute Why Assessment, I discovered that my WHY was not to contribute, my WHY was actually to challenge the status quo. This assessment was what I’d like to call a “pivot of clarity” which helped me to personally gain clarity to begin to own my life with a much bigger capacity.
What Happens Next?
So, what did I do after I discovered my why? I worked with a why coach and started to learn more about how to bring my why to everyday life. In other words, how would the world see me, and what could they expect from me now that I knew my purpose?
After discovering my WHY, I designed a statement of purpose. The goal of this exercise was to change my language and the way I spoke about myself and my goals so that I could change my direction and better align with my purpose. You may be wondering, why does this matter? What’s the difference? By changing my speech patterns, I was better able to reach my clients, friends, and family because I was speaking to the limbic part of the brain that creates loyalty, trust and decision making. My why is to challenge my clients to develop better solutions for complex and challenging scenarios…. and this is exactly what my family, clients and community expect from me. I bring my WHY to life by creating BETTER WAYS to approach challenges.
The Power of Language
In my earlier blog I referenced Jodi Bondy, owner of Hoosier Photo Organizer. Sheis a client of mine that took her WHY Assessment earlier this year. Jodi was inspired to discover her why, because as a business owner, she is always interested in processes that will help to make a bigger impact with her marketing communications.
Simon Sinek speaks about the process of communicating to the people who believe what you believe. As a photo organizer, this was a critical first step for Jodi. She could have easily fallen into overwhelm and confusion trying to sort out who she was able to serve in order to make the largest impact.
BUT…. discovering that her why ended up being to make sense of the challenging and complex. With this understanding Jodi could start communicating to her clients from her WHY instead of marketing to everyone for a photo solution.
From here Jodi was able to:
- Get crystal clear with her messaging
- Take steps to better to serve her clients
- Have a big-picture understanding of her impact
Once Jodi discovered her why of “make sense,” she changed her language to, Hoosier Photo Organizers make sense of your complex photo projects by clarifying your goals and contributing to preserving your legacy.
All of a sudden Jodi’s project calendar was filling up and as Jodi puts it, “I no longer felt like I was an imposter in my business, I knew who I was serving and how I could help serve my clients in a bigger capacity.”
Flipping the Switch
Discovering your why is like turning on life’s lightbulb… once you do, things just make sense. Your passions, interests and curiosity all come together and accelerate. It’s truly transformational – Knowing your why and living your why is the freedom to begin clearly serving your clients, your family, and your community in a way that you’ve only dreamed of.
If you’re ready to learn more, Take Your WHY Assessment and Discover Your WHY today, use this link and apply the code BLOG to receive 50% off through October 2021. Learn how to LIVE YOUR WHY through Everyday Leaders WHY Coaching, where you will learn the specific strategies to communicate your why and begin building your life everyday with passion and purpose.
- Additionally, our WHY Corporate Programs and Workshops are designed for organizations that are ready to: Level up communication skills
- Gain clarity around individual strengths
- Inspire action for specific roles and responsibilities
Create bigger industry impact and success
Living Your WHY Personal and Executive Coaching packages are available and are custom-designed, from 1-6 months to help build accountability and everyday leadership skills for life and business.
