EP1 - Purpose: How to help young people and adults identify a purpose and act on it.

0:00 welcome to the hero next door podcast where we feature stories of everyday Heroes people who show caring through their actions I'm Marilyn Fitzpatrick I'm a psychologist and an Emeritus professor of counseling psychology at McGill University today our hero is tiberio malayu our Focus for this episode is on how youth develop a sense of purpose and how they act on that

0:31 is a young man who lives in Chile like many of us he got bored in the pandemic and ended up starting a project that has helped many children in Chile stay in school he's a passionate and purposeful young man who inspires me after we hear from tabario we'll be talking to Professor Kendall cotton Bronk Kendall received her PhD from Stanford University her career is devoted to studying youth

1:04 purpose she and I will talk about what purpose is and how it differs from other kinds of goals she has plenty of expertise in how purpose impacts young people what happens to them when they develop a sense of purpose and we'll be considering what purpose contributes to the lives of Youth including those who don't by reason of their circumstances get a great start we'll also be diving into ideas of how

1:34 to cultivate purpose in young people as a parent as teacher or Community leader as a counselor or therapist so by the end of today's episode you'll have a better understanding of what purpose is and how to nurture it in Youth and maybe even some ideas for yourself and you'll have the inspiring words of tiberial malawiu as a shining example of Youth purpose [Music]

2:07 so my name is and yes I started this project that where we collect smartphones so broken smartphones we fix them and then we give them to kids at the end of 2020 I mean October more or less we manage the project where we helped students in in in a very very vulnerable Public School in in Chile that you know is linked to my school we help them do their homework

2:37 basically we are soon so we were just helping them continue learning and as just as older students answering questions for younger students public schools in Chile I didn't have online classes the entire year entire 2020 which was which is a huge problem and some still don't have enough don't have all the students connected up to this day so I realized during this time that most of the students couldn't connect to our classes only like eight or nine were

3:06 able to really connect and you know have receive our help which was the basis of the program a tough time for the entire country we're not able to help children in very very deep need because education is the foundation of us of our society so that was very uh tough for me right I I it was a problem that stuck in my head I didn't figure out something to do because I I just I don't know what

3:35 what could a 17 year old do at that time so time went by and then January 2021 I was stuck All Summer in my house you know quarantine on the weekends I couldn't leave I couldn't see friends I was very bored curiosity made me try to figure out how a smartphone looked and worked from the inside I have no idea how it worked how it functioned I was completely clueless but I just I don't know I I just bought

4:03 the tools without thinking I was like you know what I'm gonna do this now and I opened the smartphone which was my mother's smartphone the first phone I tried to fix in quotes because I didn't fix anything I completely broke it but in that process I learned you know the subtleness of certain parts on how to manipulate the device what what you should and what you shouldn't touch you know which processes what comes first you know the steps and basically how to

4:31 really open a smartphone I learned basically online on my own and after a lot of trial and error I discovered I could fix a smartphone and at that time I was like wait I just fixed a smartphone with my own hands what if I give this you know I I give this device to children and I keep on doing the same and I was like you know what yes I wanna I'm gonna do this why not I have time I'm bored I I I really

5:02 want to help somebody I've discovered this problem why don't I use my own time and effort to do this and that's when the project began but this isn't a one-man show that's I need to clarify it's a team and it all began when my brother said you know what I don't know how to fix smartphones I've been seeing you fixing for a couple last days can I can I learn can I help you and he also started helping and fixing

5:32 devices with me and that's when the project became uh I discovered that the real future of the project was in in a teamwork my brother was very kind to start drawing getting all the animations and everything all the Flyers and posters so we started sending them to WhatsApp and me and all the social media and we started getting a lot of devices the way we fix smartphones that's why this project is so beautiful we do not

5:59 buy parts what we do is we receive for example three broken phones completely destroyed screens batteries antennas whatever it is destroyed and we mix Parts between each other and we create one fully functioning phone which will later be donated to the to our children in a vulnerable school when we began we had no clue on where we're going to get parts to fix broken devices because we just had a lot of broken phones and we're like well are we going

