Quotes from “Start with WHY” by Simon Sinek

“How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action”: Useful tips and an entrepreneur’s take on how big business transform our world, following their founders’ motivation 

Sinek’s book handles repetition to explain and inspire, utilizing as main examples Apple, Wal-mart and eventually his own personal story. It also says much about how our societies (not just the US) are currently organized, as well as about social and personal success (or failure). You may easily find echoes of the same concepts reported here and in other popular NLP, personal development, business management publications et similia.

The main referral throughout the pages is Roger’s Law of Diffusion, while hereby follow my favorite quotes:

<<With a little discipline, any leader or organization can inspire others, both inside and outside their organization, to help advance their ideas and their vision. We can all learn to lead>>

<<No matter how visionary or how brilliant, a great idea or a great product isn’t worth much if no one buys it>>

<<All the inspiring leaders and companies, regardless of size and industry, think, act and communicate exactly alike.

And it’s completely the opposite of everyone else>>

<<Most companies have no clue why their customers are their customers>>

<<Manipulations (…) don’t bring loyalty. Over the course of time, they cost more and more.>>

<<Knowing you have a loyal customer and employee base not only reduce costs, it provides massive peace of mind. Like loyal friends, you know your customers and employees will be there when you need them most>>

<<Deciding what law firm to hire, college to attend, car to buy, company to work for, candidate to elect – there are just too many choices. All the advertising, promotions and pressure employed to tempt us one way or another, each attempting to push harder than the other to court us for our money or our support, ultimately yields one consistent result: stress>>

<<Our natural need to belong also makes us good at spotting things that don’t belong. It’s a sense we get. A feeling. Something deep inside us, something we can’t just put into words, allows us to feel how some things just fit and some things just don’t>>

<<Great leaders and great organizations are good at seeing what most of us can’t see. They are good at giving us things we would never think of asking for (…) those who trust their gut, who understand the art before the science, who win hearts before minds. They are the ones who start with WHY >>

<<Leaving the safety of home to explore faraway places. Crossing oceans to see what’s on the other side. Leaving a stable job to start a business out of your basement with no money in the bank. Many of us look at these decisions and say, “That’s stupid, you’re crazy. You could lose everything. You could get yourself killed. What are you thinking?” It is not logic or facts but our hopes and dreams, our hearts and our guts, that drive us to try new things>>

<<We do better in cultures which are good fits. We do better in places that reflect our own values and beliefs>>

<<The role of a leader  is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen>>

<<When a journalist asked Kelleher (the visionary behind Southwest Airlines) who comes first to him, his response was heresy at the time (and to a large degree still is): “Employees come first and if employees are treated right, they treat the outside world right, the outside world uses the company’s product again, and that makes the shareholders happy. That really is the way it works and it’s not a conundrum at all”>>

<<Of the 27 million businesses registered in the United States, fewer than 2000 reach a billion dollars in annual revenues. And 99.9 percent of all businesses in America have fewer than 500 employees. In other words, mass-market success is really hard to achieve.>>

<<The goal of business then should not be to simply sell to anyone who wants what you have – the majority – but rather to find people who believe what you believe>>

 <<Charisma has nothing to do with energy; it comes from a clarity of WHY. It comes from absolute conviction in an ideal bigger than oneself. Energy, in contrast, comes from a good night’s sleep or lots of caffeine. Energy can excite. But only charisma can inspire.>>

<<Regardless of WHAT we do in our lives, our WHY – our driving purpose, cause or belief – never changes. WHAT we do should simply be the tangible way we find to breathe life into that cause.>>

 <<What if we showed up to work every day simply to be better than ourselves?>>

P.S.

You can grab a copy of this outstanding book here.

P.P.S.

Check out also the renowned TED talk held by the author back in 2009: