If you’ve ever studied or listened to anyone talk about entrepreneurship and business, you have most likely at some point been told to identify “your why”. “What’s your why” they will tell you, or “get clear on your why”. What is your why? Why are you looking to achieve what you desire, how can you make money and be successful in certain areas, and so on. I spent many hours over the years, through meditations, journaling and other conversations, trying to identify my specific why.
Make no mistake, I fully agree on the importance of being clear on all the reasons why, because the bottom line is, if you don’t know the why, then what the heck is the point? But after years of dissecting and analyzing my why, and hearing over and over from the people I admire how important identifying the “why” is, I had an awakening that opened an entirely untapped purpose for my vision.
A suggested video was discovered while I was looking for spiritual and psychological nutrients online. As content from someone I regularly follow, I was surprised I hadn’t seen this one before and decided it would be a good listen whilst sweating it out on the stairs.
The video started out like most others. It spoke of being successful and then realizing that you don’t know why you are achieving your goals. This video was about how this business had an impact on their communities and followers.
As I climbed, I realized, all this time I had been focusing so intricately on the details of “My Why” I had forgotten an equally and arguably more important piece; “The Who”. I had spent so much time focusing on detailing “the why” that somewhere along the way “The Who” got lost in the sauce. You can imagine the revelation of disconnect I had when I realized that so much of my why was to make an impact, to add value, to empower and inspire, but I hadn’t identified “the who”. And without “the who” there is no impact to make, no value to add, and no one to empower or inspire.
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain
All of my social media posts were trivial to me and I started to consider them all. There were so many elements of my business that I would consciously do for “the why” of my success, all while entirely ignoring WHO I was doing it for.
I knew “why” it was important to create content for social media. And “why” it was important to do the tasks I wasn’t inspired to do. I knew “why” I was working so hard to create a company, to create time freedom and financial freedom for myself and my team. And “why” I should be willing to work harder than anyone else.
While I know that posting content on social media will improve my engagement, it is more worrying about what others think of me or how they judge me. WhoIt would be a great help. WhoYou would love it, and be able to relate. Music creation and programming to generate revenue for your business. WhoIt will empower, inspire and who’sIt could be your career or life.
So often I had heard business people and entrepreneur’s talk about the vital importance of adding value not just making money. The why was all I focused on, and that made it difficult for me to grasp. It didn’t make sense from my profit perspective why I would give away content, products, or services when my company needed to earn a profit.
I realized that is an unattainable concept if you are not equally focused on “the who”.
The fact of the matter is that having a “why” is the blood to the life of your business. You will be motivated, focused and clear if you have a “why”. It is the person who makes it even more powerful. It is what gives your product, company, or business its purpose. This requires personal investment and emotional engagement. You need to know who your clients, listeners, fans and followers are. They are not just important for your company, they are essential to the success of your business. They’re not just numbers and bars in a graph. These are mothers and fathers who use your product to help them be more successful as home-owners or parents. They also have young entrepreneurs that need you to coach. Your content inspires confidence in others and helps them to push themselves a bit harder. The why and the how are the two most important aspects of your business. But the heart is all about the who. The heart is what pumps life into your business’s veins. Without it, the only thing you will have are a bunch of sticky, cold red stuff.