Uncovering the 'Why' That Drives Us

Have you ever paused mid-stride, struck by the realization that there's more to your daily grind than meets the eye? We embark on a journey within, peeling back the layers of 'why'—that driving force behind our every ambition, choice, and dream. In the intimate spaces of storytelling and reflection, I weave through personal narratives, exploring my own relentless quest to impact the world. It's about tapping into the essence of who we are, aligning our actions with the authentic energy that propels us forward. Today's conversation is not just a glimpse into my soul's blueprint; it's an invitation for you to unlock the power of living purposefully, uncovering your unique 'why' that makes every heartbeat count.

Emotions are the threads that connect us, and it's through sharing our stories that we find strength—both in ourselves and in each other. I recount moments that have shaped my journey, like the profound way John Lennon's "Imagine" echoed within my young son's heart, binding us to the collective human narrative. Balancing the magnitude of societal change with the tenderness of family moments, I confront the dualities of my world, striving to leave a legacy of hope and progress for my children. This episode is a testament to the transformative power of shared experiences and the conviction that together, our voices can craft a tapestry of change for the generations to come. Join me, and let's embrace the beauty and complexity of life's grand tapestry, stitched with family, purpose, and the shared stories that make us who we are.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Amanda Quick show. I'm your host, amanda Quick, today's episode. I am really looking forward to having this conversation. It's been playing in my head all week. I don't know about you guys, but when there's something that I need to do or some next step I need to take, or something of the sort it plays in my head as I try to go to sleep at night and oftentimes podcast episodes I'll get an idea and I'll start playing it out what I need to say or how, what direction I need to go as I try to sleep, and sometimes I can't fall asleep until I finish. So I am glad to have this conversation with you all and get this one out of my brain. I don't know about if anybody else works like that, but that is my, my experience, and I will often practice speeches or anything else that I'm doing in my head at night. So the conversation I want to have with you guys today is a conversation about finding your why and why bother, finding your why.

Speaker 1: 1:40

You know I have been thinking a lot in the last couple of months, the last couple of weeks, really intensely about what I'm doing with myself, why I'm bothering, what matters to me. You know I've talked the last episode. We talked a lot about my desire to change the world and how crazy that sounds, and yet that is. That is one of the truest things for me the people that I want to support and I've really been honing in on what that is and how do I understand that part of myself and how do I support the world in this way and all those things. But this week what I've been focusing on isn't what or who, but it's why. Why do I want to change the world? Why do I show up here and share my life with you all? Why do I run a business and a nonprofit and work full-time and all the things like why do I do those things? Why is that so important to me and why, when I stop or don't do those things, do I feel so horrible? I'm asking myself all of these really big questions and I've been contemplating and trying to unravel this. Why for myself and it's something that I think that everybody out there should really think for themselves why do you do what you do? Why do you show up to work every day? Why do you show up in your business every day? Why do you show up for all the reasons, and if your answer is because I have to, I challenge that, because you really don't. You could choose a different experience, and if that's unacceptable, then you do it so that you don't have a more horrible experience, which perhaps maybe is why you're not excited about your life. But why do you do what you do, especially if it's something that does excite you? What about it?

Speaker 1: 3:54

I think a lot of people spend a whole lot of time just monotonously going through life and they don't think about why it matters or what they're doing, until something happens, something big enough, some big, huge curveball moment, some traumatic situation, maybe losing somebody important, maybe an illness that catches them off guard, or some heartbreak or betrayal, some other big piece. Something happens to them and they are shook in to their core and they start to question everything about themselves, about others, about why. What's the point of this reality? I know for me, that's true. I know for me, recovering and healing and growing beyond and past the things that I walked through has left me with a more questions and answers, to be honest, but a continuous questioning of my understanding of reality, of this experience and why I'm choosing to participate in the way that I am. I've talked a little bit on this podcast about the energy types framework and this understanding that came to me in a really fascinating way and this new set of puzzles to be solved, in a sense, and to understand people in a different way and the lens in which they choose to experience reality through. The more I've sat with it and a few months have gone by since that original understanding came in the more I see it as a primary choice of expression, not a personality test, not a box to put anybody in, but an expression that people go through life with Somebody who's really intent on solving puzzles and understanding the intellectual components of things.

