health and wellness are more than a destination they are a process and a journey of personal choice come hear from people out in the field doing the work bringing health and wellness to many [Music] welcome to our March segment we're so excited to continue our discussion about finding your purpose and what is passion all about and how important it is in this time to find your happiness or our happiness and today I have a wonderful friend and colleague Alexander Cole who has spent her career so far trying to help others to really find their purpose to find their passion and I wanted to start out with her quote from her from her website which says do not ask what the world needs but rather ask yourself what makes you come alive because the world needs people who have come alive I love that Alexandra tell me a little bit about yourself and what brought you to this work and how you became an entrepreneur it's such an age I mean it's really impressive well that could be a long or a short story so I'll try to end up somewhere in between okay but I was born in the UK and raised mostly in the Netherlands and I never thought I would be an entrepreneur honestly I was always someone who kind of followed the rules had a very set track did you know whatever I needed to do to follow that linear path so I ended up actually I think when I was 12 decided that I wanted to study in the States that I wanted to get out of Holland and kind of pursue some type of dream I wasn't sure what it would be yet and so I ended up doing that I went to college on the East Coast and after college again I kind of looked around and there were two real tracks that you could follow there seemed to be consulting and then there was finance at least at the school I was in we were very close to New York City so almost everyone went into one of those two professions or at least tried to yeah and so I got a great job in management consulting in New York City and I moved there and I very quickly found myself working 16-hour days I was working on the 19th floor of a huge building in Times Square oh my goodness that's great it was crazy and I was learning a lot and I was surrounded by amazingly brilliant people who many of whom I'm still close with today but there was definitely something missing and most of the time I didn't even want to let myself ask what was missing I just knew that I wasn't really content or wasn't really pursuing what it was that would allow me to come out into the full most fullest expression of who I was and what my talents were so fast forward a few years and a friend of mine actually moved to New York and we started talking about this shift that we were seeing amongst our peers who were leaving these corporate jobs to work for startups where they felt a greater sense of purpose more ownership over their work and we were also seeing these same peers of ours start to purchase products from brands that had a story to tell or a very clear mission and we were wondering why none of these large institutions and corporations saw this shift happening and knew how to respond they were all continuing to communicate with us in the same way that they had for decades before and it wasn't resonating and so we decided who if not us then who made a curriculum or a course called the Millennial mindset well which kind of walked these companies through how we think how we talk what the why behind a lot of what we do what our motivations were for those behaviors and we started knocking on doors first we'd started with financial services institutions and we showed up and we said hi we'd like to talk to you about Millennials and I think for the first few months they were like we're not at all interested so we pivoted and our first client so at this point I actually left my job and management consulting to start this company with my friend we called it purpose generation as the generation who is seeking this greater sense of purpose and we our first client was Campbell Soup Company and they were wondering you know their main client was a 45 to 65 year old female was providing for her family and they realized like we're in a decade from now we're gonna actually have to appeal to who is now the 25 year old and she wants very different branding very different products and so we were helping them kind of solve that puzzle and throughout the years at purpose generation we were having a lot of conversations with Millennials and what kept coming up was this idea of finding my purpose or seeking purpose and not knowing where to start and I recognized this because that was me just one or two years prior and even at the time I think I was still trying to figure out what my purpose was and I had an aha moment one day when I realized like all of the content out there today on purpose is quite ethereal it's you know sell your belongings move to some far-off Island and meditate for 10 hours a day and and you'll know what your purpose is and I'm a very a type personality myself very practically oriented yeah you're very practical I know that about you so it was really it can be a good thing but when you're talking about something that is a little bit maybe more severe you know it's difficult to approach that in a practical way but I thought you know we've been helping these companies articulate their purpose what if we could apply some of the same frameworks to individuals and so that's what I started doing and created this little workshop at the time called find your purpose and I started doing the workshop amongst peers in co-working spaces at some of our clients as well and got some really good feedback and eventually turn that into an online course and and then earlier this year I started writing a book about it amazing and have kind of been doing more one-on-one coaching and so really the premise is helping people design their life around what matters most by creating this step-by-step roadmap to finding your purpose it's wonderful Alexandra tell me something more about purpose I think you have answered my question about the millennial generation because I think it's truly a new time and I think the new kids are searching for something more but purpose what is the difference in your mind between the word purpose and passion and why they're so related and why they need to be together actually it's a very good question and I think those two words get used