In episode #29, Wilco talks about the most important question that you can ask yourself, and that is, "What is your why?"
Links:
Simon Sinek: 'How great leaders inspire action
Hey everyone, it's me, Wilco de Kreij, here, and today I want to talk about the most important question that you can ask yourself, and that is, "What is your why?" What I mean with that is like, why are you doing what you're doing, and that, "Ah to make money," or whatever.
Making money, or getting more sales, or getting more customers, that's a result of the work that you do, but that's not you're true why.
So today, I want to talk about what is your why, and why it is important, because for a long time, I thought that the only reason to knowing your why is important, is basically to find internal motivation. And obviously, that's partially true, that's definitely true, but it's, that only grabs, that's only a small part of why it is so important. That's why I want to talk, dive into this today.
So, if I look back over the years as an online entrepreneur, there's definitely been up and downs. There's periods where I'm super focused, and I can just move mountains. There's so much stuff happening, I feel I'm in the zone, and everything's going exactly as I planned, yada, yada, yada.
But then, at other periods, I sort of plateau. Business is going flat, or at least it feel like that. I'm not as motivated, and I'm really searching for that motivation. At these periods, knowing my why is incredibly important. I mean, when my business was smaller, I was able to get enough motivation out of, for example, monetary results. I was like, "If I can do x,y,z," in terms of revenue or profit, or whatever, that motivated me, because it was going to have a substantial impact on my life. If I would double the amount of money I would make, it would have a substantial difference on my life.
Well today, monetary goals don't drive me anymore. It's like, maybe you can, or maybe you cannot relate, but at some point it's just like, that doesn't really matter. And at that point, the why becomes even more important, because if you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, how do you get out of bed in the morning? Just as an example.
So, you need to know your why for internal motivation. But what I discovered is actually, that's just, the why is not just for your own motivation, but if you know your why, everything will move along. In fact, I just watched a presentation by Simon Sinek, it's actually on TED, TED.com, you probably know You would search for, 'How great leaders inspire action.' I repeat, 'How great leaders inspire action.' You'll find his presentation. I highly recommend it, it's awesome.
What he basically, what that presentation is basically about is that, as a company, a lot people they ... basically he draws a circle on the board. In the middle he has why, and then how, and then what, on the outside. Most companies, they talk about the what first. Like, "This computer, it has all these features." How; "It's really well designed, it works well." And then maybe the why, why they do their thing.
But they focus on the what first. Well, some companies, they start with the why. They start with, "We want to change the world."
Like, for example, Apple, "We want to change the status quo. We want to change the world. We're doing that by redesigning modern computing," and how, with all the products that they have.
If you watch that presentation, it's going to make a lot more sense compared to how I'm explaining it, but basically where it comes down to is that those that start with they with, that's, basically you need to start with the why if you want to truly impact. If you truly want to follow ... get a group of people to follow you, if you truly want to be a leader, whether it is as a company, whether it is as a politician, or whatever it is. You need to start with your why, and if you don't know your why, it's really hard to really influence people, because people don't, they are not influenced by just the specs. They're not influenced by the what, only influenced by the true why.
Now, this may sound super vague, right now, I apologize for that. My point here is that, if you know your true why, you can convince people to believe in that same thing as you do. That goes for your customers, or potential customers, but also in your team. If everyone in your team is just focused on like, "Oh, let's do this, because we need to make it happen," they're just doing their job to get paid, basically.
However, if they truly believe in what you believe in as well, if you explain them the why you are doing things, and they believe that as well, that's when they go all in. That's when they will, you're like, "Let's do this together."
It's not just about the money. Obviously they need to make a living, but they do it because they believe in it. They believe in the why. They believe in the reasoning behind it.
For a long time, I haven't personally been super clear on this. Actually started to formulate this more and more in the recent period, so probably still changing as we go along, but I'm more than happy to just, you know, let you know what I think my why is. Because if I truly look at myself, and even as a young kid, what I always loved doing most, is to do things in a way that make me feel smarter than someone else. Not like smarter, I don't want to, no, that's probably the wrong wat of saying it, right. I don't feel smarter, because ... I actually don't, but I want to do things that are smarter than other people. I want to do things that are more efficient.
For example, even in high school, when all the people would, for example, study three weeks for a test, I would challenge myself to do in like, two days, max. Why? Because it gave me a kick to just do it in a more clever way than someone else did. Like in the exact same thing these days; other people might just throw something online hoping for people to share with their friends. I love it when I can use, for example, UpViral and have system or a trick, or a strategy in place, that makes sure I'm in the advantage, that I can actually do things better, or smarter, or more efficient than someone else.
And right now, this, once again, may sound super vague. I'm still sort of exploring, but that's really, in the real core of me, I love being, doing things that are basically more efficient, and more effective than the average. Do things as the top couple percent, basically, just of things a little bit more clever. Like clever tricks, clever strategies, clever, just tiny tweaks that make all the difference.
That's what I love doing most, and I noticed that's also what I love teaching most all this, as well. Instead of just following the crowd, and do the same thing as everyone else is doing, yada, yada, I love it when I can just share a little trick, and like something that other people just haven't seen it, and those who do, they immediately have a competitive advantage over their competitors. That's what I love doing. And that's really what is the basis of both UpViral and Connectio. I connect all the tools. I just do the things a little bit trickier, a little bit smarter, a little bit better than everyone else.
I give you an example. So for example, if you're advertising on Facebook, a lot of people, they're just retargeting, and they're retargeting everyone who visited their site, right. So I came up with ConnectRetarget that allows you to only retarget those for example, who spend more than x time on your site. Or who scrolled to at least 50% of your page.
I like all these kind of things. I just doing it smarter than everyone else, and we're getting such a big improvement of ROI, but for me, personally, it's not even about the ROI itself, it's really about doing things smarter, doing things in a more clever way compared to the others, and to compared to my competitors.
So, that's really what drives me. That's what I love, and right now I'm really going through that process of finding my true why, and finding the right word for it, because obviously I'm not a native English speaker. So in Dutch it's easier for me to formulate, and over time, when I talk about people, when I talk about this with other people, it will start to formulate better, and that's actually also why I'm sharing it here on the podcast with all of you, so you can all ... I'm just trying to formulate my why.
The real point of this podcast is that by knowing your why, you'll, it will be easier motivate yourself, it will be easier to motivate your team, and it will also be way easier to influence your potential customers. Because if they believe in your why, regardless of what the actual product of you does, that you deliver, but if they believe in your why, they are so much more inclined to become a customer compared to a competitive product that actually may do the exact same thing, may have, may look the same, may smell the same, maybe the exact same, but if they believe in your mission, if they believe in your why, they're going to take your product. They're going to buy your product, because they believe in your why, and by buying it, they are basically voting for that as well.
So that's why it's so important. So once again, I would highly recommend you to look up the video called, 'How great leaders inspire action.' It's in TED.com, and it's presented by Simon Sinek. I'm not sure if I pronounce it right, but I just watched it this morning, and I absolutely love ... and actually just noticed that it got over 35 million views, so there's a good chance that you've already watched, that you've already seen it. So, if not, go check it out, and with that having said, I will talk to you all soon.
"If you don't know your why, it's really hard to really influence people."
"Basically you need to start with the why if you want to truly impact."
"If you know your true why, you can convince people to believe in that same thing as you do."
"If they believe in your why, they are so much more inclined to become a customer."
