[Laughter]

Matt mentioned that I studied physics. It's true. I'm really into solving problems. It's

my thing. It's what I like to do. I like to figure stuff out. People often ask me why

I don't use my physics degree. Actually, I use it every day as I'm doing what I love

to do. Because for me, physics is just about solving problems, and figuring things out,

and creating systems. And what I want to share with you tonight is a way to systematize having

a passionate life.

Early in my twenties I realized I had a passion for helping people. I'd find myself sitting

down with friend who had a problem, who wanted to figure something out. We would work through

a problem in their life. And when we sat down, I'd always take out a piece of paper. We'd

be sitting at a table somewhere, and I'd just start to ask them questions. I wasn't trained

to be a life coach. I just started asking questions. What's going on in your life? What

do you want to do? Let's come up with a system, a strategy to get you more of what you want.

My passion is still sitting down with a person with that blank piece of paper. I've done

this with my friends. Those of you here who are my friends know that. My clients will

confirm that whenever we meet, I show up with a notebook and a pen.

Tonight I want to take you on a journey. Obviously I can't interact with you one-on-one here,

but imagine yourself sitting somewhere with me, with that piece of paper. I want to talk

to you about a system for finding your passion.

This is a funny story. I had just arrived in London and I was sitting with one of the

first British guys I had met here. I told him what I enjoy doing, saying "Maybe I can

do this for a living. Maybe I could just talk to people and help them live their dreams.

There's people in America that do this. They get onstage and talk about how to live out

your dreams. They get everybody excited."

He said, "Oh, yeah. We have people like that here. We call them wankers." [Laughter] I

was an American. I had just arrived here. I didn't know what wanker meant. I was thinking

about where to put wanker on my business card. [Laughter] About introducing myself at a party.

"I'm John Morgan."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a wanker." [Laughter]

Afterwards this guy said, "Just tell them you're an American, and they won't call you

a wanker. You'll be fine." [Laughter]

Anyways, I ended up pursuing life coaching. It's what I'm doing now, and I love it. It's

very exciting to be able to teach people how to live their dreams. I help people connect

with each other, specifically in the area of dating. I work with both men and women.

For me, it's a doorway into their lives. Helping someone meet the right person is usually far

deeper than what a person looks like, or what they do for a living.

When Matt created a meetup called "How to Live a Passionate Life," he contacted me and

asked me to be a speaker. I figured twenty people would come. One email, and the presentation

sold out in three days. I advised him to get a bigger room. He did, and we had seventy

people signed up in two days. There's a hundred people in this room, right now, all of you

interested in the idea of living a more passionate life.

Being in front of a hundred people that are interested in living a more passionate life

is very exciting for me. Think about that for a second. There's a hundred people here

that want to live a more passionate life. That are interested in living a more passionate

life.

So, just what is a passionate life? I'd like to throw this question out there. I want to

see if somebody can answer this for me. In your own words, tell me what you consider

a passionate life? Please.

Doing what you love doing.

Doing what you love doing. Okay, cool. Anybody else? Did you all come to find out what a

passionate life is? [Laughter]

Living without fear.

Living without fear. That's good. I like that. What else? I heard some mumbling. What is

it?

Appreciating what you have.

Appreciating what you have. Cool.

Sharing what you have.

Sharing what you have.

Doing something that inspires you every day.

Doing something that inspires you every day. Cool.

Challenging yourself.

Challenging yourself. Yeah.

Making a difference.

Making a difference. Cool. This is all good stuff. Let me twist the question and become

a coach for a second. How will you know when you're living a passionate life? Please.

You don't come to talks like this one. [Laughter]

You don't come to talks like this anymore. [Laughter] Bunch of losers! How else?

You're feeling fulfilled.

You're feeling fulfilled.

With no regrets.

With no regrets. I like that. I'm going to hold onto that. You're feeling fulfilled.

I'm going to come back to that later. I think that's cool.

The next question I want to ask is an interesting thing for you to think about. Why do you want

to live a passionate life? I'm not going to ask you to share it with everyone, because

everybody's answer is going to be a little bit different. It's going to be unique to

each of you. And I believe feeling fulfilled is part of that.

When I was around twenty-two or twenty-three, I had just finished university. I was hanging

out with my friends, eating dinner at a TGI Friday's in America. There's like a million

of them. As I was sitting there, eating, I realized I couldn't see out of one eye. It

was kind of weird.

Over the next few days, I went blind in my left eye. Completely blind. I went to my family

doctor. He didn't know what it was. I went to an optometrist. She didn't know what it

was. She sent me to an ophthalmologist. He told me to see a neurologist. They gave me

an MRI, scanning my brain. They told me that my brain had lesions all over it, that I had

multiple sclerosis." I said, "What's that?"

They told me it was a disease which attacks the nervous system. Your immune system gets

confused, thinking your nervous system is bad for you, and it attacks it. And as it

does that, it damages the nerves, which can then no longer send signals.

Now, that freaked me out, and I asked them what my future held. Well, people live their

whole lives with just one episode, and it never bothers them again. It was possible

the blindness would go away and I would be fine. It was also possible that I would become

paralyzed and die. They couldn't tell me.

That was obviously a holy shit moment. It obviously it stressed me out. Over the next

week, I took steroids. The blindness went away. My vision returned, and is almost perfect

now. And over that week, I shifted from being really scared to really excited. I just flipped

it. I just flipped it.

