In this episode, I talk with my new friend, Dr. Gary Sanchez. Dr. Sanchez spent years trying to figure out how to stand out in the crowded marketplace of dentistry. That is when he sought out, learned about, and put into practice the power of knowing his WHY. Using his WHY to market his practice allowed him to go from just getting by to abundance. Dr. Sanchez has worked with many types of clients, from school districts to Fortune 500 companies, and has seen powerful results from groups both big and small. The founder of the WHY Institute, Dr. Sanchez is passionate about sharing what he has experienced and creating real change for groups of many sizes – from large conferences to small teambuilding workshops.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Learn Your Why with Dr. Gary Sanchez

In this episode, we’re going to talk about finding your why. I’ve got a guest who makes his living showing others how to do that. I’m excited and eager to share him with you. First, I want to share a little bit of my thinking around this question of why as it’s been on the top of my awareness. Many of you know about the kids who were lost in a cave in Thailand and are now rescued little by little. I can’t help but wonder about these poor kids and their coach trapped in a cave somewhere between the outside world and this pit of hell by water that’s coming in from monsoons and water that got into the caves. I was thinking about the nine days they were trapped and had no idea whether anybody knew they were gone or where they were or had any inkling how to find them.

What it must’ve been like to be nine days in a small enclosed space with nothing to do, with no light, water, food, and hope. What’s going to happen? What’s our life going to be? Are we going to be destined to sit here and live out our final moments gradually losing air or dying of illness from the water? What goes through one’s mind? What kept them going? I’ve got to say maybe it’s a natural will to live. People who’ve survived and thrived in exceptionally grueling conditions, like Nazi concentration camp survivors, often thrive as a result of having a clear sense of purpose. These are the people who make it through those experiences less broken and maybe even better in the long run. They are those who, at some point along the way, perhaps discovered their why. I’ll use purpose and why interchangeably.

I’m thinking about one’s life purpose and the reason for being. Everyone needs something that gives their life meaning. I write about this a lot in my book UnHypnosis. I talk about finding your essence, and that is the first step in living the life of your dreams. When I talk about finding your essence, there is something buried inside of you, beneath all the layers of programming, between all the layers of what you’ve become habitual at, who you think you are and the roles you think you’re meant to play. If somebody asks you who you are, you whip out your business card. That’s not who you are, that’s just a label.

We’ve got lots of labels, but underneath all of our labels is the essence of who we are. Finding our essence is the essence of what moves me. That’s my why. My why is helping others discover their essence, to discover that beneath these programs, habits, and thoughts that they think define them, there’s something much deeper. There is something much more profound that lives in the area of purpose and the area of why. From my perspective, a lot of that has to do with getting quiet, calm, becoming introspective, and slowing down, so that you’re not constantly doing. You go from a human doing to becoming truly a human being.

One might be able to sit through the urges to act without consciousness, which we often do. We hack on automatic programs or avoid being pulled at into a useless action. We’re all doing that all the time. We’re finding busy work or finding a way to prevent yourself from doing things because you can’t handle doing nothing. We’re deathly afraid of nothing. We fill our moments with something, whether it’s television or the internet, Facebook, idle chitchat, or an extra activity. We could fill our time quite well being very busy, spinning our wheels, and looking exceptionally competent, but not producing the results we want.

What drove me to this question and why I’m still profoundly grateful to have our guest is that I have a lifelong why around this. I started out very young with a lot of insecurity, emotional brokenness, anxiety, and depression. I was not feeling good about myself. One of the very first things that spoke to me was the play, Man of La Mancha, the story of Don Quixote. I was fourteen years old when I ended up memorizing the play. That’s how moved I was by it. It’s the story of the mad knight, Don Quixote, who lives an unconventional life. He lives his why and purpose, which is to elevate and uplift others. There are constantly naysayers in the play. People were telling him, “You’re being unrealistic. You’re not living life as it is.”

At one very pivotal point in the play, the character of Cervantes, who is the author of Don Quixote’s play within the play, gives a monologue. The essence of it is this, he says, “I’ve seen life as it is, pain, misery, suffering, and cruelty beyond belief. I’ve seen my friends fallen, combat, or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they die despairing. There’s no glory, no gallant last words, only their eyes filled with confusion, muttering the question, ‘Why?’ I think they asked not why they were dying, but why they had ever lived.”

