Don’t ask HOW Musk does it, ask WHY

Everyone always begins with HOW. 

But HOW is not nearly as important as WHY. 

Everyone starts out with the wrong word, and the wrong question. 

WHY does this happen? 

Human nature. We want to get where we are going faster. We want to learn what they learnt better and faster, so we can do more. 

Examples. 

Sir Richard, HOW do you do it?

Everyone asks, HOW has Richard Branson started so many companies? 

That’s not nearly as useful as asking WHY Branson does what he does. Interestingly, the WHY will unlock the HOW. 

Elon… everyone wants to know HOW

Everyone is trying to get their head around HOW Elon Musk has started and or run Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Company? 

You should really look into his incredible story WHY he does it. Go ahead, look it up. I’m not going to tell you the answer. 

“I’ll take success and money to go please”

How often do we hear people ask HOW do I make more money? And HOW can I become successful? 

But think about the power in asking WHY should I make more money? WHY do I want to be successful? 

What we have is a culture obsessed with tools, which we confuse as goals. Think about that. 

Money and big companies are great examples. 

When you understand the WHY, you give the HOW context – that is, you’ll see why that person used a particular tool like money, or business, or art, or politics, or speeches, or whatever else, to achieve something worthwhile.

Ironically that worthwhile thing is rarely public knowledge. WHY? Because it’s not public interest. People usually don’t care, they like the look of the tip of the Iceberg. 

They miss the most important part, the part that lives beneath the surface.

HOW to determine success

To determine if someone else is successful, you have to know what they were trying to achieve, or if they value what they’ve achieved.  

Eventually you will look for the most important WHY of them all. 

Your own WHY. 

Next thing you know, you’ll be building a HOW that no one has ever used before. 

No one you admired copied exactly what someone else was doing. They all found their own path, and did things in a way no one had quite replicated before. 

Your turn. Ask a ‘WHY’ in the comments about someone you admire. 

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