“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”
~Simon Sinek
“People don’t care what you know until they know you care.”
For 40 years I have had the opportunity to serve as a leader in the field of education. The first 10 years, I was a leader in a classroom, designing and facilitating learning experiences, creating an environment that communicated “you are welcome, safe and loved” and learning as much as I could so that first and fourth graders were well served. I loved going to ‘work’ every day, because I loved ‘my kids’.
From there, I got to move into an assistant principal’s role, and then a building principal. For the next 17 years I served as leader of an entire school community. It’s the best (and at times, the worst) job in education! I was the beneficiary of countless meaningful experiences and relationships. I loved every day, because I valued the hardworking staff who helped all of our students be successful, safe, nourished, and master-taught. I loved our students and their families and enjoyed being with them, serving as their dedicated and committed leader.
I then moved onto a new role as a leader of leaders and accepted an opportunity to design professional learning experiences for principals and teacher leaders. They were all impressive exemplars in the field and I was once again the beneficiary of rich and rewarding relationships and moments. That chapter closed with the amazing opportunity to serve as a leadership coach, coaching schools through a school improvement process to achieve better results. This may have been the leadership role that impacted me more than any. It really brought a new and unprecedented emphasis to my why’s. It was indeed inspiring ~ both the people and the work.
The thousands of people I’ve had the great fortune to work with in my career as an educator didn’t buy what I did, but they did buy why I did it. They knew why I did what I did, because I lived my why. My purpose as a leader in all those different roles was to connect with people, support their genius, believe in them, help them grow, and celebrate them! That was my purpose and everything I did was rooted in those five why’s.
In 2009 I watched a TEDx Talk by Simon Sinek titled, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” In 2010 I shared that video and his related book, “Start With Why”, with 40 principals who had joined a Principals Academy initiative I was leading. The content of his TED Talk and his book has inspired me ever since.
The most important action to take when creating something is to clearly define “why?” Why? Because that is the first question most people will ask. Curious and courageous people will ask out-loud; critics and skeptics will utter it to themselves. But everyone will always ask it. So it seems to make perfect sense to begin there.
For the past 15 months, since retiring from full time work I have spent countless hours contemplating and writing about my next chapter. It’s kind of a reset thing in life. Big life event = reset. A large piece of that contemplation was ‘what is my why now?’ What purpose do I want to serve ? I re-read Sinek’s book as well as “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life,” by Francesc Mirales and Hector Garcia. Ikigai is, in translation, what gets you up and excited about each day. It resonated with me as another way to think about my why.
I found the process for defining why in a new chapter to be more a “backward design”. First, I actually had envisioned my goals for this new decade, life in my 60’s, and what means the most to me. I captured those ends in mind and titled them my seven highest priorities. Then I asked myself, ‘why are these my highest priorities?’ That led me to exploring what I value most at this point in life and I was able to provide definition to my whys.
Today, they are all very clear to me and I can articulate them with clarity and confidence. They were a necessary link for designing my action steps that will move me forward toward achieving my highest priorities.
Our why drives everything else which brings light once again to Simon Sinek’s wise recommendation to “start with why.” It determines what we say, do, feel, think, plan and what we say, do, feel, think and plan determines what results we will get. In this new chapter, I want even better results, different results, so I started with my whys. In next week’s post, I’ll be sharing my first of seven highest priorities, the why behind it, as well as the action steps I’ve designed for this year’s progress toward the related goal. I hope you will join me!
Who or what inspires you to be better? Why? What is your highest priority in this chapter? How do you know?
Thank you for stopping by and spending some of your precious time and energy to read my post today! I appreciate you and wish you kind and simple moments. Live inspired ~ on purpose!
Jolene D. Reinhart 