How to DISCOVER Your WHY | Expert Tips in 22 Minutes

Anybody watching this, you may not even know it, you all have a why. Everybody has a why.

Passion is the feeling you have that you would probably do this for free, you know, and you can't believe somebody pays you to do it.

But when you meet other people, you need to bring an enthusiasm and an energy to that question, "What do you do?" What's up, Believe Nation?

It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. Now, I started the Believe Life Series series every week to try to tackle a different topic in personal development for you to absorb, sit with, learn a little bit about yourself, and hopefully build a better life for yourself. So let's live our best believe life and discover today how to find your why. Enjoy! Alright, to kick things off, let's talk about why this is important with Patrick Bet-David.

Anybody watching this, you may not even know it, you all have a why. Everybody has a why. The challenge with some people, majority people's why is it doesn't graduate. So your why needs to evolve. Everyone's why goes through 4 phases. Your first level of why is what? Survival. Let me explain what I mean by survival. Everybody who has a job that makes money makes money why? To survive and pay the bills. But that is their why. So unless you find a way to graduate that, then it's the next level. What's the next level? You know, I want to make six figures.

Why?

Status.

I make six figures. I have a nice car. I have a house. I have the same car. I'm having a good school. I'm going to a place. I got this, I got that. So it's status. Keeping up with the Joneses. It's still lightweight, but it's still a better why than survival. The third one is freedom. You know what? I'm so sick and tired of the six figures. Man, I want to be free. I want to make money. I want to go out. I'm not worried about working hard. I want to make money and I want to have freedom. I want to have breathing room. What do I need to do to have breathing room? That's the next level. Because then at that point, you're not necessarily doing it for somebody else. You're doing it because your why's graduated. You know what? I want to be free. I want to live in that community because I want my kids to play outside and not have to worry about anything. For me, I want to have a big backyard because I want my kids to run around and not have to worry about anything. For me, for my family, I want to be free. So this is somewhat selfish. Nothing wrong with it. But it's not the highest level. The highest level is purpose. Now what are we talking about purpose? What is your why? I'll talk to some people and they'll say, "My why is I want to one day own a football team." I mean, that's still empty. That's still empty. I want to one day own a basketball team. People ask me, Pat, are you one day going to own a sports team?

Of course.

That's in the plans. If the opportunity comes, I think I'd make a very good sports owner. I'm fascinated by stats, sports, improvement, competition. It's just fascinating. But is that really the purpose of making billions of dollars and making money? No, there's got to be a bigger purpose. So how does one go from survival, status, freedom, purpose. What is truly your purpose?

Now let's get to the how. Coming up, rule number 1 is find the things you do for free with Simon Sinek.

Passion is not an actionable word. It's correct, you know, that those who do the things that they're passionate about do better, but it's not helpful advice. Um, and so the question is, where does passion come from? Passion is a result. Passion is an energy. Passion is the feeling you have when you're engaged in something that you love. Passion is the feeling you have that you would probably do this for free, you know, and you can't believe somebody pays you to do it, you know. And I think we mistake that passion is something we do in our private lives, but it shouldn't be done, you know, in our careers, for example. And I'm a firm believer that you are who you are. And anybody who says, "I'm different at home than I am at work," in one of those two places you're lying. And the goal is to make everything you do in home and at work something that you have excitement to do. So how do you find the things that you're excited to do? Well, it's actually easier than you think. What are the things that you love to do?

What are the things that you would do for free? You know?

How can you recreate that feeling and be paid for it? So what are the things that I do on the weekend, right?

I love—

I'm very involved in the art world. I love to go to museums and galleries, but I love to go see dance and performances because I want to see how others are interpreting the world. So that inspires me. New ideas, new thoughts, new ways of looking at the world are things that interest me privately, and I seek it out and pay money for it, right? So does that mean I have to have a career in the arts?

No.