interchangeably sometimes as well but to me the definition of purpose is almost the sweet spot imagine kind of a Venn diagram right with three circles and it's the sweet spot at the center between your your talents or your strengths like your your god-given skills yeah your passion so more of your interests and then your potential to contribute and so I think passion is definitely an element of purpose but it's not everything because there's a lot of different things we can be passionate about but when it comes to your purpose to me the biggest difference is it's something where you feel like you are contributing to the world in some way shape or form you're making an impact so it's like it's like a mission it's like taking the word and then because you have some impact it brings a lot back to you actually absolutely and we shouldn't take the word mission too not too seriously but I think when you hear mission you often think oh that mean it's an obligation maybe to save the world and it has to be you know to you know support people in need but maybe your purpose is simply to you know light yourself up and inspire others by you know creating some new type of innovative product or solving problems for companies which is what I was doing and and for some people that is their purpose yes for me it wasn't necessarily it and I figured that out but the cool thing about purpose is that everyone I think has it as a unique sense of purpose and you were talking about it being a new time and this idea of Millennials how important it is for us to actually pursue our purpose and I sometimes like to think about it like the world you know in nature its wry on biodiversity right everyone every single particle every single animal every single tree has a specific role to play within this ecosystem and I think we humans over the past few decades have started to try to all pursue the same exact goals because those were more praised or put on a pedestal and as a result we're losing that biodiversity just amongst humans and so it's a creativity the creativity bark of New York and we're all kind of like I said there were two paths right when I graduated college or that's how it felt but in reality there's thousands millions of paths right so why are we focused on those two and so I think it's so important for people in my generation to start to open up their minds to really listen to what lights them up individually without feeling pressure from societal norms to do what they should or what looks good on a resume because otherwise we're going to lose this this magic that we have the potential for I'd love how you say that the Attic and you know maybe some viewers are thinking but I have to survive I don't have time to pursue my passion because I have to pay the bills and I have to do all this work just to get up you know just to pay my mortgage and all the things that I have to do how many people have that belief system so many people so how can you help them Alexandra well I think the other thing about purpose is it's not a specific vocation your your your purpose should be some almost like a Northstar that can be consistent no matter what your job title is so you can be living in accordance with your purpose whether you were again a management consultant whether you're an uber driver whether you're a chef it doesn't matter you could actually have the same purpose and so I think first we need to let go of that yeah and then to you know I think there's a group of people that have to derive their sense of purpose from their primary job from their nine-to-five let's say and then a group who don't necessarily have to derive their purpose from their work but they find that sense of purpose elsewhere in their relationships in their hobbies whatever that might be and it's just important for you to I think get clarity around what that is and then create enough space and time for you to connect with that purpose again it doesn't have to be in your nine-to-five it can be elsewhere it's just I think acknowledging what that is and getting really specific about it and then intentionally making time to do something that feels right that fuel I know like in the way that we teach in the course and the way I believe I think when you're in your purpose you're in your heart and people who are in their heart the the heart is a huge magnetic field and when we're in our heart we have just more power we're more in our soul and that's so interesting now not everybody's comfortable with that because not everyone has practiced it enough but it is a practice to be in your heart actually 100% and that's I think I wish more people were able to connect with that part of them right because exactly what I was talking about people doing what they think they should or what that's all being directed by the brain right by the head and that's where you start losing touch with your your soul your heart whatever you want to call it and and so a big part of my method in finding your purpose is journaling because I feel like sometimes that's a really beautiful way to get out of your head and into your heart like asking yourself questions and responding and it's almost like connecting to that inner voice so Alexandra I was just thinking as you were speaking it's really interesting when I reflect on my life how you know at some points you really don't know where you're going and a purpose can sort of feel foggy or it actually can get muddled mm-hmm and even if you thought you knew at one point this is what I want to do and this is my purpose you change yeah the process of life changes us so I would just love you to address that because it's not like you always arrive like forever somewhere no you're right and it's funny and I like to I think disapprove a few myths around purpose and one of them is that purpose is this destination that you arrive there and then suddenly your entire life is going to be fulfilled makes sense so I actually like to think about purpose as again this kind of North Star and imagine you getting into your car and purpose is really the what you put in your route guidance right you put in I'm headed towards purpose and there's a highlighted route essentially and that highlighted route is maybe the most useful peaceful route and sometimes you'll be cruising along on that highlighted route and sometimes you won't hear that route guidance you know you