How To Be FULLY ALIVE! 10 Ways To Find Purpose

Good morning, Believe Nation. Today we're going to talk about why and how to find your purpose in life.

Right, Durant scare me because when Durant score, he don't say nothing. He don't say, he ain't getting nobody excited. He ain't trying to get LeBron pissed off or pumped up. He just score one more minute, shh. Only thing he does at the end of the game, he kiss his mama, he hug his brothers. All right, I'm out, game over, shh. But the one thing he does, I don't know if you watched it, the first thing he does when he gets on the court is he does what? Y'all better start watching these games, bruh, 'cause you gonna need to do what these champions doing if you gonna be a champion. The first thing he does is what with them numbers? He touched them numbers on the front. He touched them numbers on the back.

Boom.

And he's doing that for who? Which coach? His coach that was killed. His coach died at what age? And he wears what number? He got a why. He got a why. He ain't just playing for no championship. He not, you gotta hear what I'm telling you. If y'all gonna be great on that field, you gotta have a why. You gotta have a reason for why you do what you do. When he comes out, he ain't tripping on LeBron. He don't care nothing about no Dwyane Wade. All he keep thinking about is, I'm gonna get one for my coach. That's why he ain't all smiling, because why? He not smiling because what he's trying to accomplish, he has not what? He ain't got it yet. He ain't geeked about winning no game. He not geeked about beating San Antonio. He not trippin' because they up one game. That boy ain't— you ain't gonna see that boy smile until he get the championship, and when he get it, he gonna hold up. The problem with some of y'all, the reason why you don't give 120% every doggone time you get on the field, 'cause you ain't got a why for what you do. You ain't got a why. I walk in the room, I can see some of y'all. I spoke to all of y'all when y'all came in for For the most part, why? 'Cause I'm looking in your eyes and I see some of y'all, you ain't serious. And you think you about to go out there with the Ray Lewis's of the world? Negro, please. When Ray come out, you see the passion. Every game, you see the energy. He come out every game like, y'all follow me. Follow my lead, baby, and we gonna win this thing. What's your why? Hey, if I don't give y'all nothing else, you better start that. What's your why? You know why I do what I do and I do it so passionately? 'Cause my grandfather was a high school dropout, my father was a high school dropout, I was a high school dropout, and we 'bout to break the cycle. I do what I do so my son won't have to go through what I went through. When I was at the football game, my old dude wasn't with me. I saw other kids with they father, I said, "That'll never happen to me." I do what I do because my daughter said she going to Harvard. It ain't even about y'all. I'm 'bout to come in here and blaze y'all.

Why?

'Cause I'm trying to get to all the NFL. I ain't 'bout to miss this opportunity. This is the first NFL team I've ever done in my life, and I'm 'bout to lick it. I'm about to give everything I got, and I will know if I don't get another gig, it won't have nothing to do with the fact that I didn't put everything on the field. What's your why?

Passion often is linked with purpose. What I love to do is often what I should do. We have been created within us the capacity to have things that we enjoy greatly. And a lot of times there is a definite relationship between what I am in love with and what I should be doing. We are created and wired in such a way that passion and purpose many times comes together. And passion is the great energizer. Once you have passion, you have energy. Once you find your passion, you find your purpose. There is something energetic about it. You have never known a person who was passionate that lacked energy. We talk about high-energy people, we talk about low-energy people. There's no such thing as like low-energy people or high-energy people. If you have high energy, you have passion. If you have low energy, you don't have any passion. You know, some people, they're already dead, they haven't made it official yet. You just look at them. I just want to walk around and do the committal, let them watch and observe the whole process. But passion gives us a great amount of energy, and when we have that passion, there's something about how we love what we're doing and we enjoy what we're doing, and passion energizes us.

Michael Gerber, the guy that wrote The E-Myth, you know, talks about why so many businesses, young businesses, fail. And one of the things he says is most people are not really entrepreneurs, but they think that's what they should be. They think that's the sexy thing, that's the most attractive thing, that's the best answer. And what I say to you is you gotta separate the vehicle from the outcome. What is it that's gonna truly fulfill you? What is it that's gonna give you that extraordinary life? What's gonna make things magnificent on your terms? Not somebody else's terms. Not your father, your mother, your background. What is that really? Separate the vehicle because there's many ways to get that vehicle. But I'm saying sometimes you gotta reevaluate what's gonna really make you fulfilled. What is your gift? Are you an artist? Are you the talent that can produce something no one else produces as a skill or a product or a service or some impact? Are you incredibly good at management? You really know how to manage or lead people. Are you an extraordinary entrepreneur that has— can take that gigantic gut load of risk and can create the vision and attract the talent that you need and the managers and leaders? You may have all 3 abilities, but which one really fulfills you the most is going to be the critical question. Because we tend to want to do them all, especially in a room like this, because you're all overachievers, right? Me too. And you say, "Well, I can do all these." Yes, you can, but what will it do to your quality of life? See, again, the secret's going to be this: What is an extraordinary life on your terms today? Getting clear about that at this stage of life where you are, where you want to go.

