The Golden Circle meets SimpleMind

What is the Golden Circle

Consciously or not, the leaders who truly inspire people do so by following a naturally occurring pattern that Simon Sinek calls The Golden Circle.

The Golden Circle provides compelling evidence of how much more we can achieve if we start everything we do by first asking a simple question: “Why?”  It finds order and predictability in human behavior. Put simply, The Golden Circle helps us understand why we do what we do.

The Golden Circle can be used as a guide to vastly improve every aspect of your business or organisation—from leadership and hiring, to product development, sales, and marketing.

It even explains loyalty and how to earn more. And it all starts with WHY.

Let’s define the rings of The Golden Circle, starting with WHY (of course!) and moving outward.

WHY

Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do what they do. When Simon asks WHY, he’s not referring to making money—that’s a result. Your WHY is your purpose, cause, or belief. WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care about the work you do?

When most organizations or people think, act, or communicate, they do so from the outside in (from WHAT to WHY). We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do it. But the WHY is the most crucial part of any endeavor or communication.

For example, the WHY of The Optimism Company is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them so that, together, each of us can change our world for the better.

HOW

Companies and people know HOW they do what they do and can typically communicate these processes clearly. HOWs are often utilised to explain that a product or service is better than a competitor’s—but HOWs can be so much more than that.

Our HOWs are the actions we take when we are at our natural best and are living out our WHY. It’s HOW you bring your WHY to life that makes you and your company unique. As a result, the combination of your WHY and HOWs is like your organization’s fingerprint.

Revisiting our example, these are the HOWs of The Optimism Company: keep our offerings simple, adopt an infinite mindset, try to see things from unconventional perspectives, and always find the silver lining.

WHAT

Every single company and organization on the planet knows WHAT they do. This is true no matter how big or small, and no matter what industry. Everyone is easily able to describe the products or services a company provides or the job function they have within that system. WHATs are easy to identify and important to have, but are less impactful than the WHY.

To round out our example, the WHATs of The Optimism Company are our classes, courses, keynotes, podcast episodes (and so much more) that encourage people to learn and grow their human skills of leadership, communication, and trust.

The inspired leaders—every single one of them, regardless of their industry—think, act, and communicate from the inside out.

People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

Applying the Golden Circle to my life

I love the Golden Circle and see it as something we should just build into our day to day life. Through my coaching business I have encouraged many people to take on a new powerful habit, always start with the WHY. Essentially, find out the excitement in the work that they are doing.

When I was working my WHY and my passion and excitement was about releasing the magic in people.

WHY: 

We believe that in everything we do we will seek to release the magic in people

HOW:

• We will dare to take people out of their comfort zones and experience new things
• We will put nurturing coaching support at the heart of all our programmes
• We will ensure that what people learn is easy to grasp and that it has a lasting effect 
• We will look to energise and excite people about what can be done, rather than weigh them down with what can’t be done
• We will support our learners to become teachers and coaches, so that they may release the magic in others

The WHAT were the different programmes that we designed and ran and in every case they had to fit in with the WHY and HOW. To me this was the 'emotion' that drove me to continue running my business deep into my 70s. Even now it is what drives me to help my granddaughters and friends. I love it because it is a win-win, as I help people to improve something in their lives and in the process I feel values, happy and fulfilled.

Meeting up with SimpleMind

I have just recently bought the Pro version of Simple Mind at a cost of £9.99 and I'm bust getting learning by doing. It's perfect for creating a Golden Circle for your life, your job or a project and the joy is everything fits on a single page if you want to print it out and keep it in a highly visual place. 

In the example the central theme is the WHY that I used with clients who wanted to develop a Coaching Culture. The HOW are the high level drivers and I have listed 7 key drivers.

Then for one of the drivers 'Get sustained high level support' I have listed a few examples of WHAT which you can see at the top. Simple Mind gives you the facility to add a check mark (you can tick it when the job is done) and set a date for completion. You can even get the date for completion dropped directly into your calendar. 

It's a great combination and for £10 it provides you with a wonderful tool that you can use to simplify and clarify the important things in your life.

I've just turned 80 and still loving my life, so I still have a life golden circle and yes, its largely based on leisure but it still provides me with the right things that make a difference to my  life at this stage.