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Welcome to Leading With Force — a podcast where seasoned entrepreneur Brian Force shares the invaluable lessons he's learned on his journey through this crazy, wonderful life. Having built several multimillion-dollar companies, Brian dives into the nuts and bolts of building successful teams, scaling businesses, and leading with passion and purpose.
Each episode offers practical tools to effectively cast your vision, build your team, boost productivity, and become the leader you were meant to be. Brian's mission is to inspire you to unlock the incredible power within yourself, achieve your goals, and make a meaningful impact on the world. Join us as we explore how to find your inner leader, empower others, and embrace your journey.
I have had the extraordinary pleasure of sitting with well over a thousand people and [00:01:00] going through thought exercises, developing their goals, and learning about what it is that motivates them, what it is that they want to accomplish. Really diving deep on what drives them forward, their purpose, and why they do things.
And I want to bring to you today a really crucial distinction that I've made over the years. And I think if you lean into, you'll find a lot more significance in the things that you do. You may even find yourself going down a different path. You may find yourself really leaning in to things that you otherwise might not think are tremendously important.
The crucial distinction that I want to make to you that I've found in my experience is this. Is the distinction between your big why and your deepest why. Your big why is not the same thing I've found as your deepest why.
Your big why is something you can articulate as [00:02:00] an outcome. I am building a business because I want financial freedom for my family and my children and I want them . To live a life that is financially abundant rather than financially scarce and full of stress that's a phenomenal big why by the way, that's a lot of people's big whys I think we can all resonate with that, but your deep why is different Your deep why is the thing that makes your big why?
important to you Your deep why is the deeply rooted emotional and even spiritual thing that makes your big why exist. It's where your big why comes from. And I've been really privileged and blessed to sit with a lot of people and talk about their big whys. But over the years, I've also seen a lot of people eventually run out of steam, fall really short of their big whys or [00:03:00] realize that their big whys weren't as important or weren't maybe as big as they had thought.
That maybe they weren't really as driven to achieve the thing that they wanted to achieve as they said they were when it all came down to it. And so years ago, looking back, I realized that the big why was important, but just as if not more important is your deep why
and there's a really useful exercise that you could do right now at home to help uncover your deep why the core behind your big why what really truly drives you forward. And when you complete this exercise, I think you'll be really interested in the results because what often happens is you realize that the purpose, the true purpose behind your big why It's all in the experience, the journey from where you are to accomplishing that outcome that is your big why, [00:04:00] and you can be living that purpose every single day that you're getting up and striving towards your big why.
So I'll give you a great example using myself.
I started exploring my big why when I was in my early twenties, maybe 22, 23 years old and I started my first business and I was in a goal setting seminar. It was the first time I'd ever heard the term big why. And I was asked to just write down on a simple sheet of paper what my big why was, why I wanted to build this business.
And truly at the time I was kind of a punk kid. I didn't have any real reason other than that. I was driven to do more than I was already doing. I really wanted to make a lot of money. I was a bartender at the time. It was really struggling to get by and I didn't want to worry about money anymore. I knew there was
other people out there that had lots of money and lots of cool things and I just wanted it.
And I had nothing else going on. I was [00:05:00] really hungry and willing to work for it. And so I put down, this is a true story, that I wanted enough money to buy a Ferrari. That was the first big why I ever wrote down in a legitimate goal setting workshop around why I wanted to start my own business because I just wanted to buy a Ferrari.
Well, fast forward years later, that Y turned out to not be quite big enough.
I continued down that path and I started my own business and I had that why I was just making money. I was using the Ferrari as a metaphor for, I just want to be successful. I see other people that are successful. They seem really happy. They have nice things and I want that too. I didn't end up buying a Ferrari, but I didn't get pretty close by the time I could afford it.
I had worked my way up to a financial standing where I could afford a Porsche and I fell in love with this beautiful black Porsche and I was 26 years old. I thought it was the coolest thing in [00:06:00] the world that I was going to be the first one of my friends and the youngest person that I know to drive a really beautiful luxury sports car.
I saw it at the dealership. I wasn't able to afford it the first time I saw it. I worked for months and months. My business was going well, or at least well enough that one day I went to the dealership with the confidence that I was at least going to be taken seriously.
I was wearing my best suit. I went in just to look, but I wanted to feel what it was like to be able to go to a Porsche dealership and have them look at me like somebody who might be a customer. That's really all I was expecting to get out of that day. And, of course, The people that work at the Porsche dealership are salesmen.
A lot of money down and 12 percent interest later, and I drove off the lot in probably the most financially irresponsible decision I have ever made in that beautiful black Porsche. But I didn't care at the time. I was on top of the world. I thought that this was it. I thought that life could only get [00:07:00] exceedingly better from here.
