Brian S. Lowery

Life is amazing.

Life is incredible.

The experiences we have, the possibilities of personal achievement.

You could summit Everest.

You could create a huge, successful business.

You could give a TED Talk.

And when you're successful, it feels incredible.

Success, the flush of excitement, the celebration, and you should celebrate.

congratulations, the posting on Instagram, wherever you put your stuff up, it all feels great.

But when that fades, when that starts to fade, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once, a question comes up.

Is this it?

Is this all there is?

And so I'm going to tell you a little story about myself to give you a sense of this.

So for those of you who don't know, I'm a professor at Stanford.

When I got my job, I was elated, elated, and a little bit terrified.

And I was terrified because when you get a job like that, you know you're going to be reviewed in about seven years.

And either you're going to be given tenure, more or less a job for life,

or you're going to get fired.

It's a little bit like that movie, Gary Glenn Ross, the scene where Alec Baldwin's character goes in to give the motivational speech, and he says, it's going to be a competition.

First prize, Cadillac Eldorado.