Dave Evans

What do people mean when they're talking about meaning, do you think?

That's a big one.

Well, the reason we wrote this book, I'm going to get fairly direct, is that what overwhelmingly people mean when they talk to us about the meaning they're not getting enough of is they're talking about one of two things.

Primarily, they're talking about having an impact.

I'm making a difference.

Am I changing the world?

Do I matter?

Is it working?

Did I make the impact that would make my life worthwhile?

I'd say 90% of the people we've been talking to recently that motivated us to write this book, the one and only valid form of meaning-making they've named is impact.

And then right behind that would be fulfillment.

I'm just not being fulfilled.

And for most people, fulfillment means, am I getting to manifest the fullness of who I really am?

Because that's what Maslow told them fulfillment was in the original 1943 paper that invented the hierarchy of needs, according to Abraham Maslow.

The apex was self-actualization.

And you attain self-actualization by literally becoming all that one can be.

And if you become all that one can be, according to Maslow, you will experience fulfillment.

And we think that's dead wrong because we've known for a long time in the Life Design Lab that all of us contain far more aliveness than one lifetime permits us to live out.

There's more than one of you in there.

That's the good news.