What Matters Most is Your Why

   

"People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it." --Simon Sinek

Most brain injury rehabilitation exercises are pretty damn boring. (Just sayin.)

What I remember most about them is the fear of what it would mean for my future if I didn't succeed at therapy. Each day I went to the rehab centre, I was sure my pre-accident self would rise to the occasion and life would go back to normal. For many months this was routinely followed by overwhelming feelings of despair and embarrassment over my continued failure to be able to complete even the simplest tasks.

Three-plus years and thousands of hours of practice later, I''m still struggling. Progress is painfully slow. At times it is barely perceptible. That's when the risk of giving up is greatest. (Perhaps you're already seeing the parallel to our shared experiences in business?)

One of my least favourite activities was working at the nuts and bolts board in an attempt to recover fine motor skills. After months of daily practice, I'd really achieved very little beyond being able to hold a fork and a toothbrush. But even then, I couldn't hold them steady or apply enough force to render either one remotely useful.

I could remember what these tools were for and how to use them. However, without my former motor coordination ability and grip strength, that knowledge was actually quite useless. And hurtful. You simply don't realize how much you do with your hands until they become more of a hindrance than a help.

Dedicated, consistent effort, in both business and life, does yield results. Just not always the results you'd hoped for. In fact, while I have regained partial use of my hands, they remain unreliable being weak and difficult to control. This has changed things considerably for me in so many ways. At the same time, it opens new windows of opportunity for being extraordinarily creative in how I approach dealing with the activities of daily living. (I didn't see it this way at first but it is the way I'm looking at it now.)

There are dozens of times each day when I'm certainly no less frustrated than I was with the seemingly endless fastening and unfastening of nuts and bolts to the peg board. However, my reason for persevering (and the true WHY behind all of this work) is so compelling, giving up is not an option.

I want to regain my lost independence. And I am willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Which leads me to the first and most important of the many business lessons I'll be sharing with you. My accountant, the late Joseph Roberts, told me this thirty years ago and never let me forget it. You may be resistant to his advice and what I'm going to suggest, so I'm going to ask you to trust me that he was right about this.

To create a long-term sustainable income from your business, you must find your compelling reason why you are in business in the first place.

Here's how you do that:

Stop thinking about what you're going to sell and who you're going to sell it to. Instead, clear your mind and think only about your why.

Every time I met with Mr. Roberts, he'd remind me of this:

People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it.

More recently, we have thought leaders like Simon Sinek speaking the same timeless message. So spend as much time as it takes for you to be completely clear on why you are in business. For some, it might take days to figure out; for others possibly months. (Don't worry. I'll wait.)

Everything starts with your why. If you don't know what it is, you can't make the right decisions about what and who and you won't be able to power yourself through all that is necessary for your business to succeed. All those hours I spent on that damn peg board frustrated as hell gave me the time to hard-wire why into my brain. Being clear on that why was key to not quitting. And believe me, I wanted to quit most of the time I was in therapy.

You may find yourself feeling that way about your business from time to time. Or perhaps others in your life don't understand what drives you to keep at it when it looks futile. These are the times when you need to draw strength and courage from your why.

Similarly, I've put in the thinking time needed to know why I'm willing to put up with all the adverse circumstances that now exist in my life and return to my work developing SMARTSTART programs. The why is:

I believe everyone deserves to be able to make enough money from their chosen work to provide for their personal and family needs at whatever level desired.

We no longer live in a society where you can maintain personal independence through job security and rewarding, upwardly mobile, lifelong careers. In fact, I've never believed in the notion of job security. Ever. I have always only believed in the security that comes from creating your own work and income streams.

As Simon also says: "The goal is not to sell to people what you have, the goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe."

So, if you're someone who believes in creating your own security and are ready to go pro, stick with me. I'll show you how to build the business you want.

   

Posted via email from Linda Lopeke's posterous