My Commencement Address: The ‘Why’ Often Comes Later

People talk a lot today about motivation, how to find it, how to sustain it, how to “unlock” it. 

But, after 42 years of watching thousands of careers unfold, I have come to believe something very different: The people who accomplish extraordinary things are rarely driven by motivation alone. They are driven by something deeper, something more powerful, and, many times, they do not even fully understand what it is when their journey begins.

That distinction matters because many people spend years waiting for clarity before they start moving or before fully committing to a path. They wait to discover their purpose, wait to feel inspired, wait until they are certain they are on the “right path.” Life rarely works that way. In my experience, elite performers move before clarity fully arrives, and often the movement itself reveals the why.

When I entered commercial real estate in 1984, I certainly did not have my life fully figured out. I was not sitting around analyzing the deeper emotional drivers behind my ambition or trying to articulate some sophisticated personal mission statement. What I knew was simple: I wanted to succeed, I wanted to build something meaningful, and I had an internal intensity that pushed me relentlessly forward.

The drive was there long before the understanding was. And, over time, I have realized that this is incredibly common among high achievers. Many people believe success follows a clean sequence: First you discover your purpose, then you become motivated, then you take action, and, finally, success follows. 

In reality, I think it is often the reverse.

Something internal creates movement first. Then the person acts relentlessly, develops discipline, builds expertise, competes, fails, learns from the failures, improves, keeps being curious, and keeps pushing. Only later, sometimes decades later, do they fully understand what had been driving them all along.

The understanding often comes in retrospect. The rearview mirror becomes clearer than the windshield. Looking backward, patterns suddenly become obvious, connections emerge, and experiences begin to make emotional sense in a way they never did while you were living through them in real time.

This is one reason why discipline matters so much. Motivation is emotional. Discipline is behavioral. Motivation fluctuates depending on circumstances, emotions, energy levels and external validation. Discipline, however, compounds regardless of how you feel on a particular day.

Elite performers understand this intuitively. They do not structure their lives around feelings. They structure their lives around standards. They prospect anyway, prepare anyway, practice anyway, show up anyway, because they understand that repeated disciplined action eventually creates momentum that emotions alone never could.

Over time, those repeated actions begin shaping identity itself. Action creates experiences, experiences create patterns, and patterns create self-awareness. Without movement, many people never truly discover themselves because self-discovery is often a byproduct of engagement with life, not isolation from it.

I think one of the great tragedies today is that so many people are standing still, waiting for complete clarity before they begin. Before the movement starts. They want the entire road map before taking the first step. Clarity, though, is frequently earned through action, not before it. The path often becomes visible only after movement begins.

A person may enter a career for practical reasons and later discover it became a calling. Someone may initially pursue success for money and later realize they were actually searching for significance, validation, freedom or meaning. Another person may believe they are chasing achievement when in reality they are trying to prove something to themselves that has existed deep beneath the surface for years.

The action uncovers the truth. Life is less like reading a map and more like walking through fog. You rarely see the entire path clearly at the beginning. Instead, each step reveals the next few feet in front of you, and, over time, the journey itself creates understanding.

This is why some of the most driven people in the world struggle to explain their drive early in life. They feel the fire long before they understand the source of it. Only later, through maturity, reflection and experience, do they begin connecting the dots and recognizing the deeper emotional forces that were shaping their behavior all along.

Sometimes it was childhood adversity. Sometimes insecurity. Sometimes loss. Sometimes the desire to escape limitations or the need to feel worthy. The engine was operating long before the driver understood the mechanics.

And I think there is something deeply liberating about that realization. You do not need to fully understand your life before you begin building it. You do not need perfect clarity to start moving. What matters most is intentionality, discipline and the willingness to keep moving before all the answers are visible.

Because sometimes the purpose is not discovered first. Sometimes it is revealed through the process itself. And often the people who ultimately build extraordinary lives are simply the ones who kept moving long enough to eventually understand why they were moving in the first place.

Robert Knakal is founder, chairman and CEO of BK Real Estate Advisors.