Nearly everywhere you turn, people are encouraging you to determine your deepest motivation for why you do the things you do. The book Start With Why by Simon Sinek is often cited as the key resource for this skill.
How this Book is Organized
The book is organized into 6 parts: a world that doesn’t start with why; an alternative perspective; leaders need a following; how to rally those who believe; the biggest challenge is success; and discover why. I’ve listed the titles here exactly as they appear in the table of contents and it’s not super clear to me how the book is really organized. It generally flows from a state where people behave in manners that aren’t motivated by their inner purpose and then into the benefits of having a purpose.
Overall Impression
The book provides some real examples (both successes and failures) of businesses and explains the motivations for their success and reason why. It’s an interesting read for learning the background of popular companies and background of motivation. However, there were not many concrete actionable steps that I found that I could take to help me discover my own reason why. It will take some introspection on the part of the reader to try to determine your own reason. I was hoping that this book would provide some guided prompts to help me think through my own inner purpose.
I feel like I got sufficient information on the importance and necessity of the “why” from Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk. (below)
Useful For
This book is useful for those of you who want to delve deeper into the references behind the Ted Talk or want to read at your own pace.
Amazon links are affiliate.
