How to Discover the Meaning of Life

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

I'm so lucky that I get to work with leaders of all shapes, sizes, ages, stages, and I really get to go deep with them. And whether they're running countries or companies or organizations or teams, one of the questions that seems to come up quite often is how do you discover the meaning of life? And that's the really interesting thing, is no matter who we are as humans, like we always are thinking, what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? And it's something I explore with a lot of. And I wanted to take a moment to explore that with you today and really talk about what it is and also give you a challenge and give you some strategies to help you really discover what the meaning of life is for you. Viktor Frankl was a survivor of Auschwitz and he wrote an incredible book called Man's Search for Meaning. I remember after the Christchurch earthquake here in New Zealand, I was really struggling to figure out, well, what's this all about? Life is very fragile and it's probably in my early to mid 20s and I reached for this book. The title, Man's Search for Meaning, really caught my attention and I thought, I want to read that, I need to read that. And so I discovered a lot about how I look at the world and I really feel that my perception shapes my reality. And for you that will be no different. Your perception will shape your reality and for those people that you connect with and there will be people because we're human and we must interact with others. You must realize that their perception shapes their reality. And you can't change that. How people see the world is how they see the world. Don't go about trying to change their perception. The only thing you can change is how you show up.

Another book I actually read recently, I really highly recommend it, is by Eddie Jaku. That's J A K U. And he also is a Holocaust survivor. He published this book when he was 100 years old. How incredible. Look, the book is called Happiest man on Earth. Absolutely wonderful book. It was bought as a gift for me. And I learned so much again, about happiness, so much about life, and that happiness is a choice. And Eddie witnessed and suffered so much pain and just horrific circumstances, losing the vast majority of his family to tragic circumstances. And his outlook on life is just so incredible. But that was a choice, and he'd discovered the meaning of life. So please do go and grab both of those books. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and Happiest man on Earth by Eddie Jaku. Look, I believe the meaning of a life well lived is to serve others.

To contribute selflessly, to experience the highs and the lows that life throw at you. I also believe the meaning of life and a life well lived is to ponder, to wonder, to ask questions, to be curious. I also believe it is to grow. And all leaders, small and large, old and young, the key is to grow constantly. Look, Viktor Frankl said that the meaning of life can be discovered in three ways. Please write these down. If you've got a pen and paper, please write these down. Firstly, he said you could do it by creating a work or accomplishing some task. So you think of the great Michelangelo created many works that give him meaning. People that create projects, teams, missions, gives them a lot of meaning in their life. People who become parents, you know, that's creation, one of the greatest forms of creation. So that's the first thing that Victor said in terms of really discovering that meaning in life. You know, create a work or accomplish a task. Secondly, by experiencing something fully or loving somebody. And in this day and age, we are very, very distracted by digital means. Notifications, phone calls, you know, Netflix, with the vast majority of it being nonsense, right? We are distracted. And so often it impacts our ability to experience something fully. And it also interrupts our ability to love others. How often do you go to a restaurant where you look around and there's couples and one of them is on a phone, or both of them are on their phones? Why do we bother going out to a restaurant to share company? I think it's crucially important that we ask ourselves, where can we experience life more fully? Or where can we love more deeply? Last but not least, here's what Victor shared. You can achieve and understand and discover that meaning of life by the attitude that you adopt towards unavoidable suffering. Now that might seem quite shocking, but just remember Viktor Frankl was in a concentration camp. He has seen and experienced the worst of the worst of humanity.

He said the attitude that you adopt towards unavoidable suffering helps you discover the meaning of life. And life, whether we like it or not, has an end. And it's what we do with the days that we've got that truly matters. A lot of us are focused on legacy, right? But forget about legacy and focus on today. Because today is what truly matters. And if you continue to focus on what's ahead today, then those days compound and they create a magical full, rich life.

Which one of the above will you focus on? That's my challenge to you right now. Let's not be passive in listening. Let's work together here. I'm going to set you a challenge right now. Which one are you going to really focus on this year, this month? Today? Is it going to be creating a work, a masterwork or accomplishing some task? Or are you going to experience something fully? A sunrise, a sunset, maybe something intimate? Are you going to love somebody deeply, truly presently? Or lastly, you know, if you're going through unavoidable suffering, whether that's the loss of a loved one, an illness, personal pain, financial strife, what's your attitude that you're going to adopt towards that unavoidable suffering? Which one will you focus on?

I hope that you truly enjoy pondering the meaning of life. And I hope today has inspired you to think about it, take action and move towards it. And again, I'll reiterate those two great books. Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and Eddie Jakku's Happiest man on Earth. Leaders, our readers never forget it. Really great to connect with you. Thank you for taking the time to invest in your leadership. But for now, get out there and lead your life on purpose.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.