What’s YOUR Why?

Everyone knows when they were born. Only a lucky few find out WHY. Before you do anything else in your life or business, you need to know your WHY.

Special Offer!  Discover your personal WHY at half price using the code “PODCAST50”!

Dr. Gary Sanchez’ Personal “WHY + HOW + WHAT” is “Better Way + Clarify + Simplify.”
His WHY is to “find a better way and share it.” HOW he does that is by making things clear and easy to understand. WHAT he brings is a simple solution to help people move forward. He created a Better Way for individuals to Discover their WHY+HOW+WHAT.

Dr. Gary knew that there had to be a better way to Discover Your WHY, he got clear through over 10 years of research and built the world’s first WHY Discovery tool. A better, clear, and simple way of Discovering Your WHY. Dr. Gary Sanchez graduated from USC Dental School in 1988, and began his practice in Albuquerque, NM.  He built an incredible practice based on his dental company’s WHY.

The WHY came from a deep and long drawn out search for his Personal WHY. Once Dr. Gary Discovered his Personal WHY he felt freedom and understanding of who he was on a deeper level. He gained clarity on his past, his present, and his direction for his future. This started the pursuit of finding a better, clear, and simple way for others to Discover their WHY resulting in the world’s first WHY Discovery tool.

Now Dr. Gary and his team have worked with over 50,000 individuals, and 500 companies from small yoga studios to Fortune 500 Companies helping them use their WHY to get clear, stand out and play bigger.

Website: https://whyinstitute.com/

Twitter: @whyinstitute

LinkedIn: Gary Sanchez

Listen to the podcast here:

Read Along as Karla and Gary discuss Your WHY, HOW, and WHAT

Karla Nelson:  And welcome to the people catalyst podcast, my good friend, Gary Sanchez.

Gary Sanchez:  So, where would you like me to start?

Karla Nelson:  Well, you know what? Just share with us, your entrepreneurial journey and then we’ll slide out from there.

Gary Sanchez:  Okay. So, in 1988, I went off to USC dental school. So, I was out there kind of near you. And well, I graduated actually in 1988 and the advice that I was given back there at the time was, if you do a great job, if you build a great product, people will come. People will find out about you and they’ll come see you, right? Have you ever heard that before?

Karla Nelson:  Well, in 88, that’s potentially true. In 2020, that’s not necessarily the case.

Gary Sanchez:  So, I spent 20 years developing myself, developing my practice, building a beautiful facility, hiring a wonderful team. I have all the latest technology. I have all the stuff. I truly did, Karla, build a great product. I’m not just saying we had one, but I really did. I went all in on training myself to the highest level.

Karla Nelson:  Do you get a specific chair? Even though your background is being a dentist, you’ve done all sorts of different things and makes things better.

Gary Sanchez:  Yes, exactly. So, I built a great practice. And during that time, I started having back problems. So, I started buying chairs. I couldn’t find what I wanted, so I built my own chair, a chair that forms itself to you called, The Health Chair. We’ve sold them all over the world. But in building my practice, I soon realized that just having a great product is not enough.

It really isn’t enough to get people. People start to expect the level of service that you give, and they don’t talk about it. And so, I ended up 20 years later, with a very refined practice, but not growing because people weren’t talking about me, they were just expecting that this is how it’s done and not wanting to go to a party and talk about their nice teeth.

They wanted people to just say, “Hey, you got a great smile.” And them saying, “Thank you.” And so, I became very disillusioned. There’re over 400 dentists here in Albuquerque. So, what I learned, Karla, is if you talk about what you do, you blend in with everybody else who does what you do, right? I’m a dentist. So, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?

Karla Nelson:  Teeth.

Gary Sanchez:  Teeth. Or “I hate dentists.” Or-

Karla Nelson:  Not my favorite thing. I have to admit.

Gary Sanchez:  Yeah. Or “My nephew’s a dentist.” Or whatever comes to your mind, but it blends me in with everybody else who does what I do. And so, I had spent all this time developing a great product and somebody right out of school would say, “Oh yeah, I’m a dentist too. We do the same thing.” Right? You’ve got a lot of education and you’ve got a lot of experience.

And somebody that comes right into your marketplace isn’t the same as you, but how do you help people differentiate that? How do you help them understand who you really are? And how do you articulate your message? And so, that was my challenge. How do I stand out in this crowded marketplace of dentistry? And so, I hired a mentor. I hired a guy by the name of John Assaraf. Are you familiar with John Assaraf?

Karla Nelson:  Oh yeah, John’s fantastic.

Gary Sanchez:  Yeah. So, he helped me way back, this was about 10 years ago. Through him, I learned how to use the internet. I learned how to do websites and drip campaigns and videos. And I learned how to get my message out to the world. But the only problem was, what am I going to say? What am I going to say? And what are your listeners going to say? That’s going to separate them from everybody else who does what they do?

Karla Nelson:  Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Gary Sanchez:  And so, since I didn’t know what to say, Karla, I didn’t say anything. I just stayed quiet because I didn’t want to sound bad. I don’t want to sound like I actually needed new clients. So, until one day I heard John Assaraf interview Simon Sinek. Simon Sinek wrote that book, Start With Why, he developed that-

Karla Nelson:  Oh yeah.

Gary Sanchez:  Yeah, you’re familiar.

Karla Nelson:  Oh yeah.

Gary Sanchez:  He developed the golden circle concept, right?

Karla Nelson:  So, we got the opportunity to interview his co-founder on the podcast as well.

Gary Sanchez:  Awesome.

Karla Nelson:  And we just recently taught the Air Command and Staff College that Simon also taught as well. So yes, his works are fantastic.

Gary Sanchez:  So, I read his book, I listened to his Ted talk, I don’t know, 20 times. And I was like, “That’s the missing piece. That’s what I don’t have. I have a great what, but I don’t know why I’m doing it.” And so, I called Simon. The why, how, what’s a great concept, but who needs another great-

Karla Nelson:  You need a process behind it.

Gary Sanchez:  Yeah. Who needs another great concept, right? If you can’t do anything with it, what value does it have? And so, I called Simon. I said, “Simon, I need you to help me discover my why.” And he’s like, “You know, I don’t really know how to do that, but let’s try to figure it out.” So, he and I worked together for about eight months and went back through my life, trying to figure out my why.

And when I finally discovered my why, which is to find a better way and then share it, my life made so much more sense to me. I’m that guy that you can count on to find better ways to do things, to innovate something that’s already there. Like I said, I have a chair that I developed, that’s a better way to sit. I started fitness contests, a better way to get in shape. Everything I do in my life is all about finding better ways to do things and then sharing them, which is exactly what I’m doing with the why.

So then, since my why is to find a better way, I went back and saw what Simon was trying to do, and I just made it better. I figured out how to help somebody discover their why. Not in six or eight or ten months, but I could sit down with you Karla, and about an hour and I could help you discover your why. I developed a series of questions to be able to do that. And so, I became obsessed with it. I wanted to share that with everybody.

Karla Nelson:  I think it’s fantastic because I love that. I’ve probably watched Simon Sinek’s, Start With Why, Ted talk a hundred times. I’ve shared it with so many different audiences because you get it. Literally when he walks through those different businesses, you get it. All of a sudden, you’re like, “Okay.” And our assessment is based off the law of diffusion of innovations, how people adopt new information.

Or just new ideas. What’s interesting is that people trip over their team and themselves and go after the market. And what I think is really cool is the fact that what your Institute does is go, what is my, why? What is my team’s, why? Because that’s really critical to then reach out to the marketplace. Versus, why is your why not as important as the teams?

And then just reaching out to the marketplace, right? This is the largest body of marketing research that exists. And that’s what he used to create the golden circle, right? And so, I just think that, what have you seen in your works, and yourself, to be able to go, “Wow, this is super important in an individual’s life.” To be able to then impact others?

Gary Sanchez:  Well, let me finish for a second what happened, so you can see how it all came together. Because once I discovered that process and I started helping people discover their why, I became obsessed with that. And I started doing that all over the world on stages, on Skype, kind of like what we’re doing now.

And I started to notice patterns and trends and similarities. Like you were telling me the three things that a successful business needs to have, well, I soon found that there were only nine different whys. And once I just saw and discovered the nine why’s.

Then I was able to develop the algorithm and write the software where you can now go online and discover your why, so that everyone can discover their why. So, we believe that your why is the essential first step in self-awareness. There’s a lot of great assessments out there. There’s Kolbe, there’s Strength Finders, there’s DiSC.

Karla Nelson:  I know them all.

Gary Sanchez:  They’re awesome, but they’re not your why. And they are not the first step. So, if you start with your why, the other assessments make a lot more sense because they’re how you bring action. They’re not why you do what you do there, how you do it. So, if you start with your why, then the others will make more sense and it’ll all fall in line for you.

But if you don’t start with your why, you’re starting to far down the stream and you’re relying on hope. I hope this makes sense to you. I hope you can use this in your life, but if you put it in the right sequence, it’s awesome. And so, once I did this, I started getting calls. Once my practice took off. So, I applied what I learned from John Assaraf and I applied what I learned from Simon Sinek, redeveloped all of our messaging based on our why, and not what we have and-

Karla Nelson:  Yeah, bud why you do what you do.

Gary Sanchez:  And so, then I started getting calls from other dentists and chiropractors and lawyers and financial groups and the companies kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And now I’ve done this with over 500 companies from small yoga studios to $500 billion companies, helping them get clear on who are you, how do you articulate your message, and how does that allow you to attract the right people to your business?

See, because what you’re looking for, Karla, you’re looking for people that believe what you believe. That’s your ideal client, but if you don’t even know what you believe, how are you able to do that? How are you going to articulate that, so you connect to the right part of the brain that attracts them to you if you don’t even know? And the way you do that is by starting with your why.

Karla Nelson:  I love what Simon says in his talk, which is, it’s not even psychology, it’s biology.

Gary Sanchez:  Correct.

Karla Nelson:  Which I thought that was a huge, aspect. That it is that driven down into our biology of who we are, that if you believe something and I believe something, it’s almost like we are home with each other instantly.

Gary Sanchez:  So, in developing the software now, I’m getting lots and lots and lots of data. I’ve done this with over 50,000 people, so I know what percentage of the population has which why, which ones fit together, how big the lane is they like to play in. We’ve learned so much about helping people discover their why. And I know your podcast is about relationships, right?

Karla Nelson:  Yes, sir.

Gary Sanchez:  How do you create a deeper relationship and how do you do it fast? So, if I was a business owner, which I am, but I mean, if I listening, when you want to connect to somebody, if you know their why you’ll know the words that they’re listening for. You’ll know the way they think. So, you’ll know how to tailor your conversation so you’re speaking their language. So, I’m sure you’ve heard of the golden rule, and you’ve probably heard of the platinum rule, right?

Karla Nelson:  Yes, sir.

Gary Sanchez:  So, the golden rule, for your listeners, is treat everybody like you would like to be treated. Platinum rule is, treat everybody like they would like to be treated. And so, if you focus on the platinum rule, you have to know how they want to be treated. And that all comes when you know their why. So, I can’t tell you how much business our institute has closed, if you will, from just knowing the why of the person I’m talking to.

Karla Nelson:  Well, that makes perfect sense because as soon as your why aligns with their why, I mean, you’re just going to be completely attracted to it. And discovering it, right?

Gary Sanchez:  Correct.

Karla Nelson:  Just discovering it and saying, “Hey. Yeah, that is me.” It’s like going home. It’s like when you meet somebody from your hometown at the grocery store, right? It’s like, you’re not in your hometown, but “Hey, you’re from there? I’m from there. That’s us. Yeah, we’re together.” Or, your alma mater, right? It’s like, “Oh yeah. That’s where I went to school. That’s where I went to college.”

Gary Sanchez:  We call it your why operating system. And so, it’s your YOS. And that is your why and your how and your what. And so, we’ve developed a process for helping people discover their why operating system. So, let’s take a stab at yours because I looked, I know your why, and I looked at how you answered all the questions. So, by the way, the why assessment or the why discovery is, I did it differently. I found a better way, okay?

