Stever Robbins describes a dream where he faced three final exam questions: Did you make your one life extraordinary? Were you a good steward of the planet? Did you help others do the same? He grew up in a traveling new-age commune, which shaped how he thinks about meaning and purpose.
They came to me in a dream. I'm not a particularly religious person, but I dreamt I was talking to God, and God offered to give me the final exam of life. And these are the questions that if I pass them, I will have passed and I get to go on to do the next thing.
They came to you in a dream?
They literally came to me in a dream.
Were you doing any of these, like, lucid dreaming, smart drugs or anything like that, or they just came to you in a dream?
They just came to me in a dream. But I do want to point out that I was raised in a traveling new age commune.
I was going to say you were raised in traveling new age communes that might have something, maybe some psilocybin left over in the bloodstream or something?
Oh, well, yeah, there is that part. Once you reach certain levels, it just. You think that way.
Right. Okay. So you discover these in drama, and how do they go?
So the question number one is, is.
Did you make the most of this one extraordinary life that I gave you? Or actually, did you make the most of the. Did you make the most of your one life and make it extraordinary, whatever that means to you? And that part's important because different people have different ideas of what they want to get out of life. Question number two is, were you a good steward for the planet because you have 7 billion other people who you have to share it with and trillions of plants and animals and. And all of them need to use it. So have you been a good steward for the planet that is here for you to live your extraordinary life? And then question number three is, did you do your best to help everyone around you do the same, to live their own extraordinary life and to be a good steward for the planet?
Got it. Okay. So did you live an extraordinary life? Were you a good steward of the planet? And what was the third one again?
Did you help everyone around you live their extraordinary lives and be good stewards for the planet?
Okay, gotcha. Let's delve into each of those questions. Is there one that's more important than the others?
Well, certainly the one that's most selfishly important is question number one, which is, did you live your extraordinary life? I would say that the one that is the most important from that, if I were to say what's most important for the species and what's most important for the world, it would be question number three, which is, did you help everyone around you?
Okay, gotcha, Gotcha. So what did you do after this dream? How did you act on these questions?
Well, first I answered them and I said basically, am I living an extraordinary life?
Maybe not sure. Question two, Am I a good steward for the planet? That one's easy. The answer is no.
Being an American, no amount of recycling is going to possibly begin to make up for my carbon footprint and the level of waste that goes into giving me the standard of living that I enjoy. And question three, Do I do the same? Do I help others do the same? That one was pretty easy because my profession for the last 16 years has been primarily executive coaching and life coaching of some sort. So most of my job and most of my interaction with people is all around helping them live whatever they consider an extraordinary life. Whether I call it that or not, that's ultimately what goes into it. And since I work with business people, it generally has a big business component of how do they start and run businesses. But what motivates me in that is really helping people live their dreams.
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