When life itself becomes lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Maybe it’s to be too practical as men, maybe it is to see a pain where there is a possibility. Too much sanity may be madness. As he says, “It’s to see life as it is and not as it ought to be.” I’ve lived my life by that, trying to create a life out of vision and help others do the same. I help them dig deep and find out what it is for them that produces a rewarding life and makes a difference in the lives of others. With that as a background and an underlying flow to my life, I am constantly fascinated by people who think this way. People who take the time to do more than just go through the motions.

I met this gentleman who impressed me and I’m profoundly excited about sharing with you. He is a new friend who’s doing some remarkable stuff in helping businesses build their brands around their why. From the prior conversations I had with him, I guarantee you’re going to hear some worthwhile things that will help you further your business.

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I am thrilled to be introducing our guest, Dr. Gary Sanchez. He spent years trying to figure out how to stand out in a crowded marketplace of dentistry. That’s when he sought out, learned about, and put into practice the power of knowing his why. He’s using his why to market his practice allowed him to go from getting by to abundance. He has worked with many types of clients from school districts to Fortune 500 companies. He’s seen powerful results from groups both big and small. The Founder of the Why Institute, Dr. Sanchez is passionate about sharing what he has experienced in creating real change for groups of many sizes, from large conferences to small team building workshops.

 

He’s a recognized leader in high energy professional presentations. I was introduced to Gary by Jerome Wade, who was a previous guest. Jerome and I hit it off and have a lot of synergy in our work and beliefs. We got on a call together, we like to brainstorm with our fellow colleagues, and we did find a common ground here. I’m absolutely delighted to be inviting Dr. Gary Sanchez. Gary, welcome.

Steve, thank you very much. I’m excited to be here and share what I know with your audience.

We all need more of that. I always like to ask my guests before we get into any content. Most of my guests travel. I, myself, am on the road a lot. Where have you been lately? Is there anything interesting going on?

I was in San Diego. This summer was a little different because I decided after 30 years that I wanted to take a little time off. I’ve taken about seven weeks off this summer and I am having some quiet time mixed with some travel time. We’re also going to go up to Canada and I’m going to take a trip with some of my college friends. We might go to Iceland. I’m looking forward to that.

I had a conversation with Jerome and he was talking about executive exhaustion. He had taken a seven-week hiatus from his business. He was exhausted, and he said that at the end of seven weeks, even though he did all these remarkable things, he was still exhausted. The depth of exhaustion that an executive can feel requires, which you and I value, the willingness to honor those rhythms, to quiet down, to go somewhere, and replenish yourself. Bravo for that. San Diego is my second favorite city in the world.

I have a daughter that’s out there for the summer, so we went out there. My wife and I went out and spent a weekend with her. She was with about 70 college kids in this group called Kaleo. It’s a leadership thing and they had a parent weekend. We went out there and got to meet these kids. They were a special group of kids to be involved with. I was expecting a bunch of nerdy kids and it was completely the opposite. They were very intelligent, athletic, and good speakers.

If you build a great product, people will come. Click To Tweet

Your backstory is interesting. You’re a graduate of USC Dental School back in ‘88 and you practiced in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I love your bio, it says that you were told that if you build a great product, people will come. You spend twenty years building a great product and a great practice. You did okay, but you didn’t hit that magic mark based on simply building a great product. You discovered that there’s more to it than just doing a good job.

I bet a lot of your audience has heard that same thing. If you build a great product, people will come. If you go do the best job that you can, people will somehow naturally find out about you and come to see you. Maybe that works for some people, but I can tell you I spent twenty years building a great product. We went at it full on. We were having half-day staff meetings every week for two years to get our policies and systems in place, so we can deliver on what we said we were going to do. I went to the best institutes that you could go to in dentistry. Whoever was good at what I wanted to learn, I would fly them into my office and have them work with me one-on-one and hands-on to learn with the best of the best.

We had all the latest technology, a beautiful facility, and all the stuff. It wasn’t enough. People didn’t want to talk about their teeth. They didn’t want to go to a party and say, “Look at these nice new crowns Dr. Sanchez made for me.” They wanted someone to say, “You’ve got a great smile,” and then they say, “Thank you.” They left it at that. I found that my patients got used to the treatment that we had in our practice. It became the norm for them and they didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t something that came up. We ended up with a practice filled with patients who didn’t need any treatment. That became very frustrating for me.

