One of the most important questions you can never ask enough is “why?”
“Why” is the most important element to our value proposition process and to helping you define your purpose. The more you work with me, the more you will begin to understand your surroundings at a deeper level and ultimately define your essence – because I will encourage you to ask “why” over and over again until it becomes a natural habit.
Getting into the habit of questioning “why” will feed your curiosity and help you to fundamentally understand the reason behind how things happen or occur as they do.
So let me ask you a question: if I met you for the first time at a bar, and asked you to tell me about your company, what would you say? Would you tell me about your products or services? How would you describe your function? Your customers? Would you tell me about your features and benefits?
Would you ever get to why you do what you do?
Probably not – unless I asked first.
It’s a common theme that I have studied over the years as I have asked people about their company and what they do for a living: the vast majority never get around to explaining their purpose or why they do what they do – because so many of us don’t take the time to even ask ourselves this question.
This is something we can work on together.
Maybe, eventually, you will ask me about my company. My answer will most likely depend on what I know about you – but the tick here is, is that I’m only going to know anything about you if I know what your fundamental purpose is for doing what you do… everything else is just surface facts.
I always want to give you something that is meaningful. So I might say that we have a very unique business that helps individual exactly like you grow your revenue, improve your people, and all the while minimize the risks along the way. Is that too broad? Maybe, but if you are having a problem with sales or employee retention, you might be intrigued right? I was able to get your attention by describing the outcomes of why we do what we do for people like you. I didn’t read off a job description, but rather explained the purpose of my business.
Can you see the difference here between the ways we approached one question? You get more value out of beginning with why. So, I have a challenge for you: begin questioning why. Why you do what you do. Begin the early stages of exploring your purpose further developing your essence.