The Seeds of a WHY
When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Dayton (Go Flyers!) I had an awesome teacher, Cindy Kennedy, for Psychology 101. She was a rare find in a teacher: an expert in her field and incredibly gifted at being able to entertain and impart knowledge to a room full of 100+ college freshman three times a week.
I still remember many of the stories she shared to highlight psychological principles, like the parent who tied pieces of candy to their dog to operantly condition their toddler not to fear the dog. Or the time she called out my roommate as she was intently chewing on her pen cap, an example of Freud’s oral fixation theory, that definitely got some good laughs!
In Professor Kennedy’s class, there was academic learning mixed in with real-world examples and a dash of humor. This teaching formula hooked me and my interest in the field of psychology continued to grow. After a few more courses I declared my major and eventually graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
Unfortunately, psychology is a field that requires a graduate degree if you actually want to practice psychology. Fortunately, I was a good student, and I had no idea what I would do after college anyway, so I sent out loads of applications to master’s and Ph.D. programs and got into a Social Psychology Ph.D. program at Miami of Ohio.
My first colloquium (an academic meeting where professors share their research) as a new graduate student required me to attend a welcome cocktail party the night before. I recall awkwardly joining a conversation between the professor and a 5th year graduate student who was about to defend her dissertation and had been on the job market for a while, interviewing for tenure track positions and post-doctoral research positions. They were discussing how competitive things were, the rigors of interviewing, the importance of publishing and continuing to do research…basically, the never-ending list of “must haves” to be able to make it to the next level in higher-education and get a job as a professor.
After that party I remember thinking, “I don’t want to keep playing that game. When does it ever end? When is it ever enough?” What a blessing to hear that conversation so early in my graduate education. I think it helped clarify for me why I chose to go to graduate school in the first place and what I wanted to get out of it.
Graduate school became the place where I started to focus on what really mattered, like studying things I was interested in and figuring out how what I was learning could make a difference in people’s lives, including my own. I started to have some awareness of my higher purpose, or my WHY, and I began letting go of the some of the external measures and pressures of achieving, being good enough, and continuing to climb the academic hierarchy.
Having a sense of my purpose meant I said to my advisor that first year, “I decided I’m going to give this a year and see if I like it. If I’m not happy I’m not going to stay.” It turns out I really liked graduate school and what I was studying and eventually I graduated with a Ph.D. in Social Psychology (the study of how an individual’s thoughts, feelings and actions are affected by other people).
Fast forward a few years: I worked at a job in a residential treatment facility for youth. Working with the troubled kids was the best part of that job; I saw first-hand how a dysfunctional leader and culture crushed the employees and the kids alike.
Fast forward a few more years: I worked at the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership at Saint Mary’s College. I learned how my Social Psychological background could be applied beyond academia. I collaborated with others to create a model of Women’s Intercultural leadership, conducted trainings and workshops, and did research to capture the impact of the programming. I saw first-hand how women’s lives were transformed because of that work, and experienced transformation myself as well.
All of these experiences became the launchpad for starting Cressy Leadership, which is now in year twelve of doing impactful, transformational work with businesses and leaders. Perhaps it’s no surprise that I now teach adults through academic learning mixed in with real-world examples and a dash of humor to help them become better leaders. I often speak of this work by connecting it to my personal WHY statement: I connect people, knowledge, and ideas to create life-changing transformation. The seeds of this WHY were planted long ago, and the fruits of this WHY are the transformational work I am lucky to engage in every day.
Knowing my individual WHY and knowing our Cressy Leadership WHY (we build leaders and leadership capacity to transform business and change lives) has been a north star for me. It brings higher-level clarity when problems need to be solved or strategy needs to be clarified. It allows me to be intentional about making the biggest impact possible, and to feel incredibly fulfilled in the work that I do, and in my life overall.
I highly encourage you to learn more about the WHY by watching Simon Sinek’s (old but still very good!) TED Talk, reading his book that resulted from that TED talk, and/or diving into his book about the process for finding your WHY (which outlines the process we use with businesses and individual clients.) FYI, you’ll be tempted to do this process on your own after reading the book, but don’t. Find a friend, a colleague, or a coach (cressyleadership.com) and engage in the process together. You’ll need the outside perspective to help provide clarity and direction during the process.
Bottom Line: Knowing and living your WHY helps create a career and a life of impact and fulfillment. It’s worth investing in yourself and discovering the language of your WHY.