I used to think if I’d buy another piece of technology or if I’d hire another team member that it will solve the problem for me, but it didn’t. It just compounded it in it. I remember the last straw, I was sitting in my office one day looking at my computer screen at my half empty schedule wondering, “How could this have happened to me? How could I have worked so hard at building a great product and people are not appreciating it, seeing it, and valuing it as I did?” I remember thinking at that moment that I had always looked outside of myself for answers like buying something else, hiring someone new, bringing in a consultant. I thought that’s going to solve it for me.

If you start with your why, you’ll connect differently to people. The right ones will find you and seek you out and the wrong ones won't. Click To Tweet

I knew that I needed to take that mirror that had been pointing at everything else and point it at myself and say, “Who am I? Why do I do what I do? What is my gift? What do I bring? Why should somebody come to see me?” That was the turning point for me that got me on the path to being obsessed with discovering my why. You’ve probably heard or seen that TED Talk from Simon Sinek on Start with Your Why. One of my mentors at the time introduced that to me and I probably watched it 30 times. I was like, “That’s the missing piece. That’s what I need to do right there. That makes so much sense to me.” I’ve been talking about what I do, the things that I have, the degrees that I possess, all this stuff that it is to be a dentist, and I blend in with everybody else who does the same thing.” I learned if I start with my why, I’ll connect differently to people. The right ones will find me and seek me out, and the wrong ones won’t. It made a lot of sense to me like it probably has to you. You’ve heard and seen that concept.

First of all, I want to echo something you said because I was a chiropractor for many years. I have a similar experience myself. I had a successful practice, I probably could have been more successful had I discovered some of these principles earlier. What I heard early on is, “Satisfied patients don’t refer, enthusiastic patients refer.” You could have a lot of satisfied patients, but they’re not enthusiastic. They won’t be enthusiastic based on the mirror execution of what they expect, so you need to give them more than that. You said something about how your pattern had been to look outside of yourself and then you turn it toward, “Who am I? Why do I do what I do?” Are we talking more about something that you know inside of yourself or are we talking about you discovering it so that you can articulate it to others?

Everybody senses something about themselves. They think they know their why or they feel their why or they’ve spent some time wondering about it. Since forever, men have been asking that question. From the Bible to Mark Twain to Simon Sinek, people have been talking about this forever, “Why do I do what I do?” Simon Sinek came along and developed the Golden Circle Concept, which is the three concentric circles of why, how, and what. Once he developed that concept, we could see it. We say, “Now I get how it all works. Now I see how it fits together.” Until you know your why, it’s just a concept. It’s something that sounds good, but you can’t do anything with it.

That was what happened to me when I saw what Simon developed. When I read his book and watched his TED Talk so many times, I was like, “That’s exactly what I want. That’s exactly what I need, but I have no idea how to do it.” It became another one of those books that pisses you off because, “That’s what I want and I can’t have it.” That’s when I became obsessed with discovering my why. I was like, “I’m going to figure this sucker,” and I did. Like how I went at other things in my life, I went at that full speed ahead and I talked to anybody who knew anything about the why. I called Simon, I had him work with me, I had all kinds of different experts try to help me discover my why.

 

It took me about eight months of working with to finally figure out what my why Is. My why is to find a better way and then share it. My life has always been about finding better ways to do things. I’ve got lots of patents, products, and inventions, all better ways of doing things. Right now, I’m sitting in a chair that I invented called the Health Chair. It’s a better way to sit because instead of you forming yourself to the chair, the chair forms itself to you. I started fitness challenges for everyday people, a better way to get in shape. Everything in my life has always been about finding a better way, so my life made so much more sense to me. I started to go backwards in my life and noticing how it played out over and over.

My life has always been about finding a better way and then I share it. I took what I learned about my why and I applied that to the messaging of my practice. Instead of talking about what we do, “We do crowns, bridges, and fillings,” we started talking about why we do what we do and what we believe in. We started talking about, “We believe that life is better with great teeth. In fact, you can’t have a great life if you have bad teeth.” Our vision is to help people be who they were meant to be by giving them great teeth because the teeth often hold people back. Imagine not being able to smile, to chew, to not be close to anybody, and to not be intimate with anybody because of your teeth. Imagine that life and in one day, I can reverse that for people. It’s a better way to live. Our messaging changed from “what we do” to “why we do what we do” and our practice took off. I practice with my brother. We went from four to six new patients a month, which is barely surviving, to 35 to 45 new patients a month. In our practice, a new patient is worth about $6,000. That’s a significant difference for us. As my practice took off, I started getting calls from other dentists wanting me to help them do what I did.

