I was watching this video shared to me by Manisha, where Simon Sinek is basically talking about how our ‘why’ doesn’t change based on what we are doing and where we are. As per him “You only have one why there is no such thing as a personal why and a professional why. You are who you are. And the reason your friends love you is the exact same reason your colleagues and your customers and your clients love you. It’s because of you. And if you’re acting differently in one of those two places than in one of those two places, you’re lying.”. The Full transcript of his video is below (transcribed by Otter.ai.).
You only have one why there is no such thing as a personal why and a professional, why you are who you are. And the reason your friends love you is the exact same reason your colleagues and your customers and your clients love you. It’s because of you. And if you’re acting differently in one of those two places than in one of those two places, you’re lying. There’s only one wine, the opportunities to bring your wife to life personally. Remember, it’s not about what you do. So my Y is to inspire people. So how do I show up as a friend, to inspire people? How do I show up as a, as a as a colleague, to inspire people I’m going to say different things. But ultimately, I have to bring my wife to life in different products, those products are friend, buy those products or leader those products or colleague, those products are brother and son and uncle and all of these places. These are different products. These are different things that I do that I have to bring my wife to life. So you only have one y and your y never changes your whole life. Regardless of The role you play, the opportunity your life affords you is is to bring your is is all the choices you can make to bring your wife to life. So the question is, is what you’re doing and why you’re doing it consistent? Because only when, why how and what are in perfect balance? Do we know who you are? People that people tell me all that for years people I forgot the who know I didn’t? Who is the sum total of why, how and what when you know what you believe? And you follow your values and what you do reflects what you believe in your values, then we know who you are, if those things are out of order, or they are you violate those things people say it’s like I don’t know who you are anymore. You have one why your why never changes just like a company, our personal why’s an origin story. It’s where we come from. It’s who we are. It’s how we were raised and the rest of our lives, opportunities to live in balance or not.
This transcript was generated by Otter.ai
I don’t agree 100% with Simon on this as how I behave and act is dependent on who I am with. Basically, when I go and meet friends, the persona I’m showing is a subset of my actual behavior/personality. For example, when I’m at work cracking inappropriate/risque jokes is something that is not advisable and what is called a bad idea. But when you are with close friends its a completely different story, you would crack jokes & make fun of each other and that’s completely accepable. Does that mean that I am not ‘true to my why’? Ofcourse not! Its a different part of my personality. However, as per Simon one of these behaviors is a lie because I am acting differently in both places.
Saying that you are not showing your true self because you’re only showing subsets of your personality is not really accurate, I call it being true in context. I’ll give another example. There are certain things/activities/actions that you will share with very close friends but would not share/do in front of casual acquaintances/co-workers. If you don’t believe me, look at how you behave with your school friends versus how you behave with your college friends versus coworkers. How your tone, your body language, your vocabulary use etc changes is based on who you are with. This is basic communication skills you learn as a kid where you are told to ‘know your audience‘. What you talk about & how you talk about it completely depends on the people you are communicating with.
All that being said, obviously your core personality and your core ethics etc will not (and should not) change depending on the circumstances but what subset of myself is shared is something that I decide based on the scenario and the audience.
What do you think?
– Suramya