2017 was the year of really finding my passion – namely group coaching and facilitating around shifting behaviours and mental models and maps. The problem was, I wasn’t sure why this was so important to me ? What was it I wanted to create ? I guess my Guinness World Record thinking was coming to the fore here as I love creating new things and finding new ways to do old things. I was looking for my purpose and in the word’s of Simon Sinek – I needed my why.

So when I was accepted on Simon’s Find your Why, Speak Like a Leader workshop in New York in November I went! And I was not disappointed.

If you haven’t read his book, add it to your list for 2018 and until then, watch the TED video. The simplest explanation is that we aren’t motivated by the ‘what’s’ of the world, we are motivated by why someone does what they do. Which are you more attached to:

a) We build bikes and distribute them to school children

b) We aim to get every kid to school

For me b) is the one that grabs me.

A why statement is simple in structure. First it describes YOUR CONTRIBUTION, then it describes THE IMPACT!

My why is to create spaces for change (my contribution) so that awesomeness flows (the impact I wish to have ).

It doesn’t stop there! A good why needs “how;s”. These describe who you are when you are at your best. My HOW’S are:

  • Listen…for the path and map the edges
  • Grow gentleness
  • Allow big to flow
  • Illuminate the impact
  • Find the pull

When I am showing up in those HOW’S, I am at my best. As opposed to being in a space where I am not welcome (no pull), where there is an expectation I will have the answers (and no-one wants the answers), which means that I am not listening and using other people’s expertise and knowledge and just filling in the gaps.

The process is simple, but not so easy. You take the top 5 stories of your life and in the telling of that (and the listening from the coach), themes emerge, words emerge and your WHY with its HOW’s starts to become clear.

This is in essence the workshop and coaching series that I have put together, the first of which goes out in March. Why ? Because I can’t imagine not living with my WHY or HOW’s! They have become a guide for me. When I wake up and I can’t see why today will be special – it is full of meetings and stand up’s and and and – then I remember, I am here to create spaces for change and in that remembering I relax…and so can connect to the awesomeness that I know very single person has only they don’t quite know it…yet!