Today I watched a TED Talk How great leaders inspire action. Simon Sinek, the presenter, explains what he calls “The Golden Circle” with what on the outside, how in the middle, and why in the center. He then goes on to explain that great leaders, and great companies, focus on the why and work from the inside out. He likens this to the cortex of our brain, and how we evolved to “feel” our emotions. It’s an excellent watch, I recommend it, but it got me thinking a lot about my path.
Over the past two-and-a-half months I have been doing a lot of thinking, writing, self-development, and self-exploration. This inward looking has opened up my mind to all three of these: Why, How, and What. I think I have firmly developed all three, and know my path forward to achieve all three. But that doesn’t mean the end of the road. I have a long way to go and a lot of finding to do.
My Why (The Most Important)
I see a decentralized future where people don’t work for one employer, collect social security benefits, get a pension, or have a steady stream of income. Instead people will need flexible abilities which create value for people, no matter their needs. My why is about helping people come to this realization, grapple with the hardship of this reality, teach people how to develop a meaningful career/life, and to excel in the decentralized future.
I myself am going through it as I write this. It’s not easy to grapple with. But the more people ready for the future, the better.
My How
This one’s still in development. Hopefully it’s a combination of courses focusing on freelance working, budgeting/financing, blogging/podcasting about living life your way, and a mentorship program. The how needs to be developed but it’s directly motivated by my why.
My What
This is what’s communicated to the consumer. For now I’m focusing on teaching myself copywriting. In time my what and my how will create the material relating to my why.
Me Today
It sounds good to write this stuff out in a blog. It’s cool to put a nice picture, post it on facebook, and track viewership. But I believe that to be superficial. Life isn’t about social media likes. Life is about finding yourself and doing everything you want to do, for you.
I would love to say everything is free of hardship, and free of doing stuff you don’t want to do, but that would be doing you a disservice. Life is difficult at times, and we need to learn how to work through that, and do stuff we don’t like in order to do the stuff we do like. It’s not an easy path forward, but my “Why” is to limit the hardship on future wanna-be entrepreneurs.