Karla Nelson:  Oh, you? You found a better way? Because that’s your first start of finding a better way.

Gary Sanchez:  What most assessments do is they have you answer 30, 50, a hundred questions. And then, once you’ve answered those, they filter them and come up with their answers. But what I did is I use logic-based programming. So, there’s about 1500 possible question options when you start, but as you answer the first question, it wipes away all the other ones you don’t need to answer. And then the same thing with the second one.

So, there’s about 1500 possible choices, but you’re only going to have to use, like you saw, you’re only going to have to answer about 10 to 12 questions to actually discover your why. So, when I speak at big events around the world, I have the audience actually discover their why right then, so that we’re not talking about a concept of why, we’re going to talk about your why. So, let’s talk about your why right now.

Karla Nelson:  Here we go. Totally live.

Gary Sanchez:  You’ve got an awesome why, you really do. Your why, we came up with this, to contribute to a greater cause, right? Add value, have an impact in the lives of other people. So, you use your time, your money, your energy, and your connections to help other people move forward. Does that feel right to you?

Karla Nelson:  Yes, sir.

Gary Sanchez:  So, when we look at how you go about doing that, how you do that is by finding better ways and then sharing them and thus the podcast, right? Your podcast is all about, let’s find what’s better out there and let’s share it with our audience. And then what you bring, what you ultimately bring for people, is a simple solution. You narrow it down to these are the three things. These are, let’s simplify this down to what’s actually useful.

Karla Nelson:  Nailed it.

Gary Sanchez:  So, your why is to contribute to a greater cause. How you do that is by finding a better way. And ultimately what you bring is a simple solution. And so, now I have a much better idea of who I’m talking to, and now your audience has a much better idea of who they’re listening to. So, your message, your branding, your marketing, your culture, is all around those three things.

That’s when it’s real and that’s when it’s authentic and that’s when it’s really you. It’s not something you made up when you went into whatever, having a beer with a marketing person. This is something that’s true to you. And if your audience is looking for somebody to help them have a bigger impact, you’re that person.

If there’s somebody who’s looking to find a better way, you’re that person. If you’re somebody who’s looking for a simple solution, then Karla is the right one for you, because that is how she thinks. That’s her operating system and she can’t change that. She didn’t choose it, it’s just the way it is. Does that make sense?

Karla Nelson:  You just thrive on it.

Gary Sanchez:  Yes. And that’s you. So, without that, I’d have no idea. I know you’ve got a podcast and I know a couple of other things, but I don’t really know who I’m talking to. Now I do, I know exactly how to talk to you. I know what you’re listening for. I know the words that you’re waiting to hear to know that I understand you. And if you don’t hear those words, you’re like, “I don’t think they really got me.” But if you do hear those words, you’re like, “Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Is that making sense?

Karla Nelson:  Fantastic. I love this Gary. So, how can our listeners get ahold of you? You also have this assessment, which by the way I took, but didn’t realize there were 1500 questions that were being identified based off of the answers that I was giving before. And yeah, you nailed it. So, how can they get ahold of you?

Gary Sanchez:  So, what I want to do for your listeners is, I’m going to give them a way that they can go take the why discovery at half price. So, it’s $47. Still not very expensive for what you’re going to get, but if they put in the code podcast50, podcast50, that’ll give them 50% off. They can go discover their why. So that’s 20, whatever that is 25 bucks.

But you’re going to get your why, you’ll get the characteristics of your why, the challenges that come with your why, the solutions to the challenges, how your why works in different relationships. Parenting, romantic relationships, business relationships, what careers would be great for you, what people would say about you, what you would say about yourself.

All of that you’ll get when you take the why discovery so that you’ll have the clarity, right? This is the first step. It’s the essential first step in self-awareness. Without your why, you don’t start at the right place. Now you’re not going to build your brand, Karla, and you’re not going to build your message on your DiSC or your Kolbe or any of those.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah, they’re good tools but I always, and even with our assessment, I always say that. Because our assessment is completely focused on the who and the when. And that’s why I love the why, because if you get the why out of the, and Simon Sinek talks about it in his golden circle. As soon as you’re ready to get to business, because this is still in the ideation phase. We’re about the who and the when. How do you get stuff done?

