“Those with an ability to never lose sight of WHY, no matter how little or how much they achieve, can inspire us.”
If you don’t know why you’re doing something, then you are probably just spinning your wheels, getting nowhere. This especially applies in businesses. Everyone from the boss to the workers to the consumers should know the why behind the services or products. Start With Why is a book that examines the why and how every person and business should figure out they why behind what they are doing.
A friend recommended Start With Why to me. I put it on my holds list from my local library to check out as an ebook and waited several weeks for it to become available. I think its popularity might be due to more and more people trying to take back control of their lives from technology and busy-ness and getting back to their core selves.
Start With Why is broken down into six parts. The author starts with showing what happens when the why is missing and how it affects people and businesses. He then shows what can happen when people and businesses have a clearly defined why. He uses companies like Apple and Southwest and people like Martin Luther King, Jr., of good examples of having a definitive why. The author also takes time to show how employees and consumers are affected in a positive way when there is a definitive why. Finally, he goes over how to create a why.
While Start With Why is heavily business focused, it can really apply to any aspect of life – school, family, faith, hobbies, work can all benefit from having a known why about why they are done. Children often do better when they know why they have to do an assignment and how it will benefit them rather than just being told to do it. I would recommend this book to anyone high school age or older to learn this skill.
As an example, I do this blog as a way to practice my writing skills, share my love of books with family and friends and practice having a Web site for when I became an author – which I am now!
Do you have a why for something you do in life? Share on the blog!