Start with Why Summary & key ideas explained

At the start of the twentieth century, the race to fly looked like it was already decided. Samuel Pierpont Langley had a $50,000 grant from the War Department, a seat at Harvard, a job at the Smithsonian, connections to everyone who mattered, a hand-picked team of top minds, and newspaper reporters tracking his every move.

A few hundred miles away, in Dayton, Ohio, two brothers ran a bicycle shop. Wilbur and Orville Wright had no grant and no connections. Nobody on their team had been to college. And yet on December 17, 1903, it was the Wrights who got a man off the ground and flying.

Both sides worked hard. Both were smart. So what made the difference? Simon Sinek, a marketing consultant who had lost his own passion for work, set out to understand why a few people and organizations inspire others while most don't. His answer: Langley was chasing fame and fortune. The Wrights believed that flight could change the world, and that belief pulled people to them through every failure.

That's the idea at the heart of Start with Why. The people who move us all think, act and talk in the same way, and it's the opposite of how almost everyone else does it.

But before you can see that pattern, you need to notice the tricks most of us use instead.