Many years ago, in the nascent days of podcasting, I listened to a Tim Ferris interview with some sort of millionaire or billionaire based in Brazil, who had that easy voice of someone who’d already made it, and was simply coasting the waves of wisdom. I remember nothing of that interview other than his tale of the “three why’s.”
When you do something, you ask yourself why you’re doing it. And then when you answer that, you ask it again. And then one more time. The exercise was meant to crystalize knowledge around your actions, rather than blind movement. I’ve never forgotten that, though I rarely implement it (and to me detriment).
The three why’s excercise came up, out of the blue, as I began to think about scaling. Scaling can be a growing business, or, if you deconstruct that more, more revenue. It can mean hitting another milestone or doing things that scare you. Scale is one of those words you can use, that’s vague enough to describe anything that’s just more than what you have now. The problem I face(d) is that I wasn’t quite sure why I wanted to scale. I knew I wanted more money, but I didn’t, and I don’t, quite understand how scaling gets me there. The more one ponders on the thing, the more you begin to realize that you may not be asking yourself why you’re doing the thing you’re doing. If I deconstruct this for myself:
“I’d like to scale the business and bring in more partners and practices.”
Why #1: Because I believe that more practices will lead to greater revenue.
Why #2: Because other firms that have more people likely bring in more revenue.
Why #3: Here, I’m stuck. How do I know that other firms that bring in more revenue, actually equal more revenue for the people up top? I don’t, if I’m being honest. And then, another question: how do I know if I can keep it up? What are the drawbacks of scaling? How much of my time will I sacrifice to get there? Is it meaningful to me? Am I just trying to use scaling as a hammer to whack a nail?
All of these things begin to bubble inside, and you realize, quite quickly, that you’ve absolutely no idea why you’re doing what you’re doing (again, maybe this is just me, and if it is, I’m very happy that you’re not in this cycle of confusion).
If I really begin to think about the Why’s, I get very personal, very quickly.
Why do I want to bring in more revenue to the firm? To pay myself more.
Why do I want to pay myself more? Because I want to afford really nice things and save a lot of money so I can grow significantly more independent.
Why do I need really nice things and why do I not feel independent now? Because my run rate is insane and I feel I need to work much harder than I want to to afford things for my family to feel as if I am a provider and that my family has all of the things I think a family should have.
See how deep that gets? And that’s just top layer. If we go deeper, we’ll get into money as a (fake) bulwark against the tides of life. Money as a sense of control over the uncontrollable. Money as a signal to others. Money as an escape. Money as a false god. Nothing here signifies, at all, that this pursuit is bad or misguided, but rather that you’re doing things (scaling) in hopes of stopping things (anxiety around life) and in your conscious life, you may not know that these connect.
All of these things then connect to larger things like basic needs, connection, simplicity in life, experience, fear of death, legacy, etc., that will all require their own debriefing. For now, I think it’s really important that if you want to take some step that you may see others taking, it may be helpful for you to ask the three whys, to get a glimmer of what’s going on deep inside you. Then, once you do that, maybe you attack the problem(proactive) or sit with the problem and let it wash over you (meditative, passive) and see where that takes you. Maybe there’s a different off ramp? Maybe not.
Wish you luck on your journey.