Because I was young, I was successful, at least in my own mind, and now I had achieved a big goal of mine. Maybe it wasn't the Ferrari, but the Ferrari was just a metaphor. I was a 26 year old kid driving around in a beautiful black Porsche that I had earned and bought with my own money, with the bank's money, and a lot of interest, and I was on top of the for about 90 days.
About 90 days was all it really took for me to realize that you can work as hard as you want for the idea of success, the material interpretation of success. But at least in my case, after about 90 days, that car just became a car. In fact, it became a little bit of a burden because it was really expensive.
That auto [00:08:00] deduction from my bank account every month truly was painful. Once all the glamor wore off and the excitement and the adrenaline wore off, it was a pain in the butt because I insisted on hand washing it. I didn't want the paint to get scratched, so I didn't want to take it to the machine. So you add all that up.
And at the end of the day, it was just a thing that took me from A to B and it was less convenient than my last car. It was more of a burden. And then what really hurt. Was that when I realized that I wasn't getting any of the social benefits that I thought I might get from owning something like this, there's something called your reticular activating system.
It's basically the part of your brain that starts to recognize patterns and see things that you didn't see before, just because you've primed your brain to start seeing them. As soon as I bought that Porsche, I realized how many other people around me had very similar luxury cars. Even in my peer group.[00:09:00]
And that I wasn't impressing anybody and that if anything, my more financially successful friends, the ones that were really wealthy kind of thought I was an idiot for making such a financial mistake and buying a depreciating asset at such a high interest rate. And so it took 90 days or so for me to realize that that was never my big why.
It was an insecurity that I had. I wanted to look and feel successful, but there was obviously something deeper there. And so I sold the car, bought a pickup truck, and then I went back to search for my true big why. And by the way, I still kept working. And I've had lots of ups and downs and started many businesses and many are successful.
Some haven't been, but the years after that, I went on a very big Boom [00:10:00] and kind of a run in our business. One of our businesses really, really exploded and we started doing very, very, very well financially. We're very blessed, but I still had a big why that was attached to money. I had just started articulating it a little bit better.
I had said that my big why was financial freedom, that I just wanted money so that I didn't have to stress about the lack thereof. I didn't have to worry and come from a scarcity mindset. I wanted to experience life and experiencing life costs a lot of money. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to give, which was definitely part of my big why I wanted to be productive.
I wanted to experience all of what life had to offer. And I can only do that if I had a lot of money and a lot of resources. And so I worked really, really, really hard and became really, really successful financially for a long period of time. And then I realized that maybe that wasn't my big why. [00:11:00] And I remember having realized that because throughout this process, I remember making more money legitimately.
Then I knew what to do with at some point meaning money would come in in the form of distributions every month and I wouldn't know what to do with it because inherently I'm, not really much of a lavish spender. I don't need as many resources as I thought I did and so I actually became a little bit insecure about the money that I was making.
I became a little bit insecure about how to invest it properly, how to truly secure my financial future, how to really take what I had earned and put it to good use. It at times felt like a bit of a burden and what it did was trigger something inside of me that I didn't realize existed. It was a deep rooted insecurity.
It was a fear of success. It [00:12:00] was imposter syndrome. The more money that came in, the less worthy I felt of having that type of financial success. And so I started to give more, but less responsibly. I started to spend more, but less responsibly under the guise of having experiences.
I would bring lots of friends to really nice fancy dinners and spend thousands of dollars just to be in their company. And of course they would take me up on it because it was a great experience and we're great friends, but I still felt unworthy. I felt very hollow and it wasn't until I was introduced to the concept of my deep why the reason for my big why existing that I really started to truly peel back the layers and understand more about.
Why I had had this attachment to being so financially successful
The reality is [00:13:00] financial success is incredibly important to a certain extent. If you have a singular vision and a purpose attached to it, it's going to probably involve some level of financial implication. You do need resources. You do need to be able to spend money to help others and make an impact in certain contexts.
Brian: And it's also true that there is a point of diminishing returns beyond which money not only becomes less important, it can actually become a burden in some scenarios.
Without a true purpose for the money that I'm making. There is no utility behind it. Money is simply energy. It's a bit of an illusion. It's not real. Unless we ascribe a meaning to it. A purpose to it. What we're going to do with it. The actions that we're going to take with it. The energy that we're going to infuse into whatever aspect of ours or other people's lives with it.
And without that purpose, I realized that I was uncomfortable making that amount of [00:14:00] money. And so I asked myself, what made me so uncomfortable? What was it that I was truly after? Why was I making more money? than I needed, but I wasn't finding any higher level of joy or fulfillment in my life. And I've never been a selfish person.