Speaker 1: 6:01

That's a part of who they are, that's a deeper identity piece and somebody who's hugely empathetic and hugely emotional in various situations. It would be pretty ridiculous to all of us and assume that they were going to be highly intellectual. I'm not saying they're not intelligent, but their focus and their primary choice of expression is different. Their primary choice of expression may be through art expressions or music or some other creation that allowed them to experience the emotional component at a deeper level, because that's more true for them. Somebody who's on the intellectual spectrum needs to deeply understand the logical, analytical component in order to feel safe and comfortable with whatever the thing is. That's the truest form for them. There's no right to wrong, reason or answer, but both of these people experience reality through the lens of their chosen expression. When I look at it this way, and I look at the fact that we all have all of the expressions, and an intellectual person still does have emotions they don't express them in the same way, but they do experience them, usually to their own dismay, but they do Emotional is still going to have lots of intellectual thoughts and steps and processes, and they may not understand those in the same way, but they have them. We all have not just emotional and mental, but we all have physical and spiritual components to our expression as well. When I was sitting with this and thinking about myself and the things that I've done in my life the big changes, the big movements, the big forceful manifestations in a sense, they all have a common theme.

Speaker 1: 8:03

I don't know if you remember if you've been listening to the show since the inception, when I was first talking about the framework. The question I was actually asking when it came to me was about my own ability to manifest. I was trying to understand why sometimes it happens really quickly and sometimes it seems like, no matter what I do, things can't happen. That was actually my original question when all of this came to me and I got a little bit sidetracked with this cool new concept, but that was originally my understanding and my questions. I've been thinking about that more In this concept of why.

Speaker 1: 8:46

What I realized is that, no matter where you sit on the energy types framework and no matter what your primary expression and lens that you like to experience reality through is, your why is still somehow always going to be tied to the emotions. The why you do something because emotionally you feel it, you feel the importance of it, you are drawn to it and it is not something that you can logically explain. As much as we try, you can't logically explain that level of feeling and that pull towards something and it's deeply rooted in the emotional body. No matter whether you're an intellectual or you are a primary physical or a spiritual or emotional. The why comes through the emotional lens your what is in the physical and your how is your mental thought process and your who is yourself, your energy being, but your why is always the emotional weight?

Speaker 1: 9:55

I was thinking about it that way this week because I was really trying to think about my own or again, that always comes back to me and my own understanding of self and the importance of the things I'm doing. And why do I bother thinking that I can even change the world? Why do I care? When I relate that same thing back to my big movements and manifestations and getting out of my divorce and even recently this year moving again and starting a new job and moving into a new house again and all these things that happen in my life, they always tie on some level to physical safety, but not for me. It's never actually about me. None of the big things I've done have ever been about my specific experience.

Speaker 1: 10:51

For me and this is not necessarily true for everybody, but for me my why and the importance and weight that holds the most gravity for me is my kids. My children are my wife. Changing the world so that they get to be in a better world. That matters to me. Creating a world where my children can grow up safe and connected and sure of who they are matters to me. Being an example for them of what it looks like to follow your passions, to believe in yourself to do something that feels impactful, so that they know they can do so too. That matters to me More than doing it, more than actually doing it for me. Doing it for them has always been my way.

Speaker 1: 11:59

You know, I was thinking this week that my almost entire adult life I've had children. I had my oldest. I was 23 when he was born, but I was 22 when I got pregnant, and six months before that, when I was 21, I actually had an ectopic pregnancy, and so it wasn't a viable pregnancy, but my body has believed that I was a mother since I was 21. It has believed that I was caring and growing and nurturing another being inside of me since I was 21 years old. This is a long time. I am now 36. And so the last 15 years I have been, on some level, a mother. That is a long time, not quite half my life, but we're getting there, and being a mother is a level of identity that I don't think you can explain in words.

Speaker 1: 13:12

People told me that it will change you, and I didn't believe it until it happened. I believed that I was going to stay hyper independent and I was going to go back to work and I was going to be this carefree, put the kid in daycare, no problem, type of person. That did not happen. I had full blown panic attacks about leaving my children and when they were newborns, I could not separate. We were not two people.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Yet they are a creation that came from me. They are their own beings and they are beautiful, individual, very different beings, but that connection to them, the emotional connection, is one of the strongest that I have ever experienced in my life and maybe ever will experience. To be completely honest, I don't know, but my emotional connection to them and my drive to protect them, keep them safe and see them not just safe but flourished matters to me more than just about anything else in the world. And creating a world, changing the world, is actually for them. And when I sit with that, there's a whole lot more weight behind saying I want to change the world because I have a real why, have a reason, and even if you don't have children, you still have a why. You still have a big heart for someone, something that matters to you. You have an emotional connection, maybe even directly, to humanity, but you have an emotional connection to something, someone that drives you, and that emotional body is the one that gives you your why, why you get up in the morning, why you show up every day, why you help the people you help, why you talk the way you talk. Everything, everything is directed because this is why, and when I think about it that way, when I think about it that way, and I think about all of the people who wander into the world and have no idea why they're doing it or why they're showing up every day and what they're doing and what matters, I believe that they just don't have their why yet, and when they find it, everything changes.

