Blog #4 from our campaign "Secrets to become an Elite Entrepreneur"

Following up from our last blog post, the idea of “selfless success” is repeated throughout Dan Sullivan’s “Who Not How” book in a very indirect yet powerful way.

While it is not the main theme of the book, the idea that it doesn’t matter if you cannot achieve your goals on your own, it just matters that you achieve them, is one that should resonate with every founder out there.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t create the marketing for your product, or worked at the factory assembling the product’s components. It matters that you had Freedom of Purpose, where your purpose and vision expanded beyond anything you could imagine in order to have more ideas about how to make your product even better or create a new one.

As Dan says, “By letting WHOs take care of the HOWs, the final product will actually be different, and better, than you initially imagined.”

Source: https://www.heatherchristie.com/06-leadership-purpose/

In this case as well, not only must the WHOs fully take care of the HOWs and have the freedom to build their own processes and follow their own methodology, they must also have your complete trust and support.

For any football fans out there, we can agree that Lionel Messi did not become the best football player in the world just on his own merit. Michael Jordan was not solely responsible for the Chicago Bull’s championships.

Even though their statistics are absolutely ridiculous, given that they are legends of their respective sports, they achieved what they did because of the team that was around them as well.

Source: The New York Times

Messi has been an amazing attacker for FC Barcelona over the last few years. But he was not Carles Puyol in the defence, making sure no one could score against the team. Without Xavi and Iniesta dominating the midfield, he might have not been able to score as many goals as he did either.

While Messi is a player out of this world, his main purpose was not to defend, recover the ball and feed passes onto the attack; it was to make space up front, receive the ball and score the goals. He did not try to do something that he was not meant to, or in any case not very good at.

He had some WHOs fill in to achieve the HOW, and ultimately reach the team’s goal of winning as many trophies as possible.

If you have correctly explained to your team what your vision is, then they should be left to their own expert devices to help you materialise it.

You must give them control of what they do best, and trust that their work will be exceptional.

Then, you will be able to focus on what you are most passionate and without knowing it, you will achieve your goals.

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