People ask, "Brendon, how do I find my life's purpose?" I'm like, you know, gosh, I can't find a good haircut. It is not an easy question, but I get it on stages around the world when I'm speaking. We get so many submissions here to the show. "Brendon, talk about life's purpose. I mean, how do you find it?" And first and foremost, I'm not sure that you ever find it. I'm not sure that you wander outside of your house one day and the piano of purpose falls on top of your head and suddenly you're like, "Oh, that's why I'm here." I think that purpose is more self-defined than just discovered suddenly one day where the sudden answer emerges upon us. I think that we have to decide what it is for ourselves, but I think that we have been given some clues. I don't pretend to know the answer to what your life's purpose is or anybody's life's purpose outside of even my own. And honestly, my own has shifted and shaped its way throughout my life to emerge into what it is today. And I'll share what I think mine might be with you. But I got mine just, I think, the way everyone else gets theirs is it's through that process of just asking, "What are we about? What do we want to serve and give to the world? What is it that we want to stand for? What do we find meaningful in our own lives?" We can ask a series of questions that might get us closer, but we shouldn't miss the hints that are right in front of us every single day. I don't think that you have to be, you know, operating just from a place of religion or spirituality to find that answer, and often people go to those two realms to find the answer. I think that's vital and it is important, and I found most of my inspiration from those categories of life, but I think just as a realist looking around the world, you can observe that something is unique about the human species, about who we are, and about maybe what that might give us some indication into what life's purpose might be for many of us. And you know, at first thing, if you look around the world and you start paying attention, you start to notice that, you know, we're all alive. You know, you're alive, I'm alive. If you're watching this, you're alive, right? And so maybe there's a little hint there, a hidden sort of joke that if we are alive, maybe part of life's purpose is to be fully alive. How simple is that? What if that was your day? You just say, "You know what? Today, I'm gonna be fully alive. I'm gonna feel an incredible sense of vibrancy and joy and real zest and presence to my life today because you know what? What a gift it is that I'm still here, that I'm alive." You know, to really fully sense an aliveness and to cultivate an aliveness in our body and in our mind and in our spirit so that we exude life to other people. You know, you want to learn how to be sexy or attractive to other people? Be alive, right? Isn't that the people that we're most attracted to? Those who are just joyous and they have something about their spirit. There's a spark there, what we call a charge. You know, there's some kind of internal charge about them that just, they stand out. But you know what? They also feel differently. By cultivating a sense of aliveness and presence in our life, life feels different. And if everyone— you talk about people's life purpose, I mean, everyone wants in some way to feel, you know, alive, alert, aware, conscious, because that's what we have, we've been given. And so I just ask, what are you doing to make yourself feel alive? You know, are you doing activities that make draw out your passion? Are you exuding and giving passion to the world? Are you truly sensing the spirit and the joy and the energy of this universe that makes you animated as a human being? And maybe those aren't your things, but they are for me. I just think, what an incredible hint. We're alive, so be alive. You know?

What is the difference between depression and joy? Right? And I think it's purpose, right? It's like when you wake up in the morning and your life means something to somebody other than you, that you have a purpose. If you don't go do the things that you're gonna do, people's lives will suffer. And I think that that kind of purpose, that like To live in service, not to you, but to live in service to humanity, to live in service to your family, to live in service to your church, to your city, to your country, to the world. Living in service is that— I feel like that is the purest form of joy.

Ask yourself, what's your purpose? What kind of contribution do you want to make? What creates joy and ecstasy? To see in you? What are the 2 or 3 skills that you have that when you're expressing your unique talents or skills, time means nothing to you? It's not work, it's joy. Ask yourself, who are your heroes and heroines in history, in mythology, in religion? Because these are archetypes that are seeking to find expression through you and incarnate through you. Ask yourself, how can this passion of mine contribute to relationship, give meaning and purpose to existence? And you don't need to know the answers. If you live the questions, then life has an interesting way of moving you into the answer.

Thank you so much for watching. I made this video because Ali Almarzouki asked me to. So if there's a topic that you want me to cover in the next edition of Believe Life, leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of the points resonated with you the most. Leave it in the comments and I'm going to join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.

