Is it possible to find your life purpose in a quick easy way?

Are you someone who’s been searching for your life purpose and feeling frustrated because God hasn’t revealed the magic formula or the secret to you? Or, are you someone who is multi-talented and just can’t pin down on one area of interest to call your ‘life's purpose?’ Perhaps, you are someone who knows what your purpose is but afraid to step into your calling. Whichever one you are, if finding and fulfilling your life purpose is what you are struggling with, then this article is just for you.

This week I had the great fortune of interviewing Stephen De Sede, a Brand Storyteller, Content Creator, Humanitarian, a truly Selfless human being who generously shares from his own life experiences. Steve is a gifted content creator, and his passion in life is to help people overcome doubt, find passion, and unlock their source of courage. Steve & I talked about finding purpose, listening to one's intuition, going beyond the herd mentality, among other topics. Read on, and savor the wisdom.

Question: You shared in 2008 after you filed for bankruptcy, got divorced, and miraculously escaped a suicide attempt. How did you turn your life around?

Steve: I have a simple philosophy that God burdens those who he's gifted to handle it. I have been blessed with this insane ability to make videos, create content, write poetry, and create graphics. In fact, everything you see today on 'De Sede' platforms is done by me. Back in 2011, when I was creating videos - I knew the videos were good, but I didn't think I was good enough to show them.

Then 4 years later in 2015, a little boy by the name of Nathaniel came onto in my life. And even though I never met him, his short life of 159 days had a life-altering impact on me. When Nathaniel's life intersected mine, I felt a tremendous sense of obligation to the gift of my life. I decided in my heart to accept my gift (of inspiring people) and the responsibility that comes with accepting this gift.

It took me some time to understand that sometimes your character can't keep up to where your talent will take you. So, Robin Williams as an example, who I think was hysterically funny. He had such a talent, but his character couldn't keep him there. I made all of these videos because of this insane talent that I was gifted with, but for eight years, I never showed anyone the videos because my character convinced me I wasn't good enough to show them. 

Question: What was that transition point for you when you accepted that you were good enough and you could share your videos with the world?

Steve: I wish I could say there's one precise magical moment that changed things, but it wasn't so. In reality, it took about two or three years for me to actually see what people were saying about the impact I had on them before it got to a point where I just needed to accept the blinding obvious truth that if you have an ability to help people, so go do it.

To get the core of the answer to your question is most people are looking for a light bulb moment in life is not like that.

• The universe was not a light bulb moment.
• The seasons come and go over weeks.
• Love forms over months and weeks.
• Relationships form over months and weeks.

But then people expect their destiny or their purpose to just be like a light bulb, and it doesn't work that way. The light bulb itself was what? 10000 efforts to get a light bulb to work before it finally worked.

Now we just expect life and those magic moments in the inspirations and the defining moments of life to be like a light bulb. And like the light bulbs, those moments take 10,000 failures before they finally happen. So, I just got to a point where it became self-evident that I had some capability to inspire people.

In my case, Nathaniel’s life was a call to action to my life, and I believe that now my life is a call to action to a lot of people that I've met.

Question: After you filed for bankruptcy, got divorced, escaped a suicide attempt, what gave you the courage or faith to keep going?

Steve: Bankruptcy can be financial, or emotional. Financial bankruptcy is like a slap in the face, it hurts. Emotional bankruptcy robs you of the breathing of your soul. And a lot of people use financial bankruptcy to get out of situations and things like that.

But I actually went emotionally bankrupt, and that was the thing that crippled me for years. Most people have never filed for financial bankruptcy, but most people have traversed through emotional bankruptcy in their life in some way. So many people who have never filed for financial bankruptcy are emotionally bankrupt. That's very, that's a very significant thing to say.

The second issue, to go back to your point of what caused me to keep going, I actually don't know. I think every person has a level of compassion, and for whatever reason, my level of compassion never switched off. The only thing was my level of empathy and compassion to myself was almost a zero. I wouldn't allow anyone to live the life that I've lived, but for some reason, I thought for a long time it was okay that I should.

Question: When did you realize that you were emotionally bankrupt?

Steve: When my marriage failed, then everything fell apart. When all that was left was me, I put the roof down in a convertible and tried to end my life because I thought if all that's left is me, what's the point?

To me, emotional bankruptcy is when you look in the mirror and can’t love what you see. It’s got very little to do with your wallet.

Question: If becoming emotionally rich is doing what you love, what advice would you go to someone who enjoys lots of things and yet, has no clue about their purpose?

Steve: Human beings live in three patterns that break down into nine to what I call, "Nine Behavioral Engagements." These patterns are:

1. Humans are herd animals (as in, humans always want to belong to a community)
2. Humans live in patterns (as in, we act according to cultural conditioning and circumstances we grew up in)
3. Success and failure leave clues ( that is, every single thing you've ever done in your life that's been a success and or a failure, it's attributed to three things.

