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Simon Sinek

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action Hardcover – Illustrated, 1 January 1900

by Simon Sinek (Author)

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The inspirational bestseller that ignited a movement and asked us to find our WHY

Discover the book that is captivating millions on TikTok and that served as the basis for one of the most popular TED Talks of all time--with more than 56 million views and counting. Over a decade ago, Simon Sinek started a movement that inspired millions to demand purpose at work, to ask what was the WHY of their organization. Since then, millions have been touched by the power of his ideas, and these ideas remain as relevant and timely as ever.

START WITH WHY asks (and answers) the questions: why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?

People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won't truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it.

START WITH WHY shows that the leaders who have had the greatest influence in the world all think, act and communicate the same way--and it's the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Portfolio
Publication date

1 January 1900
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

14.17 x 2.54 x 21.64 cm
ISBN-10

1591842808
ISBN-13

978-1591842804
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Product description

Review

"Start with Why is one of the most useful and powerful books I have read in years. Simple and elegant, it shows us how leaders should lead."
-WILLIAM URY, coauthor of Getting to Yes

"Start with Why fanned the flames inside me. This book can lead you to levels of excellence you never considered attainable."
-GENERAL CHUCK HORNER, air boss, Desert Storm

"Each story will force you to see things from an entirely different perspective. A perspective that is nothing short of the truth."
-MOKHTAR LAMANI, former ambassador, special envoy to Iraq

About the Author

SIMON SINEK, the bestselling author of LEADERS EAT LAST and TOGETHER IS BETTER, is an optimist who believes in a brighter future for humanity. He teaches leaders and organizations how to inspire people and has presented his ideas around the world, from small startups to Fortune 50 corporations, from Hollywood to Congress to the Pentagon. His TED Talk based on START WITH WHY is the third most popular TED video of all time. Learn more about his work and how you can inspire those around you at StartWithWhy.com.

Start reading Start With Why on your Kindle in under a minute.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio; Illustrated edition (1 January 1900)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1591842808
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1591842804
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.17 x 2.54 x 21.64 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 59,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 306 in Organisational Behaviour (Books)
- 797 in Business Motivation & Self-Improvement (Books)
- 813 in Motivational Management & Leadership

Customer Reviews:
19,459 ratings

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About the author

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Simon Sinek

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Simon Sinek is an optimist. He teaches leaders and organizations how to inspire people. From members of Congress to foreign ambassadors, from small businesses to corporations like Microsoft and 3M, from Hollywood to the Pentagon, he has presented his ideas about the power of why. He has written two books, Leaders Eat Last and Start With Why and is quoted frequently by national publications. Sinek also regularly shares 140 characters of inspiration on Twitter (@simonsinek).

Customer reviews

5 star		74%
4 star		15%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Alessandro Berardi

a good idea, but unpolished and underdeveloped

Reviewed in Australia on 22 November 2017

Verified Purchase

I think the idea at the centre of the book is interesting and corroborated by neuroscientific knowledge about decision making. Unfortunately I also think that the book struggles to go beyond intuition and convert the idea into a fact based theory. The book could have conveyed the idea with less repetition and more effort into fact finding and checking. The lack of fact checking is also evident in the incorrectness of some examples and quotes. I think the idea points to a more complex reality than the one suggested. To summarise, a good idea, but unpolished and underdeveloped.

18 people found this helpful

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J

Main topics underdeveloped but okay read

Reviewed in Australia on 24 June 2019

Verified Purchase

The book started off well, and raised some interesting questions, unfortunately that was where it stopped and it seemed like the author was getting lost in his ranting about various company behaviours and strategies. Would have been good if he had developed the ideas he started with a little more at the beginning. Indeed, it left me asking myself Why? Still have 2/3 of the book left but don’t think I’ll be reading any more because of the above.

5 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Poor Grammar, Repetitive

Reviewed in Australia on 29 March 2020

Verified Purchase

I wish I had read the reviews before purchasing. It's a great concept, but the same examples are used to reiterate the same thing over and over again. Plus there's so many grammatical errors throughout the book it isn't even funny. I usually don't pick up a new book until I finish my last and that was not the case with this one. Watch the TED talk instead.

5 people found this helpful

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Adilson

I am giving one star because I can't give none

Reviewed in Australia on 6 August 2020

Verified Purchase

This book a complete waste of time. The author keeps coming back to the same point, repeating himself ad nauseam and to be honest, it seems to me that while he wants to sell the WHY idea, his examples are so weak that the WHAT seems the only logical explanation for the companies that he used as an example. From the airline example to Apple and Disney's, he made a lot of rhetorical tricks to try to sustain his ideas. Don't waste your time and money on this one.

Audible has a better return policy than Kindle.

3 people found this helpful

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Tony

Repetitious. Repetitious. Repetitious.

Reviewed in Australia on 24 June 2018

Verified Purchase

Content in and of itself is find. Nothing particularly ground-breaking. Wasn't a fan of all the capitalisations of 'WHAT', 'WHY', and 'HOW' although it got the point across.

By the end of it I thought I was just reading the same thing over and over again so if I had the choice, I wouldn't have bought it and left after reading the sample.

8 people found this helpful

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charbel

Is it worth purchasing and reading???

Reviewed in Australia on 28 June 2021

Verified Purchase

I believe Mr Sinek is alot better to understand as a speaker, I do believe he lacks fundamentals in the writting of this book, however the knowledge this book provides vastly makes up for the cons of the book. I am a fan of Mr Sinek and will continue to be, and do have a better understanding on business marketing and when i go to the store i can tell if a brand is trynna manipulate me or inspire me.

