I first heard about Simon Sinek in a conversation over coffee with my partner and one of my co-workers. I knew of him as a speaker, primarily, and was incredibly captivated by his TED Talk on starting with why. The repeated notion in that talk was that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
Leaders Eat Last had been recommended to me over the holidays, and it was the first book that I started and finished in 2019. Sinek uses the military as an analogy for teams in the workplace. Emphasis is placed on trust and safety and how teams can fall apart when these things are not prioritized. When there is a lot of change, especially change that isn’t well communicated, it causes anxiety to rise and productivity to lower.
What I really love about Sinek’s speaking engagement, and now his books, is how he uses biology to prove a lot of what he says. He says about deep relationships being necessary to activate our oxytocin, and how that these relationships are imperative to our overall health and well-being, especially if we’re in a less than ideal work situation. He also speaks about cortisol being a killer, and how if things are not right, our jobs can literally start to kill us.
This relates to my earlier post about being mindful about where I place my body. It’s important to be in spaces that feed you and around people that you feel love and support from, and that you also give love and support to. Evaluate your surroundings, and eliminate what doesn’t help you evolve.
Khadijah Plummer Consulting 