Speaker 1: 16:04

You know, I had no idea how much of a fierce mama bear I was until we were faced with the biggest challenge of my life. You could not have stopped me. I would have spent every single dime, I would have gone into any amount of debt. I didn't care. I would have done anything, no matter what. I would have pushed over every barrier. If I had failed during my initial divorce hearing, I would have just kept going. I wouldn't have stopped. You couldn't, you couldn't. I couldn't fail because I wouldn't stop. I just eventually would get there. And that's what I believed. And I believed that so strongly that all of the multitudes of times that I tried before that and did fail.

Speaker 1: 16:52

It took a step back and I said it's okay, this is happening for me because this matters too much. There's something else I need here, but I'm not stopping. I had my plan. I knew how I was going to go through it. I knew what I was after and I sure as heck knew why. I knew that I had to be the right person to make the decisions. I knew that I had to say what mattered. I was fully connected, that nobody else was making decisions for me. I was in charge. But my why was for my kids and for myself. I had to get to the point where I saw myself as just as worthy and that I could not be the parent I needed to be if I was constantly in fight or flight. I couldn't deal anymore with the high conflict. It was exhausting and I was in the midst of very intense PTSD. But my why was for them. My why was for them to fight, for them to be the best mom I could be for them, and my desire to change the world is for them, to inspire the world for them, and that, I think, is one of the most powerful things that we can do for ourselves, for businesses, for the stories we tell is to understand why. You know this.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Last couple of weeks I've had actually quite a few people come to me and ask me about writing a book or speaking their story. There's a lot of people realizing the importance of it and there's a lot of people saying I've got a story too and maybe it's time I write my book or I start a podcast or I, whatever the thing is. A lot of people. I think it's fantastic, because the more people who are willing to bring these things out of the closet and into the light, the better. The more humanity will realize how messed up things have been, truthfully. But I really challenge everybody if you're one of those people, if you're one of the people who are like I've got a story that the world needs to hear, and I don't care if your story is one that you've directly experienced. If you're, I have a community member of mine who's a fiction writer and she's got a really powerful story that she doesn't have direct experience with, but it's really important to her to share that story. And if you've got a story to tell the world, if you've got a message to tell the world, first of all, challenge you to do so, and second, I want you to get really, really clear before you do on why you're doing that.

Speaker 1: 19:49

What's the emotion you're bringing forward? Why does it matter? There were many, many versions of why this could be. Perhaps it's to make a better world for your kids too. Perhaps it's to help other people feel less alone so that they can also feel safe to share their stories. Perhaps it's to raise awareness about a part of the system that's broken that you want to help change. Perhaps it's all of those and then some Good Good. The more weight, the more emotion, the more drive you have behind doing something, the better. The more you can get behind this mission of yours, the story of yours, with that drive, with that emotional body, the more you can present it and share your story with that level of emotion, the more other people will relate, because they won't even understand why it matters, but they will feel it, they will 100% feel you and your why, and that will spark them just the same way, just as you listened to me talk about my why being my kids and wanting to change the world for my kids and help other people feel less alone and all of the same things. That's my story I'm sharing here.

Speaker 1: 21:11

The reason I wrote my book wasn't to talk about myself, but was to raise awareness to the fact that I'm the only person who's ever written that book. From the wife's perspective it hasn't been done before. That was a problem to me because I am for sure not the only one, and my children are not the only ones to have gone through such adversity not even close and they're dealing with the after effects today in their way, and that's probably an episode for another day. But there are challenges that have come from that experience that for some parts of them, will be lifelong challenges, because the experiences we have in early childhood do, on some level, define our later experiences and we work through them and we talk about them, and they have me and I will never give up on them. I will never, ever tell them that this is just the way it is and they have to deal with this, because this is just what happened. I will always try to help them process mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I will always hold space for their choice of when they're ready to process and how and when.

Speaker 1: 22:37

But everybody else out there also has this story. Everybody else there, every single person on this planet, has a big story. Maybe it's not quite as shocking in front of the newspaper like mine was, but they have a story. They have something that happened to them that shook them. You lost somebody, or somebody got sick, or you got sick, or you had a heartbreak, or you were betrayed by a lover or friend or parent or a child Any version of those. Everybody goes through hardships in some fashion and the vast majority of people never talk about it, not in detail and certainly not to anybody outside of a very small circle. But the reality is we all have the big story. We all have something. We all have something that carried emotion. It carried weight and importance and a huge lesson for you. But if you shared that lesson with other people, I wonder what would change. I wonder how that story could potentially help the person you shared it with. Maybe there would be an aha moment for them, an understanding of something they were working through. Maybe they would simply feel less alone and know they are not the only one.

