Just Being Sober Is Not Freedom

 

Getting sober is an amazing step. But as Dr. Gary Sanchez told a room full of our clients, not being shackled doesn’t mean you’re free. It just means you’re sober. The next question is the hard one: now what?

Gary practiced cosmetic and sedation dentistry in Albuquerque for 32 years. He picked dentistry at 18 because his dad was a dentist and he didn’t know what else to pick. About 28 years in, sitting in an audience of top dentists at a meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, watching a surgeon rebuild a jaw, he realized he didn’t want to learn any of it. He had been good at a life he never chose.

What he found next became the WHY Institute and the WHY.os, a short discovery tool built around nine WHYs: Contribute, Trust, Make Sense, Better Way, Right Way, Challenge, Mastery, Clarify, and Simplify. Everyone in the room took it before we started recording.

Recorded live in front of clients and staff at Camelback Recovery’s outpatient treatment center in Phoenix.

What we get into:

• why “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is the wrong question at 18, and at 40, and in early recovery
• WHO first, then WHAT
• why “just being sober is not freedom”
• the Halloween costume we wear when we don’t know who we are
• why the WHY of Challenge is the one Gary sees medicate the most
• the nine WHYs, one by one
• whether your WHY changes after addiction or trauma
• Tim’s own WHY.os read live (Better Way, Simplify, Challenge)
• a live read with a construction foreman in recovery
• “Drinking’s hard. Not drinking’s hard. Pick your hard.”
• and why “change” might be the wrong word for what recovery asks of you.

FREE FOR OUR LISTENERS: Dr. Sanchez is offering the WHY Discovery free to I Love Being Sober listeners at go.whyinstitute.com/ILoveBeingSober. It is a third party tool and asks for your email address. It is a motivation framework, not a clinical or diagnostic assessment.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Just Being Sober Is Not Freedom

Dr. Gary Sanchez spent 32 years as a dentist before he realized nobody had ever asked him the right question in the right order. At our Phoenix outpatient center, he told our clients why “Who am I?” has to come before “Now what?”

Uncovering Your Core: Why Knowing “Who” Matters More Than “What”

My guest is Dr. Gary Sanchez. He practiced dentistry in Albuquerque for 32 years, and he was good at it. The practice worked, and he still could not answer one question. Why am I doing this? It took him about eight months to find the answer. When he found out, the practice changed, and so did he. What came out of that search is the WHY Institute. Gary found that there are nine whys, that every one of us is running one, and he built a tool that shows you yours in about five minutes. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken this test, and he’s going for a billion. Here’s why he’s in this room. Most of you know what you are quitting. Far fewer know who you are. That is the harder question, and it decides what the next year looks like for you. Gary, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

I am grateful to have you here, and we are going to talk about the WHY Institute. We are going to talk about the why. You have already given the test to the people here in this room. We are going to get to, we are going to get to talk to a few of you guys. You will have questions, but first let us talk about you, Gary, 32 years in dentistry. Take me to the moment you realized you could not tell anybody why you were doing it.

Let me go back to what happens when you go to dental school. I am going to go back even further. I want all of you to go back here with me. Go back to when you were 17, 18, 19 years old, and your parents’ friends came over, and they asked you that one question that you did not want them to ask you. Do you remember what that question was? Yours is probably “Why did you do that?” The question is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The question that you are trying to figure out is “What do I want?” You have now, at that time, 17, 18 years of life experience to be able to figure that out. That is not much.

It is either seventeen years in your case getting in trouble and maybe your case trying to stay out of trouble. You are getting in trouble to figure out what I want to do with the next 40 years of my life? You really do not have a way to do it. That’s the same thing that happened to me. Ultimately, though, you have got to make a choice. You either get a job, or you go off to college. One of the two. Once you are there, you start getting good at whatever it is that you chose. You build your life around that.

Maybe you have a spouse or a house or cars or kids or stuff built around that decision that you make. One day you wake up and think, “Really, is this all there is? Is this what I was supposed to do with my life? Is this the direction I was supposed to go?” You think, “Maybe I picked the wrong what. Maybe the what was the wrong one. I picked the wrong thing for me to do.” I am going to go back and pick something different. Pick a different what, end up on that same path.

A lot of people go in that circle over and over again. Different what, different city, different spouse, different job, different, hoping that it is going to make things better. Ultimately, one day they will have to sit down and say, “I have been asking the wrong question.” The question was not “What should I do?” The question really was “Who am I?” Once you can figure out who you are, then it becomes so much easier to figure out what it is you want to do. By that time, maybe your runway is a lot shorter. You do not have as much time to do what you were really meant to do.

That was my story. I picked dentistry not because it was some lifelong dream that I had to be a dentist. I picked it because I did not know what else to pick. My dad was a dentist. “I am going to pick dentistry. Seems like a good way to go.” I spent 32 years there. About 28 years in, I am like, “Really? Is this all there is to this? Is this what I was supposed to do? Is this the direction of my life? I did not really want this. I just did it.” That is when I tried to figure out my own why. I was actually at an event here in Scottsdale.

I live in Albuquerque, but I was at an event here in Scottsdale of the top dentists in the world all met here in Scottsdale, a thing called the Seattle Study Club. I am sitting in the audience. Usually, when I see all the new, latest, greatest stuff, I say, “I cannot wait to learn that. I cannot wait to do that.” Here I am sitting in this with this group of dentists from all over the world, watching them rebuild somebody’s jaw. Just incredible stuff. I thought, “I do not want to learn that. I do not want to do this anymore.”

I have been doing it at a high level, but not because I really wanted to do it. It is just that that is what I happened to choose. There has got to be something better than this. That is when I went and started to try to figure out my own why and could not really do it. It took me a long time to do it. Once I figured it out, that is when I realized I was on the wrong path.

