Simon Sinek

Start With Why

How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Start With Why Summary

15 minute read    Audio Available

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Synopsis

In business, it doesn’t matter what you do, it matters why you do it. Start with Why analyses leaders like Martin Luther King Jr and Steve Jobs and discovers that they all think in the same way – they all started with why. 

Who is this book for?

  • Readers who are interested in persuasive and leadership oriented books.
  • People who need to use persuasion to generate sales or inspire change.
  • Anyone interested to learn how to use why to get desired results.

Meet the author

Simon Oliver Sinek (born October 9, 1973) is a British-American author, motivational speaker and organisational consultant. He is the author of five books, including Start With Why (2009).


Start With Why Summary

Those who understand “What” might succeed. Those who understand “Why” most certainly will.

Some leaders have the capability of inspiring those around them, they employ specific ways of thinking and expressing themselves. Any leader can encourage people, both inside and outside their organization by engaging discipline in his/her ways of thinking and general behavior.

They intentionally offer assistance to their workmates and the advance their ideas and their vision. We can all learn to lead. The following are reasons why you must start with why;

It is luck that makes great achievers succeed. To attain your goal, you must be adequately and highly motivated.

You must have a strong work ethic. Have a keen mind on whatever it is you are doing to reach your goals.

You must inspire those around you to develop with you. There is only one thing to do before you do all these, start by asking why. After answering the question, you may proceed to the next step. The answer is always tied around the goal.

You must have the ability to think differently in your line of work. You must be able to repeat the pattern of success over and over again.
A leader is different from an individual who leads. For most of the successful leaders, their goals are not different than anyone else’s yet they stand out among their peers.

They stand out from the norm, and their impact is unique to the whole environment. They are groups of leaders who perform extraordinary practices.

They inspire everyone around them. Individually or as a group, we all need to motivate others to act and have a purpose. Some want to stimulate a purchase decision. Others are looking for support or a vote.

Moreover, others focus on energizing the individuals around them to work harder or smarter or follow the rules.

The more information you have the better off you’ll be. Every decision you make has an impact and the more you know the better you can control what that impact is.

Sometimes we use the false or incomplete information to make assumptions about the world around us. Your behavior is affected by your assumptions or perceived truths.

We make decisions based on what we think we know. No matter your definition of success, our goals is very similar.

You may define your success as making a certain amount of money, making huge profits, getting a big promotion, starting your own company or helping the needy but they are all similar. Most people try to at least gather some data so we can make educated decisions.

Sometimes this gathering process is formal, and sometimes it’s informal, like asking our friends and colleagues for advice. Everyone wants to make educated decisions. Everyone wants to make the right choices.

No matter how much data you collect about decisions, not all are the right ones. There can be minor or catastrophic impacts from those wrong decisions you make.

Everyone makes decisions based on a perception of the world that at times may not be entirely accurate. Not only bad decisions are made on false assumptions.

Sometimes when things go right, we think we know the reason. Logic dictates that more information and data are vital when making decisions.

People read books, attend conferences, listen to podcasts and ask friends and colleagues all in the name of finding out more so they can figure out what to do or how to act. Assumptions can lead you astray even when they base on proper research.

More data can lead us to make better decisions, but that doesn’t always help. We must consider other factors.

These factors exist outside of our rational, analytical and curious brains. When faced with frustrating results, several very effective tactics can be applied to achieve the desired outcome.

Many organizations function in a world of physical goals and ways of attaining them physically. Great leaders understand the value in the things you cannot see.

Everything you do in life starts with a decision.

Find the order in your situation. Any situation can be structured and organized in an ordered way as long as you understand WHY things happen.

There are a few leaders who choose to inspire rather than manipulate to motivate people. All inspiring leaders think, behave and communicate in the same ways. They follow a naturally occurring pattern called the Golden Circle. It derives from the concept of the golden ratio that gives evidence of order in this world.

The Golden Circle tends to finds order and predictability in our “chaos- filled” lives. It helps us understand why we do what we do. The Golden Circle provides that we can achieve so much more in our lives if we can start by asking why in everything we do.

It tries to explain why some leaders have achieved in their circle of influence. It answers the question, “How?”. The Golden Circle shows how these leaders were able to inspire action instead of manipulating people to act.

This perspective you can use as a guide to vastly improving leadership, corporate culture, hiring, product development, sales, and marketing. The golden circles consist of the questions, What, How, Why.

Knowing WHY is essential for lasting success. Most companies are concerned with what they do and how they do it without asking WHY.

Companies and individuals with a clear sense of WHY never worry about it. They don’t have to “convince” anyone of their value because before they go “public,” they have already answered the Why.

Answering you’re Why is a sure way of maintaining a lasting success and having greater innovation and flexibility. It becomes difficult to support the growth, inspiration and the constant success when your WHY starts fading.

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“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe” 

Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

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