WHY: A Manifesto

making sense of why we do what we do

Are you familiar with Simon Sinek? He’s a leadership guru, and he’s got a book called Start With Why¹ that helps people learn how to lead others toward a shared vision.

In essence, Sinek suggests that there are three questions that drive people: WHAT, HOW, and WHY. He points out that most people are able to answer WHAT they do and even HOW they do it (for example, I write essays and poems for people I love by publishing them here on Substack), but it is the rare few who can communicate WHY they do it.

Sinek argues that truly influential leaders, however, are the ones who start by clarifying their WHY rather than their WHAT or HOW. And it’s important to note here that a WHY is not about making money; instead, it is always about a core belief, value, or purpose that drives your motives.

He insists that only once you’ve established your WHY should you begin to consider HOW to make it a reality.

And your WHAT? That’s really just the natural byproduct of working in alignment with your vision (WHY) and in staying on mission (HOW).

He calls this concept The Golden Circle, and the idea is to work from the inside-out rather than the outside-in.

Source: https://www.rethink-innovation.ch/post/the-golden-circle-why-how-what

I can’t help but think that this principle isn’t just for people in charge of companies and organizations and ministries, though, but for all of us.

We all need to know our WHY. Otherwise, we’ll catch ourselves waking up and grumbling about our boring days. We’ll begin to begrudge the kids, the dishes, the 9-to-5, the grocery list. We’ll get so caught up in the WHATs of our lives that we’ll lose sight of the WHY.

[I’m convinced this is where mid-life crises are born. How many fancy convertibles sit in the garages of people who never figured out their WHY?² Too many to tell, I reckon.]

I’ve been thinking about this question of WHY a lot lately, especially as I’ve begun to share that I’m going to seminary in the fall.

I’m going to Pillar Seminary! So now I’m living in this sweatshirt, obviously.

When people ask the natural question, “What do you plan to do with a Master of Divinity?” I have found myself stumbling over an answer, because there’s no specific or tangible outcome I’m expecting at the end of it. The best I’ve got is that I felt like God told me to do it, and—though I don’t really know what he’s planning—I knew I should probably listen.

The truth is, I don’t know what the WHAT will be. I don’t know if there will even be a ‘product’ to hold in my hands at the end of this thing. But I do know that if our WHY is the driver of our decisions and movements, our work and our play, then it displaces the WHAT as the most important thing in our lives.

The other day I stood in my kitchen and had a moment where I thought, “Where am I even going? With my writing? With seminary? With life?” And in the next moment, I had this impression that God was saying, “You don’t need to know where you’re going. You need to know WHY you’re going.”

And so I’ve spent some time thinking about my WHY these past few days. Why I write. Why I learn. Why I don’t just go back to the safety of teaching. Why I show up the way that I do in the places that I do.

It was a tougher exercise than I thought it would be. It’s one thing to sense your WHY; it’s another thing entirely to wrestle it into words. But as Simon Sinek would probably agree, you should never ask someone to do anything that you wouldn’t also do yourself. So I’ll show you mine—and now will you show me yours, too?

WHY: A Manifesto

All of life is a communication: in our speaking and our silence, our movement and our stillness, in the shadows of our eyes and the slightest wrinkles of our forehead, we are always saying something. And if I can choose to use this little life to send just one message, one notion, one frequency into the world—the only one I see with any value is the frequency of love. But not just that.

I want to traipse about the face of this earth with billowing skirts and handfuls of color, blowing awareness of otherworldly realities with joyful, triumphant, defiant bursts of Holy-Spirit-breathed air. Because if there’s one thing I want people to discover, it’s that there is a language that lies dormant in their souls. It’s the mother tongue of the Father, and it’s more native and natural than any syllable they’ve ever uttered. We are all multilingual; we are all born to speak spiritual things.

There is no boringness to God, no primness. You like baseball? He knows every statistic, every player. You like whiskey? He has impeccable taste. He is not detached. He is not confined to hymnals and dusty books. Heavens, no. He is an explosion of technicolor and he is wild liberation. To learn the personality of God is to explore the last great frontier. There is no limit to his expanse, no rationing of his love or power. The greatest minds of our day are like specks of dust, dancing in his light yet never, never encompassing it.

I want to look every single person in the eye who says, “This God thing just isn’t for me,” and to say back, “I am not in the business of trying to convince you. I am only in the business of turning on that dormant language that’s sleeping in your soul.” I do what I do to make it clear that God is nothing less than utter enchantment. He is a creative genius, a logistical guru, a gracious host and one heck of a guide.

I reject the notion that God is outdated and archaic and barbaric and childish. I reject it so vehemently that the objection pours out of me like shimmers of stardust. I have been swooned by his presence—so much so that I forget that I’m a small-town Maine girl. I forget that I’m limited or that I am afraid or that I have never done what he’s asked me to do. There is no power like this anywhere on the earth; it can not be manifested by anything within myself. I am only a girl—until I am under his gaze.

And so there is this ache that drives me ever-forward. It pulls my toes like gravity to the rug beside our bed each morning—even when my joints ache and darkness tries to have its way in this world. It is my mission to make it clear that God does not belong to the precious few; no—he belongs to me and to you, and he is not anything at all like the tired old cliches would have us believe. His mysterious goodness is the kind you fall into and want to swim in, to get lost in forever. And if you think anything else of God, then my WHY is to implore you to just take my hand, let me steer your awareness toward this God, this true God, this place where you can drink and drink and drink until that parched place inside of you begins to sprout flowers once again.

So—what’s your WHY?

xx Deidre

[PS this post, “I Am Not A Genre” has some major anti-cliche vibes for believers in it, too. Check it out!]

1. Simon Sinek has a TedTalk of the same name that will give you the gist of the entire book. If you’d prefer to get the highlights in 18 minutes, you can watch it here:

2. If you have a fancy car, I’m not picking on you. That actually sounds awesome. Take me for a ride in it. Let’s go get ice cream.