• not speaking up and not following your heart,
• hesitating and not following your intuition and,
• our addiction to opinion

We are addicted to opinion to the point that it makes us hesitate before we act. It makes us not wanting to speak up just in case we don't fit in. So, to go back to your original question, most people are too afraid to say they are looking for their life purpose because that might make me not fit into their community. It might make them challenge against their culture, conditions, and circumstances.

Question: I know a lot of people want to break out of their social conditioning but still have one foot in one world and other foot in another. What advice can you give them to follow their heart? I know it sounds simple, but sometimes it isn’t.

Steve: It’s realizing that you no longer live in a small local community, you are a part of the global virtual community where the constraints, conditioning of your community or culture no longer applies. Examples like the "Me Too" movement in Hollywood clearly demonstrate that we live in a virtual society now and people outside of your culture will support you for it.

As an example, I was so focused on holding onto what I had, that I never reached out to what I thought was hope. But the actual effort of reaching out is called faith. Most people hope they can grab the next rail on the train so they don't fall over and they don't have the faith to let one go before they get the other. So everyone's walking around going as long as I can actually hold this one and then get this one, I'll be okay. Well I, I spent nine years in the middle having faith that would work out and hoping my character would catch up. And it has!

Question: You mentioned that we should all change fast and fail fast. What suggestion would you give anyone resisting change because of their perfectionist tendencies?

Steve: Perfection is fear in fancy dress by the way. When people say they just want to do things perfectly, it’s fear. When people are angry, again, anger is the voice of fear. It’s part of the ego's job.

The very first thing I would say to people is - forget about your purpose. Forget about that Utopian place that you're seeking. Now ask yourself - What is it that makes you happy? And, go out and do that for the next couple of hours.

 The first thing that I did after my lowest point in life was, I spend a long time immersed in my talent, not believing I was good enough to share it, but I kept at it, and I knew that one day I would find a way to help people. I immersed myself in the joys and hardships of life and from those parameters, I started working at what I wanted to do.

Stop worrying about trying to find this magic treasure called the purpose. It will come when you discover how good you are. Stop focusing on what's wrong and go and actually speak to people.

Bronnie Ware in her book shares that the top five regrets of dying people as:

1.      I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2.      I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3.      I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings

4.      I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5.      I wish that I had let myself be happier.

About 98% of people in the world are actually living out the script of these five regrets. 

Question: What kind of impact do you want to make on people at large in next 5-10 years?

Steve: My number one focus has to be an example of - I don't care about your opinion because I care so much about you. I don't need to worry about what you think of me because I love you so much.

The second thing is to be an example of speaking up and never hesitating.

My phone screensaver has my life’s mantra, which is, "To tilt the axis of the world by touching people’s hearts." My REAL job is that I am a Universal Courier sent out to answer your doubts.

Question: How did your mindset shift to ‘I love you so much that I don’t care what you think about me?”

Steve: It didn't happen in an instant. It happened over a decade. It's only in the last couple of years that I've started to get this present to telling everyone where I am. I've come out of hibernation. But all I did was actually spent nine years getting ready to do it.

My character kept telling me that something was wrong, and my talent kept producing it as an extreme level until the two of them aligned and I just got to a point where I sold out that this is just what I'm supposed to do.

Most people don't realize that when you find your purpose on the other side of your purpose is the destined responsibility to do something with it. When people find their purpose, they run back from it because it's too hard and it's easy to go out on a Friday night.

Question: What’s the final piece of advice that you would like to give?

Steve: My advice is to start listening to inspirational stuff. Get around people that you admire and have a conversation with them, invite them to meet you for coffee, ask questions, become a student of life rather than become an extent of excuse.

If you don't know what your purpose is, or you're a guy who thinks he's so broken, no one will hear you still make content, and if you don't want to show anyone, that's cool cause I'm proof you can create content and not show anyone. 

Most people look into the past of their life and take their burdens and put them as hurdles in their future. People like me have decided to take the burdens of my past and put them in my future as platforms to serve from.

I was so focused on holding onto what I had, that I never reached out to what I thought was hope. But the actual effort of reaching out is called faith. I spent nine years in the middle having faith that would work out and hoping my character would catch up. And it has. The biggest thing of all is to stop waiting for your purpose to arrive and start preparing for it. And whether your talent thinks sure you're good enough to get you to places, but your character is not good enough to sustain you there – doesn’t matter. Start preparing for the opportunity of your life rather than waiting for your life's opportunity cause it doesn't work that way.

I hope you enjoyed and learned from this interview as much as I did. You can (I would say MUST) connect with Steve on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

You can read Stephen's Pledge for Nathaniel here (download Chapter 13).

You can check out Kiran's book on Overcoming Fear and Failure here.