How to know your life purpose in 5 minutes | Adam Leipzig | TEDxMalibu

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
Adam Leipzig has overseen more than 25 movies as a producer, executive and distributor. He has produced more than 300 stage plays and live events, and is one of the founders of the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

On the last evening
of my 25th college reunion,

there was a party in a tent

with 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 2 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 half way through it," they said.

"I don't know what my life is all about."

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,
and in positions of power.

And they had the first house,
and the second house,

and they had the first spouse,
and the second spouse.

(Laughter)

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 of learning,

not because we thought they were going
to put direct us to a specific job.

We still got jobs,

we were living our lives expansively,

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 they 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 going to know your life
purpose now, in the next five minutes.

Would you like to know your life purpose
in the next five minutes?

(Audience) Yes.

Can you be a little bit louder?

Because they are making
a lot of noise in the tent,

and there is just a silly little microphone
next to my cheek to hear you.

Would you like to know your life purpose
in the next five minutes?

(Audience) Yes!

Thank you. Actually, it's not
even going to take five 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.

(Laughter)

Well, I know some people
who have spent their entire lives

trying to learn their life purpose.

Look, we can all agree that
the unexamined life is not worth living,

but if all you're doing
is examining, you're not living.

(Laughter)

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?
(Audience) Yes.

All right.

Everybody, on the count of five,
shout out your first name.

One, two, three, four, five:

(Audience shouts)

Fabulous.

That was the first one, only four to go.

That's who you are. (Laughter)

Now, what do you do?

What do you love to do?

Do you love to write, cook, design,

create iOS apps, write code,
crunch numbers, talk, teach?

What do you love to do?

And if there is a lot of things
that come up for you

focus it down by asking
yourselves 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 five.

What do you do?

One, two, three, four, five:

(Audience shouts)

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 five.

Hold it, don't release it yet.

One, two, three, four, five:

(Audience murmurs)

OK, who do you do it for,
let's see it one more time.

A little bit louder, please,
over the people in the tent.

Who do you do it for? Together:

(Audience shouts)

Thank you. That is the spirit
that we need. OK, now.

What do all those people want or need?

What do they want or need that you have,

that they've come to you
so you can give them this thing.

What do they want or need?
In just one or two words.

Hold it, don't release it yet.

And on the count of five:
one, two, three, four, five...

(Audience shouts)

Fantastic. Now, this is the best one.

How do they change?

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

On the count of five,

how do they change or transform
as a result of what you give them?

One, two, three, four, five:

(Audience shouts)

Terrific. Now we're going to put this
all together kind of in a sentence, OK?

Everyone together,
louder than the people in the tent:

who are you?

(Audience responds)

What do you do?

(Audience responds)

Who do you do it for?

(Audience responds)

What do they want or need?

(Audience responds)

How do they change as a result?

(Audience responds)

Fantastic.

You have all just done something

that people who went to Yale
could not figure out for 25 years.

Congratulations. Give yourselves
a hand. (Applause)

Now, why is that formulation so powerful?

Because of all of those five things
that you need to know

to know what your life purpose is,

only two are about yourself.

The other three 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 changed as a result.

And you may have intuited this already

that the most 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.

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

(Laughter)

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 it isn't defined.

Or, what you seem to do
isn't what you really do,

or what you paid to do
isn't how you define yourself.

So, when people ask you
this question, "So, what do you do?"

and also, you've got
this mental monologue going on,

"Why is he asking me?
So, what do I do? Is it because..."

It's that transactional thing
where it's like: "He wants to know

if he should really
spend time talking to me?"

(Laughter)

Or, it's that other thing,
so he can tell me what he does

because he's sure it's, "Oh, really,
so much better than what I do?"

(Laughter)

Right?

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 your life purpose is:

"I design apparel for men and women
who need affordable choices,

so they can look and feel their best."

Or you 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,

that little snippet that you just said

becomes your personal elevator pitch.

And it will always start a conversation

because the person
that you were just talking to

has 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.

(Applause)