So, as soon as you understand your why, it’s literally what we do is the second part of that, which is now how do you make that have gas on it. So, we always talk about all those other assessments is, the gas pedal and the brake pedal. But you still have to figure out where you’re going to go. So, if you start with your why-

Gary Sanchez:  And how and what.

Karla Nelson:  And then how are you going to implement it, right? That’s the biggest piece of getting things done.

Gary Sanchez:  Yeah. So, you’ve got to add your how and your what. Your why, your how, it’s funny because when I worked with John Assaraf, when I worked with Simon Sinek, I developed this why edification process. And it went, why we do what we do, how we do what we do, what it is we do, and then who do we need to attract to, no, no. I’m sorry. It’s why, how, what, and then vision.

So, what is your vision for what you want, what you’re doing, and then who do you need to attract to manifest or create that vision and what is it they want so you know where to find them and how to talk to them? Which is similar to what you’re talking about. So, your assessment sounds like it would work really well at the end of what we’re doing.

Karla Nelson:  Oh, we seriously go back to back. As soon as somebody gets the why, we are the who and the when. And so, it’s yeah, back-to-back because you first have to have that connection piece on the why and have somebody understand. The more that they understand why and what their purpose is, they’re just going to be completely attracted to the next piece, which is how do we get this done?

Because you can be thinking as big as possible, at the same time, the way you solve problems is with people. And you have to find the who. Who is your who to go to. And our assessment identifies just based off your core nature of work and the law of diffusion of innovations, right? 110 years of marketing research about how people adopt new ideas. You have to have them adopt the new idea.

And that’s exactly why Simon and the golden circle was based off that same thing. Hey, you can trip over 10% of the market, right? But it’s that tipping point where people adopt some new idea. And unfortunately, we focus more on the market than our own teams. Your team has to adopt whatever idea it is that you’re taking to the market, right? So, yeah.

Gary Sanchez:  Let’s talk about that.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah.

Gary Sanchez:  Let’s talk about that for a minute. So, when we work with individuals and organizations, the first step is who am I, right?

Karla Nelson:  Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Gary Sanchez:  Who am I, let’s say you’re the visionary, you’re the visionary of your company. The first step is who are you? So now we know your why, how and what. So, we have a very clear picture of why you do what you do, how you bring that to life and what people can count on from you. The next step is who are we as an organization?

So, what we do is we help each individual discover the why, how, and what their own personal, why operating system, right? Their own personal, why, how, what. And then we develop the why, how and what of the organization. And so, now we know who we are as an organization. So, the question becomes, how can you fully live your own why and push the why of the organization forward?

That’s when you’ll have an inspired team. Not forcing them into something that they can do, but don’t love doing put the right person on the bus and in the right seat, right? So, they have passion for what they do. That’s how you build a passionate organization. And then the next step is, what is our message? What are we going to say?

So we have our internal why operating system, and now what is our external why, how and what we’re going to use for our branding, our marketing, our messaging, our tagline, our, we believe statements, our company creed. That all comes from the why, how and what of the visionary. So, when you have those three things in the right sequence, that’s when you’ll be able to live your why within your organization. That’s when you’ll have that peace of mind that it’s all fitting together.

Karla Nelson:  Clarity. Yeah, total clarity. Love this. Okay, Gary, how can people, I know you shared with us the podcast50, so that people can get the assessment. Your why assessment at 50% of the costs. Is there any other way they can get ahold of you via maybe LinkedIn or online?

Gary Sanchez:  Yeah. So, we’re all over social media as well. So, you can go to LinkedIn, I’m on LinkedIn for sure. You can go to whyinstitute.com. You can even send me an email if you’ve got some burning desire, something that you would love my help with, you can always email me at gary@whyinstitute.com and I’ll get back to you.

Karla Nelson:  Fantastic. We sure appreciate you. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Gary Sanchez:  Thank you, Karla.