The other day I was asked to provide a bio for a guest article I wrote for another blog. I did the usual three fun facts thing, and included links to all the places my thoughts live – here on TGH, The Marriage Bed site, Twitter and facebook.
And it struck me – how did this happen? I have a massive amount of material out there, and much of it has been found to be worth something by more than a few people. How did that happen? This all started a little over fifteen years ago when my bride found Christianity On-line’s message boards, including some on marriage and sexuality. How did we get from participating in those discussions to where we are today?
Then today I came across Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action, a fairly famous TED Talk I have somehow missed. In a nutshell, he says individuals and companies that stand out start with WHY they do what they do. Sure, they know what they do, and how they do it, but the why is the most important thing. Then I understood. We did not set out to have a web site, or to write blogs, or send tweets, or be on the radio, or write a book, or anything else; we started participating in those message boards because we wanted couples to have better marriages and better sex lives. We had a why, and nothing more. From the why came questions about how we could do it, and from that came the various web sites, the what. The same why is still driving us, and there is no telling what we will do in the future to advance our “why”.
Okay, how can all of this help you have a better marriage and/or sex life? If you want to be an awesome husband, you have to have a why. Figure out the why, and work from there. If you want to motivate your wife to do something new or different, being able to give her the why is the way to go. “What” will not motivate her at all, and “how” isn’t much better, but “why” taps into her feelings. Once her feelings are on-board, it’s a done deal. If you don’t have a why, you don’t have much. If you have a solid why, you are well on your way, and if you have passion for your why, you’re a juggernaut!