It means I have to have a career where new ideas are explored, where people are experimenting and trying things out, and I have to explore new ideas and try things out, And I'm just as excited to go to work every day as I am to, you know, go do something on a Saturday night. And so the idea of finding your passion is ironically simple because you should be doing stuff that you enjoy sometimes. What is the stuff that you enjoy? And then what is the stuff that you love? Who are the people that you love and what do they all have in common?

Rule number 2 is do a joy review with Jack Canfield.

Another technique you can use to help you identify your purpose is to conduct what I call a joy review. Simply set aside about 30 30 minutes and take the time to go back over your life and make a list of all the times you felt the greatest joy in your life. Now, when I did this, I, I wrote down when I was a patrol leader in the Boy Scouts, when I was an officer in my military high school, when I was a summer camp counselor at a camp in Maine, my years as a leader in my college fraternity, my years as a high school teacher, and when I was conducting workshops and training as a teacher trainer. When I was telling jokes, telling stories, when I was traveling. And then look for a pattern among all these times you've written down. In my case, it was when I was teaching and when I was inspiring and empowering people to go for their dreams and to have more love, joy, and abundance in their lives. And since we know that joy is part of your internal guidance system that tells you when you're on course to the fulfillment of your innate purpose, you can begin to determine a lot about your life purpose from completing this joy review.

Rule number 3 is try different things with Owen Cook.

There's really only a few key areas where we have almost like a superpower, okay? Aptitudes, alright? I guess we could call it a super aptitude. And we're looking for those super aptitudes all the time by trying out different lanes. Alright, so take myself. I'm somebody who has attention deficit disorder, and what that means is that I can speak almost indefinitely. It means that I also have almost infinite creativity, and that also comes from growing up with depression. When you're depressed, can oftentimes trigger this very, very intense creativity. So between having depression and attention deficit disorder, and also in my case, if you look at things like growing up unable to read social cues, you have an interesting recipe for how I built real social dynamics, okay? So I basically found my super aptitudes because by not understanding something so thoroughly, I had to break it down so deeply to understand it, that's social dynamics, which creates great content. Plus, I'm being depressed creates creativity, and also having ADD allows me to talk forever because I don't feel the passage of time in the way that a normal person does. I can't feel time passing, so I could do this forever. Okay, so if you look at that, that created a super aptitude. Okay, now how did I find it? I tried out many different things. As long as I was trying out different things, I was happy. So tried out one thing, tried another thing, tried another thing, tried another thing, tried another thing. Now, once I basically realized, okay, this is something that I could have a, you know, like a lane could open up for me in this, what I did was I committed to a pretty large degree, but still kept different lanes open. And then when I finally decided that this is what I want to do, I burned the boats, okay? In other words, I got rid of all other options to sail home and committed 100%.

Rule number 4: Find what makes your heart race with Charlie Hooper.

What makes your heart race, right? What things in your life do you have that when you engage in that activity, your heart rate literally elevates? And as I look back on my own life, one of the very clear things for me was social interaction. I was a very I was a very shy kid. Whenever I'd meet someone new, that would kind of make me anxious, but particularly if it was someone that I wanted to be my friend or if it was a girl that I liked, man, my heart rate would just shoot through the roof. So reflect on your own life. What sort of things do you have? And again, start flippantly. You can write scary movies, skydiving, whatever it is, but start to go down that list and make a list of things that actually genuinely excite you and you know it because your body is responding. And the whole point of this exercise is to tease out the things in your life that you care about but that you might be hiding from yourself because a very, very common phenomenon in today's world is that we have these things that are core to our identity. In my case, it was writing, it was social interaction, but that we're afraid to share with the rest of the world because it is so important to us. We're afraid to make it our profession or even just a hobby, right, if you were to write about it on a blog in the internet or engage with it in some other way. So go through this list, right? See if there are commonalities, things that are so important to you, things that —legitimately care about that you can get more involved in. And the reason is not just for yourself because, of course, that's going to improve your quality of life, but when you meet other people, you need to bring an enthusiasm and an energy to that question, "What do you do?" And right now, if all you have going is a job that you're not super into and friends that, you know, you like but you're not crazy about and hobbies that, you know, football on Sundays, that is not going to help you connect with the kind of people that you want to have in your life. When you're passionate about something, you will attract other people into your life that have similar passions, and there may be in some cases have passions that are completely divergent, but the intensity of those passions attract one another.

