I'm not what I think I am, I'm not what you think
I am, I am what I think you think I am.
So, we live in this perception of a perception of ourselves.
Hence, my identity is made by what my parents think I should be
my identity is made up by what my college or university thinks I should achieve.
While you're living in that bubble and that echo chamber
getting to what you really want to do
is impossible.
Because maybe that just doesn't fit and I think so many people feel that way today.
That they don't fit into the current education system
they don't fit with the three or four or five careers that you're taught exist.
So, that process of self excavation and actualization first requires being exposed.
You can't be what you can't see.
If I never saw a monk, I would never have wanted to be a monk
If I never meet a billionaire, I wouldn't want to be one
because I wouldn't know what that feels like
I don't know what it looks like, I don't know what it takes.
And I think that's the biggest challenge of our society that we're not exposed.
You're not trying to get to perfection right now
you're just trying to get a little bit better than you were yesterday or an hour ago.
Strengths are not highly correlated with long-term success, right!
There's not a lot of data and there is not a lot of research
that has shown it leads to long-term success with the positive outcomes
associated with what we care about in psychology
which is we care about happiness, we care about health
and we care about your positive relationships.
And this myth that oh we just follow our strengths to -you know- to the Promised Land
is just not true when you actually talk with high performers
Because my favorite question then if it comes down to this just go up to anyone who is good
and say “were you always good at that?”
And they'll be like “No"
they'll be like "not at all"
Well, did you always have an inclination to do every element of what you're doing really well?
No
An ideal life is when we all have a head, a heart and a hand
all three elements together.
A head is the clarity of vision
What you want. What you want.
Knowing what you want, the way you picture life
and being able to navigate and make the decisions to get there
that's a good head.
A good heart is being able to understand what your intuition and heart wants
being able to connect and tap in to that understanding, deeper
and beyond the vision you may have painted for yourself.
So, I often say to people that you'll get to where you want in life
just not in the way you imagined.
And that's because the path that's paved up and down is far different to the path we pave.
So, you can have a great head and a great vision and a great mission and know where you want to go
but if your heart is not able to have that resilience and be able to adapt
and have compassion and care and all of that
then, you're not going to be able to make the toughest decisions without your heart.
But to be able to realize that we need to care and be sustainable and long-lasting requires a heart.
And a hand is that service wanting to pass that on that which you have
wanting to give it forward, pay it forward
the idea of serving with what you have.
I often say to people your passion is for you, your purpose is for others.
Your passion makes you happy
but when you use your passion to make a difference in someone else's life
that's a service, that's a purpose.
Oftentimes, people go “okay, here's really what I want to do and this is what I'm trying to accomplish”
and then, they see all these other things that other people are doing
and then, they kind of see that as like a grab bag.
They're like “and I want a little of this and a little of this and a little of this
and I want it all at the same time”
and that's not really possible, you know
you can't play five sports at the same time
you gotta pick one, you gotta specialize.
Maybe you can do two but you probably can't do five, right!
You can't be a classical musician and a rock star, you know
and this, and this all at the same time.
So, it's about sort of picking your lane
and then, knowing that some goals are mutually exclusive.
Uncertainty is scary, new information is scary, change is scary
and everyone has a different way of handling that.
I will pivot when necessary, I'm like oh, no dead end whoa, like you know you do what you gotta do
And I will, I can take new information and adjust the plan immediately and have no qualms about it
and just move move move.
And the way to balance that is that outside of work, I really like things to be stable.
You need to have that pole that you can go back to when everything looks crazy
that you can reach out to hold on to.
And if I didn't have that, I think I'd be much more afraid of chaos.
And when someone actually asks
and kind of owns that
like when they say “do I want to make an impact?”
and the answer is yes, and they own it.
They realize they're gonna have to develop
they can no longer leave their growth to -you know- to randomness.
Because if they do they'll always be mediocre
and they realize “I got to become something entirely above both of those”
That's what most people don't see
they're like we've made this binary false conversation, right!
