This book has been recommended to me way too many times to ignore it. So I decided to go ahead and give it a read. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek shows how the most important thing in leadership is knowing the why. Most businesses focus on what they do and how they do it, but rarely know why they do it.
I expected this book to be more about finding and developing your why, and the importance of remembering it throughout the journey. I thought I would dive deep into why I am doing a PhD and why I write books. Instead, this book is purely about business. It helped me understand the importance of hiring people that have the same mindset as the founder. For instance, if you have a thrift shop, and you're environmentally conscious, it's important that the people who work for you believe in the same things you do. I learned how there is no recipe for success other than following your why. But I didn't get answers on a more personal level.
This book doesn't explain how to look for your why. That's the most difficult part, I suppose. Why do I do what I do? Because I'm passionate! But passion is not the answer to my why, and I have yet to search for it.
The book kept repeating the why, how, and what philosophy over and over, which made it a bit tiresome; it's a shame, because there's so much value in this book and simple editing could have fixed this.
Other than that, I believe I have gained so much insight into the minds of great leaders. I have even started noticing patterns in real life. The best part of reading a book is when you realize you can apply what you've learned in real life. And this happened straight away, effortlessly, just by looking at leaders I know personally.
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