The Why was born out of pain.
It was never an academic or commercial exercise.
It was born out of a time in my life
many years ago, 10 years ago,
where I had lost my passion for what I was doing.
I owned my own small business.
I was living the American dream.
Superficially, my life was fantastic.
And yet, I didn't want to wake up and do it again.
And I was embarrassed by that.
Who am I to complain about my life?
My life seemed perfect.
And yet, I hated it.
And so, I kept it to myself.
Every ounce of my being,
all the energy that I had was
invested in pretending that I was happier,
more successful and more in control
than I felt.
And it was debilitating, quite frankly.
Strange things start to happen
when you put yourself in that cycle
and the stress starts to build.
You start to become paranoid.
So, for example, I was convinced
that my employees hated me.
I didn't go out much.
It was really--it was really a bad time.
And it wasn't until a friend of mine
came to me concerned that I wasn't acting myself
and basically, offered me nothing more than moral support,
"Whatever you need, I've got your back. I'm worried about you."
And it was that simple act that gave me
the courage to face my own problem.
And it was that simple act that gave me
the courage to seek out a solution,
to go back to the way I used to feel,
to be passionate about something again.
There was a confluence of events.
And I made this discovery that
every single organization on the planet,
even our own careers,
always function on the same three levels:
What we do, How we do it, and Why we do it.
It was based on the biology of the human decision-making.
It wasn't some highfalutin management theory.
It was based on brain stuff.
And I realized I knew What I did.
I was good at it.
And I knew How I did it.
I could tell you what was different or special
about the way I did things,
but I couldn't tell you Why I was doing it.
That was the missing piece.
You have to have all three.
I became obsessed with this thing called the Why.
I figured out how to find my Why,
and it restored my passion to levels
I had never experienced before.
And more importantly,
I figured out how to help others find theirs.
And I did what anyone would do:
when you discover something beautiful,
you share it with your friends.
And my friends started making crazy life changes themselves,
and they started finding happiness and passion
that they'd never experienced before.
It was me solving my own problem,
that happened to help others solve it for them, too.
And people just kept inviting me,
and I just kept saying yes.
I was making huge decisions that were really easy to make.
Like I shut down my office and started over again,
because I realized the business I had built
was so inconsistent with my Why.
All my friends thought I went out of business
and they were worried about me.
It was the easiest decision I ever made.
In other words,
when you know your Why and the filter is clear,
it's not like there are options.
The option is obvious.
There's only one option.
Share, give, inspire.
And everything that I've achieved,
any success that I've enjoyed,
has all been 100 percent because of
the gracious, just amazing generosity
of people around me.
My friends, my colleagues,
people who just believe what I believe,
they are the ones who either
introduced me to others or took a risk,
or said "Let me try that,"
or bought a book, or watched a TED Talk,
or more importantly, sent it to somebody else
because they thought they would be inspired by it.
For all of the things that I've done over the past decade,
I still feel like I'm at the beginning.
I've been saying it for 10 years,
when everybody says to me, you know,
"Congratulations on x, y, or z,”
my answer's always the same:
"Tip of the iceberg."
And I think that's what keeps me inspired,
which is--for me it's a journey.
I'm on the right path.
I'm walking past the right mile markers.
In other words, I know I'm making progress
to the vision that I have to build this world
in which the vast majority of people
wake up every single morning inspired to go to work,
feel safe when they're there,
returning home at the end of the day
fulfilled by the work they do.
When I started the race, I ran by myself.
And it's lonely, lonely, lonely.
And now I've got like a--
I've got like a thousand people to the left,
and a thousand people to the right,
and a thousand people behind me.
And I look around, and I'm like,
"Yep, we're going to change the world."
We're going to change the world.
There you go.
Female speaking: "I love you.”