Do you remember the moment when you figured out your why or that you were doing something that you probably did not want to do?

Most of you know what you are quitting. Far fewer know who you are—that is the harder question, and it decides what the next year looks like for you. Share on X

How it happened that I was trying to figure out my own why many years back, I was trying to figure out how to stand out from all these other dentists. There are 600 dentists in Albuquerque. How do I stand out? I had already talked about all the things that we had that were better, but everybody else could say the same stuff. We have the latest technology, a beautiful practice. We have got all the stuff. That is when I went out and hired a coach, and through him, I heard about this guy named Simon Sinek. Have any of you ever heard of Simon Sinek? He is the guy who wrote the book called Start With Why.

I read that book, and I said, “That is what I am missing. I have a great what, but I do not know my why.” That is when I called him and he helped me to figure out my why. It took us about eight months. Once I figured out my why, all the messaging and the marketing and the branding of my dental practice all shifted from what we do, crowns, bridges, fillings, all that fun stuff everybody likes.

To why we do what we do, what do we believe? We believe that life is better when you have great teeth. All my marketing switched around that, and then that is when my practice really took off. As my practice took off, I started getting calls from other dentists that said, “Can you help me do that?” I went back and figured out what Simon was trying to do, and I could sit down with you in about an hour and help you find your why.

I became obsessed with doing this. If you were my dental patient and you were sitting in my chair waiting to get numb, I was going to help you find your why, just like we did right here. If you are sitting next to me in an airplane, I was going to help you find your why. I did it for the next seven years for anybody who would let me for free. I just started to notice patterns, trends, and similarities. I figured out there are only nine whys that you were talking about.

The Power Of Sequence: Why You Must Discover “Who First, Then What”

You say who first, then what, and why does that order mean so much?

Let us go back to the story that we were talking about before. When you are 18, 19 years old, and somebody says, “What do you want to do? What do you want to do with the rest of your life? What do you want to be when you grow up? I do not know. How the hell am I supposed to know?” The question was asked, what first? Trying to figure it out, and that is very hard to do. If we take all those same steps and put them in a different order, and you start with who are you first?

If, at eighteen years old, someone had asked you, who are you? How do you think? What is going on in there? Let us figure that out first. What you choose would be in alignment with who you are. You would love what it is that you do. You would have passion. It would give you a filter to make a choice, to make a decision, to figure out your direction, to figure out your passion, to figure out your purpose. All of that comes from knowing who you are.

If you do not know who you are, how are you ever going to make that choice? That is the choice we ask people to make. That is why it is so much more important to know who first, then what. Who are you first, then what should you do? Is that making sense? Nobody ever did it that way. Imagine 32 years climbing the wrong wall. Not because I am not smart enough or not because I did not work hard.

It is because nobody ever asked me the right question in the right sequence. I bet that happened to all of you as well. “Man, what do you want to do? What do you want to be when you grow up?” It is like, “I cannot figure that out, but you have to figure that out.” “You have to figure it out now.” “I cannot.” You choose something, and then you end up on this path, which is what happens to most people. Does that make sense?

It does make sense, 100%. I am just thinking about when I decided what I was going to do. It was, I was going to be a manager because my dad was a manager. That was what I saw. To your point, it is like, I do not have anything to really help me figure out what I am going to do other than seeing somebody on TV or an idol or somebody that makes a ton of money or what my dad does. That is just the easy way. It does not mean, and there is really no reason for it, other than that is somebody that you know.

What happens to most of us is we pick somebody else that they had success with. They like what they are doing. “I am going to do that. I am going to do what they are doing.” It is very much like Halloween, right? You put on a costume, and you go be somebody else for the night. Man, by the end of the night, you cannot wait to get that costume off. If you do not have anything to take it off to, then what are you going to do? You try to find another person to be like, “I am going to be like them, because they are getting this.”

That is what I did, and that is what you did, and that is what pretty much everybody does. I want to let you all know that what we are talking about now is not just for this room. This is everybody, everywhere I go, suffering and struggling with the same exact thing. I do not really know who I am, so I do not really know what I want. I am just going to fake it until I see what happens. Let me give it a shot and see what happens. Last week I was in New York City. I worked with sixteen billionaires.

 

Exact same issue. It does not matter what you have, how much money you have, what you own, any of that. Totally lost on, like, “What should I do with my life now? I have all the stuff. What am I supposed to do now?” They do not know either, and many of them go off a cliff just like everyone else. It is not a room thing. It is a human condition because we were never asked the right question in the right sequence. Think about this. It is the application of information in the right sequence that gets the right result. We were asked in the wrong sequence.

Let us just put it in the right sequence and you will be blown away now what you can do. Why do so many people get sober, make a major life change, or hit a turning point, and they still struggle with the question, “Now what?” It goes right back to the same thing. Now you are starting to see it play out because they never were able to figure out who they are. If we can help everybody figure out who they are, the younger you are, the sooner you figure out who you are, the longer the runway you are going to have to be who you were meant to be. The youngest you will ever be is today. It is right now.

This is the youngest you will ever be. You just went through figuring out who you are. You now have the words to say who you are. If you cannot say it, you do not know it. Now you can say it, so now you know it, so now you can use it. Getting sober is an amazing step. If you do not have a plan after that, figuring out who you are and then what you really want to do, it is going to be easy to go right back. A lot of people do. You get done. I was listening to this one pastor speak.

