What is your "Why"?

Now that the Live As If blog is already a month old and has a whopping 11 posts (this is #12), I often think that I will run out of interesting things to write about but then something or in this case, a series of somethings happens that reaffirms by belief that everything happens for a reason.

So I am in this program called Wexner Heritage Program which teaches 20 young Jewish leaders from different cities across the country over a two-year period.   It's a very interesting and time intensive program that gives young Jewish leaders the historical foundation on Judaism.  Now that we got that covered, the story starts last night when I am sitting in a class about Midrash.  Before I lose you, let me give the quickest explanation of Jewish literature ever because it's important to make my point.

• Torah - 5 Books of Moses aka The Bible aka The Old Testament - gives laws to follow but not too many details except on how to make a breastplate.  THIS IS THE WHAT.
• Mishnah - Over 2,000 years ago, Rabbis said "We need to discuss at length how we should follow these laws and come up with every possible scenario."  A Rabbi named Yehudah haNasi decided in 220CE to organize those debates into one book called the Mishnah that Jews could use as a practical guide.  THIS IS THE HOW.
• Midrash - In the Torah, there are not enough details in some instances so the Rabbis over time created the Midrash as a way of filling in the gaps.  This helped provide some meaning behind all of these laws that the Rabbis came up with.  THIS IS THE WHY.

If you made it this far, Congrats.  Now on to my story.  Our teacher for this session, Michael Berger from Emory, explained that the reason the Midrash is important is because without the WHY, the HOW and WHAT don't matter.  These Rabbis from over 2,000 years ago understood that point which we are still struggling with today.


In last night's class, our teacher also introduced us to an author named Simon Sinek who has an amazing website called "Start with Why" which is also the name of his book.  I also included his TED talk below which you should spend the 18 minutes to watch since it talks about how we need to focus on the WHY in our lives and companies before we figure out the HOW and WHAT.  Simon is well known for his Golden Circle theory which talks about how the WHY is the core beneath the HOW and WHAT.

Which brings me to the main question of this post -- WHAT IS YOUR "WHY"?  Why do you work so hard?  Why do you care so much?  Why do you wake up in the morning?  If you can find and focus on your WHY, the HOW and WHAT are easy. 

Please share your thoughts and comments below on what is your why and let's help each other answer the question together.