In the last post, we left each other in that soft dawn-lit room, notebook open, one honest sentence waiting to be carried into the day. Many of you did exactly that: you said the quiet part out loud in a meeting, admitted the doubt in an email, asked for the help you actually needed.
Today we go one step further. Authenticity without direction is just noise. Vulnerability without purpose is just pain. What turns both into something that actually heals the world (and heals us while we’re at it) is a clear, lived answer to the question Simon Sinek made famous: Why do you do what you do?
Not “what” you do. Not even “how.” Why.
I learned this the hard way. For years I earned my living working for large corporations. The money was great, the hours brutal, the emptiness total. I would finish a quarter, strip naked the moment I got home, and sit on the floor staring at the wall, wondering why my skin felt clean but my soul felt filthy. The why beneath all that work was simple and ugly: to prove I was clever enough, successful enough, safe enough. Status. Security. Survival. Nothing about joy, nothing about service, nothing about the living world outside my window.
Then one ordinary day I walked bare into the garden at 3 a.m. because insomnia had won again. The moon was full, the air cool, the dog snoring on the porch. I asked myself the question out loud, voice cracking: “Marc, why are you actually here on this planet?” The answer that came wasn’t clever. It was ancient and embarrassingly obvious: to help things grow, and to help people remember they belong to each other and to the earth. That was it. No mission statement, no branding exercise. Just a naked man under the moon remembering he is part of something larger.
In the next few months, I left my secure job. Income dropped by seventy percent overnight. Freedom arrived the same day.
That’s when I discovered the unbreakable link between authenticity and why. When you know your why (truly know it, in your bones, not as a poster on the wall), pretense becomes physically painful. You can’t fake it anymore. You can’t sell plastic crap. You can’t sit in meetings nodding along to strategies that harm soil, people, or truth. Authenticity stops being a nice-to-have; it becomes the only bearable way to move through the day.
And here’s the beautiful part: you do not need to quit your job tomorrow to live this. You only need to locate your why, hold it gently like a warm stone in your pocket, and let it quietly redirect your existing work. Small changes, massive impact.
Here are three ways this has unfolded in real lives I’ve witnessed or learned about over the years, ordinary people in everyday jobs, making small shifts that ripple outward.
First, the power of quiet questioning in corporate roles. At companies like Unilever and Marks & Spencer, employees integrated into large-scale sustainability programs have found ways to infuse their existing positions with deeper purpose. One supply-chain manager I heard about began asking suppliers not just about cost and speed, but about long-term environmental impact. Small adjustments in procurement, prioritizing suppliers with lower water use or fair labor, reduced waste across entire chains without changing his job title. His why? To leave the world better for his children. The role stayed the same; the outcomes transformed.
Second, repair and longevity in hands-on work. Mechanics and technicians in places like Intel campuses or independent workshops have taken personal initiatives to extend product life. Stories emerge of employees who, driven by a why rooted in reducing unnecessary waste, advocate for repair over replacement, sourcing parts creatively, teaching colleagues simple fixes. One technician shared how refusing to discard “obsolete” equipment led to internal reuse programs that cut e-waste significantly. No new role created; just a refusal to contribute to throwaway culture.
Third, nurturing connection in education and community-facing jobs. Teachers and frontline workers in various settings have woven body-positive, earth-connected awareness into routine lessons or interactions. Inspired by broader movements, some introduce brief moments of presence, pausing to notice breath, soil, growth, that foster respect for self and planet. A science educator I learned of shifted lab waste practices by involving students in composting organics, aligning her why of helping young people feel belonging in the natural world. Small curriculum tweaks, profound shifts in awareness.
These aren’t heroic leaps; they’re honest pivots. The accountant who probes food waste in audits. The mechanic who keeps machines alive longer. The teacher who plants seeds, literally or figuratively. Each began with a private reckoning: What truly matters to me? Then carried that warm certainty into rooms they already occupied.
Notice the pattern: clarity of why dissolves the need for pretense. Authenticity becomes inevitable. Small changes, one question, one refusal, one new habit, compound because they’re rooted in truth. When one person stops playing the game, others suddenly remember they’re allowed to as well.
Your why doesn’t have to be noble by anyone else’s standards. It only has to be true. Mine is to help things grow and to remind people they belong. Yours might be to bring beauty into spaces that feel sterile. Or to create calm in a noisy world. Or to make sure laughter is never in short supply. Or to keep stories alive. Or to ensure no one in your orbit ever feels invisible. It can be tiny. It can be enormous. It just has to be yours.
Here’s how to find it, if it still feels foggy:
- Go outside at night, clothes optional but honesty mandatory. Look at the stars until you feel appropriately small and appropriately connected. Ask: “What breaks my heart that I might actually be able to mend, even a little?”
- Write the answer without editing. Then live one week as if it were true. Notice what feels lighter, what feels heavier. Adjust. Repeat.
- Tell one trusted person. Speaking it aloud is like planting it in soil.
Once it’s clear, the small changes appear by themselves. You stop volunteering for projects that violate it. You start asking questions that align with it. You redirect five percent of your time, then ten, then twenty. The work you already do begins to matter because it is finally in service of something that matters to you.
This is the deep magic of the naturist lens on work: when you know you are enough exactly as you are (no titles, no logos, no accumulated stuff required), you stop needing your job to prove your worth. Paradoxically, that’s the moment your job starts changing the world, because you’re no longer using it to fill a hole. You’re using it to give away what’s already overflowing.
So this week, strip down to the question: Why do you do what you do? Find the truest answer you can reach today. Whisper it to the morning air, the subway window, the steering wheel, the classroom wall. Then do one tiny thing (one email, one refusal, one offer of help) that honours that why.
I can’t wait to hear what grows.
Get Nude, Stay Nude, Live Nude and Share the Nude Love!