won't hear whatever her voice is you know some people have like the British voice and you won't hear her voice is clearly and so you may take a wrong turn now that highlighted route is always there so what I think the most important part is is learning to reconnect with that voice so when you feel like you're getting a little bit off track you can come back to that highlighted route but in reality your life is just going to be a constant ebb and flow off and on to that highlighted route but always with that kind of North Star of where you're headed in mind and what life wouldn't be any fun if we just made it there no and it was of course and and being healthy and having wellness is about work you know what we believe is that there are a lot of choices in this it's not that you're just a victim of your life you have a choice so part of what I love that you said is as you're going through life and you're weaving in and out you actually have choices in this path and you have to pay attention actually to where you're gonna go and so if people just would pay more attention perhaps then life would would be flowing a lot better it's so true and I think with the amazing work that you all are doing with wellness is the clearer your vessel right them the easier it is to pay attention to that voice and the easier it is to course-correct and I think with all of like chronic illness and disease all of that is just blocking that channel right so it's very important to do the work and to start with the things that you can more easily control such as the inputs you are putting into your body and because that is going to be what again helps you to more easily tune in to where you need to go that's so true now I just I really want to know more about your business your actual what do you do it's called the purpose playback can you tell me or more about it actually of course so I have almost two businesses really so purpose generation is the consulting firm that lurks works with the large corporates and then the purpose playbook which we're talking about today that is more of an individual type of business so I work with smaller groups of people or one-on-one to help them use this you know step-by-step roadmap to identify their purpose and then design their life in such a way that they're able to live out that purpose more effectively and so what that looks like is we've kind of designed almost a methodology essentially towards getting there and like I alluded to earlier it starts with this process of just getting out of your head and into your heart and one of the ways I do that is through journaling so I'll ask a number of questions and give people a certain amount of time usually about 90 seconds to respond to that question and it sounds a little strange timing people but it actually I think allows you to get to the heart to the matter of the matter a lot faster and people are often more creative when they're actually constrained oh it's true they just like get right to it instead of like delaying or wasting time or and this is the biggest mistake people make right is writing down what they think other people want to hear so they write down what you know if someone were to read what they were writing they want it to look good yeah and my biggest thing is don't self edit and don't question whatever it is just get it on paper so we'll ask questions such as you know what did you love to do when you were a child and and you know what is the thing that people come to you most often for advice on what are some of your biggest contributions to the people you love in your life and the idea of doing it that way is once everything's on paper then we go into almost like a searching mode so then I have people try to circle and underline different patterns because what they're looking for is clues and I call those clues purpose triggers and purpose triggers to me are people environments feelings that give you that heightened sense of purpose a little clue as to what your why is and those clues are all around us all day long but again we're so in our heads yeah and where we sometimes have tunnel vision that we're not paying attention and so that exercise just starts to help them find find those different things and start to look at it from a more objective lens yeah that's very practical so once and then once they have that that's where the process then starts of refining and we create a purpose statement and then we do a lot of different work around again designing their life around what matters most to them and that's that's the business really wonderful Wow well that's so that is wonderful because I love I mean I know in my work if people are not in connection with why they do it they get lost much more easily it is so true that's it that's the problem so when you have these little triggers I can imagine that you're just it just brings you back on you like the track that you were just describing exactly and what I recommend people do too is once you are very conscious of your triggers and I recommend finding three to five of those right so maybe it's getting outside or maybe it's drawing whatever it is find those triggers and then be more intentional about building those into your life so we do an exercise where they look at their you know current day or week and then they look at their purpose triggers and they figure out how much of my time am I actually spending on these things it's Marvel and oftentimes it's very little time because you're like well drawing is a waste of time I need to do what's productive for me but what you don't understand is that maybe spending some time on drawing will light you up so much that you'll be far more productive when you are in your actual nine-to-five job and so just again being intentional about once you know what those triggers are building them into your day to day a little bit more that's so amazing Alexander I wonder so what are some steps that people can do on their own if they I mean I think that we're gonna talk more about this course that you have because I think it's wonderful but on their own just today just to just to do to be more in alignment with why they're here and what their purpose really is yeah I would say there's two different exercises one is spending some time maybe doing a few of those writing exercises so just finding a quiet spot pen and paper and just answering that