6:30 to buy them but bear in mind we are students with no money with absolutely we were like what and that was that was really a difficult challenge trying to figure out how to and we figured out this solution which turned out to be the best one and that's that that was the beauty because everybody could work you just needed the time the energy and the motivation to do so and and that's how this project started growing at the

6:56 beginning was very slow but then a couple of of people started writing and they were like hey Trudy I would really like to join I have I have spare time could you please teach me how to fix smartphones I was like yes of course why not and and that's how the group started getting bigger and bigger and bigger and and I realized that this could really be a project which we could really have an impact on different schools and people

7:22 and the educational process of students around Chile that evokes true happiness in me because I saw my time my effort my knowledge everything I had learned all the effort I had put into fixing this device in the hands of another student and I knew that that student was going to be able to continue their educational process and at least get another chance to keep on learning which is why what I believe the most important thing we can

7:50 do as humans and this has further raised my Awareness on on the problems we have yet to solve and how and how important this is to our society on how important it is for for us to have a good and strong education for everybody not for just some because if only some get the equality education then they basically you know they can I wouldn't say control but take advantage of the others that are not as as aware

8:20 as them on certain topics and situations so I think it has made me more aware of social issues and and and and made me try to and find other and new ways to uh to combat them in how to start I believe that you don't need to fly to a rural country and you know try to you know change the world somebody in somebody else's backyard I think there's a lot of issues right in your community which you

8:49 could start on start off by confronting and it doesn't have to be a huge project and be all over it's just something that makes a difference if it has to be huge and it'll be huge then time will tell and then good good for you but the objective is not making something huge the objective is helping I think that helping others and really helping others makes a difference not only in them but in you you really

9:16 feel the difference as I said there's just something I maybe I call it true happiness but maybe something somebody feels it in a different way and it's just a feeling you get when you're really helping other by stepping in their shoes so what I mean by social work is not just you know giving monetary giving something monetary or something material is more as giving your time your effort and your knowledge those giving those three things is really what's most valuable to

9:49 you as a person your most valuable thing is time and if you really give another your time you're really stepping in that person's shoe and showing them that you care and that evokes that feeling in you that's really really special I had the chance to experience it and it's addicting it's it's beautiful to help and I think that's that's the only inspiration you should really have to start these things is to really help

10:20 so I'm here this afternoon with Kendall Bronk uh Kendall got her PhD from Stanford University and she's currently a professor of psychology in the division of Behavioral and social sciences at Claremont Graduate University she studies Youth and particularly youth purpose what does purpose look like in youth with particular emphasis on young people who are facing Global challenges

10:50 and and what how do they navigate those challenges and find purpose uh she's also has a lot of expertise in creating and testing strategies for fostering purpose among Youth and she's going to share some of those tools with us today so welcome Kendall thank you I'm I'm excited to be here wow it's wonderful to get to talk to you um I know you've had a chance to look at tavario's interview and we talked for a couple of minutes before we started he's

11:21 truly an inspiring young man isn't he he really is what an inspiring young person yeah really a great a great example of purpose he truly is so talk to us if you can a little bit about how you understand youth purpose so what actually is purpose in a young person and maybe also tease out for us a little bit how that's different from just goals yeah yeah good question yeah so um when we think about purpose I think about

11:53 kind of a compass right that that's sort of pointing us in a particular direction and a purpose acts like that it's it's pointing Us in the direction uh where we want to you know head in our lives and what we want to accomplish in our lives um we've been really engaged uh in our lab here at Claremont Graduate University and studying purpose and when we want to study purpose we have to have a pretty clearly uh delineated

12:17 definition of purpose and actually I think um talking through that can be kind of helpful so the way that we think about purpose it has really three components the first is sort of a goal-oriented component um there definitely is a dimension of goal orientation in a purpose in life because there's something that a young person is working towards something they want to accomplish something they want to make progress to and I think one way that a