When you discovered your why, did it automatically change your language, or did you discover your why and you said, “How am I going to articulate this”?

It became crystal clear. The power of knowing your why gives you the words to clearly articulate what to say to help you stand out from everybody else who does what you do. If all you do is talk about what you do, you blend in with everybody else, you got to compete on price, and price is such a fun thing to compete on. When you talk about why you do what you do, you attract to you the right people. Everybody wants to do that, but if they don’t have the words, then they can’t get in the game. I liken it to that middle school boy at the school dance and he wants to be part of the dance. He wants to get out of the dance, but he doesn’t know what to say. He just stands there and hopes that somebody will come along and invite him to dance. That’s how many people live their life and many people run their business and marketing. They rely on hope, “I hope I say the right thing. I hope somebody notices what I’m doing.”

It’s like throwing it on the wall and hope that one of the pieces sticks.

You can cut your marketing budget. You can make sure you attract the right people when you have the right things to say. It boils down to knowing what to say.

Until you know your why, it's just a concept. It’s something that sounds good, but you can't do anything with it. Click To Tweet

Can you talk a little bit about that in a more practical sense? Now, I know my why. In your case, it would be finding a better way and sharing it. That’s clear to you. Now, in knowing that, how do you put that into your marketing materials and PR? Is it the first thing you say on an interview or on a piece of a promo material? What’s the formula to transmit your why in your communication?

The easiest way to do that is starting with, “I believe.” If you say what you believe, then it gives other people the opportunity to raise their hand and say, “That’s exactly what I believe.” You have to say what you’re looking for in your business. For instance, the right new patient and client for business are people who believe what you believe in. You have that thing in common. If you never tell people what you believe, and you only tell them what you do, it doesn’t give them that opportunity. You have to hope they see it. If they don’t, then it goes on and on.

Let me give you a simple example. I was speaking at a networking event. Before I got up to speak, we were in these roundtables of ten people. We were instructed to go around the table and tell everybody what we do. I hadn’t spoken yet, but I said to the people at our table, “Can we do something a little bit different?” They were supposed to have three minutes to tell us what they did. I said, “Could you take maybe 30 seconds to tell us what you do? Let’s go around the table. Let me work with you a little bit, and then we’ll do it again. Would that be okay?” They said, “Let’s do that.”

The first lady says, “I have an all-natural skincare line. It’s an organic skincare line that’s made out of grapes and strawberries. In fact, I have some here, would you like to try it?” I said, “Okay.” We went back around and then I worked with her a little bit. We got to the essence of what she believes, and she believes that when women have beautiful skin, it allows them to do more and contribute more. When we read her messaging, she started it by saying, “I believe that when women have beautiful skin, it frees them up to do more. It gives them confidence, which frees them up to do more and live more. I help them have beautiful skin with my organic skincare line. It’s made out of apricots and strawberries. Would you like to try something?” It completely changes what she has once she starts with what she believes. That’s the power of knowing your why. When you know your why, the “Because I believe” statement becomes real. It becomes who you are and not something you made up. It becomes authentic and people feel it and see it.

Do people ever have more than one why?

If you are familiar with Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle, it’s the why, how, and what. Imagine three concentric circles, like a bullseye. In the middle of the bullseye is the why. In the next ring out is the how. In the next ring out is the what. If you have a piece of paper and a pen, draw those three concentric circles with why, how, and what. Simon says, “Inspiring people like Steve Jobs and Martin Luther King and inspiring companies like Apple, Southwest Airlines, and Harley Davidson. They all communicate the exact same way. It’s the opposite to the way the rest of us communicate. We tell people what we do. They tell people why they do what they do.”

