What the Why

Having an answer to your “why” answers a lot of questions for you, both personally and professionally. Without it, you’re open to an endless number of distractions and shiny objects, never really grasping your full potential. You also are incapable of creating a convincing purpose for others to be inspired by. So you’ll have to resort to the uphill battle using manipulation tactics in order to move forward, all but ensuring you’ll never get where you want to be. In Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why, he challenges the reader to understand how powerful answering this seemingly simple, but critical, question. Like most of his material, he doesn’t explicitly answer it for you; instead, he instigates a very powerful internal debate, trusting you to understand only you are able to answer it.

• The Celery Test
• Practical Celery Application
• Your Purpose Informs Your Future
• Without the Why, You Manipulate
• The Superconscious Mind

The Celery Test

There’s a little exercise he does called “the celery test” that can really put into perspective how having a clearly defined purpose makes business decisions much easier. I’m going to definitely go off script here but it’ll make sense — well, probably. Let’s say you’re at a dinner party with a bunch of other professionals. You’re eyeballing the selection of foods when an acquaintance comes up to you, excitedly. It’s clear he can’t hold back something so you jovially ask, “everything okay there bud?” He ecstatically responds, “man, I just made a fortune adding M&M’s to our product selection. You have GOT to do the same, I’m telling you, you will make a BUNDLE.” To which your eyebrows pop off your head and you scramble to write that down while your excited friend skips off into the crowd. Wow, that was a great tip! You move on from the food tray, pondering what your friend told you when another person comes up to you, mildly startling you as you didn’t see her coming. She glides up to you and whispers in your ear, “Celery… you will make a fortune with Snickers.” Then she slowly backs away into the shadows. Well that was weird, cryptic, but okay then, “Celery” it is. Barely finished writing that down and turning around, you have another person grab your attention. And then another! And so on the night goes. M&M’s, Snickers, celery, oat milk, kale… So many wonderful people advising you about all the great things that will make you hugely profitable. Armed with this information, you immediately head to the nearest grocery store that’s still open. You frantically stock up on all the items folks told you about. You make your way towards the bleary-eyed associate with a crooked name tag when you pause. You look down at your overflowing haul of items and think, “What exactly am I supposed do I do with all of this?”

Without a “why” you chase down every distraction. With one, you already have the answer. In this case, you remember that your “why” is to provide only the cleanest, healthiest diet and excercise solutions for your clients. That’s your purpose. So you dump everything that isn’t aligned and take only what is.

The point here is that there are a lot of shiny objects in the world today. There’s a lot of noise and businesses vying for your attention. There’s also a lot of wonderful, well-meaning people who share their perspectives, tools, and ideas with you. It’s up to you to find a way to filter out what is not relevant, valuable, or aligned with your stated purpose. Having a clear cut “why” makes the process that much easier and is a major help to avoid derailing and distracting your organization.

Practical Celery App

Alpyne’s why is our vision statement. “To connect and collaborate with good people to help them accomplish their professional goals, aspirations, and dreams.” This lets us go through this thought process when an idea or new thing comes our way, “hey, does this thing align with our purpose? Hmm… no. I mean it’s cool, definitely cool, but not really, no.” Or of course the opposite, “Uhh, YEAH! Absolutely.” in which we decide to move forward with the initiative.

To constantly remind ourselves and others, we named our company “Alpyne” with a “Y”. It is such a critical piece that should always be held front and center in whatever you do, if you’re to acheive what you set out to do. The idea of “Why” can extend to pretty much any situation. “Hey do you wanna do an all-day marathon of the Marvel movies?” You have a handful of options here. 1- Go for it, I love Marvel, “call me Cap’n Yaaaass.” 2- I can’t stand Marvel, DC for life, Martha. 3- Eeeesh.. I recognize that there are literally not enough hours in a day to watch them all AND that I could be doing far more valuable things with my time. Ideally, you’d go with #3 here, but that all depends on you. Nothing wrong with a movie here and there, but 30+ films? My dude– that’s an escapist mentality and a massive time suck that gets in the way of achieving your dreams. That does not pass our “why” test and the ones asking this of you bear some reconsidering of the relationship. In the meantime, “Thank you for the offer, it’s truly thoughtful, but I’ll pass. I have a personal stove emergency that I left running.”

Your Purpose Informs Your Future

Have you ever heard the phrase, “you are what you eat”? Of course! A similar phenomenon occurs with a person’s purpose that they repeat in their mind, day in and day out. Clearly defined, or not, your purpose will map out your most likely future. If you have no clear purpose, you’ll kind of bump and boop along the backroads of time, never really having a clear direction to go or having experienced as much as you could have. If you do have a clear purpose, you will have taken a moment to map out where you want to go and see and do and eliminated the distractions you don’t care about. You take the highway and planes to your destination. Your focus and determination gets you to your goal and affords you the opportunity to see, do, and accomplish more than you ever thought possible.

Without the Why, You Manipulate

Manipulation. A sneaky game you are likely quite aware of, especially when it’s blatant. It is commonly implemented to instill fear of missing out or make you feel like something else is a better deal. When it comes to business, manipulative tactics are incredibly effective. But they’re exhausting, the methods have to consistently change, and they rarely result in any form of loyalty. “Buy our thing, because it’s 5% different than that other thing.” Not exactly inspiring. “Our thing is $100 cheaper than that other thing.” Also, not exactly something that fosters loyalty. Especially when that other thing plays the game and price matches. The manipulation game, like the lower price game, is a race to the bottom and doesn’t focus on anything of substance.

