have to have a higher purpose.
2. You have to have a trusting team.
3. You have to have worthy rivals.
4. You have to have the capacity for existential flexibility.
5. You have to have the courage to lead.
This is the end of the course introduction. You know what to do, right? Listen to this introduction a few times a day. Follow your basic plan and use your body to help you understand the material better and remember it faster and longer. Next is the first unit which is called “A Higher Purpose”. See you there.
Unit 1. A Higher Purpose
Hello, there! This is Alex. Hope, you are having a nice day today. My goal is to help you speak business English like never before. My ultimate goal is to help you become a better human being. Okay, welcome to the main audio for “A Higher Purpose”.
There is a fantastic man, named Simon Sinek. He is a best-selling author, writer and a brilliant public speaker, the man with a rare intellect. And he wrote a fantastic, wonderful, great book called “Start with why?”
The reason I am going to use his book first is that many people they know what they do in life. They know how they do it. But just a few know why they do it. If you ask someone, “Why do you go to work every day?” Ninety five percent of them will answer, “I go to work, become everybody goes to work”. You see, they don’t know why they are doing it.
As Simon Sinek says, “Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do, one hundred percent – these are the products you sell, or the services you offer. Some of them know how they do it, it’s how you differ from others, or what makes you special, but very very few people and very very few organizations can clearly state, articulate or say why they do what they do. By “Why” I don’t mean to make money. It is not a secret that we all work for money. But the money you make that is the result of what you do. It’s always the result.
By “Why” I mean what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your company exist? Why did you get out of bed in the morning? Why should anyone care?
This is the way we think, the way we act, the way we communicate. We all start with what we do, then we say how we do it and only then we say why we do it.
That’s how most of marketing is done. That’s how most sales are done. And that’s how most of us communicate interpersonally. We say what we do, we say how we are different or how we are better and we expect some sort of behavior and purchases from other people.
But if you look and hear how great, huge and really successful leaders communicate, you will notice that they all do it in reverse. They all start with “Why” they do what they do. Then they say how they do it and then and only then they say what they do.
Now let’s look at the way Apple Company actually communicates their ideas selling their products to us.
“Everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our product beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happened to make great computers. Wanna buy one?” Totally different, right? No tricks, no manipulations, no celebrity endorsement (approvals).
This is the way our brain actually works and communicates. If you reverse the order of the information, you will prove that people don’t buy what you do. People buy why you do it.
If you talk about what you believe, you will attract those people who believe what you believe.
Why when we start with “what” it doesn’t work very well, but when we start with “why” it certainly does.
It doesn’t work very well because when we start with what, we are talking directly to the part of the brain that is responsible for rational and analytical thought and language.
The next two, I mean: “how” and “why”. They are responsible for all our feelings like: trust and loyalty. It is also responsible for all human behavior, all decision-making that has no capacity for language.
In other words, when we communicate with “what”, yes, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like: facts, figures and benefits. But it doesn’t drive behavior. It doesn’t make them take actions. It doesn’t help them buy better from you.
When we communicate from “why”, we are talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things (something we can touch and feel) we say and do”.
That’s why we absolutely must know why we do what we do, how we do it and what we do. Because if you don’t, how will you make people buy something from you or more importantly how you will make people be loyal to you and be a part of what you do.
So what is A Higher Purpose?
A Higher Purpose is the cause, the reason that is so just that you would willingly sacrifice your own interests in order to advance this cause, this higher purpose.
You must give your people the higher purpose. You have to tell why they do what they do.
It is important because if you have a purpose, you exactly know what to do in your life or with your life. For example, you want to do something creative or you want to be someone like a doctor or a teacher. That is your purpose, your goal. That is something you want to do in your life. Something that motivates you to do what you wanna do.
Remember: People don’t buy what you do. People buy why you do it. And what you do simply serves the tangible prove of what you believe.
This is the reason why every single person is perfectly comfortable buying a computer from Apple. And we are also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player from Apple, or a phone from Apple.
For this little idea to work you have to have three things:
One – you have to know why you what you do. If you don’t know why you do what you. How will anyone else?
Two – you have to have disciple of how. You have to hold yourself and have people who are responsible to your values and your guiding principles.
And three – you have to have consistency of what.
Everything you say and everything you do. Everything must prove what you believe. At the end of the day – “why” is just a belief. It’s all what it is.
“Hows” are the actions we take to realize that beliefs and “whats” are the results of those actions.
And if what you say and what you do – doesn’t show what you believe then no one will know what you believe.
As Simon Sinek likes to say “The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is not to beat the competitor. The goal is to outlast the competitor. And you can only do it
