This book is very helpful for anyone why is looking to improve themselves. Or command more status, and respect, without falling into the negative traps.

The concept of start with the why is excellent and can definitely help people to grow both personally and professionally. However, this book often uses the same examples over and over. Page after page has been filled and filled and it feels like this could have been 75% or more shorter but instead was beefed up for the sake of it. Over hyped in my view and not recommended.

Most people will have seen Simon Sinek on YouTube (myself included); however, few will have read one of his books (myself included). Honestly, whilst this may be an unpopular opinion (that is founded based on a single one of his many books), I believe he is a much better motivational speaker than an author. Start With Why is a great concept. However, the point is made early on, with it being laboured in varying degrees and flavours for the vast majority of the 241 pages. A good few helpful nuggets of information can certainly be used, but it was a bit of a slog to finish, and I might stick to watching him in future.

Another day, another work book, this will be the third work book I’ve read this year and scarily I doubt it’ll be my last. Quite possibly a very unpopular opinion but if I could get away with this review being simply Thanks, NEXT!!! I would only write that but that doesn’t give you any context as to why I feel like that, therefore incredibly unhelpful. I did not like this book. If Tarnished are the Stars is my fictional reading car crash of 2020, Start with Why is my Non-Fiction equivalent. I fell asleep reading this, I fell asleep laying on the sofa with 90kg of dogs sleeping on my legs reading this book. I struggle to fall asleep in a completely dark, completely silent bedroom in a super-king size bed at bedtime, so to fall asleep as previously described with the sun glaring through the living room window should speak volumes of how I took to this book. Now, I know Simon Sinek can do good content, I’ve seen it, heard it even, in some of his talks that are out in the wild of the web. And I’ve been impressed with what he had to say and maybe more importantly how he said it. So, I know for a fact the man knows his stuff. So, what happened here?! I’ll admit, part of the problem I had with this books is ME. This book just did not speak to me, I don’t know why exactly but there was no connection. When I read books like these I need to connect with author, like I need a little something something to get a sense of them as a person, their personality. I didn’t feel a personality until right at the end, the last chapter. The last chapter was when he talked about himself and his experience… why wasn’t that the first chapter?! At the end of the book, I finally went “Ahhh I see why this is important to you, I understand why you’ve written a book about this” and if I’d read that at the beginning I might have understood more on his angle maybe. It was the connection I needed when I started this book, I just had to read over 200 pages to get to it. With that in mind, remember this is MY opinion only, hundreds if not thousands of people loved this book, I did not. It’s one of those things. No one is right or wrong, you won’t love every book you’ve ever read. But I am going to try and explain why I didn’t enjoy it. The above on connection is one point but there were some other bits I struggled with. The man has a legitimate point to make, our beliefs define us in ways we likely don’t consciously acknowledge, we as people will buy into something that shares a similar belief to ourselves. He defines it as the business why, if a business loses that why then customers won’t connect with them on that level. I agree with that simple point and I like the different angles he’s tried to explain the importance at it from. But this book wasn’t easy to read, I ended up having to set myself 50 page targets a day and forcing myself to read it. Why did it I find it so hard to read? Repetition… the same thing said multiple times a chapter again and again and again. “People don’t by the How/What, they buy the WHY” is one such line. Structure… there are some great examples of real life businesses and famous, successful CEO’s and public figures covered in this book. But you have to read paragraphs of content to find out what their WHY was for the content you’d just read to make more sense. I ended up reading content to reach that persons WHY and then going back through to content because knowing their WHY changed how I viewed it. I’d have preferred whenever there was mention of someone it start with their WHY, so that it framed what I was reading and how I took it on board. Tone… it felt someone was talking at me, not to me. Someone just streaming information at me with little passion behind it. Like I said I’ve heard Simon speak and know that he has passion abound and such a way with words in the likes of his TedTalks, but this fell flat, and I was either a bit bored or frustrated that I was reading the same sentence for the tenth time in so many pages. Length… this book could be half the size, there’s a lot of waffle and repetition that don’t add anything to what he’s saying. Summary I’ve not hidden my feelings that this book isn’t for me, I didn’t enjoy reading it, but I learnt a little from it and I understood, eventually, what he was trying to say. This book does have some great reviews from other readers and as I don’t actively go out my way to buy these sorts of books I never know how I’m going to feel having read them. My friend has been listening to it on Audible and said he’s quite enjoying it so maybe Simon’s voice narrating the book makes it better? Or maybe my friend just has more of a taste for these books than me. Just because I didn’t enjoy doesn’t mean it’s not worth a read. If you are into Business, Entrepreneurship or Business Ethics I am positive this will give you a beneficial insight into the business world (maybe read the last chapter where he talks about himself first though) and be prepared for some repetition.

I am so tired of people singing Apple's praises. It's always on and on about "ingenuity" and never about the incompatibility of their tech with other tech, the exploitation of workers driven to suicide in the Foxconn sweatshops, the insane pricing, or the fact that they appeal to trend-chasing idiots. If that's Sinek's example of leadership, I'll pass.