I give freely and I tremendously care about other people and I always have this on a new thing, but I hadn't articulated it. I hadn't articulated my deep why, why I truly get up in the morning and I do what I do. going through this deep why process really helped me to identify that in reality. I do what I do because I enjoy helping people and what I do and have done for so long is build businesses, mostly businesses that sell something with salespeople. And I've spent thousands and thousands of hours with thousands and thousands of salespeople helping them get better at what they do so that they can achieve their big why.
And in [00:15:00] times when I've been good at it, in times when the market has been palatable for it, in times when we've been successful. I've made a lot of money in times when I've been good at what I've done and made a valuable impact in the lives of others. I've helped them grow their businesses and their careers.
And that's been financially rewarding for me. But what I realized is that beyond a certain extent, beyond a certain threshold, that financial reward will become more and more hollow because I wasn't helping more and more people. Those people were helping to make us more and more money. But I realized that there was a disconnect.
I realized that my big why is about my financial freedom and making more money when my deep why, the reason that I get up every day was actually to help other people. What I found true joy and purpose in was [00:16:00] helping people that weren't financially free, or hungry and driven, helping them succeed and helping them hit their threshold for where they're not coming from a scarcity mindset either where they're no longer stressed about money or they're no longer stressed about finances and paying their bills where they can live a life of clarity and abundance and joy themselves and past a certain threshold making a certain amount of money but not helping more people became very hollow for me It felt unworthy.
It made me feel unworthy because my biggest why was being met, but my deepest why was not because the two were out of alignment. I realized that my big why was disconnected from my deep why my big why was financial freedom for myself and my family. And yes, giving was involved and taking that money and doing good in the world.
But what I realized that my deep why was doing good in [00:17:00] the world. regardless of whether or not I made money. And so the more money I made, but the fewer people I helped, the more out of tune those two Ys got. And I realized that my big Y was so much less important than my deep Y. And a fascinating thing started to develop.
When I stopped focusing On making more money, making the business more and more slim and efficient so we could eke out more and more profit. And I poured myself more into helping my people be great, into helping them rise, into helping them meet their financial goals. We started making a lot more money again, but it felt more pure.
And of course my giving has increased and what I do with my money. has created more good in the world, but it all leads back to my deepest why. Now when I give, I give in the spirit of my deepest why. And the thing about it is [00:18:00] every day that I get up is already a good day. We might not always meet our big why goals.
We might not always achieve those singular outcomes. I want to sell my company for 30 million. We might not always achieve everything that we set out to, but we can live our deepest why every single day. Every day that I get up, whether we're making money, losing money, neutral, whether the world is on fire, whether the company is falling apart, whether we're totally dialed in and everything is banging on all cylinders, I can help people.
I can get up every day and help lead my people forward, energize them to be great and go watch them achieve amazing results. And some days that makes me a lot of money. Some days it doesn't. Some days the business is operationally inefficient and we can have the best salespeople in the world, but we're losing money on the back end.
Sometimes we miscalculate the cost of things and we can lose money that way. And I don't sweat it. One, [00:19:00] because I know we have great people and we're going to figure it out. But because I allow myself now to come from a place of joy every single day, so long as I'm helping someone else be great and the good times, that will make me a lot of money.
In the tough times that will still bring me a lot of joy and in the end, I know I'll always have more than I need to be happy. So I would challenge you to go through this simple five step process and the five steps involve asking yourself the question why five times deeper than you ever have.
For now, we'll stick with mine just for the example. My big why is to be financially free. And then what I'd like you to do is ask yourself the question why one layer deeper and then answer that question why with this sentence. I want to blank, which will be your big why [00:20:00] because blank.
So for example, I want to be financially free Because then I can bring my purest self to my work and not stress about money. And then I want you to ask yourself why again and answer that question in the same way. Why do you want to be your purest self and not stress about money? I want to be my purest self and not stress about money because in the absence of that stress, I can genuinely help more people and come from a place of true purpose.
And then I want you to ask yourself why again and answer it in the same way. Why do you want to help more people and come from a place [00:21:00] of true purpose? I want to come from a place of true purpose and help more people because I think if we all had that mindset. The world would truly be a better, more joyous, peaceful place, and we'd all have better lives.
I think this is only going to be the fourth why, but you get where I'm going with this. I want you to take that now a level deeper. Why is it important to you that we all come from a place of true joy and fulfillment and make the world a better place? I want people to come from a place of true joy and fulfillment and make the world a better place because I think That that's why we're here.
I think that's the meaning and the essence of what life really is. I think that if the 8 billion people on our planet were [00:22:00] able to come from a place of true purpose and meaning and joy and fulfillment, we'd all live unbelievably incredible lives. You could all collaborate and communicate and live in some form of harmony.
