Define Your Why, Build Your Personal Operating System

Most desires fail for a simple reason: the “why” behind them is too thin to survive real life. We walk through the next step in building your personal operating system by moving past vague ambition and into the kind of purpose that actually gets you out of bed when you’re tired, stressed, and pulled in ten directions.

We start by tightening up the “what” you want from your business. “A successful business” sounds nice, but it does not help you make decisions, manage your schedule, or measure progress. We share how to get specific enough to picture your day when you reach your goals, because clarity lowers anxiety and gives you a target you can consistently aim at. If you earn commissions or fees, or your performance directly affects your income, this approach helps you focus on what increases net income and protects your time.

Then we go deeper into the “why” that fuels consistent action. Paying bills is real, but it’s rarely enough to sustain long-term discipline or prevent burnout. Your why has to come from the heart, wrapped in passion and emotion, strong enough to carry you through setbacks, interruptions, and the daily grind. Morris shares the personal story that shaped his own why, and we give you a practical exercise to uncover yours by asking “why” and “what else” until you hit the truth.

If you’re tired of being busy being busy, press play and start building a system that makes your time match what matters. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s chasing big goals, and leave a review so more people can find the Commission Code.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to episode number two in our series about creating your own personal operating system. We're going to delve into the system in this particular episode and help you define your why. And that's the fuel that keeps you going. Helping people increase revenue and have more time to enjoy it. Well, that's become my passion in business. Increasing revenue really means increasing your net income. Many of us don't think there's any time to do that and all the other things that we have going on. And we don't have time to really enjoy the fruits of our labor because, well, as I've said before, we're spending all our time laboring. The stress about today can really become overwhelming, especially when there's also anxiety about what the future holds and what's going to happen tomorrow. Well, we can overcome those problems with a personal operating system. I'm Morris Sims, and I work with business owners, professional

Personal Operating System Series Setup

SPEAKER_00 1:06

salespeople, and anybody making a living on commissions or fees. If you're in a job where your income is directly related to the performance of your work, then you're my people. Through many of the concepts that we're going to be talking about, you can, oh man, they can apply to just about anybody who believes they have a business to run, even if they're technically an employee with a boss and all the things that accompany that. So let's get into the system, that personal operating system, and help you increase your net income and gain control over your time. In the last episode in this series, we talked about the clarity principle and why it's so important to have an answer to the question, what? What do you want from your business? That answer has to be specific enough that you can paint a picture in your mind of exactly what your life's going to be when you get what you want. I like to look at it and answer that question. What's my day going to look like when I get what I want from my business? And then my picture actually kind of becomes a movie. By now, I hope you've had some time to brainstorm and think through your answer to the what question. Many times when I do this in a live setting, somebody out there is going to say, Oh, come on, Morris, get real. I want to have a successful business. Great answer at a very high level, but it needs a good bit more depth to really be effective. What does success mean? What does it mean to you? What will your life look like? Get

Get Specific About Your What

SPEAKER_00 2:42

specific. You need to know without any ambiguity what you want. What are you working for? Crystal clear understanding of exactly what you want when you have your desired business goals or objectives met. What's life going to look like? There's another real benefit from having a clear answer to the what question. You'll know for sure when you get there. Now, your what is part of the foundation of your personal operating system. When we're done, you're going to have implemented your system and you'll be very clear about exactly what you need to do to get whatever it is that you want. You'll know what to do to increase your income, and you're going to have time to enjoy it when you get there. You'll feel the stress of today and the anxiety about the future kind of begin to sort of melt away to a manageable level. And yeah, I know we all have some stress. It's a part of what makes us take action and get up off the couch and go to work, right? Well, now that you know your what, what you want, let's explore why you want it. That same dude in the back, he just said, Morris, I want to increase my income because the bill collectors are burning up my phone and knocking on the door. Yeah, that's a real practical why, all right. But there's actually more to it than that. I mean, once your bills are paid, are are you gonna close the doors and stop working? Well, I didn't think so. Your why needs to transcend that very practical answer to reach why you're in this business and why doing what you what you do, why it's important to you. Your why has to be wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. Think about it. We all have the day-to-day life stuff that creates challenges, setbacks, interruptions, other people's problems, kids, workplace