Everybody knows what they do, “I’m a chiropractor, I’m a dentist, I’m a lawyer, I’m a coach.” Some know how they do what they do. By how, we mean what are your proprietary processes or the things that you think makes you different. Very few people know why they do what they do. By why, it means what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What do you believe in? He says, “These inspiring companies start with their why then tell you how they do what they do. Lastly, what they do that connects to a different part of the brain called the limbic brain, which is where decisions are made. It allows them to make a decision to buy your product and service and join your cause because it feels right.” The way you connect to the limbic brain is by starting with your why, by talking about what you believe. If they believe what you believe, then you’re the right person for them.

 

I got waylaid on what versus how.

The how is how you bring your why to life and what is what you do. For example, my why is to find a better way and share it. How I do that is by making things clear and understandable and then what I bring is a simple way to help others move forward. I do that as a cosmetic sedation dentist and I do that as the CEO of the Why Institute. I help show people a better way to articulate who they are by first getting clear and then doing it in a simple and easy way.

It’s the same thing for you. What I know about you so far, your why is about creating relationships based upon trust, to be a trusted source and be one that others can count on. I heard you talk about your search for the truth, and that’s exactly what the why trust is all about. What is the truth here? What is the reality? What are we talking about here? You’ve been on a search for truth your entire life. You’re looking for truths so that you have a ground to stand and you have something you can count on. You share those truths in being the trusted source through your blogs, radio show, books, coaching, and presentations. That’s your why, that’s why you do it, which was to create relationships with people that are based upon trust.

I believe that humor, astonishment, and wisdom reveal a part of ourselves that we often miss. Those are the things that keep us from living the life we want to live, which is the truth. I’m not sure what I would do with that in terms of how. I implement that by providing a series of both written and live experiences for people that help them discover the truth through laughter, astonishment, and a series of exercises. I stand on stages or write books.

One of the things I didn’t tell you is that as I’ve started getting calls from other dentists wanting me to help them do what I did, I had to create processes and systems for doing that. When I discovered my why, I learned the process for helping someone to discover their why. I would sit down with people anywhere that they would let me, and I would help people discover their why. I could do it in about an hour. If you were sitting next to me on a plane for an hour and we had a conversation, I could help you discover why and make your life a lot clearer.

I started to work with so many people doing this. I did it on stages, Skype, events, and on one-on-one. I did it with people who were wanting me to help them with their messaging. I was always helping people discover their why. In doing that, I started to notice patterns, trends, and similarities. I found After working with many people I found that there were only nine whys. When I figured out that there were nine whys, that allowed me to help someone discover their why in about fifteen minutes. When I could do it in fifteen minutes, I could get more and more data. As I got more and more data, I started seeing the words that each one of these whys used and the patterns that came with that. I was able to develop a software program where people can go online and discover their why in about five minutes.

Life is better with great teeth. In fact, you can't have a great life if you have bad teeth. Click To Tweet

There are about 15,000 possible choices of questions, but to discover your why will only take you about ten or twelve questions with the WHY App that I have and it triple checks itself. It’s got a pretty fascinating algorithm that I wrote for it. You can discover your why in about five minutes. Once you’ve discovered your why, that’s the most challenging part of the whole process of having your why, how, and what. When you have all of those three, that’s when you have the clarity to be able to create your messaging and have better relationships. That is when you’re able to make better decisions and figure out what your passion is. You will be able to get that if you have all three, not just your why. I’ve made it easy for people now to discover their why and it’s also simple to develop their how and their what.

One of the nine whys is your why” Another part of your nine whys is your how, and another part is your what. My why is to find a better way. How I do that is by making things clear and understandable. What I bring is a simple way to help others move forward. One of the nine whys is a better way. One of them is clarify and another is simplify. You have the same thing. Your why, how, and what, will be the same to when you hear it, you’ll go, “That’s me. That’s exactly what I do.” Anytime you get up on stage, you can say, “My why is to create relationships based upon trust, to be that trusted source, and to be the one that comes with the truth.” How I do that is by helping you make sense of the complex challenges that you’re facing. Then what I bring is the structure and process in the right way to help you move forward so that you can get results.

What I hear in you, and this is buried in your own why, how, and what, is clarity. Tony Robbins said, “Clarity is power.” I’ve seen that you’ve used that quote in some of your writings. It’s easy to be stuck in the mud and it doesn’t matter how smart or successful you are, but they’re still lacking clarity. What I love about what we’re doing here is that you’ve got this very usable process by which people can take this morass of thoughts about the vague sense of who they are and what they’re trying to accomplish and put it in a way that even they can understand it.

