Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

by Simon Sinek

He saw the personal computer as a way for the little man to take on a corporation. If he could figure out a way to get it in the hands of the individual, he thought, the computer would give nearly anyone the ability to perform many of the same functions as a vastly better resourced company.

There is a big difference between repeat business and loyalty. Repeat business is when people do business with you multiple times. Loyalty is when people are willing to turn down a better product or a better price to continue doing business with you.

Manipulations Lead to Transactions, Not Loyalty

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?

Their advertising didn’t offer exhaustive descriptions of product details; it wasn’t about them, it was about us.

The problem was, they advertised their product as a “5GB mp3 player.” It is exactly the same message as Apple’s “1,000 songs in your pocket.” The difference is Creative told us WHAT their product was and Apple told us WHY we needed it.

Apple’s clarity of WHY that gives them such a remarkable ability to innovate, often competing against companies seemingly more qualified than they, and succeed in industries outside their core business. The same cannot be said for

Apple didn’t invent the lifestyle, nor does it sell a lifestyle. Apple is simply one of the brands that those who live a certain lifestyle are drawn to. Those people use certain products or brands in the course of living in that lifestyle; that is, in part, how we recognize their way of life in the first place. The products they choose become proof of WHY they do the things they do.

“I can make a decision with 30 percent of the information,” said former secretary of state Colin Powell. “Anything more than 80 percent is too much.”