Should You Really Start With "Why"? A Few Words About Courage & Curiosity

Nearly every single mentor or coach nowadays prompts us to use the path, which famous Simon Sinek laid out by saying "Start with WHY". It relates to the question, which according to Sinek - but mostly to all of his followers - everyone should ask themselves to reach success in their lives. That works because our why relates to our inner values, which often remain hidden even from our own conscious mind - if we do not deliberately extract them from it by asking ourselves such hard questions.

Nevertheless, I personally find this advice (by all means profound for many) not very useful for young people. And since my audience is predominantly very young, I would like to share with you all a more specific way of engagement, which would give you better results.

Ready to beat the bestselling advice? Without further ado - the reason why this by all means excellent advice doesn't work on the younger audience is that young people are still too young to have conscious values. Better put - they are still too young to consciously put their inherent impulses and their outward experiences together and forge their very own golden values out of it. And while values are yet to be obtained, glued together from their experience, cultural and academic background, etc., an attempt to extract them would always result in an act of abortion, like trying to prematurely cut a yet-to-be-born child out of the mother's womb - sorry for the metaphor being so graphic. The chunks, which are extracted this way, are always someone's thoughts and feelings - but not ours. And the worst thing is - young people believe these inflicted pieces of ideology to be their own ideas, deeply rooted within their hearts.

They are still too young to consciously put their inherent impulses and their outward experiences together and forge their very own golden values out of it.

So, what should you do when you are still in your teens or twenties, instead of giving birth to premature alien values imposed on you by other people or organizations, aiming - consciously or not - to exploit your time and energy? You may go with the most natural way humans went for thousands of years since we landed here on Earth - follow your natural curiosity and explore things on your own. "As simple as that?" - would you ask. Well, not exactly. There are thousands of small particular reasons - and one overarching theme above them all - that wouldn't allow you to follow your curiosity in this day and age. And this one ring, that rules them all is the lack of courage. Now, can you please answer me sincerely - is it fear, that is holding you back, or is it a lack of courage to follow your real interests, your natural curiosity? I assure you, we can overcome any fear standing in our way, but we cannot overcome the lack of courage - which was meant to overcome the fear in the first place.

Now, there is good and bad news. I'd rather start with bad news - the suppression of courage in our society started in your infancy, in your own family, by your very own parents who sincerely wished you only good. Remember, when mom told you to not run, "cause you're gonna fall"? Or to not play with fire, "cause, for God's sake, you're gonna burn our house to ashes"? Yeah. This is it. But this was only the beginning. It was followed by your school, where you were required to sit straight for an hour and listen to some b*s* for no good reason... 5-6 times a day! These torture hours were named "lessons", and the entire school torture period was called "secondary education". This was necessary to get you ready for a major (but still not final) hit - the "higher education". They sometimes even call it "elite", which is funny, because the more "elite" education you get, the less elite you behave and the less free you feel yourself, for various reasons. Aside from the Ivy League, other institutions of higher education, like my first alma mater in Baku, are experiencing a rapid decay. Students report verbal abuse and misbehaviour from the faculty management and teachers, threatening with bad notes or blocked opportunities in order for them to comply and do what they are told to (or go where they are told to), lack of infrastructure and qualified teaching staff, no relevance to the actual job market - the list goes on. This kind of wicked surroundings beats out the last remaining of the student's thirst for knowledge and rounds up the whole notorious practice of suppressing their courage and stealing their curiosity.

We can overcome any fear standing in our way, but we cannot overcome the lack of courage - which was meant to overcome the fear in the first place.

But there is also some good news. The damage done by this huge dream-grinding machinery cannot be undone, but one can retrain oneself to take small steps towards obtaining back the courage to be curious. In fact, this is very simple - but easier said than done. Instead of asking yourself hard questions like "What's your why?", and then looking around confused, ask yourself these 3 questions:

?-"Is what I am about to do now courageous?";

-"Does what I am about to do now contribute to my curiosity?", and

-"Would what I am about to do now raise my self-esteem?"

If you cannot answer positively to any of these questions - please don't do that. Run from it, cut it, fight with it - but never accept it. If you're forced to do it - remember, and take revenge by doing even more curious acts and raising your self-esteem to the heights. Never back down and never surrender to the circumstances - this is your mindset for winning fights, winning hearts, and, ultimately - winning yourself?the dignity and fulfillment every human being was born to have.

"Well, that's all good, - you would say - but how can I practically do that?" Well, I would answer - you're in the right place to find this out. If you'd like to receive more details on this topic or specific personal advice - feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly. That's it for now, I wish you all enough courage to follow your curiosity - take care, see you soon!

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This article was first published in my Telegram channel on January 26 / 2023