There was dancing and music and noise. So much noise that a lot of us started to drift out of the tent

so we could hear each other talk and catch up with classmates that we had not seen in more than two decades.

As I talked with my friends, I made an astounding discovery:

80% of them were unhappy with their lives.

“I feel as though I’ve wasted my life and I'm halfway through it,” they said, “I don't know what my life is all about.”

Now, I was privileged to go to Yale and we were standing on a summer evening in the middle of Yale’s old campus.

And the people that I was speaking with were privileged and highly educated and financially well-off

in positions of power, and they had the first house and the second house, and they had the first spouse and the second spouse.

And 80% of them were unhappy with their lives.

Who was happy, the 20%?

Well, we had studied literature and Renaissance rhetoric and we were the theater people and the history geeks.

We had studied classes for the joy learning, not because we thought they were going to put, direct us to a specific job.

We still got jobs. We we're living our lives expensively with life’s ups and downs and we did not feel that we had wasted a single minute.

And as I spoke with the 20%, the happier 20%, I discovered that each of them knew something about their life purpose because the knew five things.

Who they were, what they did, who they did it for, what those people wanted or needed, and what they got out of it.

How they changed as a result. Does that sound hard?

It’s not. It’s actually really simple. In fact it’s so simple that you can learn your life purpose now.

You’re gonna know your life purpose now in the next 5 minutes.

Would you like to know you’re life purpose now in the next 5 minutes? – Yes

Can you be a little bit louder because they’re making a lot of noise in the tent and there’s just this silly little microphone next to my cheek to hear you

Would you like to know you’re life purpose in the next 5 minutes?

Yes! – Thank you. Actually, it’s not even gonna take 5 minutes.

So can I share something else with you? If you’re like a lot of us, you have wondered and worried about your life purpose for a long time.

And there are books and magazines and workshops and seminars about it. In fact, Amazon lists 151,928 books that refer to how you can learn your life purpose.

Well, I know some people who have spent their entire lives trying to learn their life purpose

And we can all agree the unexamined life is not worth living, but if all you do is examining, you’re not living

So let’s figure out the life purpose right now together.

Who you are, what you do, who you do it for, what those people want and need, and how they change as a result.

Shall we do it? –Yes

Alright. Everybody, on the count of 5, shot out your first name.

1,2,3,4,5

Fabulous. That was the first one, only four to go. That’s who you are

Now, what do you do? What do you love to do?

You love to write, cook, design, create ios apps, write codes, crunch numbers, talk, teach…

What do you love to do? And if there’s a lot of things that come up for you, focus it down by asking yourself this one question:

What is the one thing that right now you feel supremely qualified to teach other people?

Think about that. In one word. Hold it, don’t release it yet. On the count of 5

What do you do? 1,2,3,4,5

Great, that’s what you do. Now, think about who you do it for

Picture them in your mind. Be ready to say it on the count of 5. Hold it, don’t release it yet.

1,2,3,4,5

Okay, who do you do it for? Let’s say it a little bit louder please

Over the people in the tent. Who do you do it for? Together

Thank you. That is the spirit that we need. Okay now, what do those people want or need?

What do they want or need that they’ve come to you so you can give them this thing?

What do they want or need? Just one of two words. Hold it. Don’t release it yet.

On the count of 5. 1,2,3,4,5

Fantastic. Now, this is the best one. How did they change?

How did they change or transform as a result of what you give them?

On the count of 5, how did they change or transform as a result of what you give them. 1,2,3,4,5

Terrific. Now, we’re gonna put this all together kind of in a sense, okay?

Everyone together. Louder than the people in the tent. Who are you?

What do you do? Who do you do it for?

What do they want or need?

What did they change as a result?

Fantastic. You have all jut done something that people who went to Yale could not figure out for 25 years.

Congratulations, give yourselves a hand

Now why is that formulation so powerful? Because of all those 5 things that you need to know

To know what your life purpose is, only 2 are about yourself.

The others, 3 of them, are about other people.

Who they are, what they want or need, and how they change as a result

That formulation forces you to be outward facing. And all the happier people that I met outside the tent on that warm New Haven night

They were outward facing. They were not inward facing. They knew very clearly whom they served,

What those people needed and how those people change as a result

And you may have intuited this already, but successful people in any field always focus most on the people that they serve

Than on how they are served themselves

Happier people make it a point to make other people happy and do things that make them feel well taken care of and secure

If you make other people happy, life teaches us, we will be taken care of too

Since you all did so well, we have time for just a little bit of extra credit

One of the most difficult things that happens when you meet people for the first time is they ask you this question

So what do you do? And if you’re like some of us, that’s a really challenging question sometimes

Particularly if you’re in these moments where you’re between things or you’re feeling vulnerable or isn’t defined

Or what you seem to do isn’t what you really do; or what you’re paid to do isn’t how you define yourself

So when people ask you this question “so what do you do”, and also you got this monologue going like

Why is he asking me so what do I do? It’s because it’s that transactional thing where it’s like he wants to know if he should really spend time talking to me?

Or it’s that other thing so he can tell me what he does because he’s sure it’s all really so much better than what I do?

So when somebody asks you that question, here’s what you do

You just say the very last thing you called out

How what you do changes the people you do it for

So for example, you might say, “I give kids awesome dreams”

If your life purpose is “I write books for children so they can fall asleep at night,

so they can have awesome dreams.” Or you might say

“I help people look and feel their best” if you’re life purpose is “I design apparel for men and women who need affordable choices

So they can look and feel their best.” Or your might say, “I help people get great work into the world”

If your life purpose is “I train entrepreneurs and creative people to take decisive actions so they can get their greatest work into the world”

And then little snippet that you just said becomes your personal elevator pitch

And it’ll always start the conversation, because the person that you were just talking to have to ask you a question

How do you give kids great dreams? How do you help people look and feel their best?

Can people really get their greatest work into the world?

And then you get to tell them and you get to share your life purpose

And you get to share how they may come to learn theirs, too