I’ve delivered this speech at high schools dozens of times. I decided to put pen to paper in a sort of speech and publish it. I have been mentoring young people for twenty years now. I am not sure what amazes me more; that virtually all of us struggle to determine what we want to do with our lives, or that it took me decades of teaching before I could understand my purpose. The key for each of us to understand what we are meant to do with our lives is to learn how to align three different components of our development. We need to discover what our dreams are, what our purpose is, and what is our Why.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited with the saying: Life is a journey, not a destination. The idea that the journey, not the destination is what matters resonates with me. However, recently I read an excellent book by Grant Cardone, where he makes a convincing argument that attaining your goals is what we should focus on regardless of how we get there. As I have learned in life, not only can opposing viewpoints be both true and beneficial, but more importantly the willingness to embrace contradictory values is critical to emotional intelligence.

With that stated, when I speak with teenagers I want them to understand that their dreams, and all of our dreams will change throughout our lives. Even the way we label them can shift. Whether we think of them as dreams, goals, our destiny, or something similar; I believe that the way they shape us is what is most relevant in our youth. Many teenagers dream of fame and wealth as adolescents, which is not a bad thing, but as our scope broadens our dreams narrow into specific goals. Whether we achieve any of our goals or not, eventually we all develop new dreams and new goals.

No matter how unfathomable a kid’s dream is, I always encourage them to go after it with all their resolve, courage, and grit. Learning to work hard is a journey that requires no particular destination. Hard work will eventually pay off for everyone willing to do it. We should also not be afraid to fail; on the contrary, we should develop a tolerance for failure early and often. Failure is one of mankind’s greatest teachers. Lastly, developing perseverance will separate us from the masses. Far too often people settle, stop having dreams, and never pursue their purpose. Life is hard; everyone knows this because it’s true for everyone. Even in ideal conditions, life is hard, and for many of us at times life seems impossible. Continuing to dream, working towards our goals, and attaining some of our desires will be a determining factor whether we are simply happy or not.

In the end, the dreams we attain will create the memories we most enjoy sharing with our loved ones, but the dreams we pursue and fail to achieve will develop the character we need to achieve our goals. We will take far more journeys than arrive at our destinations, but without all of the journeys, we will miss our destinations. The dreams we pursue are the first factor in understanding what we should do with each of our lives.

I like to ask high school students if the world is full of problems. This is a rhetorical question, as the world is overwhelmed with problems. Then I ask them, where do they think all these problems come from. For the most part, the challenges we face as a species are manmade. I am an undocumented immigrant, or an illegal alien, as some people like to label me. But who made me illegal? Am I illegal in the eyes of God? Does nature consider me illegal? Has the universe deemed me an illegal? I am only illegal because a series of men arbitrarily created laws and borders to separate neighbors and label us different, foreign, alien. While on an intellectual level, I can regard such labels as indifferent, in reality, they have had a huge negative impact on my life. I cannot escape the manmade problems of my kin.

Kids typically ask me, if adults created most of our problems why can’t we fix them? I respond by stating that a better question is why we created them in the first place. My answer to this question is as follows: most people on this planet are not fulfilling their purpose. Call it God, the universe, or destiny; every person on this good earth serves and has a purpose. The problem is most of us are not serving our purpose. The difference between our dreams and our purpose is that our dreams are meant to serve us, and our purpose is meant to serve others. Jim Carrey once said, “How will you serve the world? What do they need that your talent can provide? That’s all you have to figure out.” So many of us ignore our purpose that humanity suffers.

How do we discover our purpose? The best thing about our purpose is also the worst thing about our purpose. Our dreams and our purpose are almost identical. We can discover our purpose in this life. The problem is our purpose will be different enough from our dreams that we will not want to do it. My dream, what I choose to do with my life, and what I love doing more than anything else is to help others. The reason I love helping others is that it makes me feel so good about myself. In other words, helping others is not about them; it’s about me and how I like making myself happy. But that is not my purpose in this world.

I have more than one talent, but what I am truly gifted at is encouraging others. I remember the first time I learned that I was so disappointed, it seemed so passive and lazy to me to just encourage others. What I had to learn is that the reason I didn’t like is that encouraging others made my efforts about them and not about me. My purpose is different enough from my dream that I have to work at it every day to make sure I am not selfishly ignoring my greatest talent. The reward for fulfilling our purpose is that it helps us understand what we are supposed to do with our lives.

No matter how much we desire our dreams and are willing to fulfill our purpose without a Why we will not have the grit and resolve to see our dreams through. So what is our Why? Our Why is the external motivator that will give us the drive and perseverance to not give up when we encounter inevitable overwhelming challenges, but more importantly, keep our focus during the monotonous marathon that is our journey during the pursuit of success. I like to tell students this story when I explain how to discover your Why.

I wake up at 4:30 AM every morning for work. I do it because I know my hard work will pay off. Even though I love my work and my life, and I am happy; I still hate waking up early. I am not a morning person, I detest the mornings and I am miserable when I wake up. However, there was a time in my life when I was so excited to wake up in the morning that I sometimes would wake up before 4 AM. During this time in my life, I only got to see my best friend at 5 AM in the morning. She and I worked at the same gym and Monday through Friday we got to spend an hour together before the club opened at 6 AM. It was the highlight of my day. I used to hate weekends because we only did morning shifts during the week. The worst day of my week was Friday because I knew I would go three days before seeing her again. Fortunately, that’s not the case anymore, but the best way I can explain what your Why is, is to ask you: What is it in this world that would cause you to not only wake up at 4 AM or earlier every morning but so excited to start your day that you feel it is the best part of your day?

I am embarrassed to write this now, but I used to arrive at the parking lot 15 to minutes early because I did not want to miss one second with her. Every day when she pulled in she would ask me, have you been here long? I would always pretend that I arrived a minute before her. Your Why is whatever in life makes you act this way and keeps you acting this way throughout the years. I arrived at that empty gym parking lot for over a year before my immigration status forced me to leave that job. I would have continued to do for as long as my Why was there to motivate me. For most of us, our Why will always include other people.

The only way to determine what we are supposed to do with our lives is to discover and align our dreams, our purpose, and our Why. It will require us endless hard work, grit, and perseverance. But when we do we get a Steve Jobs, a Malala, a Mother Theresa. When we do the world is never the same, it is much much better.

Dedicated to my favorite Clemson Tiger. Go Get Em Lindsey! Don’t let life’s challenges get you down too long. “You’re going to make a wonderful adult.” Le Petit Prince