Giraffe Can’t Fly
by Dawn Landry | May 5, 2019 | Leveraging Strengths
Nature reveals so much to us — in living color — if we pay attention.
For instance, each species of animal knows its exact purpose and value on this Earth. Imagine a world in which we would witness a giraffe attempting to fly or a fish trying to do anything out of water.
Why isn’t that so? It’s simple; they know their value, play to their God-given talents and stay in their lane. So why is it so difficult for us? There’s a lesson that we humans can learn, and it is to recognize and embrace what we offer to this world.
To do so, we must truly own our individual talents and articulate our “Why” (value, purpose, mission or whatever you want to call it.)
Knowing and articulating your “Why” is becoming a movement; and that’s a great thing. In fact, Will Smith even highlighted its importance in the movie Collateral Beauty. He states that the love, time, death abstractions connect us and drive our decisions and our motivations — whether we are the seller OR the buyer.
I speak from experience when I state that before I did the work — including a lot of time, resource and financial investment in self-reflection and naval gazing — I was very much frustrated and was frustrating to those around me. Trust me, I’m nowhere near where I am going to be (as I am a work in progress.) However, I am also eons from where I started. Simon Sinek really started the inertia of the “Why” movement in 2009 with his Ted Talk. It rose to become one of the most watched TED talks of all time, with over 43 million views and subtitled in 48 languages. His unconventional and innovative views on business and leadership have attracted international attention. From American Airlines to Disney and MARS, from big business to entrepreneurs to police forces, Simon has been invited to meet with an array of leaders and organizations in nearly every industry. He is also a Best-Selling Author and lives by the philosophy: “Imagine a world in which the vast majority of us wake up inspired, feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day.” I believe in it so deeply that I participated and invested in a Sinek workshop to refine my “Why” in October of 2017. https://courses.startwithwhy.com/?utm_expid=.86hYr_oaQz6evbofBBJfww.1&utm_referrer= I soon learned that what I thought was my “Why” was really one of my “How’s” and that my “Why” was something completely different.
Sinek teaches that for a “Why” to be a good why, it has to resonate within your audience’s limbic part of their brain. It’s not the analytical side; it’s the feeling side. It’s that reason why we make decisions and when asked to justify, we say “I don’t know; it just ‘felt’ right.”
When you develop your “Why” there are various parameters. However, the foundation must be in service to others and it must be in the present tense and it must be inspirational, not aspirational.
My “Why” is:
• To Inspire, Ignite and Activate the Greatness in Others and Myself.
My “How’s” are:
• To Invest in Others
• To Be a Resource
• To Identify and Articulate Value to Others and Myself
• To Collect/Deliver the Right Info and People at the Right Time
• To Live a Life of Independence & Excellence
• To Move Forward and Surrender to the Possibilities of the Future
• To Stay Disciplined & Continue to Work Hard
These have become my North Star. When I feel that I am getting off track or trying to decide the next step, I reflect on these and ensure that the options are in alignment with my “Strengths”, as well as my “Why”. Otherwise, what’s the point? Recently, I was reminded of a story from my past in which I leaned into my innate talents to lead our team. I was a young, business development manager with a large, general commercial contracting firm in Houston. The leadership told me not to sell anymore for a period as we were full up and didn’t have any additional team members to assign based upon our current workload.
Rather than sitting around for months, I volunteered to assist our division with its goal of accrediting more LEED professionals locally. (For those who don’t know, I have a liberal arts degree and at that time had only two years of construction experience.) Leadership said sure, what do we have to lose. (I’m pretty sure that they thought that I would fail.) I joke that it was the blonde leading the blind!
However, I used my network and customized an eight-week training program for my colleagues. As I taught the program, I learned the materials. No one wanted to be the first to volunteer to take the test, so I did. I passed it on the first try, so others felt the peer pressure to study hard and do the same. We went from five LEED Accredited Professionals locally to 54!
As I look back, my “Why” was woven throughout that accomplishment. It drove me to help my colleagues achieve something that many had longed for; it helped our division AND it helped us in the long run to win more work.
Do you know your value? What successes can you reflect upon that demonstrate your “Why” in action? It’s your SUPER POWER; use it for good! If you would like to discuss and/or explore more about this topic, please contact me at dlandry@authentizity.com