Speaker 1: 24:12

One of my youngest sons recently discovered John Lennon's song Imagine, and he will play it on repeat. It's adorable because when he first heard it, he was listening to the words. Some of the things that they talk about in the story are ideas that he has had on his own, without ever hearing the words in the song before. And he's had these ideas that we don't need money, it's silly, we should just share. And what's all this nonsense that people do and what's the point of all of it? And you know he's eight.

Speaker 1: 24:51

So the first time I played the song for him and he heard the lines you're not the only one. He goes oh, I'm not the only one. Oh, my gosh, guys, did you know? And it was this most profound moment for him. And when I told him that the song was written in the 60s or 70s I don't know exactly and it's been out for, you know, 50 or 60 years, he's like what you mean? There's more of us and it was just this. It was the cutest thing ever, because he's eight, right, but this realization that he doesn't have to fight alone, he doesn't have to be alone.

Speaker 1: 25:43

And I think, whether you're trying to start a business, whether you're trying to start a movement, whether you're simply processing really painful things, knowing that you're not alone is hugely, profound, hugely, and it's one of the reasons that I sought to share my story it's not the only one, but it's a big one because the more people who go out there and feel like they're not the only ones and it's safe to share their story to, it's safe to speak their truth of their direct experience, the more ripple effect that has. The more ripple effect that has, the more awareness we bring to the systematic, honestly just atrocities that are out there, the more we recognize as the problems in the legal system and the education system and the medical system and all of the systems, the more people who are willing to speak their voice, the more we can't hide from the problems and the more people who say, hey, me too. The more light that's brought to this darkness and the more change that gets to happen, the more inspired change, trauma, informed change gets to happen, because there's more and more people speaking about it, there's more and more people raising the flag about it, there's more and more people saying this is not just this girl's issue, this is mine too. What are we going to do about it? And with enough emotion, enough weight of importance, enough drive, I do believe we can change the world.

Speaker 1: 27:41

I can't do it by myself. No, I don't want to, because I don't have any of the answers. I really don't. I know that it's broken. I know the system is broken. I, my direct experience with the criminal and family court legal system is beyond broken. I have some experience with the education system that has been less than positive, and I have some experience that's been very positive.

Speaker 1: 28:05

And I do think that there are many, many people out there trying to shift and change all of these systems, but without people out there going, hey, there's a problem. All of these challenges aren't going to be talked about, and so my goal my why to help change the world for my kids, to make this a better world for my kids, for myself, to make what I went through flipping matter for my kids is also to help everybody out there feel less alone so that they also go and change the world and share their stories Also. That's, to me, the point. If I have to go first, fine, that's whatever, that doesn't bother me, but I don't want to be the only one, right? Nobody does. We're not the only one. You're not the only one going through whatever you're going through. You're not the only one with a story that needs to be told You're not the only one who's been through really, really hard stuff. You're not the only one who is terrified to step out there. You're not the only one in any aspect of that.

Speaker 1: 29:30

But if you can tap into the emotion of why it matters deep in your heart, why, if this changed for somebody else's experience, if awareness was brought that nobody else had to go through what you did, how would that feel? And on the flip side, if somebody close to you did have to go through what you went through, how would that feel? That emotion, that really yucky emotion right there, that's the one, that's the why that if I don't, I can't, that's not acceptable. I will do nothing to do everything to make sure that doesn't happen. We can't lose if we don't ever stop right. People joke who are close to me that I'm not a man to slow. I really like being fast and quick and making change.

Speaker 1: 30:44

It's been a hard challenge for me to recognize that I can't change the world in the snap of my fingers. I can't. I can uproot my entire life, move countries and houses and jobs in a week, literally, but I can't change the world that fast and I definitely can't do it alone and I have to stay really, really in tune to my why. I have to stay really deeply connected to my children. I have to listen to them. I have to stay connected to my relationship with them. I have to play with them. I have to enjoy being their mother. Sometimes I forget that part.

Speaker 1: 31:32

It's not always easy to have all these big dreams and do all these things, but I also have to live in the moment with them.

Speaker 1: 31:43

They are, and have always been the most important, the most important people to me. I cannot explain how important and my very deep connection to them. It's been there since the very beginning, but they're my why, and they're why I show up every day, I get out of bed, every day I go to my day job, why I share my stories on this podcast, why I start communities, why I start an unprofit, why I'm going to go speak on the TEDx stage, why I'm going to go do anything else that I'm going to go do in the future. It is always, ultimately, for my children and for my desire to change the world and make it a better place for them. Alright, guys, that is all that I have for you, guys today. I hope that this was enlightening. I hope that it inspired you to really get close to you and your deeper why and think through what matters to you and use that, use that momentum, use that emotion to tell your story, to take your next steps, to follow your heart and wherever that takes you, lots of love everyone.