How Strong is Your WHY?

By Bob Cox

After I finished typing up the first draft of this month’s feature article, it seemed like something significant was missing. Since I don’t care much for safe and predictable reading material, I make it a personal mission to write about interesting and inspiring topics. If an article I’ve written can’t even hold my attention in the first paragraph, how can I expect to keep everyone else from being bored to tears? Sadly, the limited amount of meaningful material I had gathered to that point might have yielded that result.

After carefully reviewing the document several times, I was unable to find any substantial flaws. It wasn’t until the next morning when I realized that I had forgotten to ask the one simple and basic question that often makes the difference between an ordinary and extraordinary story. I forgot to ask WHY.

I reached out to my client (Janina Guarino) the next morning and apologized for requesting more time while also prying into her personal life. Fortunately, she wasn’t upset and willingly shared the intimate details of her tragedies and triumphs with liberating transparency. I nearly missed the opportunity to hear about her heart-wrenching struggles with substance abuse, which lead her to the precipice of death and then rise like a Phoenix by reinventing her life while helping others break free from addiction. So now my question is: WHY did I forget to ask WHY?

I’m not exactly sure, but part of it was the fear of being perceived as nosy and meddlesome. As a toddler, I was very curious about things and so I asked WHY early and often each day. Over time, I began to drive my poor parent’s crazy and stopped asking WHY. WHY did I stop asking WHY? Because their approval was more important to me than figuring out WHY I was such an annoying little brat!

Over the years, I’ve heard numerous motivational speakers comment on how we’ve become a society so obsessed with what we do that we’ve devolved from “human beings” to “human doings”. I find myself falling into that rat trap all the time while becoming locked in on getting the answers to all the superficial questions: The who, what, when, where and how of it all.

The strength of our WHY is what determines our level of motivation. When we hear parents complain about their teenaged kids being too lazy to wake up on time, clean their rooms and get a job (basically the same stuff we pulled way back when), the core issue is not laziness but a lack of motivation to move in a positive direction. Place that same “lazy teenager” in a cage with a wild and hungry tiger and watch him/her move faster than a speeding text message!

The heart and soul of every great experience begins with a basic understanding of WHY we choose to make each decision in the first place. When Nelson Mandela chose to take a stand against the evils of apartheid, his WHY became omnipotent as he endured years of unjust imprisonment. On the other hand; when we were kids and our parents said no to the question, “WHY can’t I play on the freeway?” and the best answer they could muster after we protested by asking WHY was, “Because I said so”, didn’t we feel even more compelled to do it?

Like Nelson Mandela and Janina Guarino, a powerful and meaningful life begins with a powerful and meaningful WHY. If you feel uncomfortable asking people you admire and respect about their choices, you’re certainly not alone. Regardless of that concern, summon the courage to ask them anyway because you will likely be amazed and uplifted by their reply. While you’re at it, don’t allow trepidation to prevent you from sharing your own WHY with others that are sincerely interested in you. You may never know how much you can impact the life of another that’s striving to be more than a just a “human doing”.