She was an amazing speaker. She brought these shackles that they used to put around slaves to control them. She passed them out to everybody. It was very powerful. You got to feel these things, and it was scary. She said, “When we were no longer slaves, we were not free.” That does not mean you are free. Not being shackled does not mean you are now suddenly free. They had nowhere to go. They had nothing to do. They did not own anything. They could not go anywhere. They could not buy anything. She said, “That is not freedom.” Just being sober is not freedom. It just means you are sober.

What about the next step? What are you going to do next that allows you to focus this amazing energy that you have on something valuable for you? How are you going to pick it? Now you know who you are. Here is the important part. Here is the key. If what you choose to do with your life allows you to live your why, your how, and your what, you will love what you do. You will have passion for what you do. Passion is that fuel that gives you the energy to pursue it.

Without passion, you are going to quit. You are going to give up. With passion, you are going to persevere. Is that making sense? That is why it is so critical to know who you are, because how else are you going to figure that out? Otherwise, you want to slide back into what you know. Now once you get sober, man, then you can just say, “We are in this mastermind group together.” What percentage of the people do you think in that mastermind were at some point not sober?

Meaning addiction, alcoholism, drug addiction, workaholism, like a lot of them. At least 30%, maybe more. I would say even higher.

Almost everyone you talk to says, “Yes, I had that.”

If you talk about all the isms, all the issues, then probably closer to 100%. Everybody has issues. Everybody does things excessively to escape for whatever reason.

What is great about that is everyone in this room is very talented at doing what you did. Whatever that was, you are really good at it. It got you here. You are really good at it. A channel that is really good at it. Add something that you are going to really love doing. That is going to get you to where you want to go. You are going to freaking be amazing. Amazing at it. Now just pick that thing that is in alignment with your why, your how, and your what, and you are going to love it. We were talking.

Let us not put you in a box. Do not change you. Understand you. One of my patients was the head of the pain clinic in New Mexico for 40 years. For 40 years, he helped people who are in extreme pain. I asked him one day, “What percentage of the people you have helped over the last 40 years have ever made any changes?” What do you think he said? Less than 1%. Trying to get someone to change who they are, change your behavior, yes, change who you are. Why? You are already good enough.

Your why, as we talked about, is so special. You have the same one. To take that and try to stick you in a box, we are getting rid of all the things that make you amazing, and it is like taking a rabbit and making him swim instead of letting him run. Let him run. He is freaking amazing. Put him in the water. He is terrible. We have got to work on your swimming. No, let us let you run. Be a runner.

Not being shackled doesn’t mean you’re now suddenly free. Share on X

That is what we are talking about. Does that make sense? Why take you from what you are really put on earth to do and say, “I know you are good at that, but we are going to put you over here where you suck at this, and we are going to try to make you better than sucking.” Now, let us let you be who you are, and you are going to love it. You are going to have so much fun with it.

It is like, “Why work on the things that you are not good at? Why not just work on the things that you are good at?” It is way more fun. It is way easier. You are going to become way better at it.

If you put two people trying to accomplish something, and one of them has passion for it and one is just doing it for the money, which one is going to get there? Passionate. The passionate one. Pick something you are going to be passionate about. Whatever you pick is going to be hard. It does not matter what it is you pick. Drinking is hard, not drinking is hard. Having a job is hard, not having a job is hard. Having responsibilities is hard; not having responsibilities is hard. Everything is going to be hard. Pick the hard that is going to get you where you want it to go. You guys probably already heard that, but I mean, that is just the thing. Pick the hard that is going to get you right to the lifestyle that you want so you can make the impact that you really want to make. There are nine whys. Nine whys.

Walk us through the nine.

Breaking Down The Nine Whys: Which Core Driver Runs Your Life?

The first one, we have, let us see, I am going to bring this up real quick. I will not say any names. I will not say any names. The first why is Contribute. You have five of you in here who have the why of contribute. Just raise your hand if you have the why of contribute. These are the people that want to help. They do not necessarily have to be the focus, but you want to contribute in a meaningful way. Use your time, your money, your energy, your connections, your resources to push other people forward. You are typically the glue that holds organizations together.

Oftentimes, people with your why feel like you should be in the background, helping others do better. If we put somebody with your why in a leadership role, you are going to do extremely well because you are about helping everyone else do better. Does that feel right? The most successful person I have ever worked with, both financially as well as relationship-wise, has your why. He was the CEO of a company called T. Rowe Price and took it from 12 billion to 565 billion. I asked him one day, “Todd, why do you feel like you have had so much success?”

He said, “The secret to my success is that I personally interviewed everyone who works for me, and I have over 6,000 employees. I know something about everyone. When I can help each one do better, then we all do better.” That is what people with your why would do. It is a very powerful why. The second why is Trust. Just raise your hand if you have the why of trust. I know there is one there. There are four of you. There are a few of you who trust. You did as well? In the back?

Trust creates relationships based upon trust, to be the trusted source, to be the one that others can count on. If I can trust you and you can trust me, the sky is the limit. How does it work if I break your trust? Not good. If we have a meeting at 2:00, what time should I show up? 1:55, or you are late. If you are working with these two or in a relationship with these two, you have to know that they set a bar. This is what you said you were going to do. That is what I am holding you to. If you do not meet that or break it, we are not going to have a relationship. It is important for people around you to know that about you.

The most important relationship you two could have is your relationship with yourself. If you are doing things where you cannot trust yourself, how is that going to work out? How do you get past it? Set a goal, reach a goal. No matter what. You set it, you are going to do it, and you start to build that right back up. Third, why does that Make Sense? We have one. You were challenged, you said. These are people that are great problem solvers. You can dump all your stuff onto them, and they will quickly figure out what is going on, help you understand it, and move past it.