Okay millenial boomer, do you remember the Motorola Razr? So cool. Super thin, different color options, mispelled on purpose, slick silver buttons with blue backlights? They were all the rage for a little while. They were touted as revolutionary and innovative. But they weren’t. They were brilliantly designed, for the time, and marketed, sure, but they didn’t push the industry forward or garner any form of loyalty. You know what did, around the same time? A little thing called the iPhone. At the time, all the wireless carriers told the phone manufacturers what to do and what their phones had to have. Those little rebels at Apple, early 2000’s Apple, said, yeah, no. We’re doing this, and you can take it or leave it. All but AT&T laughed their fat, slimy little heads off at the ridiculous demand. The very idea! And we all know how that turned out.

Apple were pioneers. Upsetting the desktop computer industry, the music industry, and the phone industry. They inspired a generation, and, to some extent, still do. They look out for the individual. Hence the name iPhone, iMac, iPod, iTunes. Sure they have some irritating business tactics and make some frustrating decisions like how they deal with independent app developers and the blue vs. green text bubble nonsense but regardless of these sort of shenanigans, the company, by and large, stands for the individual. And their customer base are rabid fans. Have you ever been to an Apple Store? The self-proclaimed “Geniuses” glide above the ground with an iPhone embedded in their forehead! Sure seems that way, anyway. They’re super knowledgeable and helpful while also being unquestioningly loyal to Apple.

All this is to say that Apple doesn’t typically resort to manipulation, aside from some snazzy, colorful shapes, product close-ups, and minimalist designs. Their “why” is stated in their vision statement, “to make the best products on earth and to leave the world better than we found it.” That’s something most, if not all, people can get on board with. Customers AND employees, alike. THAT “why” doesn’t need to change, nor does the messaging or approach to promoting their products. They’d almost certainly have had a much harder time reaching where they are today without having a stated vision or, worse, all they told their teams were, make more money by any means necessary. With that mentality, there’s zero loyalty. Zero inspiration. Zero innovation. And zero room for connecting with a rabid customer base the way they’ve managed to.

The Superconscious Mind

Now that you’ve established your inspiration, your purpose, what now? Aligning your purpose with your thought pattern is key to instituting change. This is a BIG change so you’ll it’ll take some time to rewire your mind and form new neural pathways. It’s understandable when you consider that you have three minds running the operation. Your general concious mind, your subconcious, and your superconscious. Kinda spooky to think about. Your concious mind is what you’re actively using right now. Your subconcious is storing every piece of information it is being presented, whether you know it or not. Your superconscious is constantly solving “problems” that you feed it. Brian Tracy explains the topic of the “superconscious”. The superconscious is similar to a person’s subconcious mind, except it is like having a secret puppet master, pulling the strings. Let’s say you, in your head, constantly say to yourself, “you’ll never amount to anything.” Your superconscious takes that thought, uses what you have stored in your subconcious, and ensures that it provides your with a thought pattern to ensure you achieve that command. On the flip side, if you tell yourself, “You are enough. People know you. You lead a meaningful life.” Sort of like positive affirmations. So, in line with it’s purpose, it finds ways to make that happen in your thought pattern, and ultimately, it’ll influence your behaviors in your waking hours.

Tracy goes on to say that you can “trick” or “program” your superconscious into changing yourself. It can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, what’s past and what’s present. Let’s say you’ve finally “woken up” and said, F this, I’m turning my life around. You start recognizing that negative loop you play in your mind and how that influences your behavior. So you start to introduce more positive things and people into your life. Read books, watch seminars, go to therapy, whatever you gotta do. You then take time to tell yourself all the positive things you dream of achieving, but in the present tense. Your superconscious takes those repeated commands and goes to work creating thought patterns for you that help you achieve them. Over time, you begin to notice things drastically improve.

Business Systems | Why

The “Why” also answers a lot of business system implementations. Are you chasing a shiny new toy that does something that’s neat, but, objectively (or if you pause to think about it), is more of a distraction from the goal than anything else? Just because you can implement a system or tool, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right call. Same as if a system you’re implementing CAN perform a certain function, doesn’t necessarily mean that that is the right call. How can you tell? Ask yourself, “why?”

“Why” is the Gift that Keeps on Giving

If you’re struggling to come up with your why, start a conversation with someone. The beauty here is, it can be anyone. Family member, friend, some random person writing a screenplay in a Starbucks. This is a fundamental principle that every human can relate to and can likely inspire lines of thought we never considered before. When you and your business establish your purpose, it makes creating an aligned, thriving organization much more achievable. You attract like-minded people who share your vision to work with you. You attract like-minded clients who want to work with someone that stands for something greater than just the products or services they offer. The clear, stated purpose also makes your life a lot easier because you can avoid distractions that do not align with your stated purpose (e.g.,celery test). It also provides a sense of fulfillment knowing you are contributing to something greater than yourself. Myron Golden says that there are three ways to achieve fulfillment. One, is to create. Two, is human connection. And three, is contribution to something other than yourself. With a clear purpose, you have the chance to achieve all three. And, hopefully, you are able to inspire others down this journey of true fulfillment and limitless success that goes beyond ourselves.