A short YouTube interview (NZ POLITICIANS on How to Lead Your Life with PURPOSE) in which host James Laughlin asks several politicians and guests how a young person should lead a purposeful life. Speakers offer practical, character-focused guidance: connect your unique skills to a larger mission (mission/purpose), be authentic and do your best, identify and live by clear values (example: a carried card listing values such as "speak well of others" and "leave the planet and people better than I found it"), and choose a clear "destination port" so decisions align with that purpose and avoid option paralysis.
Chapters
So if we were to fast forward many, many years into the distant future and it's your last day here on Earth, you know it's your last day. Yep. And a very young person, maybe a grandchild or a great grandchild, comes into the room, they say, chris, how could I lead my life on purpose? What would you say to them?
Get deeply connected to mission and purpose, you know, what are the skills, abilities and experiences that you've uniquely been given that will make you deeply successful? But how do you hook it up to a purpose and a mission bigger than yourself to live a life of success and significance? That would be my advice.
It's incredible. If we fast forward way into the future, it's your very last day here on Earth. And you know it's your last day.
Yeah.
And someone very young comes up to you, it could be a great grandchild or a grandchild, and they say, raf, how can I lead my life on purpose? What would you say to.
I'd say, look, be your authentic self, you know, that's it. That's all you can do. And as my dad always said to me, when I tell him about my latest idea, scheme, you know, role, you go, that's great, son. I know you'll do your best. That's it. That's what I'd say. Be yourself and do your best.
One last question for you. So if we were to fast forward way into the future, many years, it's your last day here on Earth, you know that it's your last day. Someone very young, maybe it's a grandchild or someone that you've got a lot of time for and that you love, they come into the room and they say, david, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say to them?
Well, I think you have to really sit down and think hard about what your values are. So you've got to be mindful of, first of all, what works for you. But that should be pretty strongly rooted in the impacts it will have on other people. So, you know, I actually have a, if I've got it here, little card that I carry that's probably quite useful. And it just says, speak well of others. Seek and recognize the best in each person. Use my time on Earth to leave the planet and people better than I found it. Be self aware and take responsibility for my actions. Be kind to myself today and make decisions according to my future. So that's, that's what I carry. And I don't claim just for anyone who's wondering to be perfect at this. You know, in fact, the reason that you have goals like that is that you often don't achieve them. But that's the whole point. You're supposed to stretch.
Last question. If we fast forward many, many years into the future and you know that it's your last day here on Earth, and a very young person, maybe 10, 11 years old, comes into the room and says, james, how can I go about leading my life on purpose? What advice would you have for them?
I'm going to beg your forbearance for a couple of minutes with this one. Yeah, of course, the first thing I would say is take some time to get really clear about what is the difference that you want to make in the world, in your life. And that's. You can argue that that's a process of discovery, but I would also say it's a process of choice, because there is a moment where, especially in our world, we have lots of great options and you can't do everything. You have to commit to one thing and that means choosing. So you get to choose. What is the difference that you want to make with your life? You want to be really, really clear about that.
Young people today, many of them do have, you know, many, many options and they're all very juicy and exciting. So know what the destination port is that you're trying to get to.
If you think about it, there is no point in any boat's journey where it. Where it is pointed exactly at its destination port until it's literally pulling into the harbour. It's always slightly to port or starboard at any point, and it's working with the currents, it's working with the wind. You know, it's working with the conditions in the moment. But if you've got multiple options in front of you, you know, you need to be. You need to know what your destination port is, because otherwise you're just at sea. You're literally just bobbing around with the currents and the winds. You don't know where you're going. So the single most important thing in life, I would say, is know what that is. And then in any given moment, it becomes so much easier to make choices about what to do with your life. Because although all of these options might be exciting and interesting and pay well and take you off to exotic locations or whatever, there will only be a few of those that are even broadly pointed in the direction of your destination. And so you can just say thank you to all of those others.
They look great, but they're not going to get you any closer to that. And then you can just keep making your choices in life that way. Life actually becomes quite easy then, because then you're not kind of stuck in this option paralysis that so many of us are stuck in. So that would be the one piece of advice that I would impart.