12:41 purpose is different from a goal is that it's um it may or may not be a goal that's ever fully achievable right if you want to um young people sometimes find purpose in doing things like um like to burial trying to help young people gain access to education which is a touristic goal but it it in a terrific aim and a terrific intention but it's it may never be fully uh realizable I mean there's so many young people in the

13:09 world who still lack access to education um so when we think about the goal-oriented dimension of purpose it's important to keep in mind that it may or may not be an aim that is fully achievable but it is definitely one towards which you can make some progress as tavario clearly did so that's the First Dimension a purpose in life has this sort of goal-oriented intention behind it the second uh component is that we have lots of goals there are

13:35 lots of even goal-oriented sort of intentions in our lives but a purpose is one that's really meaningful to us it matters to us in fact it matters so much that we are willing to dedicate our time our energy and our personal resources in in order to make progress towards it again to various like the perfect example of that because um he took a ton of time learning how to rehab these cell phones and and um you

14:03 know putting them to use with these with the the young people in his community so he was really not just something that mattered to him and that he talked about but something that mattered so much that it motivated him to act it was really that action component eh that's a tremendously important piece exactly tremendously important and that's what I think differentiates a purpose from like a dream or a hope important things but that active engagement really

14:30 differentiates it so we have that goal-oriented uh intention you have that personal meaningfulness that that motivates action and then the third component of purpose that I think is really important to keep in mind is that it's not just directed towards our ourselves right it's not just I you know I find all I want my my purpose in life is to be rich and famous right that that may give your life meaning it's possible but we wouldn't say that's a purpose

14:55 because that's only directed at the self whereas a purpose is also it's inspired by a desire to make a difference in the world beyond the self so tavario wasn't doing this for himself I love when he says um the real motivation really it came from seeing those pictures of the kids and they were just grinning ear to ear I love that but I mean it's really clear he wasn't doing it for himself he wasn't doing it for you know fame or Glory I

15:22 mean who was really doing it for the young people it enabled him to make a difference in the lives of somebody Beyond himself so when we think about purpose we want to keep in mind I think all of those components that that goal-oriented intention really personally meaningful um so much so that it it moves you to act and the third part that it's inspired at least in part by a desire to make a difference in the world beyond

15:45 the self toberra spent quite a bit of time talking about how he felt the the the project he was doing benefited him yeah yeah is that typical yes it actually is it's very typical and that's why I say at least in part motivated by a desire to make a difference in the broader world because what we see is that most human activities have there's there's multiple motivations for almost all the things that we do yeah and young people

16:16 do tend to find purpose in um completing activities that are personally fulfilling as well in fact we yeah we often find that purpose is sort of the intersection of um your skills and your talents and they they enable you to take those skills and talents and put them to work um doing something that's meaningful to you so obviously he had this real special skill I could never do this around fixing cell phones um figuring out how to take broken when he started

16:44 though oh no right imagine taking it apart and like I wonder how that works oh I I get nervous pushing buttons and I'm gonna undo something yeah exactly I mean they were taking parts from different phones and rebuilding them that's remarkable but but even more remarkable I think is that he found a way of using his special skill to act in a way that was really meaningful to him to to to benefit others I mean there's a

17:11 lot of people probably who not not myself but who might know how to do this kind of cell phone reconstruction work but that's only part one he figured out a way to take this skill and to use it to benefit the young people in his community who didn't otherwise have access to education and so that's that's that second part is taking your spill special skill or talent and using it to address a personally meaningful need in

17:38 the broader World um and and it does feel good I mean that's the good news about purpose it's not usually a miserable uh Pursuit it can be difficult at times but it's so meaningful that it can also be really wonderful and and um joyful kind of experience so in your work I've seen you um tell stories of other uh other young people and how they found their purpose of how what their purpose meant to them do you think uh so Tiberia was 17 at the

18:10 time of that interview and do you think a 17 year old or a young person of University age but should we expect them to self to know this because I I look at his path and he kind of stumbled on it almost in the sense it's like I'm kind of bored let me take this cell phone apart oh and I'm trying to reach these young people for tutoring and I can't get to them like it all just it it