It's not a true sort of choice here
it’s a false dichotomy we call it, right!
It's not strengths or weaknesses.
Many of you, if you have a big dream, a huge goal
you got to become something entirely above and beyond any strengths you even know about, feel or own
and go way beyond any weaknesses you've ever even addressed or even you know about
cause you're gonna discover so many new strengths and so many new weaknesses on the path
that it's almost irrelevant what they are now
It's what's the goal and build into that.
What am I good at? What do I love?
What does the world need? and how do I get paid for it?
To me those four help you unlock your passion.
When you find the intersect across all of those four
you’re making your passion your purpose.
You'll unlock your passion, you'll find your purpose.
This is path one, there's two paths.
Path one: I find my skill set and I engage it to help other people and become better at it.
So, I'm becoming better at what I'm good at and I'm using it to help other people.
because I'm aware of what I'm quite good at
and I know what knowledge I have, what skills I have
I have some self-awareness.
The other path that people often miss
is actually I just start serving people, I just start helping people
and I start to notice what I enjoy about that and what I'm good at helping people with.
So, that's Gandhi's part
Gandhi said that “you find yourself when you lose yourself in the service of others.”
So, for me those are the two paths of how do I find my passion
and finding the intersect between those four areas.
The question I ask clients the most is
what does success look like for you on this project?
and I get them to really describe it to me
and let's say there's more than one thing in there
I go
Now if you could only pick one of those things and the other ones didn't happen
Which one would you pick?
And I'm trying to get them to sift through some of that conflict
so we can really hone in on what we're trying to do
And oftentimes, where ego comes in, is like we've got the things that impress other people
and then the real meaningful impact that we're trying to have.
and oftentimes, not saying that the status things aren't nice
and they're not, they're not impressive and they're not cool
but we've got to make sure that they're not coming at the expense of those other things.
So, motivation is a word, right!
It's a, it's a label that we put on a set of events in our brain.
What you actually want is the outcome of that
you want to do things that when it's hard.
So, I think that there are a few kind of things that we know work.
One is evidence of past successes
if I say to you go back to your memories and I re-frame them as successes
suddenly they, suddenly the current event that's the same is a success.
So, I think that one thing is like having success stories and identification stories -as in you find-
There’s other people out there, there was a person that is like you
that had similar experience and chose the thing that you want to choose.
find this person or these people and it's gonna rub into your soul.
I get asked by my students often “How do I become funnier? How do I become a smarter?”
and like my one tip that I give them all the time is
surround yourself by people that you want to be like.
Do you remember that first personal development book you read? Do you remember
that first time you wrote tons of notes about what you wanted your life to be about?
Do you remember that first time you watched a movie that inspired you to go change?
There was fire there
because that learning it opened up your mind to a new level of existence for you.
And soon as you saw it, you were like “ooh” ambition hits your heart.
And now if you can match it with contribution
and you can see how that passion or that fire or that learning or that growth
all aligns to some type of impact.
Now you're getting me fired up
because now I can see the outcome of all the work.
A lot of people don't do the work because they don't believe the outcome.
That’s interesting.
You know, if in psychologists talk about the power of expectancy
when you talk about motivation there's only two things that spark motivation
one is ambition
and that is I want more of or I want a greater depth of, right?
I want a greater depth of connection with my lady, that's ambition
or I want a better meditative practice, that's ambition, right?
I wanna be better at my job, that's ambition.
So, it starts with ambition
but ambition if it's not coupled with what they call expectancy in psychology, you're screwed.
Expectancy says “I believe that I can figure that out
I believe that I can achieve that, I believe that that is possible for me”
and if you can open that gate for somebody
and often that's only achieved through learning
then you get somebody who starts really moving ahead forward
I mean really moving ahead like the second they go “wait, that's possible for me”
they'll try 50 stupid things, right?
they'll try anything but if they don't believe it's possible for them they'll just quit.
There’s an incredible study in 2017 that said:
“the most successful people in the world: healthy, wealthy and wise.”
Choose education over entertainment.