question of what did I love to do as a child and what makes me lose track of time okay that's another one because that's again when you're really out of your head and in flow and just start to notice what comes out and without judging it pull out at least one purpose trigger from your response right there and then in the next seven days find a moment every day or every other day to dedicate to that thing so again whether it's just as going on a quick walk it doesn't have to be something huge and intense that it can be these tiny little shifts that will just help you come back to yourself so that's one and then the other one is we talked about that Venn diagram earlier of your talents your passions and then your potential to contribute is just pulling out a sheet of paper and writing down talents passion contributions and just starting to make a list of whatever comes up for you what are all the talents you have what are all the different interests and passions that you have and then what are the ways you can contribute those and just taking a look at that list and seeing if you can find those those intersections that's wonderful all right I think coaches tell people to do that I believe in one-on-one help with these things I think it's good to try to do it at home but I think it's also very important to get guidance because when you get an independent person who's not necessarily your friend it was just an independent person there as a sort of feedback channel it's so helpful because sometimes we don't see everything so it's difficult it's really hard and I think that's why I've started doing more of the one-on-one coaching too and what I notice in those sessions is people just need they need you to hold up a mirror like that and then what they also need what a coach can do very effectively is almost hold be a vision holder for them you you as the coach see that the highest potential of that person right and so you can hold that for them while they're trying to figure it out and they're right course-correcting constantly you can kind of see where they're headed which is something that's very difficult to do for yourself oh yeah especially if you don't have someone who's kind of mirroring that back to you totally I always laugh about people who humanities funny because we can see everything about the other person so easily you can you know all the gossips go so true gertrude and whatever it yeah whatever she does this or he does yes but in the in the end it's really very hard to see our stars so this is really important to be to really find your full and maximize your full potential to be in touch with and aligned with it so I just think that's really nice that you've found that that naturally on your own that you had to go in that direction and of course corporate is also important because the businesses need help and they need guidance also to adapt look at all the trouble that's happening in the world all the old ways are just no working anymore yeah and the new ways have to they have to start they have to begin it's true and it's encouraging to see that shift happening and the more and I think at the end of the day one of the coolest things about my generation or the millennial generation is that we have a new set of tools right with social media that we can hold these businesses accountable and hopefully as more and more of these Millennials are demanding more and more from their employers and and are also slowly coming up into leadership positions that will start to shift the tide and I'm not saying that only Millennials are Purpose Driven of course all generations very much are but I do think that we because we're a so large be so diverse and see have just a completely new set of tools of communicating that we do have a certain amount of not not power but potential definitely to change the status quo in fact in the 1960s there was a revolutionary shift when my mother she was a political activist I remember that time but it was a very it was the beginning of a big change but now you guys are really the change and you're taking it another step further and I think it's so important and social entrepreneurship actually is the way so business is learning how to take responsibility for their environment and for social consciousness and change yeah and what's cool is what you're seeing is I even remember because I was very much a fan of social entrepreneurship and impact investing right which is investing for social return as well as financial return and about ten years ago I remember it was still very much a niche thing and it was very obvious you know you were you took a social entrepreneurship class or you were a social business and what's cool to see is nowadays it's it's almost becoming a an inherent part of businesses and they have to have that type of social responsibility in order to even survive and I think that's going to get stronger and stronger if you look at the generation after us right there jamesy yeah they're all activists naturally and they won't buy anything unless they're it's from a company that actually is socially responsible and environmentally friendly and sustainable and so it's cool to see how quickly actually that is that shift is happening yeah this is a real shift in consciousness actually totally it's beautiful I want to ask you why your approach is so unique like why is it different than other approaches and this isn't to say that my approach is better or best out of course that but but I kind of designed this methodology out of a necessity for myself like I said I thought ivory all the existing content out there just wasn't as relatable or practical for someone of my age who had to make a living right and couldn't afford to move to some far-off land or travel the world and Mead wanted to find purpose where I was in that moment like I didn't feel the need to radically shift everything and quit my job and I knew that was probably the case for a lot of other people out there too that they wanted to connect more to their their true selves but they they didn't necessarily want to turn their lives upside down to do so so this method what's unique about it is that it allows for that and it allows you to make those small shifts sometimes they could be monumental but overall it sees just tiny little course corrections and that overtime are hopefully going to just allow you to live a