And rule number 5, the last one before the bonus clips, is serve others with me.

Most people live their life like this. They're all over the place and they're unhappy. But when you know what your passion is, when you know what your purpose is, Your life is a lot easier, right? You know who you're supposed to hang out with and who not to. You know what opportunities to take and which ones not to. Every decision becomes easier, and you're living a life that is purposeful, that is happy. You're adding value, you're helping people, and you feel good. And I want that for everybody. So how do you find it? You gotta remember that your purpose is gonna be a combination of something that makes you happy and with something that adds a lot of value to other people's lives. You are happiest when you're serving other people. We are, we are born and meant to serve others, right? We feel happy when we're helping somebody else out with something, and this can be through a business or can be through your job or whatever it is, but you will find your greatest pleasure and happiness when you're adding value to somebody's life. So the combination of What you love doing, something that you love doing so much, something that you wake up at, you know, say 9 in the morning, you start to work, and it's— you look down, you look back up, and it's 6 at night. You're like, where did everything go? Where did the time go? Because you're so in love with what you're doing. So think about all the things that you love doing that you can get lost in, and then think about how you combine that to help other people. When you can merge those two things together, That's when you find your purpose. That's when you find your path. The things that you love doing with the things that help other people. That combination is unique to you, and when you find it, you'll feel amazing. Your life will change. Everything will change.

Now I've got 3 special bonus clips for you on how to find your why, but before getting to those, my question of the day is: have you found your why? Yes or no? And if it's a yes, what is it? I'd love to hear from you. Leave it down in the comments below. And if it's a no, then put no too. You're on your journey and I'm excited to see how you eventually will grow and find it. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon and enjoy the bonus clips.

So I'd like to share with you a simple process that can help you identify your life purpose in as little as 5 to 10 minutes. Now, the process involves answering 3 questions, and it's important to write down your answers. So for now, just write down the questions. Now, these also appear in the Success Principles book as Success Principle #2, Be Clear Why You're Here. So I'll repeat the questions twice. You write them down and then you can answer them. First, ask yourself, what are 2 qualities that I most enjoy I most enjoy expressing in life? Again, what are two qualities that I most enjoy expressing in life? Now, for me, it would be love and joy. For my wife, it's authenticity and spontaneity. For one of the clients I just worked with, it's discipline and order. And for another one, it's fun and play. Now, the second step is to ask yourself, what are two ways I I most love or enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others? Again, that's: What are two ways I most love or enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others? Now, for me, it's inspiring people with stories like those in the Chicken Soup for the Soul books and empowering people by teaching them practical tools for creating greater success in their life through my live trainings, online trainings, coaching, books, DVDs, teleseminars, and video blogs like the one I'm doing right now with you. And finally, ask yourself, what would the world look like if it were perfect right now according to me? What would people be doing? How would people be interacting? What would be happening? So again, that's what would the world look like if it were perfect right now according to me? That's you, of course. Now, for me, it would be that everyone was living their highest vision of their most fulfilling life. You see, I believe that every single person is like a cell in a human body, and it takes all kinds of cells, every cell doing what it's meant to do for the whole body to work correctly. We need eyeball cells and stomach cells and knee joint cells and foot cells and bone cells and brain cells. All of those have to to be working. And similarly, I believe that it takes every human being doing what they were meant to do for all of humanity to work. You see, once you have answers to these 3 questions, you can combine them into a single statement. Now, when I put all 3 of mine together, my life purpose ends up being to inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in a context of love and joy in harmony with the highest good of all concern. Now, when you put yours together, you're going to get a life purpose statement for you. Now, once you have that, I want you to ask yourself the next question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how actively am I living my life purpose? Again, on a scale of 1 to 10, how actively am I currently living my life purpose? And if your answer is anything less than a 10, then I want you to ask yourself Well, what would have to happen to make it a 10? What would I have to do or change to make it a 10? Now, the answers that you come up with are the action steps you need to take so that you can begin living your purpose on a day-to-day level.

Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you were meant to be, and begin to honor that in the best way possible for yourself. We have seen over the years on the Oprah Show so many people who've been able to rise to success in their life and only able to rise to success because they answered the call. Lots of people think that it's about being famous or about being known or about doing big, big incredible things. What you're gonna hear today and see through the stories is that sometimes the calling is right in your own neighborhood. Sometimes the calling is something that was just a whisper to you, and when you begin to honor that whisper and to follow that, you end up being the best that you could be. So in my own life, I have to say that I had no idea that I would end up being— who I have become, but I had a strong belief that the calling was something greater than what Mississippi was showing me. The calling was greater than my front yard. The calling was greater than what my grandmother believed that my life could be.

Discovering your why is just the beginning. In order to enjoy all the benefits of having a clearly articulated why, you'll need to have the courage and discipline to use it. Like Thomas Edison said, "Vision without execution is hallucination." There is an ideal order for implementing your why, though sometimes reality does get in the way, and it all starts with you. Our natural tendency is to start with the tangible. We define our value by what we do. So it takes practice to start with why. Like riding a bicycle, at first we're unsure, unsteady, We're in our heads thinking about all the things we need to do: pedal fast, keep enough speed so we don't fall over. We have to really concentrate. We may even fall over, even scrape our knees. But we get back on the bike and try again. And eventually, it becomes natural. Starting with Y is no different. At first, it feels awkward. It may not even work. But with practice, it will become so natural that you won't even be able to imagine a time when you couldn't do it, just like riding a bicycle. In time, your why will act as a filter for many of the decisions and choices you make. It becomes a tool to help you find a job or seize an opportunity in which you're more likely to succeed. It removes a lot of the guessing. Here's a metaphor to show you what I mean. It's called the Celery Test.

We're constantly asking people for their advice on what to do or how to do it.

It's like going to a dinner party and somebody says, "Do you know what you need? You need M&Ms. We've done so well with M&Ms, you've got to use M&Ms." Somebody else says to us, "Rice milk. In this economy, you have to use rice milk." Someone else says to us, "Kit Kats. You have to use Kit Kats." And somebody else says to you, "It's all about celery." We go to the supermarket with all this good advice from all these smart people with brilliant case studies And we buy everything. We buy Kit Kats and M&Ms, celery and rice milk. There's a lot of time we spend at the supermarket and a lot of money we spend at the supermarket. And when we get to the checkout lane, we're standing there with all these products in our hands and no one can see what we believe because we bought everything. But let's imagine we know our why. Let's imagine our why is to always be healthy and only do things that protect the health of our bodies. Now, which products do we buy? Given all the same advice from all the same smart people, this time we only buy celery and we only buy rice milk. They're the only two that make sense. We spend less time and less money at the supermarket, and when we're standing there in line with only celery and only rice milk, now people can see what we believe. Somebody walking past can say, hey, I can see that you're healthy, so am I. You just attracted an opportunity or a referral or a friend. Simply by saying and doing the things that you believe. And the best part is it's scalable. As soon as I said the why, you knew exactly which products we were going to buy. This means the more you can articulate your why, the more others will know what you stand for and will be able to help you make the right decisions. From now on, you will work to ensure everything you do is a good fit. If you do too many things that aren't a good fit, fit, you will feel uncomfortable, and people will feel that you're being inauthentic. On the other hand, when you start with why, your ability to stand out, find support, and work to all your natural strengths will flourish. With practice, you will learn to trust your why. You will eventually start to see your job and the things you do as ways to breathe life into your cause. And the better you get at it, the more you will feel that your life and everything you do has purpose. The best way to implement your why is to work at it slowly. You don't have to do all the tips we suggest. What is important is that you pick up to 3 and commit to practicing and using them now.

Raise your standard.

Apple, at the core, its core value is that you We believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me. I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned them Goals from and apply to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.