And I think it's important. To have the mindset that every day you're going to live in a way that it's just some small representation of that. And I think that my deepest why is because when we all have a mindset of being the best human beings that we could be and treating others the best way that we possibly can, if we had that as our primary focus, then financial freedom or everything that can make the world turn ugly at times.
Would become much less of an issue and we'd solve a lot more of the world's problems that I know we're already capable of [00:23:00] solving if we came from the right intention, the right mindset and with the right priorities. And so I think it's my responsibility and what gives me purpose is to act in a way that I feel the world would be better off if we all acted.
I suppose that's my deepest why. So that was very wordy, and I think I only got four layers deep there, but you're starting to unravel and you'll see this in real time when you ask yourself these questions. What truly makes you tick? I think that's a really good way to articulate it. Your deepest why is what truly makes you tick.
And now what's really important about this, by the way, is that your deepest why and your big why will tend to be out of alignment at times, as I mentioned earlier, that doesn't mean they have to stay that way. As soon as you realize your deepest why, you can realign it with your biggest why. An [00:24:00] example I'll give you, I alluded to earlier.
I can fulfill my deepest why every single day. This is why I come from a place of joy. This is why the stresses of entrepreneurship and our business and everything that goes with it. I have a much more level headed way of dealing with those things now because the reality is my cup is full every day that I get to help people.
And trust me, if you look around and your reticular activators are up, there's plenty of people out there that you can help. And I don't mean help financially. I don't mean help by, by going in and doing these big gestures. I mean by adjusting your mindset. From how can we do more to just simply asking the question, how can I help?
How can I help this person? How can I help in this situation? Whether it's legitimately helping them in some way physically, or just bringing a little bit more joy and playfulness and humor and uplift, uplifting energy into their lives. And I feel like that mindset shift for me has made a massive difference in my life.[00:25:00]
And it's actually made a massive difference in our businesses. My businesses are heavily service and sales related. And if you work in heavily sales or service related businesses, you realize, and you can resonate with, the idea that the world is on fire all the time. Something's always broken. We live in a constant state of controlled chaos.
And what I've found is that, rather than focusing on what's going on, my financial freedom and my businesses being a mechanism to become more financially successful. What I realized is my businesses were a mechanism to live out my deepest why there's always somebody I can help in my business because somebody's always freaking out.
Somebody's always having their worst day of the year. We're getting fired or our clients are upset or our processes are broken or we miss something financially and now we're 100, 000 in the hole. That's a real story that happened from last week, by the way. And I can't help but smile now [00:26:00] in those scenarios because that means I get to help.
And when I help one, I'm already meeting my deepest why, but two, When I help, I get the opportunity to grow our businesses again. I get the opportunity to make things better. And when things get better, we do make more money. And so my deepest why is in alignment with my biggest why there was a time in our businesses where I was becoming further and further removed from having a day to day influence and effect on our business.
We were in a really great market. I didn't need to do nearly as much. in our business. And that's why I felt like I was helping fewer people, but I was making more money and that felt very hollow. That's where the imposter syndrome come came from because I was an imposter. I was pretending to be somebody whose deepest why was really just financial success, but that's not the case.
My deepest why is to help people and I can do that every single day. And what I've realized is that [00:27:00] when you meet that deepest why it tends to come back in alignment with your big why. If you have the right big why, and if you don't getting to your deepest why and starting to fulfill your needs there will create a new big why for you and it will always be in alignment.
So I would encourage you to go through this simple exercise. It might put a really big smile on your face and you might realize a couple things. One, your big why might be really far off in the future, but your deepest why is almost always something that you can meet right now every single day. You've most likely experienced this experience times in your life when a lot of things weren't going really well, but you were still happy.
That's most likely because your deepest why was being met. Maybe it's your relationships. Maybe it's something more, more, more meaningful to you personally. We've all, had times where we've had success in a lot of areas of our lives. But we're not really feeling all that great [00:28:00] about it. Maybe our relationships are really screwed up or maybe we're doing something that we truly hate and we find no purpose in.
That just means that our deepest whys and our biggest whys are out of alignment. But until you discover your deepest why, you can't align it with your big why, unless you get really lucky. But my hunch is that discovering your deepest why, you'll have a much greater ability to to keep it in line and have a much bigger impact.
Discovering my deepest why changed my line of thinking from, how do we do more to simply, how can I help? And that simple mindset shift has changed my entire life. And it's really also helped me with that financial freedom aspect. That was my biggest why I just do it from a more pure place. Now. And that's made all the difference for me.
So try this exercise and I would love for you to get in touch with me and let me know how [00:29:00] it helped you, how it impacted you and hear your results. Thank you for hanging out with me for another episode. I truly hope that this was beneficial
And I'll see you next time.