Talking about something has little value, but it doesn’t have any value to you until you can apply it to your own life and you can do it. What I’ve done is take this concept of why and made it useful so that has an impact in your life. I’ve made it first clear and then simple.

Who are the people you’re working with the most? Are you more with businesses or are you more with individuals? What’s going on in your work?

I work with people that are experts at what they do. These are people that have spent a lot of time, energy, and money in becoming an expert at what they do. These are speakers, coaches, doctors, lawyers, accountants, and financial gurus. I help them build their brand based on their why, so they can move forward faster and have a bigger impact. We want to move this needle forward faster, “I want to have a bigger impact,” but until you have the right words and the message is clear, you’re spinning your wheels relying on hope.

I can quickly and easily show you how to get clear on first, “Who are you?” and then how do we say that to the marketplace, so the right people find you. I’m sure we’ve all had the bad client. How do you avoid that? You avoid that by telling people what you believe. If they believe what you believe, they’re attracted to you, but you first have to have the words. This all sounds good to me, but until I had a way to do it, it was something that sounded good to me. That’s the key, “Let’s go do this. Let’s quit messing around with this thing called why and let’s go figure it out for you so that you can use it and move forward faster.”

 

It must be a very gratifying and exciting life that you’ve built for yourself since you’ve made this the focal point of your work.

I couldn’t stop myself. I did not ever do this to have a business. I never considered I would be where I am right now. I did it so that I could have a bigger impact as a dentist. In the process, I figured out something that was there that solved so many problems for so many people and I couldn’t stop from sharing a better way. It truly is a better way to know you. Once I saw that, I had to share it and I did it for thousands of people’s feed for free. I did it because it was a better way. I knew it and I wanted to share it. I never charged anybody for it for the longest time. I helped so many of my dental friends do what I did for free.

When I spoke with you the first time, we had a little chat about this and you said you started talking about the research you did. I said, “Who did you do the research on?” You said, “If there was somebody sitting next to me on a plane, they become a research project.” That’s the nature of a dream, a mission, of something that pulls you forward that you can’t help but do that. You can’t help but share that.

I’m going to wrap back around to the process itself and invite people to participate in using it for themselves. For those who are in leadership positions, that’s a milestone. It’s the idea of knowing when you’re doing things for the right reasons with the right why. What does it feel like to be working without being exhausted, like where you work, your purpose is pulling you forward?

People often talk about finding your passion. You tell your kids, “Go find your passion. Live your passion. Be passionate.” That’s another one. Then they’re like, “It sounds good, dad. How do I do that?” When what you do is in line with why you do what you do, you will have a passion for what you do. Passion is the fuel that gives you the energy to pursue your dreams. Without energy and passion, you have nothing. It is easy now to determine whether you’re going to have a passion for something when you know your why.

All you have to do is say, “If I do that, will that allow me to live my why?” If it is, you will be all in. If it isn’t, don’t even go there because you’ll be doing it just for the paycheck. I know sometimes you have to, but it won’t be fun for you. I help college kids get on the right career path by helping them discover their why, seeing the career choices where they can live their why and then matching that up with a lifestyle that they want to lead. When you have lifestyle and passion, you have a wonderful career. If you’re missing either of those, you don’t have a great career. That’s how we get kids on the right career path. It’s a very powerful tool.

Talking about something doesn't have any value to you until you can apply it to your own life and you actually do it. Click To Tweet

Tools that work are remarkable. You’re talking about something that people can utilize to transform the way they do everything.

Let me give you another example. This is something everybody will be able to get. You’re an expert, you’re viewed as an expert by other people and you’ve spent a lot of time, money, and energy building your product, whether that’s you or something you’ve built. Now you want to talk about it. You want to tell the world all about it, but you’re not sure what to say. You don’t know how to stand out from everybody else who something similar to what you do. Let’s talk about Steve Jobs. When we look at him, he was the visionary for Apple. He was the one that set the direction. He’s the visible visionary and leader for Apple for many years.