The next why is a better way, which happens to be our why. I wish I had known that you guys were going to be able to do this, because I would have had wristbands for you. I might have some in my bag. I will look when we are done. Usually I give the audience all the wristbands so that you have a better way. We are always looking for better ways, right? We go to bed thinking about better ways and wake up thinking about better ways, and we cannot turn it off. We are never satisfied. Always trying to make things better. The fifth why is Right Way. Nobody in the room has the why of Right Way.

These are structure, process, systems people. They find things that work and stick to them. They are like the no person in the room. No, we said we were going to do this, and that is what we are going to do. The next why is Challenge. You have the six why, 1, 2, 3, 4 of you in the Why of Challenge. You do too, and you, okay. These are the ones that make things fun and different and exciting, and they think outside the box. They push limits. Who says we have to do things this way? They want to do it their own way. They do not want to follow the rules. Does that feel right for you? As I mentioned, my wife has this why of challenge and was in a place very similar to this, probably very close to this. That is my number three.

How significant or insignificant is it that it is my third why?

 

That is what you bring, an outside-the-box solution. For everybody with the why of challenge, it is probably your whole life you have felt a little bit different. People do not get you. Why cannot I just do it like everybody else does? Why am I so different? This is why I see that medicates the most. To get away from themselves until you realize what you have is a gift and not a curse. For the longest time, it was a curse. For my wife, what she said helped her. Knowing her why, was peace of mind. I am okay. In fact, I am more than okay.

In fact, look at all these other people who think as I do and look at what they have been able to do. I am not cursed. I am gifted. You were never meant to blend in. You were meant to stand out. Go stand out. Do it. You do not need to be reserved. You can just be yourself because it is a gift. Some of the most special people in the world have done things that the rest of us are too scared to do. Have your why. Go do it, and there will be a great time for you. It can get you someplace even better. For the longest time, it was a curse. Make it a gift and just watch what you do.

You will be blown away. The next why is Mastery. There is nobody in this room with the why of mastery, but these are people that dive in really deep. They take the simple and make it complex by diving in really deep, looking for the little things that make the big difference. An example of that, I had this gal on my show who had the why of mastery. I said, “Tell me something that you are interested in, that you are doing right now.” She said, “I am training my new puppy.” I said, “Great. What have you done?” She said, “I have read six books, and I have taken three online courses.”

I said, “How is the training going?” She said, “I have not started yet.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “I do not know enough.” They take things to an unbelievable level. The eighth why is clarity. Nobody had that why in the room. These are people who want things to be crystal clear. They ask a lot of questions first about what the question was. They want to get asked a lot of questions to get clear on the answer. They write you long texts and long emails.

They are the ones who are always raising their hands to ask questions. The last Why is Simplify. They are like the opposite of mastery. They take the complex and break it down to its simplest form. They want things direct to the point. Do not give me the fluff. Do not beat around the bush. Those are the nine whys, briefly. Now, one of them is your why, one of them is your how, and one of them is your what. That is why I wanted you to know all nine, so that now you can see how it all fits together.

Does someone’s why change after addiction, a traumatic experience, a psychiatric diagnosis, or something else, or is their why the same?

Their why is always the same. I have a nephew who was in Afghanistan and went through all kinds of crazy stuff, and we had done it before, and we did it after. It is the same. My wife, same thing. Your why stays the same. Your how and your what could possibly change. We just do not have enough data yet. We talk about you.

Applying Your Unique Why, How, And What To Overcome Burnout

Yes, let us talk about me.

Tim’s why, like mine, is to find a better way and share it. He is always looking for better ways. Everything you see here and everything he brings is going to be a better way. It is how his brain works. He is always scanning for something that works better. How he does that is by taking complex things and simplifying them, decreasing complexity. What he brings is an outside-the-box solution. It is not going to be typical. It is not going to be the same as everything else. It is going to be different. It is going to have the Tim flair to it. Does that feel right?

It does.

His why is Better Way. His how is simplify, and his what is challenge. Are you following? You all have that same thing. Now you have got it, right? If we just talked about his why, it would give us one dimension of him. Now we know his why, how, and what. It allows us to see more into how he does things and what you can count on from him. He is not going to bring you the same boring thing that everybody else brings. He is going to find something that is different. It is going to work even better. You have some modalities here that I think other people do not have.

Nobody else does a podcast with their clients either.

Just being sober is not freedom. It just means you’re sober. Share on X

No, not a live podcast like this.

How is someone going to use these three things? How am I going to use a better way, simplify, and challenge?

Let us say Tim is now struggling with trying to figure out, “What the am I going to do with my life? I just do not freaking know. I do not even know how to figure it out.” We discover his why, a better way, his how, simplifying. His what, a challenge. Let us say Tim says, “I know what I am going to do. I am going to pick a direction where I do not get to find better ways. It is very complex, and they are trying to put me in a box all the time. How do you think that is going to work for him? How is that going to work for you?

It is probably not going to work.

Somebody suggested you do it because you could make a lot of money over there. Makes sense. You start down that path, and you are like, “Man, this is horrible.” I do not care how much money I am making. I do not care what this is. I do not like it. What if we put you in a place where you decide now to go down a path where you get to find better ways, you get to simplify the complex, and you get to bring solutions that are different and get even better results? How would you like to do that?

Sounds way better.

That is how you can use it for yourself. If you are trying to figure out what my next step is, how do I find my passion? What is my purpose? What was I put on earth to do? It cannot be this. What was I put here to do? You were put here to do your why, your how, and your what. If you just do that, you will love it. You will have unlimited energy for it. You will have passion for it. It will feel great for you. You are like, “Man, I have never felt so popular because I am doing what I am supposed to do.”

How does understanding who you really are help you make better decisions about relationships, work, habits, and the life you want to build?

Let us say you start dating somebody that you cannot trust. How is that going to work for you?

