We only recognise what we've experienced

Funny how even when the theory is so familiar, applying it is not necessarily straightforward. We have access to frameworks, step by step guides to almost any of life's challenges, created by those who have gone through it before us and were generous enough to share their lessons learned. Their stories reinforce and sometimes help accelerate our own journeys towards the same goal. But they are not shortcuts to internalising our own learnings.

Why does it matter to understand who we truly are? Because it helps cut out the noise. It defines ourselves not against others, but within ourselves. Once identified, we can seek to create harmony between what we do and why we do it and lead a more fulfilled life. What do we mean by our 'purpose', our 'why'? Simon Sinek, the creator of the golden circles describes it as "the value we have in other people's lives".

"A why is objective. It is the sum total of how we were raised, born out of the patterns and lessons we learned from our parents, teachers when we were young and it is fully formed by the time we're in our mid to late teens. We only have one why for the rest of our lives. It doesn't change. You are who you are based on how you were raised. You may not be acting as your true self [...] but when you are at your natural best your why is at the front and centre. Can you tweak the words? Of course; but that's semantics. Can we find better ways to bring the why to life? YES! That's the evolution." (DOAC podcast).

I’ve been familiar with Simon Sinek’s golden circles for many years. Have been to at least 3 or 4 trainings where versions of ‘finding our why’ were taught with the goal of emerging - after only a couple of hours or days - with this most fundamental epiphany. Needless to say, I never got there - neither did many of my class mates - all of us bumbling around with some generic version of ‘I want to help people’.

'Man sieht nur, was man kennt' (we only recognise what we know/have experienced) are words my mother always said. She was referring to places or things we saw on our many family trips and suddenly started to recognise in familiar places all around us. They were there before, but until we had seen / tasted / felt the originals, they were meaningless.

Simon's framework was there, but I wasn't permeable to it yet. At that point, just applying the steps skipped past the hard part of actually doing the vulnerable, scary work of self-reflection, capturing, adjusting. Once I'd started that, this was my indirect path to defining my golden circles:

WHAT

The short version of articulating what I do emerged succinctly one sunny Sunday morning as I was updating my CV:

"I keep my eyes on the business, my hands on making the organization effective and my heart with the people who bring it all to life".

Of course this didn’t come to me out of nowhere but from many weeks of reflection, deliberation, frustration and writing and talking about it with patient friends.

HOW

My how has been organic, refined against my values and even articulated time and time again throughout my professional life of leading teams. Not until eight months ago did I consciously put a pin in it though. Not because it was the next circle to define but because I felt I needed to provide readers of this prototype website a map to understand why I write about the themes that I do. And so emerged the 8Cs. Shakily articulated, but authentically my own proven methodology. 

WHY

The breakthrough here came only a few weeks ago after a couple of inspiring sessions with an old friend and artist who patiently listened and translated my explorations visually. Looking at my thoughts this way finally made the next step obvious: I needed to define my 'why' - the Why I had read so much about! So I re-listened to Simon Sinek’s TED talks, his books (ok, the Blinks) and podcasts and the familiar words finally resonated viscerally. I then re-read my own words and it was basically staring me in the face:

"I create connections with and for people by staying curious and sharing my learnings generously to unlock creativity".

I will refrain from extracting my own 'how to' list of steps that led me to this point. I will say this: Trust your process, especially when you start doubting it.

Regardless of how many have traveled similar paths before us, we have to do the work ourselves. To do it right, we cannot skip to their end. But it's comforting to know that their stories and learnings are there to guide, nudge and support us even when we don't realise we're leaning on them. Thank you, Simon Sinek, Brene Brown, Adam Grant, Janet, Nina, Guy, Eleni, Paul, Sarah, Stefano, MuVa, Charles and many more.

I'm now bursting with energy to find new ways to bring my why to life.