Finding your What?

Recently, a LinkedIn post caught my attention: It talked about starting with What and not Why.

This intrigued me, as my readers and followers would know I use the “Start with Why” movement with anything I do, personally and professionally. I wanted to keep an open mind and hear the argument. That is the only way to learn and improve; don’t shut out anything from the start if they go against your beliefs. I needed to hear it out.

So the premise is that the focus should be on the What first because that is what is going on in the present. Because things change. That I agree with things, change in my 47 years my life has changed so many times it would make anyone’s head spin.

I have a genetic disorder called Crouzon’s Syndrome. It affects the skull growth and can have many complications that come along with it. Fortunately, the only complication that affected me the most was how I looked. Over the years, I was bullied because I looked a lot different than the other kids.

Then I got the surgeries to fix the way I looked and helped improved my way of life because it fixed two additional complications regarding my ability to eat and breathe. After that, I wanted to become a plastic surgeon at Sick Kids hospital to help others like me.

During high school, I helped out whenever I could. I played many sports teams; even though I wasn’t the most athletic person on the team, I knew working hard would make the others work hard to be better.

I was then off to university, and in that first year, I experienced the start of the end of my surgeon dream due to many factors that impacted me mentally, making school a tough go. I did the best that I could and helped others that had a tough go as well.

After university, I started working as a Customer Service Representative and User Acceptance Tester. This was the start of my professional career, where I worked to help others with their issues and improve the systems being developed.

Over time I became a team leader and went back to school to get my MBA because I wanted to continue my career to lead larger teams and help them succeed.

Following my graduation, I progressed to senior executive positions with the focus of helping others become better at what they do. This is the basis of Berriault and Associates; we are here to help everyone we work with become better than the previous day.

So with this short form of my life story, my What has changed. What did not change was my Why. I went through the process of determining my Why, and here it is: To help others so that they can succeed.

Succeed is a broad term. It can mean land that perfect job or create an email that provides value to everyone that reads it. My Why helps direct me to ensure I am happy and enjoy what I am doing.

Others may disagree with me and like to focus on the What first. That is their prerogative, and I will support anyone that feels that way because I want them to succeed.