No.

They are really good-looking. They got all, they check all the boxes except for the one where they cannot, you cannot trust them. For you in particular, that is going to kill you. You too. You can keep trying to change them, but it is not going to work. If you just use your why, your how, and your what as your filter for all your decisions going forward, it will fit you. The direction will fit you. You will love doing it. You will have passion for it. It gives you that tool. The coolest part about this is that there is a practical application for your life. This is not something that you read and just think.

I can apply this to my career, my relationships, my sobriety, my hopes and dreams. You got it. It is like a real tool. Here is what the missing piece has always been. The missing piece has always been language, a way to say it. You might have felt this about yourself. Sort of feeling that maybe you might know your why, but it’s not very valuable. Now you can say it, now you can use it, and now it can have an impact for you.

The youngest you will ever be is today. Share on X

That is where, in essence, all I did was create a language for what you were already feeling. Now you have the way to say it, so it becomes a usable tool for you in making your next choices. They are going to be even better choices than the ones you have been making, because we all were making choices without knowing who we are. Not just you guys, everybody. What that does is it makes you rely on hope. Man, I sure hope I picked the right thing there. I sure hope that is going to work out. How do I know? I guess I better just go do it. Now you can get past hope and know, I know this is going to work. Here is why.

It is much easier to go down the right path. Much less costly. I put 32 years into dentistry, and trust me, I worked my ass off at it. The whole time I really knew in the back of my head that this is not what I am supposed to be doing. I am sitting in this cubicle. I am just playing too small. It does not matter what kind of lifestyle it gives you. It does not matter how much money you make. It does not matter any of that stuff. After a while, you are like, “I am stuck in this room all day. It is killing me.” Everything outside of that is not any fun either.

You say your best self is your real self. What does that mean, especially for someone who is trying to rebuild their life?

Stepping Into Authenticity: Why Your Real Self Is Your Best Self

When I speak at events and I take an audience through this, what I have them do, and we could even do this, is I have them go in pairs and then just say their simple YOS out loud. You know the one that I had you guys do the screenshot? They just say it out loud to each other and then talk about how it feels, which you could do another time. The next slide comes up, and I say, “The next slide is the most important slide of the day.”

It will come up, and it will say, “Your best self is your real self.” What the world does not need, especially with you with the why of challenge, what the world does not need is a muted version of you. What the world needs is you being the best version of yourself. Most people cannot do that because they do not know who they are. How can you be something if you do not know who you are? Parents say, “Just be yourself.” “What is myself? How am I supposed to be myself? That is when we try to be like somebody else.”

Put the costume on until that gets old. Try to find a new costume and another costume. Now you know who you are. Now you can say who you are. Now just go be who you are. That is what that means. Your best self, the best version of you, is going to be the real version of you. Not trying to change you, not trying to stick you in a box, not trying to tell you not to be this. Be you. The most successful people in the world, you see, they just are themselves. The most successful ones. What do you think?

If they are passionate about what they do, which is, they know their why and so forth. I want to open it up to questions, or take a couple of people through 1 or 2 people through your process? What do you think of that? Anybody want to volunteer?

We got a couple of volunteers. Why do not you do it? Jordan, your why, how, and what are what?

“It Makes Sense, Clarify, Better Way.”

Do you remember everybody remembers what Makes Sense are people that are really good problem solvers, and I bet you are really good. I could dump all my stuff onto you. You go, “I got it.”

“I had to ask a lot of whys, for sure.”

It’s because your how was Clarify. If you remember people with the why of Clarify, they ask a ton of questions, and why are you asking so many questions?

 

“So that I understand and I can explain that.”

Is understanding good enough, or does it have to be clear?

“It has to be clear.”

Live Breakthroughs: Real-Time Coaching And Discovering Personal Whys

There is a difference right there between Clarify and Make Sense. Make Sense people just want to understand, but if you got Clarify there, it means you have got to be clear. It is a different level of questioning.

“There are so many different frames and lenses of a statement that it could be. I have to understand which frame it is set in.”

You’ve got to be able to see it. Your what was better way, right?

“Yes.”

Ultimately, what you bring is a better way. How are you going to know if it is better if it does not make sense and it is not clear? You have to make sense, make sure it is clear, and then you can bring a better way. Does that feel right? Let us say we put Jordan in a place where he gets to solve problems, ask a lot of questions to get clear, and bring us better ways. Would you enjoy doing that?

“I thrive. I was a program director at one point in time at a rehab facility, and I have thrived in that, basically, from this profile that I just completed.”

Let us say Jordan decides he is going to go to a place where they do not value your opinion. They do not want you to ask any questions and just do what I tell you to do. It is not going to work. Now you have a really good filter to be able to say yes or no. If we offer you this position and you do not get to live your why, how, and what, you could still do it, but know that you are going to run out of energy, right? If you pick something that you get to live your why, how, and what, you are going to love it.

It is going to be fun. Every day is going to be a great day. You get to be you. Be the problem solver. You are going to ask questions. Let people know that you are going to ask a lot of questions and why you are asking them, not because you are a pain in the butt. The reason I am asking a lot of questions is that, ultimately, I am going to bring a better way, but I have to be clear on what we are talking about. I may ask you a couple more questions than most people do, because this is what I am going to bring. Does that make sense?

“For sure, because people get annoyed very easily with questions.”

Just like you two with the why of trust, whose responsibility is it to let people know how important trust is to you? If you do not let this group here know how important trust is to you, what are the odds it is going to get broken? It’s very high. “He is such a nice guy. If I am late, he does not care. He will be all right with it.” You are like, “No, dude, you said this time. I am sitting here at this time.” Does that make sense?

“Yes.”