I didn't want to just be a bodybuilding champion. I wanted to be the best bodybuilder of all times. Dig deep down and ask yourselves, who do you want to be? Not what, but who. I'm talking about figuring out for yourselves what makes you happy. You have to think outside the box. That's what I believe. After all, what is the point of being on this earth if all you want to do is be liked by everyone and avoid trouble?

We have so many rules in life about everything.

I say break the rules. The rule is not the law, but break the rules. I remember that after I was finished with my bodybuilding career, I wanted to get into acting. I wanted to be a star in films. Everyone had the same mind that it can't be done. Just look at your body, you have this huge monstrous body, overly developed, that doesn't fit into the movies. But, you know, I didn't listen to all this. This were their rules. I was convinced I could do it. And then I got the big break in Conan the Barbarian. "Trust yourself no matter how or what anyone else thinks." And there the director said, "If we wouldn't have Schwarzenegger, we would have to build one." Then when I did Terminator, "I'll be back," one of the most famous lines in movie history, all because of my crazy accent. Just shows you, never listen to that you can't do something. Don't be afraid to fail. Anything I've ever attempted, I was always willing to fail. Don't be afraid of making decisions. You can't be paralyzed by fear of failure, or you would never push yourself. You keep pushing because you believe in yourself and in your vision, and you know that it is the right thing to do. Success will come, so don't be afraid to fail. I mean, how many times have you heard that you can't do this and you can't do that and it's never been done before. So pay no attention to the people that say it can't be done. If I would have listened to the naysayers, I would still be in the Austrian Alps yodeling. I would never have come to America. I always listened to myself and said, "Yes, you can." You never want to fail because you didn't work hard enough. Work your butt off. I always believe leaving no stone unturned. No pain, no gain. When you're out there partying, horsing around, someone out there at the same time is working hard. Someone is getting smarter and someone is winning. Just remember them. You can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in the pocket.

7 billion plus people on the planet, you're different than every single one of them. There's a unique aspect to your personality, your style, your intentions, your actions, your habits, your beliefs, who you are, and the way that you think is unique from everybody else. We can measure it by science, we can measure it by observation, we can measure it just by simply asking people basic questions to discover— everyone's got their own opinion, everyone's got their own worldview, and because of that, then we have to ask, well, Am I living my life uniquely? You know, am I expressing who I genuinely am? Are my expressions genuine and authentic and spontaneous to who I am as a person? Or am I living a facade? You know, am I trying to be somebody else to please somebody else to gain acceptance or love over here? Or am I truly being true to myself, to my unique self? To the inner side of who I really am and what I want to show to the world? Because a lot of people really, you know, struggle with this, and the reason they start setting out to look for their purpose in their life is one day they woke up and they realized they're not living their life. They're living their parents' life, their professor's life, their teacher's life. They're living the life that society or their culture or their norms told them to live. And one day they wake up and say, whoa, why have I conformed to the point where I don't even know who I am anymore. And they start this journey sometimes to look for life's purpose because they're trying to find themselves. They're not looking for a big purpose. They're looking for themself. And sometimes when we can tap back into that uniqueness of who we are, then the magic of life comes alive again, you know. That requires us to not only exude who we are to the world but to genuinely express who we are. What we think, what we desire of life, what we need, how we truly feel and think about the people in our lives, the things that we are doing with our lives, the places and directions we're going. We have to do that if we want to sense that full uniqueness of ourselves. And often it is by suppressing ourselves that we begin to suffer. And we have to again ask, "Well then, what is the point of all of this? Is it to live as, as as a carbon copy of everybody else, or to fully, with full intention and aliveness, animate the best of who you are uniquely. I think that you being yourself is a grand purpose.

My soul is not contained within the limits of my body. My body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul. I've often said that I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame and so that they could see that it's not where you're going to find your sense of completion. I can tell you from experience, the effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is, because everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart, and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart. We are not the avatars we create. We are not the pictures on the film stock. We are the light that shines through. All else is just smoke and mirrors, distracting but not true compelling. Our eyes are not viewers, they are also projectors that are running a second story over the picture that we see in front of us all the time. Fear is writing that script. Now, fear is going to be a player in your life, but you get to decide You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future, but all there will ever be is what's happening here, and the decisions we make in this moment, which are based in either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask for it. Ask the universe for it. I'm saying that you can ask the universe for it. Life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. As far as I can tell, it's just about letting the universe know what you want and working toward it while letting go of how it comes to pass. Why not take a chance on faith? Not religion, but faith. Not hope, but faith. I don't believe in hope. Hope is a beggar. Hope walks through the fire and faith leaps over it. You are ready and able to do beautiful things in this world. And after you walk through those doors today, you will only ever have two choices: love or fear. Choose love and don't ever let fear turn you against your playful heart.