To answer the question above, if you want to start a business or currently work as a sales person, i do recommend it if you don't however im not entirely sure if this is the purchase to make.

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Marissa

Arrived quickly and in excellent condition

Reviewed in Australia on 26 February 2021

Verified Purchase

The book arrived very quickly and I have already read halfway through. It was wrapped in a plastic wrapper which I appreciated because it assured me of extra care and I like me books in excellent condition when I get them. I am learning heaps and sharing some ideas with my kids (obviously changing the ideas in a kid friendly way) as I want them to learn how to lead and inspire themselves and others too.

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Rej Punchayil

Good for every business

Reviewed in Australia on 22 November 2020

Verified Purchase

It puts many things in perspective. It validated what you always thought might work. It continues to inspire and motivate me in what I do in my business of providing mobility, dignity and independence to my wonderful customers. Thank you! Rej from Sydney

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Dave South UK

A lot of pages for which the message could be contained in five

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 November 2017

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I love Sinek's talks and although there is wisdom, points to take away and actions you can use in this book I did find that it was a lot of pages which can be condensed down into about five. I find the same thing with a lot of these books. Really, you can just watch the various YouTube videos to get the major points from this book and learnings. However, he does offer some interesting examples and working case studies. Like I said, it does contain a lot of unnecessary drool to get some simple points across and repetition of messages.

140 people found this helpful

.

Brilliant insights hidden in tedious repetition.

Reviewed in India on 9 September 2017

Verified Purchase

Loved the TED talk. And loved parts of this book. The only problem is - this book would have taken up less than 100 pages to convey its message clearly. WHY did it have to be 225 pages? I have no idea. Some sentences like, "People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it" are repeated so many times, I have lost count. If someone were to wake me from my sleep, I'd probably be repeating that sentence.

I find it funny that a book about WHY missed out on mentioning something called, "The theory of 5 Whys"- Look it up, it is something a lot of companies use to brainstorm problems. It also has no comment on Friedrich Nietzsche - "He who has a WHY to live for can bear almost any HOW." I believe what applies to life also eventually applies to business life.

And as it is a business book, its only focus is on the importance of WHY in businesses and large scale social movements. There is no example of how this concept affects and benefits an individual on a more personal scale - i.e. in relationships, health, etc. Chapter 13 - where the author shares his own story of arriving at this concept is the only place where he has touched on it in a lukewarm manner. Though, I believe there is another book follow-up book called 'Find Your Why' for the same purpose. If you are looking for a personal WHY, do read Stephen Covey's - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Should you read the book, if you have watched the TED talk?
- Yes, if you are looking for more detailed examples and studies and researches. Though a lot of it is focused on Apple and Southwest Airlines and Walmart.
- No, if you already have a clear sense of WHY in everything you think, say and do. (i.e. self-awareness)

[I bought a paperback version by Portfolio Penguin, and the fonts, binding and print are all okay]

386 people found this helpful

Jose A

Not very realistic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 April 2018

Verified Purchase

Although the book describes certainly positive approaches to leading any enterprise, in the line of having an intrinsic motivation, it fails by extracting them from a posteriori success stories. It is easy to fall in the fallacy that those who came to our days as successful leaders did it, overall, because of their personal traits or attitudes. The book even dismisses randomness or the complexities or real world events as the real cause of some of this success stories. But even figures like Bill Gates recognise how lucky they were with their life circumstances (e.g. having access to the first personal computers at school) in order to get where they were. But of course most people looking for success formulas won’t find so attractive a book that includes something out of their control as part of the education. But the truth is that being realistic is always the closets path to any kind of success. This book it isn’t.

83 people found this helpful

Ted

Over-written and based on half-baked science

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 October 2019

Verified Purchase

This book is average at best. It's rambling at times, and goes off on tangents to the main thesis of the book. Whilst he's a gifted public speaker, this book has a distinct amateurish self-published feel to it. The 'scientific basis' for many of his points is so simplistic as to be comical. Sinek has no scientific training and it shows. He cherry picks from neuroscience, and doesn't seem to understand the subject he's quoting from. It reads as though he read a Wikipedia entry on neuroscience and made some inferences from that. I would not recommend this book, although I do recommend his public speaking, which can be found on YouTube and on TEDTalks.

47 people found this helpful

S. Ahrens

Viel heiße Luft

Reviewed in Germany on 15 January 2019

Verified Purchase

Warum alle diese doch recht einfachen Gedankengang des "Why" so abfeiern, erschließ sich mir nicht. Der Gedankengang, dass Marken sich über andere Faktoren außer dem Preis und vermeintlicher Benefits abgrenzen müssen, ist allgemein klar und wird im Buch etwas zu ausführlich (eigentlich durchgehend) erklärt. Und ein "Why" kann dabei helfen. Seine Thesen stützt er – wie so viele andere Markentheoretiker – im wesentlichen auf den Erfolg von Apple. Wie viele Bücher schon den Erfolg von Apple analysiert haben und ihre eigene These dazu nützen, ist mittlerweile unüberschaubar. Aber nur weil Apple den Kunden ein "Why" bietet, sind sie nicht erfolgreich, das ist zu kurz gedacht und das sollte absolut jedem bekannt sein. Dann könnte ja jeder den einfach Erfolg kopieren.
Ärgerlich ist, dass der Inhalt des Buches auf 20 Seiten gepasst hätte und dass es keinerlei Anleitung gibt, wie der Leser, denn für sich selbst das Why/How/What definieren kann. Dafür muss man wohl einen überteuerten Workshop von Sinek buchen. Fazit: 20% interessante Gedanken, 80% aufgeblasene Zeitverschwendung.

90 people found this helpful

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Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action Hardcover – Illustrated, 1 January 1900

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