Was that helpful? Any other questions on that?

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“It really just stamped it in for me, confirm that.”

It is a very powerful combination you have, especially when you get to use it.

“Thank you.”

The goal is not to mute yourself. The goal is to be the best version of yourself. Pick a place where they are going to value it. Pick a place where you get to be it. You are going to love it. You are going to excel. Your life is going to be a rocket ship. It’s because that is actively doing that right now. Pursuing like Matt, I think he is actively applying that right now, honestly.

“That is awesome. Thanks.”

Is this helpful?

“Mine was a challenge to make sense of and simplify. My situation is a little bit like yours. Your dad was a dentist. My mom is a real estate agent. My dad was a contractor. When I graduated in 18th grade, I got my license at 19 years old. I have been doing that for the last twelve years of my life. Basically, I was going in to get my broker’s license, going to take over the company and everything. I just never did it because my mom would not listen to what I had to say. She did not. She is just like, “I want help, but I want it this way.”

“I finally got to the point back in July. I was like, “I am done, and basically I quit and started my own business back in May. I was doing good with my business and everything like that. Since I quit my job and started my own company, everybody started worrying now. “What is going on? He is having thoughts of grandiosity. He is having this or that.” It turned into basically now everybody walking on eggshells around me. It ended up with me going to the CBI. It ended up here.”

“Basically, it is like now I found out the codependency with my job and everything like that. It is like I am grateful to have you here. We’re going to talk about the WHY Institute, where we’re going to talk about the why. I was going to go to law school, but then I was down to work for another guy. You are just going down the ladder that way. It is going to be the same thing. Where it is therapists, psychiatry, but it is like every single road I am going with. The company I want to start is basically something that I love doing. I love doing it. As soon as I quit my job, I just felt a weight lift off of me.”

“Basically, it is like that, but in order to keep doing what I do, I still have to have this job until I get to that point. I have asked that question since I was a kid. I had four, three older brothers. I had five uncles. I was like, “Why are they acting like this? Why are they assholes?” Finally, I found out I was not loving myself. I was not doing what made me happy. By doing so, everybody around me became unhappy for some reason. Basically, it was more of a concern like, oh, this is different. If you went from doing this for twelve years, I was a top 30 under-30 agent for Coldwell Banker. I was one of the top producers in my city.”

“Basically, it was never enough. Now it is just like, I was bored. I was complacent. I had money. I had this stuff, but I never felt fulfilled until I started my own company and I started doing that. All of a sudden, now it is just like, it is like, “I have the idea. I have a business plan. I have everything drawn out.” People are just thinking, “You are not thinking this through.” It is like, “No, it is like me and Grok talk a lot.” With that information there, basically your relationship with your parents, you took that, but you did it for 30 years. I am already losing hair, and I am already 31.”

People with a why of challenge do not make good employees. They make amazing visionaries. Because you do not want to be controlled, you do not want your mom to have her thumb on you, you want to do it your way. When you do, you are going to do amazingly well. Do not try to be somebody’s employee. Try to be that visionary and take your mind to what you see and make that happen. You already said it made you happy.

 

You will have so much energy for doing that. What you are going to need though, is to surround yourself with somebody who is not good, is good at what you are not. That is going to be structured. You are going to suck at structure. Is she, if you can get somebody who really loves doing that, which seems amazing to you, how could anyone love that? I wish we had somebody with the why of the right way in here, or the why of simplify in here, because they love that stuff that you hate.

They can take all this stuff out of your mind and help you, and Grok, get it down into something that you can use to build your company with and keep doing that part of it where you get to go do what you really love doing. That is the only challenge that you are going to face. I am not. There are other challenges you are going to face, but with your family, they probably do not know, believe that you have enough structure, and they will call it discipline or whatever they are going to call it to get it done. You probably will not unless you can get someone to help you with that.

“That is why I have been trying to get a transaction coordinator because it is like, “I know what I hate doing. I hate doing paperwork.” My mom is like, “No. You do not understand what you want. To get your broker’s license, you can do what you want.” It is like, I am going to take over. It is just that same cycle. I’ve just been stuck, like, the last couple of years on just, like, complacency at that point.”

Do your thing, because you are going to do it anyway. Whether you do it now or in ten years, you are going to bust outside the box that put you in and do it your way. The sooner you do it, the longer the runway you have to be. You are going to do something amazing. No doubt about it. As I was saying, think of all the people that think as you do. Steve Jobs, who knows who Herb Kelleher is, Southwest Airlines, Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic. That is those guys, they were never employees. They were horrible employees.

You are going to suck as an employee. Do not put yourself there if you can, or if you have to, know that it is temporary and why you are doing it. Know that if you are going to be an employee, I have to get some money, so I have to do some work, but this is why I am doing it, just to get to what I really want to do. You are okay with it. Now you are not going to fight it. Otherwise, you are going to just fight it. Does that make sense?

“Yes.”

You are going to do something amazing. You were good at this. You are going to be good at everything else. Just channel it. One more.

“Let me tell you what I got. My why is to contribute, my how makes sense, and my what is trust.”

What I like about what we are doing here is we are getting some reps in so you can see how this all plays out, and now you will understand each other more. The more reps were to do, the more you would start to, it would all start to click for you, but your why is to contribute. He wants to help people. His how is Makes Sense. He is good at solving problems, and his what is trust. He wants to be that trusted guide. He wants to be the one others can count on.

“Totally. I work in construction development. I build, like, residential roads, subgrade, grading, and stuff like that. I am decent at it, but honestly, my, biggest impact that I have had on my crew is that I listened to them about what is going on in their lives and I prayed for them and I asked them how they are doing. Once I started doing that, I was able to build connections with the people I work with. I got a raise, I got a promotion. It is not necessarily because I am excelling at operating the machines or anything like that or anything other than the fact that I have cared about the people that I am working with. That is how I have been able to excel in what I am doing.”