When he was in the leadership position, he took off, replaced himself, almost died, came back, and took off again. When the why was clear, the company was on fire. When the why was not clear, the company almost died. Let’s talk about Steve Jobs. If you’ve read his book or you’ve seen his movie or you know anything about him, he was somebody who always challenged the status quo. He always thought outside the box. He didn’t want to do things the same as everybody else. He always asked the question, “Why do I have to do it that way?” He started college and they had them in these certain classes. He was like, “I don’t want to take those classes. Who says I have to do it that way?” He drops out of college and sneaks into the classes that he wanted to learn on his own terms and doing it his own way. He’s the guy that would always challenge the way things are done. Steve come up with a better way to do it and then he would make it simple so that it was easy to do. Do you know what he would wear when he would speak at his events?

He would wear jeans and a black shirt.

He had on glasses that were two pieces of glass and three pieces of wire, but he always had the same thing. It was something very basic and simple and he didn’t have to think about it. His why is to challenge the status quo. How he did that was by finding a better way to do things and what he brought was a simple way to move forward.

We’ve got his how, why, and what, let’s take that and apply it to Apple because he’s the visionary for Apple. In everything Apple does, they challenged the status quo. They challenged the phone industry with the iPhone. They challenged the music industry with iTunes. They challenged the watch industry with the Apple Watch or the iWatch. They challenged the computer industry with the Mac. In everything they do, they challenge the status quo. They jump into that area, tear things apart, and find a better way. What they come back with is something that’s simple and easy to use.

 

Let’s use the iPhone or the phone as an example. Before that, you had the big phones that everybody had with all the buttons on it. It was the Blackberry. How many buttons are on that thing? A lot of buttons. If buttons were a thing and they were trying to make a better phone, maybe they would come back with 101 buttons. They went into the phone industry and they challenged the way things were done. They came up with something that was better using a screen and developed something that was simple and easy to use. A three-year-old and an 85-year-old could use it with just one finger.

If you’ve enjoyed the show, please send your comments to SteveTaubman@Gmail.com and feel free to suggest a topic. If you’d like to learn how to bring me to your company to create a mindful and holistic organization of conscious leaders contact me through SteveTaubman.com. We are in the habit of ending our shows with three things, a metaphor, a quote, and a challenge for this episode. I can’t help but think that the metaphor for this episode has to be the metaphor of being lost in the fog. We’ve all had that feeling of being lost in the fog. I’m not sure which way we’re going and we’re turning ourselves this way and that, but not clearly seeing the direction in which we want to go.

The metaphor of clearing up the fog in order to see clearly where we want to go. Are you in the fog or are you in the clearing? What would need to happen in order for you to go from being in the fog to seeing clearly? Remember, clarity is power. The quote that I chose for this is from Dostoyevsky, “The mystery of human existence lies not just in staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” I’m going to turn this over to Dr. Sanchez to share with you a challenge for this episode.

It’s funny that you use the fog metaphor because I use that in my presentations. There’s an actual slide of me going through the fog because that’s how it feels. When you go down the mountain road and you walk into a bank of fog, all you can think, “How fast can I move?” You know what happens to your hands? They tighten the grip on the steering wheel and you feel your way along hoping not to get off track, not to make a mistake. That’s how people lived their life quite often like I was. Discovering my why, how, and what is what gave me the clarity to get on the right path and have my life take off and the same thing will happen for you.

If people believe what you believe, they're attracted to you, but you first have to have the words. Click To Tweet

My challenge is for you to take the first step, which is go to my website WhyInstitute.com. On the home page is a button that says Discover Your Why for Free. Take that first step and discover your why. If you want to develop your how and your what, I have a short course that you can do that with so that you’re clear on you. Then, you can use that to develop the messaging and the marketing of your business. It’s critical. You have to know it because everything you do is going to be built on that. Don’t try to fake it. I’m giving it away for free to you. Go to my website and take the free WHY App. If you want help taking it further, there’s a way we can do that as well.

Learn more about Gary and his WHY App on WhyInstitute.com. This has been outstanding, Gary. I appreciate your time. Ladies and gentlemen, share this with your friends, subscribe to my podcast, visit Executive Zen on iTunes or find replays on SteveTaubman.com/ExecutiveZen. In the next episode, we’ll be joined by Emmy nominated TV producer, Philip Andrew. Thank you all for reading. Thank you, Dr. Sanchez, for joining us. Remember to lead consciously profit responsible.

Important Links:

• Why Institute
• Dr. Gary Sanchez
• Kaleo
• WHY App
• UnHypnosis
• Podcast Episode – Jerome Wade
• TED Talk – Simon Sinek

About Dr. Gary Sanchez