{"id":5962,"date":"2021-05-03T13:22:15","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T13:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/markdjacobsen.com\/?p=5962"},"modified":"2021-05-03T13:23:49","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T13:23:49","slug":"when-you-lose-your-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markdjacobsen.com\/2021\/05\/03\/when-you-lose-your-why\/","title":{"rendered":"When You Lose Your &#8220;Why&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Today I published a <a href=\"https:\/\/fromthegreennotebook.com\/2021\/05\/03\/when-you-lose-your-why\/\">guest post<\/a> on my friend Joe Byerly&#8217;s blog From the Green Notebook. Joe and his team write about leadership, Stoicism, books, writing, and other aspects of the well-lived life&#8230; generally within a military context.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In earlier episodes of the From the Green Notebook <a href=\"https:\/\/fromthegreennotebook.com\/the-podcast-is-here\/\">podcast<\/a>, hosts Joe Byerly and Jacob Gawronski concluded each interview by asking their guests a question made famous by Simon Sinek: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1591846447\">What&#8217;s your why?<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a great question because it reveals so much about an individual&#8217;s character, values, and motivations. If Sinek is correct, <i>why <\/i>is the most important question a leader can ask, because everything else builds on that foundation. A clear <i>why <\/i>motivates strong leaders, creates and sustains powerful visions, inspires teams, and compels followers. We often spin our wheels trying to answer <i>what <\/i>or <i>how <\/i>questions, but <i>why <\/i>takes us a level deeper, to the source from which all other questions flow.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, after catching up on the podcast\u2014on a solitary drive through rural Alabama after a glorious day reconnecting with nature\u2014I switched off the stereo and contemplated how I would answer the question. After some consideration, I had to admit an uncomfortable truth: I don\u2019t know my <i>why<\/i>. Not right now, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>I suspect I\u2019m not the only one, so I\u2019d like to share a few thoughts on how I got here\u2014and how we navigate these seasons when our <i>why <\/i>is no longer clear.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fromthegreennotebook.com\/2021\/05\/03\/when-you-lose-your-why\/\">Read the rest at From The Green Notebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Simon Sinek advises his readers to &#8220;start with Why&#8221;\u2014the question from which all other questions and answers flow. Yet we all have times when we lose sight of our Why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When You Lose Your &quot;Why&quot; - Mark D. 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