You can see from his why, his how, his what, why he would.

“Which is why when I got it, I was like, holy crap, this is so accurate. Obviously, working in construction, like, if you are not on time, which is early, they are going to get rid of you really quickly. It is like one of, it is the number one thing. Be on time, ready to work every day. I am just blown away at how easily you formulated this to apply it to your life. I have taken lots of quizzes and stuff like this, trying to figure stuff out, but none of them have hit home the way this one has. It is very impressive.”

Thank you. There are over 4,000 possible question options. I did not tell you guys that there are over 4,000. I use logic-based programming, so you only had to answer like 30 to 35. Here is something else I have not told you. The YOS discovery actually goes nine levels deep. Your top three are your why, how, and what, which is what we are talking about in the room now. Your middle three are the things that are energy neutral for you, but the bottom three are the things that zap your energy. If you are stuck doing those bottom three, it is miserable for you. I will get that for everybody here. I will send you a big spreadsheet that has all this for everybody, and you can go look at it.

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Just remember that the top three give you energy. The bottom three zap your energy. The only caveat to that is if you have trust or contribute in your bottom three, that does not mean you are not trustworthy, and it does not mean you do not want to have an impact. It just means that you assume trust or you assume it is going to have an impact unless otherwise shown. If all of a sudden one of you shows up with trust in your bottom three, you would say, “That tells me I am not trustworthy.” That is not what it is saying. I wish I could be there for you.

“It is also formulated so specially for people who are in recovery. The way that you explained, when we are out there in our active addiction, our active alcoholism, we are literally killing our time to discover who we are. We go through this trauma, and our shame and guilt compound on top of each other, and we stop believing in ourselves. We do not even think that we can find out who we are. We are left with a blank canvas that we cannot paint. This helps me a lot. I am going to do some writing and, like, some journaling and stuff about it later and try to set some goals and come up with a plan. I am going to use this.”

I love it. Let us say we put you at your work now. If your boss knew this about you, he would not put you out there doing the work. He would put you out there working with the people doing the work because that is where your impact is going to be amazing. Help them solve their problem and be their trusted source, their trusted guide. It’s hard to find somebody like that.

“That is what he told me.”

He knows it. Now you know it. You can really excel. Now you can say, “Here is what I am really good at. Here is why you want me on the team. You do not want me to be that guy. You want me to be this guy that works with these guys because I am going to make them all better, which he or she hates to do.”

“He does.”

That is horrible for them. It is like taking some way off course from what they are trying to get done. You are great at it. You are going to love what you do, and you are going to build an amazing company.

“Yes, dude.”

If someone feels lost, stuck, or unsure about what they want next, what is the first thing you would tell them to do?

You just went through it. My vision is to be the first step in self-awareness. The first step people take when they are trying to figure out who they are. You have already said you have taken a bunch of different ones, and it is helpful, but maybe not as helpful. Not like this. I want to be that first step. If you start here, the rest you could add if you want, but you do not necessarily need to. That is why, if you are feeling stuck, you are not living in alignment with your why, how, and what. If you are feeling like you are out of energy, if you are feeling like someone has got their thumb down on you and you know that is not the right place to be, you too.

You too, back there in the back in the star hat. How do you feel about someone having their thumb down on you and trying to control you? Now the goal is, again, to be who you were meant to be. Here is what I hope you will get from this if you now have the language to be able to tell somebody what it is they are seeing when you do not know what it is. You meet somebody for the first time. Let us say we did not know Tim at all, and he sits down here.

You would be looking at his glasses, his beard, the way he is sitting, what he is wearing, the look on his face, and you would create a narrative around what you think you see. That is who he would be to you. Everyone is doing that to you too. Especially with the why of Challenge, they are like, “What the hell is going on?” I do not get this one because they do not. They label it whatever they label it. What are some things people have probably labeled you as with the why of challenge?

 

“Distracting, talks a lot, energetic.”

If they knew what it really was, the gift that you have and the gift it is to have you there, they would see it so differently. We are so fortunate that she is here, because she is going to get us to see things we do not ever see. We have got ourselves in this little box here. She is going to show us stuff that is there, but we did not see it, because she does. What it gives you is the language to be able to say what they are seeing for what it really is, and then you get valued for what you bring instead of what they are calling it, like your mom.

I wish your mom was sitting right here in the room. I do this with companies. Well, you probably do not. I do this with companies so that I can say those things about that person that the others are missing, in a way where, “If I were you, Mom, I would try all I could to keep this guy. I would set him free because he can do stuff you are never going to see. You are going to be so glad that he is here versus trying to get him out of the thing or control it. Do not control him. He is to control him. He is leaving.”

It is really valuable for them to know what they have got in you because they are seeing it as, like, he is getting us outside of what we are trying to do here. I know you are lucky he is doing that because you are going to grow this far. He is going to take you this far, and you are going to go do it for yourself now. They are going to go, “How did that happen?” It is because you did not see it. Every one of you has something special. You have that combination of something amazingly special, and you just need to know what it is so you can use it.

Is there a question I should have asked you that I did not ask you?

We talked about a lot. I guess I would rather ask you a question and all of you. At what stage in what you have been through would this have been valuable? Is it valuable enough?

It was definitely valuable. I am thinking about when it would have been most appropriate. When I first got sober, I mean like, everything had to change. I did not know that everything had to change when I first got sober. I realized somewhere along the line that everything had to change. New eating habits, new sleeping habits, new exercise habits, I pray and meditate, new hobbies, new interests. Everything, new hobbies, like everything, had to change. Figuring out a better way, would it have changed? It probably would have helped me figure it out. I stayed in a career for a couple of years longer than maybe I would have otherwise. Figuring out my why would have been a straighter line as opposed to me, now I am doing what I love doing. It is right in line with exactly.

