Several years ago, while studying happiness and human fulfillment, I came across a Japanese concept that immediately resonated with me.
The word they use to describe it is ikigai.
It roughly translates to:
“reason for being.”
Or more simply:
“the reason you get up in the morning.”
The Japanese believe people are happiest and healthiest when their lives contain a strong sense of purpose — when there is a reason they feel called to keep growing, contributing, creating, helping, or striving.
And the more I studied both happiness research and highly successful people, the more convinced I became that purpose may be one of the most important forces in human life.
Because purpose organizes life.
Without purpose, people drift.
With purpose, people move intentionally.
And intentional living changes everything.
The Problem With Drifting
One of the strange realities of modern life is that many people spend years climbing ladders without ever asking whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
We are trained from childhood to pursue achievement:
good grades,
good schools,
good jobs,
promotions,
status,
money,
possessions.
And none of those things are inherently bad.
But achievement without purpose often creates a quiet emptiness.
I’ve met wealthy successful people who felt deeply unfulfilled.
And I’ve met people with very little materially who radiated meaning and direction.
The difference was rarely money.
It was purpose.
Purpose gives direction to your decisions.
It gives meaning to sacrifice.
It gives resilience during hardship.
It gives structure to your priorities.
And perhaps most importantly, it gives coherence to your life.
Without purpose, life can begin feeling reactive.
You simply respond to whatever appears next:
emails,
deadlines,
pressure,
obligations,
social expectations,
other people’s agendas.
Years can pass that way.
And eventually many people wake up asking:
“How did I end up living a life I never consciously designed?”
Ikigai and Happiness
One of the reasons the Japanese concept of ikigai is so powerful is that it connects happiness to meaning rather than pleasure alone.
Modern culture often sells us a shallow version of happiness.
We’re taught happiness comes from:
buying things,
looking successful,
accumulating status,
gaining followers,
earning more money.
And while those things can absolutely create moments of pleasure, they rarely create deep fulfillment.
Psychologists often distinguish between two forms of happiness:
- hedonic happiness (pleasure)
- eudaemonic happiness (meaning and purpose)
Both matter.
But eudaemonic happiness creates far deeper and longer-lasting fulfillment.
Purpose nourishes people differently than pleasure does.
Pleasure fades quickly.
Purpose deepens over time.
That’s why people with a strong sense of purpose often remain energized even during difficult seasons of life.
They know why they are doing what they are doing.
My Own Purpose
I somehow stumbled on my purpose in my early 20’s and have been living it most of my life.
My purpose is very simple:
“To live my dreams and inspire others to live theirs.”
That single sentence explains nearly every major decision I’ve made.
Why I pursued filmmaking.
Why I chased adventure.
Why I retired at 42 to sail around the world.
Why I later became a speaker.
Why I study happiness.
Why I write these blogs.
Purpose creates alignment.
Without purpose, life can feel fragmented.
With purpose, the pieces begin fitting together.
And here’s something important:
Purpose does not need to be grand to matter.
Not everyone needs to change the world.
Sometimes purpose is:
- raising healthy children
- helping people heal
- mentoring younger employees
- creating beautiful things
- serving your community
- building meaningful businesses
- teaching
- encouraging others
- solving problems
A meaningful life does not have to impress strangers on social media.
It simply needs to feel deeply meaningful to you.
Purpose and Leadership
One of the most overlooked parts of leadership is understanding that people don’t just want a paycheck anymore.
They want meaning.
Especially younger generations.
Increasingly, younger workers are willing to take less money to work for organizations whose mission and values align with their own.
Think about that for a moment.
People are literally willing to trade compensation for meaning.
That tells us something profound about human nature.
We all want our lives to matter.
Great leaders understand this instinctively.
Poor leaders treat employees like interchangeable labor.
Great leaders help people connect their daily work to something larger than themselves.
One of the best pieces of leadership mentoring advice I ever heard was this:
When you see someone doing something right, compliment them immediately — not six months later during a performance review.
Catch people succeeding in real time.
But the truly powerful part comes next.
Tie what they did to the larger mission.
Don’t just say:
“Good job on that client call.”
Instead say:
“The way you handled that customer reflects exactly who we want to be as a company. You made that person feel respected and heard, and that directly supports our mission.”
That changes everything.
Because now the employee understands:
“My work matters.”
“I matter.”
“I’m contributing to something meaningful.”
And great leaders take this one step further.
They learn the personal values and deeper motivations of the people they lead.
What matters to them?
What kind of life do they want?
What gives them meaning?
What kind of contribution do they want to make?
Then they help connect that individual purpose to the organization’s larger purpose.
That is extraordinarily powerful leadership.
Because when people feel their work aligns with both:
- the company’s mission
and - their own personal values
engagement changes completely.
People stop working only for a paycheck.
They begin working with emotional investment and meaning.
And meaning is fuel.
Purpose Creates Resilience
One of the most important things I’ve observed throughout my life is this:
People can endure extraordinary hardship if they believe what they are doing matters.
Purpose creates resilience.
I’ve seen it in athletes.
Entrepreneurs.
Teachers.
Parents.
Explorers.
Caregivers.
Leaders.
Purpose gives people the ability to keep going when circumstances become difficult.
And difficult periods are inevitable.
Every life contains:
loss,
failure,
uncertainty,
fear,
change,
disappointment.
Purpose doesn’t eliminate hardship.
But it gives hardship meaning.
And meaningful struggle is far easier to endure than meaningless struggle.
How to Discover Your Purpose
People often ask:
“How do I figure out my purpose?”
And honestly, I don’t think purpose is usually discovered in one giant lightning-bolt moment.
More often, it reveals itself gradually through attention and self-awareness.
Pay attention to:
- what energizes you
- what deeply interests you
- what kinds of problems you care about
- what work feels meaningful
- what experiences make you feel most alive
- what suffering you are willing to endure for
- what people naturally come to you for help with
Purpose often hides inside patterns.
Sometimes your life has already been quietly pointing toward your purpose for years.
You just haven’t stepped back far enough to recognize the pattern yet.
And importantly, purpose can evolve.
The purpose that drives you at 25 may not be the same purpose that drives you at 65.
That’s normal.
As we grow, our priorities often deepen:
from survival,
to achievement,
to meaning,
to contribution.
The Designed Life
The older I get, the less interested I am in simply being busy.
I’m far more interested in being aligned.
Aligned with:
my values,
my relationships,
my work,
my contribution,
and my purpose.
Because eventually most people realize something important:
Success without purpose is exhausting.
But purpose gives energy back to life.
And maybe that’s the real beauty of ikigai.
It reminds us that happiness is not just something we feel.
It’s something we build by living a life that feels meaningful to us
I want to share a few resources to help you find your purpose.
One would be the writings of Simon Sinek and the second would be from one of the people who most impacted my life- Tony Robbins. In the next blog I’ll explain a bit about Tony’s Date With Destiny program and how it can change your life. Stay Tuned.