My eye was fine again. I was healthy. I was strong. I was happy. I realized that this

disease is no different than the disease that every single one of you guys and girls have

right now—a disease called mortality. Mortality. And I believe this is connected to the concept

of fulfillment.

Mark Twain said that, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things

that you didn't do than by the things you did do." My reason for living a passionate

life is because I want to make sure that when I die, I know that my life wasn't wasted.

And the way I will know that it wasn't wasted is by knowing that I really lived. I really

lived. How will I know if I really lived? I will feel fulfilled, because that's how

we know if we're alive. We feel.

That's my reason, and I'm sure all of you have your reasons. You might not be aware

of it, but you should take some time to think about it. Why should you want a passionate

life? Because from there comes the motivation to live that passionate life. In a few minutes,

we'll discuss how to make that happen.

If you and I sat down to have a one-on-one session, face-to-face—the first thing I

would tell you is that we are going to come up with a strategy for you to have a more

passionate life. The first thing I would ask you is to tell me about your life, and tell

me what you like to do.

You might say, "Well, I work. I work like fifty or sixty hours a week. Sometimes after

work I go out to the pub with my friends. Once in a while, I go out to eat. I try to

get to the gym at least once a week, maybe twice. Sometimes I go to a game."

"So, what else? What else do you like to do?"

"Well, there's this course I want to take, and this other thing…"

At that point I'll say, "Let me talk a little about my life and my passions, just to give

you an example of what I mean by passion."

When I was sixteen or so, I got my first guitar. At that point, it was just something I was

interested in. So, I took guitar lessons. The first thing I learned was how to pick

on one string. I started from this clunky picking until that, "Come as you are…" A

Nirvana song, right? I thought, Oh, wow! This is exciting!

From there it became strumming and learning chords. That was even more exciting. Then

the chords became riffs and songs. Then I started singing and writing lyrics. I started

a band, created an album and went on tour. Then I got passionate about playing the guitar.

And I consider the passion I had for playing the guitar a passion in depth. I went deeper

and deeper and deeper into playing the guitar, and grew more and more passionate about it.

Here's another example. I studied in Sydney. This was my first time leaving America, and

it opened my eyes in so many ways. I realized the world is not actually what it looks like

on American TV. That was amazing. Then I became interested in traveling. When I was at uni,

I went to Italy for a couple of weeks, and wrote a story about it. Then travel became

even more interesting to me.

As I got older, I made good money investing in property, and decided to start traveling

because I loved it. I bought a one-way ticket to Malaysia, not knowing how long it was going

to last. It lasted three years, because I was so passionate about it. My passion for

travel was not a deep passion, but a wider passion, wider in variety and breadth and

width. I was doing all sorts of different things.

Every time I had a new or different experience, I wanted even more new and different experiences,

whether it was seeing the Festival of the Hindus in Malaysia, or visiting concentration

camps. I visited all kinds of places, just to expand my mind and expand my experiences.

I became passionate about traveling, but in breadth, not in depth.

So, there's different kinds of passion. Everybody has their own balance and it's different for

everyone, but these are some examples. Are you starting to understand what I mean by

passion? Perhaps you're thinking, Now I get it. I see what you're talking about, but I

just don't know what my passion is. How do I find my passion? Have you ever asked yourself

what your passion is? Okay, cool.

How many of you believe in love at first sight? Raise your hand. Okay, cool. Well, I've got

some bad news for you guys. [Laughter] It's a fairy tale. If it ever happens, it's just

serendipity. It's just chance. I don't believe it's real. It's the same with finding your

passion. You're at the bookstore one day, flipping through a book. Someone walks up

to you and says, "Hey, what's up, man?"

You answer, "I'm just searching for my passion." And then, "Holy shit! There it is! I found

my passion! It's on Page 78 in this book!" No, that's not how it works. That's not how

you find your passions.

Passions have to grow. They're not just discovered. Passions are grown, not discovered. Just like

love. You don't discover love. You fall into love. What I'm suggesting is that you start

thinking about falling into passion. Now, how do you do that? That's the next question.

How do you fall into passion? If you can't force love, and you can't force passion, what

can you do?

Obviously, if you want to fall in love, you can't sit at home all day and never meet people.

You're not going to fall in love that way. You've got to be around people so you can

set yourself up and give yourself some really good odds at finding passion.

Which brings us back to the first question I asked. Notice, I didn't ask you, "What are

your passions?" I asked you, "What do you like to do? What are your interests?" Because

that's where it begins. And discovering the things that you like to do (or would like

to do but you're not doing now) is the next path you take to fall into passion. But you

need a start.

The next thing I would have you do is list ten things that you would like to do. The

next problem that typically comes up is, "Wow. That's great. I can see the things I'd like

to do, but I'm not sure I could ever do any of those things."

And I would respond, "Well, I'm going to talk to you about that, but hold on. Let me teach

you one more thing. Let's get some clarity around which of these ten things you're interested

in could actually develop into passions. Let me share with you my formula that will help

you discover those things about which you could be passionate."

When I was a little kid, I liked to shovel snow. I'd shovel snow with my dad, driving

the snow shovel around and creating paths like figure eights. My dad would always say,

"No, no, no. Do it this way. Straight, like this." I would do what he told me, but it

was never as much fun. I wasn't as excited about what he wanted me to do, and I became

less passionate about it.

When I was at university and playing in bands, I started building websites for the bands.

I enjoyed it. I'd stay up until three in the morning writing code, nerding and geeking