Why Must Be Emotional Fuel

SPEAKER_00 4:45

issues, family, and all sorts of things that we need to do and be attentive to. Sometimes, with all that staring you in the face, it's it's hard to get up in the morning and get back into the fight. After a while at this pace, you can actually easily burn up or burn out. So, what gets you up in the morning when it's cold outside and rainy and you've only had about five hours of sleep if that? There has to be some important reason to put your feet on that cold floor and get started. Well, your why gives you the fuel to get up and then to go that extra mile. So, what gets you up and keeps you going? Your why is the fuel that kicks you out of bed and allows you to move forward. If your why is significantly sufficiently strong enough, then you'll even be excited about the opportunity to get back into the daily operating of the business and having an opportunity to work on your business as well as in it and make it a better place to work. That why needs to come from deep inside. It needs to be touched by your heart as well as your head. It's not just, well, Morris, I want to provide for my family. Again, great answer, but it's sort of at a very, very high level. Although that can be a big part of it, your why has to come from your heart. It has to pull on those strings that may even bring a tear to your eye. Mine caused streams of tears when I thought about it. Again, your why needs to be wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. When I started my 100% commission sales job, my why was all about my family and still is. My dad died when I was three weeks old, and we lived in apartments my whole life growing up. We were really uptown, though, when we went from a one-bedroom apartment to a two-bedroom apartment. My single mom was a secretary, so we didn't have much more than what we had to have to cover the basic necessities, but we had family and we had a lot of love. Sorry to say, that didn't put tires on the car. I put tires on the car at 14 years old when I was pumping gas at a Union 76 station. So my why was to have a house that we made our home, where the kids have their own bedroom and a backyard to play in and a front yard filled with flowers. A place that was theirs where they could feel safe and secure. We moved into a house for the first time at

Morris’s Story Behind The Why

SPEAKER_00 7:26

age 25 with a loan from my uncle to help cover the down payment. My why made me pick up the phone and ask for appointments. My why caused me to get up and make the drive in New Orleans, all in that traffic, all the way across the Mississippi River Bridge, to go find people who would talk to me about their finances and insurance. My why was the fuel that caused me to get up and take action. Wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. At the time, I didn't have any idea just how important that was. So what's your why? What are the benefits that you're gonna have when you get your what? Why is that important to you? In reality, we all do what we want to do. Bottom line. We do what we do because we choose to do it. Without coercion and maybe a gun or something, nobody else can make us do what we don't want to do. We do what we choose to do for our own reasons. We do it because of our answer to the why question. We're fueled by our why that's wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. So, what is your why wrapped with and fueled? This one takes some time, so block off some time and find that comfy spot with your legal pad and a pen to brainstorm your why. I had to do it again when I started my business after I retired, and my brainstorming went from, oh, I want to help others and generate an income.

The Why Exercise And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Went all the way from that to, I want to have a presence in the lives of my kids and my grandkids and give them experiences that I wasn't able to provide when my kids were young. I was so focused on work and climbing that corporate ladder back then that family actually took a backseat way too often. So dig deep. Dig deep into what and and keep asking yourself that question. Why do I want to do this? Why is it important to me? What else? What else? After that, what else? Then when there are no more answers to the what else question, you'll probably have found your why that is wrapped and fueled. So when you complete this part of the exercise, you'll have a clear answer to the what question, and you'll have a why that's wrapped and fueled. In the next episode, we're gonna look at how, how you plan to get whatever it is that you want. That's your strategy. And when we get there, we're gonna look at what actions you need to take to implement that strategy. Now, here's the problem most of us encounter at some point. We forget to look at what we're spending our time doing and asking if it advances us toward our what? Our desire for our business. Is what I'm spending my time on getting me closer, or am I just busy being busy? Being busy and running at 100 miles an hour, that's not the objective. The objective is to spend your time implementing your strategy that you so that you can get what you said you wanted. Being busy is just being busy, but it isn't necessarily being productive. Creating your personal operating system helps you be productive with how you spend the 24 hours that we all have and how you spend it effectively and efficiently. Best wishes. I'll see you next time when we'll take it to the next level. Well, that

Busy Versus Productive And Close

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does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisStims.com for more information. And in the meantime, hey, have a great week. Get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wish is I'm Morris Sims.