Develop visions, develop potential, achieve goals: love what you do!

Rule # 1: Your vision is only actionable if you express it out loud. If you keep it to yourself, it will remain a fantasy. And here we are going to show you why you should talk about it.

The Journey is the Goal

We travel a lot to do our job, but sometimes it doesn't wait Objective on us - it catches up with us on the plane. This happened to Peter on a flight from Miami to St. Louis. We'll pass the story on to you as Peter told us: I was exhausted. I finally wanted to arrive at my destination. Another flight. Another stranger next to me. I prayed to all the gods of aviation that my neighbor would not invade my personal sphere, whether physically or verbally. I just wanted to be left alone. But it turned out he was one of those people, and it was one of those flights.

I settled into my seat when Steve sat down next to me and introduced himself. We exchanged a few empty phrases, then he started telling me about his work. If you've had conversations like this, like me, you could already guess that Steve wasn't the bodyguard of a Hollywood star who willingly divulged details about his employers' love life or their drug use. There were no lewd stories or gossip to cut my flight time. No. Steve had been selling steel for twenty-three years. Exactly, steel. Insanely interesting.

Why are you doing what you are doing?

It turned out, of course, that Steve wasn't selling ordinary steel. His company, based in Sweden, produces a particularly pure type of steel. This steel makes it possible for machines to work more efficiently because their components - such as the parts of a car transmission - are lighter. As a mechanical engineer, Steve was able to confirm that his product was superior to the competition on the market. When he finished, Steve looked at me expectantly, obviously waiting for a question to talk more about his steel. The problem was, I didn't care what Steve was doing. Not that I'm aloof, anti-social, or just interested in gossip. What attracted me wasn't what people did, but why they did it.

Instead of asking Steve how much his steel was and who his best customers were, I looked at him and said, "So?" "Well, yeah," Steve hesitated. He didn't understand the question. So I put it differently: “I understand that the steel you sell, is pure. I understand that it enables the production of lighter components that make machines work more efficiently. What the heck? ”Steve stammered a few words, then blurted out,“ Well, less material is needed. ”We were getting closer. I followed up. "And what does that change?" For a moment, it seemed as if Steve was slumping. He just wanted to chat a little.

Ask strange questions

But for the next three hours I pinned him down with my strange questions (we had switched roles). But we persevered and I helped him find answers for himself. As it turned out, the purity of the steel meant that the parts made with less material were still of good quality. Less material means that less has to be melted (for the extraction of metal from ore), i.e. less energy is used in steel production and the environment is also less polluted.

If you use this steel to produce machines such as automobiles, the benefits are multiplied: the car is lighter, so it uses less fuel and produces fewer pollutants. And as if that weren't enough, pure steel can be recycled better than other products. It was all very interesting ... but we still hadn't figured out why Steve was so excited about his job. "It's great to save fuel and reduce pollution," I said, "but there must be more to this work if you've been around for twenty-three years." That was a long time, but he was still excited from his work. "There must be more to it, something you really believe in," I said. And that was the moment. For the first time, his eyes lit up. His feelings broke out. Steve wants to keep the earth intact for his children and for future generations; but a prerequisite for this is to use the rich resources of the planet more responsibly. He hadn't mentioned it when he talked about steel, and yet it was what inspired him to tell a stranger on an airplane all about pure steel.

Sometimes a little rethink is enough

I asked him if I could rephrase his selling points: “Put simply,” I began, as Steve would have done, “I believe that natural resources must be used for the benefit of mankind. I also believe that we must do this responsibly to protect the earth and make it safe for our children. That's why I became an engineer and work for this organization. Our company, based in Sweden - a country committed to sustainability - has developed a process that helps mechanical engineers create lighter, more efficient and more ecological products. Our specific path to sustainability is light steel. ”“ Thank you, ”Steve said. “You just put into words why I love my job.” By simply explaining why he loved his job first, I helped him realize that what he did was not what his professional life was for two decades made fulfilling for him. It inspired him why he did it. I combined his work with that Sensethat she had for him and in this way helped Steve discover his WHY.

Every person has their WHY, goal, purpose or beliefs that are at the root of their passion and inspiration. Maybe you don't know yours yet or don't know how to put it into words. But we guarantee you have one. If you want to know your WHY and don't want to wait for Peter to get on the plane next to you, this text can help you. We believe that all people deserve to live like Steve: to go to work inspired and to go home in the evening filled with the work they do. Fulfillment is not just another word for happiness. There are many things that make us happy at work: achieving a goal, a new customer, completing a project - the list is long. But happiness is short-lived; the feeling doesn't stop. No one is driven by the memory of a goal they achieved a year earlier. This drive loses its effectiveness over time.

What is the difference between fulfillment and happiness?

Fulfillment goes deeper. Fulfillment is permanent. The difference between happiness and fulfillment is the difference between something we like and something we love. We may not always love our children, but we certainly always love them. It is not necessary that our work always make us happy, but we can still go home fulfilled every day because we feel part of a bigger whole. That is the reason why external success such as high wages and status leave us unfulfilled. We feel fulfillment when our work is directly related to our WHY. Steve, the man with steel, is happy when he gets good deals, but he feels fulfilled knowing that he is contributing to a bigger cause with far-reaching consequences. Steve is a happy person. Although he couldn't formulate his WHY before speaking to Peter, he lived his WHY for decades and for that reason was motivated and felt that his work fulfilled him. But what if the Swedish company had one Companies would have been bought, which narrowed Steve's field of activity? What if he had to look for a new job without knowing his WHY? Given his long experience, he would have tried to find work again as a steel trader.

But if this new company hadn't been committed to sustainability, his goal, along with his enthusiasm, would have evaporated when he talked to strangers on airplanes. And maybe he could never have put the pieces of the puzzle together and understood that the passion for what he was doing had nothing to do with steel. If we want to feel an insatiable passion for our work, if we want to feel that we are contributing to something that goes beyond us, then we need to know our WHY.

9 steps to your personal WHY

Find your why is the essence of what is ours Team has learned in over twenty-five years exposing people's WHY. We have helped a wide variety of people - entrepreneurs, employees, small businesses, and teams in larger organizations - find their WHY. This text was written to help you find yours. He answers questions we are often asked in the workshops and provides "cheat sheets" in case you (or another moderator) lead workshops.

1. First, dedicate yourself to fundamentally discovering your WHY. And we strongly advise you to give it a lot of thought.
2. Make yourself some of the benefits clearthat it entails when you know your WHY.
3. Get an overview of the process that leads to the discovery of the WHY. It is important to go through this.
4. You may find it useful to guide the group through the discovery process as well.
5. Understand what needs to be done to enable the discovery of the WHY for a team, organization, or any other “tribe” in which people work together.
6. Make it clear to yourself how to lead a "tribe", that is, a group, through the process, on its
7. The end of the discovery of the WHY stands The WHY is the goal, the HOW is the route we choose to get there.
8. The next step is all about the HOW, the actions that we have to take to realize our WHY.
9. But it should also be clear how we share our WHY with others, and how we can live with our WHY and put it into practice.

On the way to inspiration: just start!

It is very difficult to estimate how long it will take to discover the WHY. There is the process for the individual and for the group and, based on our own experience, estimate approximately how much time each step will take. But these figures are only averages. For some people the process will be faster, for others it will be slower. There is no "right" timing. The important thing is to dwell on each section until you feel confident enough to move on to the next chapter.

We love to show people how to find their WHY. We would very much like to personally accompany each individual. But our vision is to breathe life into the WHY of as many people as possible. That is why we will be your virtual guides when you start the adventure. Inspiration!

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