I am going to ask one other question to everybody in here because of what you just said. How do you feel about the word change? My question about that is, is that the right word?

“It should be gross.”

Could there be another word that would be even more powerful for what needs to happen to get you where you want to go? The only reason I am saying that is because sometimes the thought of change is also scary and I know it is not going to happen anyways. Why am I even trying? Versus what if what you had said is, I just know these things had to be different, or is that word was change okay with you?

I do not even think I thought about it. Maybe look at that. It is one. It is like one day at a time, one step at a time. I just need to think about it. My path was doing the next right thing, making the next right decision, asking God for direction, asking people that I trust, people that I look up to for suggestions. People that were living the life that I wanted to live, asking them for suggestions. That was what helped me take steps that led me in the right direction, I believe. There is a lot that I know that I did not know. I think that just being present and living in today because thinking too far ahead in the future, that is what is going to create anxiety and stress. It is too much.

When you are in the middle of your addiction, would this not make any sense to do? I could not focus on it. Where do you go? What do you think?

I do not know. It probably would have made sense. I do not know if I would have fully been able to embrace it and really take action on it the way that because I was not sober and I was not thinking clearly. It was all about Tim and I was selfish and self-centered and I would lie, cheat, steal to get what I was a taker. Opposite of how I live today. I do not know.

What the world doesn't need is a muted version of you. What the world needs is you being the best version of yourself. Share on X

That is why I really do not know either.

“I can get this intimidating right now, but here is some of it, which is where I am at, but it is also a good goal.”

He just said it is a little, and I am just repeating it. He said that it is a little bit intimidating to think about life, everything being different in your life, essentially. I was just going to say, and that is why we say one day at a time. One day at a time, one decision at a time, one meeting at a time, show up to, like, I do not want to go to outpatient, show up anyway. I do not want to go to a meeting. Go to a meeting anyways. I do not want to go to group. Go to group anyways. I do not want to hike, hike anyways. I do not want to pray, pray anyways.

“I was just going to say, if I do not even think about a little bit of change, like if I do not change, then I am just going to remain the same or very similar to what I have, what I do not want to be and what I have been this whole time. For me, I accepted that I needed to change everything because the way that I was going, like I am going to be dead very soon or back in prison and I do not want to be neither. For me, I recognized the change early on.”

Is the question in your mind more along the lines of what I do not want or what I do want?

“I’m figuring out what I do want, but absolutely knowing what I do not want.”

Finding Your Path Forward: Resources And Connecting With The WHY Institute

Excellent, thank you. Where can people find you? How can they connect with you? How can they learn more about your work?

If you go to WHYInstitute.com, you can see more about it. You can send it to your friends from there. I have a podcast as well that Tim has been on and comes out every week. Fascinating guests there that you can learn how their why has played out in their life.

I would say if you listened to an episode this morning, I found someone that had my same why, but in a better way. That was actually really interesting to listen to you interview somebody who had my why. That was really cool. That is what I would suggest is if you go find this podcast, find somebody that has your why.

It will show their why on there. You can just go scroll down to the ones that have it. If you go to the website, you can just search for that. Same thing with social media. We are on a lot of different platforms and social media outlets.

Thank you. That one is not one to send out just because it is not free for everybody. That one was free. That was free for you all. I do not want that going around just because it is not typically free.

What we will do is you will be able to see that this episode will be on the Team Recovery app. Get into the Team Recovery app. You can always go to my YouTube channel, Camelback Recovery or Tim Westbrook, or I Love Being Sober. You can find the show on any of the podcast platforms if you want to watch this again. All the information is in the Team Recovery app.

I will give everyone in your audience the WHY Discovery that just finds your why. This was the Why.os, or your why operating system. I will give everybody who listens to your podcast the Why Discovery for free. We will give you a link, and everybody can take it. If they want to go further, then they can do that.

Gary, thank you so much. It was a pleasure having you here. Let us give it up for Dr. Gary Sanchez.

 

Important Links

• Dr. Gary Sanchez on LinkedIn
• WHY Institute
• WHY Discovery – free WHY Discovery
• Camelback Recovery
• Tim Westbrook on YouTube
• I Love Being Sober on Apple Podcast
• Start With Why

 

About Dr. Gary Sanchez

Dr. Gary Sanchez, known as “Dr. WHY,” is the founder and CEO of the WHY Institute and the creator of the WHY Operating System, or WHY.os.

He earned his DDS from the University of Southern California and practiced cosmetic and sedation dentistry in Albuquerque for 32 years. He chose dentistry because his father was a dentist and he didn’t know what else to choose. About 28 years in, while attending a meeting of leading dentists in Scottsdale, Arizona, he realized he had built a successful life around a decision he never really made.

His search for his own WHY started as a marketing problem: how to stand out among hundreds of dentists who could all claim the same technology and the same service. Answering it changed how he ran his practice, and other dentists started asking for help. He spent the next several years helping anyone who would sit still, patients and strangers alike, find their WHY. The patterns he noticed became the nine WHYs: Contribute, Trust, Make Sense, Better Way, Right Way, Challenge, Mastery, Clarify, and Simplify.

In 2021 he launched the WHY.os Discovery, which identifies a person’s WHY, HOW, and WHAT in minutes. He is the author of You Had Me at WHY, hosts the Beyond Your WHY podcast, and speaks internationally. The WHY Institute’s stated mission is to help one billion people discover their WHY.os.