Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm

specializing in helping teams and organizations create better working experiences that activate stronger

results. So now that we're in full back-to-school swing, I am spending my time on the sidelines

watching my daughter race. She's a distance runner,

and some of her races go on for miles. And in watching her, which is frankly as close as I will

ever come to distance running myself, I notice that I pay a ton of attention to the beginning

and the end, her start and her finish. The stuff in the middle, please don't tell her,

but I kind of lose the thread. What's interesting is that the stuff in the middle is just as important.

Every step she takes impacts equally the outcome of her race, but I can't help it. My attention

is called to the bookends. And really, this same thing happens at work.

Like, we all work the same 12 months, the same four quarters. But be honest, doesn't it feel like

the first and fourth quarters just carry a little more weight? We are quite unbelievably to me

rolling into yet another fourth quarter,

and many eyes are on the work that we do in this final push of the year. And leaders, or even just

citizens, want to make sure this quarter really counts. Frankly, I think the secret to a winning

Q4 is getting one's team or oneself, focused, aligned, and on purpose.

And this is where Simon Sinek's golden circle becomes your best friend.

I've used it with dozens of leadership teams, and today I'd love to walk you through how you can use it to your advantage.

So here's how it works.

Picture three concentric circles. The outermost ring is your what, the middle ring is your how,

and your innermost circle is your why. What makes this tool so powerful is that it's not about

uncovering ways to do more or effort harder. No, it forces

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