more again aligned life without as much friction and without this feeling that you're constantly trying to live up to some set of standards that someone else came up with that don't actually apply to you but you've become conditioned to want to live up to them somehow that's beautiful aiexander well that's exciting I want to take a little look now at Alexandra's work I I'm just taking this off the website so you can see a little bit more about her business let's take a look let's be real who doesn't want to live a more purposeful life research has shown that people who have a clear sense of purpose not only live longer but fuller lives they're happier enjoy better sleep spend less time at the doctor and of better relationships just to name a few what if I told you that you could find your purpose while sitting on your couch drinking a latte or a glass of wine for that matter have I piqued your interest what will you learn well you'll make sense of all the clutter up here to discover what truly lights you up in here what really matters to you and then you'll learn how to design your life around that how are we different simply put we cut to the chase without cutting corners we know the whole concept of finding your purpose can feel a little woowoo but our approach is inspired by the frameworks and processes we use with our fortune 500 clients and as you can imagine woowoo doesn't go down very well there so we break it down into manageable steps and offer a structured approach to finding your purpose that delivers real results so Alexander let me just ask you one last question what are the biggest obstacles people have in finding their purpose and their passion unfortunately there's a lot of them so and some of them we touched on already right the getting out of your head and your heart and I call these obstacles purpose blockers okay and a few of the ones I tend to touch on are one is is self-criticism and comparison right so I think we live in a world especially now with social media where we're constantly faced with these filtered realities right of other people and you only see the highlight reel and you never see the the real truth behind any bar afraid to tell the reality exactly so that second one is fear but on the comparison front I think people are afraid to really embrace what they want to do because they're so caught up and well will that ever measure up and that that makes it very very difficult to tune in because you're constantly focused on the external and not enough focused on the internal so that's one serger and then the second one is fear right I think that there's and it's not just fear of failure it's there's so many other types of fear and what I really like thinking about is the fact that I don't know how many are you familiar with human design yes okay so in human design there's the part of you that rules fears also rules intuition and so what's cool is the more you address and embrace and overcome and learn to dance with fear right the more you can tune into your intuition which is that knowing that deep knowing and so I really like to think about you know that idea of feeling the fear and doing it anyway if you didn't feel a little bit afraid about what you're about to do you probably don't care enough about that thing so I actually think that fear is another clue that you're on the right track yeah I'm so pay attention unless this paralyzes you unless it paralyzes you but if even if it paralyzes you ask what why is this paralyzing me and why is this stopping me from proceeding and what again because I'm such a fan of journaling create a list of what you're afraid of and then write down what is actually the worst thing that could happen you know if this were to become true and if you you can kind of vividly picture that reality it often isn't as scary as you think it is exactly I'm so I think a little bit of fear is actually a really good thing you know what we say Alexandre we say where you are uncomfortable to go is usually your work yes I am funny and agree that it's getting out of that comfort zone because that's again where I think the comfort zone is you living the life that five billion other people are living right now and it was I start to move out of that comfort zone and really embrace your natural talents that may not be the talents that everyone is praising people for Epsilon that's really where you can start living an amazing magical life and come alive right per the quote that you that you referenced earlier yeah what I want to ask you one more thing you know one more quote let's take a look at that quote are you ready to stop living on autopilot and are you start ready to start living on purpose I love that yeah tell me more and and thank you too by the way oh thank you for being such a pleasure no I wish I mean I think the work that you're doing is so incredible and gets to this quote right because I think so many people today are living in that autopilot mode and going through the motions and the word to me that that kind of breaks through that is intention right and and purpose is inextricably tied to intention right when you're living on purpose you have a clear sense of that why why you're doing what you're doing and why you are who you are right and so I think the idea is life is way too short to live on autopilot because you're gonna blink and it's gonna be over and who's to say you know we actually are going to get the whatever it is average 78 to 85 years of life right and I think sometimes it helps maybe it'll be a hundred maybe it'd be a hundred and I really I really hope it isn't I believe that it could be um but I don't think that gives us any more license to sit back and wait I think again if you look at my parents generation it was very much the norm to work really hard for the first 50 60 years of your life and then look up and think oh how how do I actually want to make a difference in the world and how do I want to contribute and I am of the belief that people should start doing that a heck of a lot sooner so the sooner you can get off of autopilot off of that kind of ladder or linear path and into a space of intention and I I think the world would be a better place but it would also start enjoying your life a whole lot more yeah and part of actually why we're here is to enjoy life yep cuz they're Greenway Thank You out of course thank you [Music]