What Gets You Out of Bed in the Morning?

The book Start With Why by Simon Sinek shows many examples of companies that have declined after their WHY (their cause) becomes fuzzy. Examples of these in the book are Wal-Mart, Dell and most noticeably AOL. This makes me think about our own personal cause, as individuals. What gets us out of bed in the morning? Why do we do the things we do? Do we aim for short term gratification like Commodus, the Roman emperor who triggered the decline of the empire? Or do we have a clear cause, an infinity game? The book mentions Apple multiple times as an example of a company with a clear cause: give more power to the individual to be able to push against the status quo. Everything Apple creates is consistent with this cause. At least that's how it was when Steve Jobs was alive, time will tell if Apple is able to be consistent without him.

Anyways, back to us.

What is our cause, as individuals?

Mine is: To contribute positively to the health of the planet even though it will cease to exist in about 5 billion years.

And guess what, Earth has reached its middle age. It might even be experiencing its mid life crisis!

I am now trying my best to be intentional with this. Are all of my actions aligned with my cause? My WHY?

Blog: yes (self-reflection)

Podcast: yes (self-awareness)

Coaching: yes (purpose finding)

Teaching English to kids in Vietnamese public school: yes (awareness of self-potential for children)

And many more to come. Notice that I didn't include gratitude, that is my current challenge.

Now I can feel an excitement to continue finding more ways to support my cause. (It can feel a bit lonely sometimes because I haven't found many like-minded people, but maybe I just haven't looked hard enough).

What kind of leaders would have a similar cause? It must be people with an abundant mindset. And this makes sense why Steve Jobs recommended the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Apparently this was the ONLY e-book found in his personal iPad. It must be for a reason. If you are one of the 2.5% of people in the world who will take the time to read this book, let's do a podcast episode on it.

Much love and may you realize your WHY