Your Purpose Is Your Protest

the 2016

presidential election provoked one of

the most significant social movements

in modern history americans erupted

across 420 cities

producing 27 271

protests for a kinder world engaging

13 million 616 687

people people were demonstrating for

inclusion human rights and the

environment

advocating for racial justice

compassionate immigration

gun reform health care access an

education funding

we could spend a lifetime devoted to any

one

of these significant social issues

i’m not here today to talk about

systemic social

concerns oftentimes when we

take on big social issues

we do so to get a kind of adrenaline hit

that approach to change is unsustainable

it’s exhausting and it can serve as a

kind of distraction

we are each here to make a unique

contribution

a couple weeks ago i called my dad

i could tell he was angsty frustrated he

was

forecasting the future of the world and

the impact to his grandchildren

and i abruptly said dad we are in the

midst of a collective existential crisis

and he said what the heck does that mean

and i said here’s what that means

we have been in a trance the systems and

structures that have organized

our reality are demanding examination

the social agreements that have

undergirded society are not

working we’ve come to understand that

bigger really isn’t always better

the world that we’re moving toward

requires imagination

and creativity

i could hear him start to stir

he paused and then he chuckled and he

said

i appreciate your conviction you know

here’s the thing we are deeply

disconnected we are disconnected from

one another

but perhaps more importantly we are

disconnected from ourselves

we can no longer numb out

or opt out we can no longer just

go through the motions

you know one of the most radical things

that you may

do in your lifetime is honor

your unique purpose your purpose

is a living protest it’s a movement

toward what matters

the word protest means

to declare something firmly and

emphatically in the face of

doubt have you ever experienced

doubt within yourself or from another

person

have you ever had a dream and then been

told it was not possible

what do you want to create in this world

what do you want to create in your world

what is the unique purpose you’re here

to offer

it’s time to rise up as a protest for

your own

freedom to rise above the doubt

and opposition that lives within you and

the doubt and opposition that

lives in the status quo you’re not

here for survival

see when i was a little girl i knew i

was going to be a rock star

i was going to travel the world singing

on stages

and then i became a young mother and i

started to feel

the demands of convention and the

pressures of success

and so i shelved my dreams and

aspirations

and i went into banking i spent

15 years in banking

i learned a lot during those years

one of the things i learned is that

banking is not

my purpose i bounced around from the

investment bank to

underwriting to the retail bank

and finally in 2012 i said to my husband

i cannot do this

another day and i left

we had no savings no game plan

we were raising four kids my husband had

just

completed graduate school conventional

wisdom would suggest that this was a

terrible idea

i’m now an ordained minister i’m a coach

i’m a consultant i support human beings

and

organizations and asking bigger

questions

and giving a greater sense of what

matters

i’ve developed a kind of formula that’s

helped me

along the way it helped me find my

purpose

and it keeps me on purpose

aliveness plus contribution equals

purpose aliveness can be found by asking

yourself a few simple questions

what causes my energy to rise when do i

feel a sense of expansion when does it

feel like time and space can disappear

who am i with what am i surrounded by

contribution can be discovered by asking

what do i want to give to

what do i want to support what takes me

outside of myself and has me feel like

i’m part of something

bigger when you combine

aliveness and contribution you will find

yourself

in the pocket of purpose

i now surround myself with friends that

live their purpose as a kind of daily

protest

my good friend matthew hoffman started a

passion project in 2002

with a hundred stickers in chicago he

operated that project out of a two-car

garage

until 2018 when he

opened the ur beautiful headquarters

matthew has since circulated over 7.5

million stickers in 119 languages

around the world this project started as

an anonymous project that was intended

to

just interrupt human beings walking down

the street

to remind us that to experience beauty

we don’t just have to

buy something and put it on us he

wanted a benign reminder that you

are beautiful exactly as you are

see i think that three things that we

could remember as we’re navigating this

inquiry is defining what really matters

and then finding a purpose to contribute

and affecting social change

we may not determine your purpose today

but we can

incite it we can invoke

curiosity and that is always the

beginning of

change as i

have spent more and more time wondering

about my unique purpose

i’ve discovered that i love to gather

human beings in unexpected encounters

and

shake up what people think they know

i have produced over 300 live events

bringing together some of the most

prolific artists and thinkers

all in service of disrupting the inertia

of the status quo

it’s time it’s time to rise

above the opposition and doubt that

lives

in you that lives in the status quo and

is oriented

around survival

the world needs your aliveness

now more than ever

when one of us lives more freely

humanity itself

becomes freer thank you