I could post a lot more links from Seth Godin’s blog or I could share this video instead.
So, I’m going with the video.
It’s an abbreviated version of Simon Sinek‘s talk about “Starting with Why.” (The “Super-Quick” version.)
And here’s an AI-generated transcript.
Probably the world’s simplest idea. I call it the Golden Circle. This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren’t. Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do. 100%. Some know how they do it, but very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. By why, I mean what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief and why should anyone care?
The inspired leaders and the inspired organizations all think, act and communicate from the inside out. Lemme give you an example. If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this. “We make great computers. They’re beautifully designed, simple to use, and user-friendly, want to buy one?” Meh. That’s how most marketing is done. That’s how most sales are done. We say what we do, we say how we’re different or how we’re better and we expect some sort of behavior, a purchase, a vote, something like that.
Here’s how Apple actually communicates. “Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?” People don’t buy what you do. People buy why you do it.
The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. 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. 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.
Something called the Law of Diffusion of Innovation. The first two and a half percent of our population are our innovators. The next 13 and a half percent of our population are our early adopters. The next 34% are your early majority, your late majority, and your laggards. That if you want mass market success or mass market acceptance of an idea, you cannot have it until you achieve this tipping point between 15 and 18% market penetration. So it’s this here, this little gap that you have to close because you see the early majority will not try something until someone else has tried it first. And these guys, the innovators and the early adopters, they’re more comfortable making those intuitive decisions that are driven by what they believe about the world and not just what product is available. These are the people who stood online for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came out.
Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us, and it’s those who start with why that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them. Thank you very much.
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My own thoughts on this are that you have to understand why it’s important not to rely on Amazon’s algorithms and advertising to achieve “success”.
All it takes is looking at my bank account in 2011 versus what I made in 2021 or 2022 or 2023. All years in which I had nothing but losses.
Obviously, something had to change. And I’m making that change. Slowly, but surely.
Anyway, I couldn’t have said any of this better. 🙂