18:38 wasn't as if this was a plan he simply grabbed some things that were in his environment and worked with them yeah yeah no and I think I mean I think there are there our research would suggest in this kind of uh is backed up by tiberio's experience that there are sort of three paths to purpose um one is like you said there are some young people who have a plan there are some young people who say here's this

19:06 great big need in this world and I am going to figure out how to address it so the need comes first and they they they take the steps they need to take in order to um you know work towards that goal or that purpose um there is some portion of young people for whom that's their path to purpose um but then there is and then there's another path to purpose where actually young people will look at other people

19:30 and say wow look at what tabario's doing that's really cool I want to do something like that in my life so what they do is they look towards others as sources of inspiration and that inspires their own purpose but then the third path is really what I think we saw tiberio take which is more of you're doing something and you start to realize wait a minute this this is this matters to me like I kind of fell into it because he was just

19:57 doing the I think he was doing the tutoring and um like you said then he was unable to reach the kids and he realized like wait that mattered to me engaging with those kids and helping those kids we don't know exactly what his motivation was in the first place for getting involved it sounds like it was a school activity yeah yeah but once he was doing it and all of a sudden he couldn't do it he realized

20:16 like wait this matters to me these young people matter to me I want to find a way to help them so it's it's through being involved in something and almost looking backwards and recognizing like yes this matters to me and and that's how you sort of find your purpose so one's more forward-looking you set a goal you work toward it um another one is you know looking at young people other people who have done something and being inspired by that to

20:41 do sort of the same kind of thing and the other is doing all these different activities and looking backwards and realizing wait it's not until I'm further along that I realize this really does matter to me and this this might be my purpose and I didn't I didn't set out for it to be my purpose but it turns out that it is so if if there's young people listening to us they shouldn't be concerned that like I don't know what to do right yeah

21:05 no that was the first part of your question sorry I didn't get to that that's okay um you you're right most young people I mean tavario is pretty um pretty exceptional and most young people they are still figuring it out even into their into their mid-20s in fact our research would suggest that even most adults are still figuring it out so that's not to say we shouldn't uh we shouldn't try but I hope it is to

21:28 suggest that there shouldn't be a lot of anxiety around recognizing that we're still figuring it out because that's very much a natural process our research kind of suggests that maybe one in ten young people in the middle school years has it has a good sense of what their purpose might be so very rare in the high school years which is actually where tiberio would would be um maybe one in five um can young people kind of have a sense

21:55 of where they're headed and and grasp on their purpose College age young people maybe one in three and then adults it's only about 40 percent so I guess this is to say yeah we don't worry not everybody else has it sorted out um it takes some time um but but uh but you can you can get there so we'll talk really I hope in in some detail about ways that you know to get there yeah but first maybe you would

22:25 talk to us a little bit about what happens to people when they have a sense of purpose good good I'm really excited but yeah what happens in general yeah yeah one thing I want to mention just before I do is I want to say that I actually really believe that all people have a purpose 100 of them have a purpose I really do and I think that for the people who are um falling into the you know at

22:53 showing up on our surveys is not having purpose I think they haven't really gotten in touch with it yet and so I really do believe that all people um have a purpose and that all people are able to connect with that purpose they just haven't done it yet so I think if if you're a young person and you're feeling a little bit of anxiety around like I feel like I should have this figured out and I don't just add that

23:17 yet to the end it's it's it's coming it's possible I don't think there's anybody who doesn't have a purpose it's just uh maybe we haven't connected with it yet it's like Carol lux's idea of Mastery learning right I don't don't know yet but I'm going to know we're going to get there I think that's an important point to make okay um your other question though was around what are some of the benefits associated with leading a life of purpose and it

23:43 turns out there are tons which is which is really inspiring to learn um I would put them into sort of three General buckets the first is the psychological benefits associated with leading a life of purpose so you could just hear the the good feel feeling sort of oozing off to vario as he was talking about it and that's really typical we find that young people with purpose compared to young people who don't have their purpose yet identified

24:10 um they tend to report higher levels of Hope and positive affect and life satisfaction so all the things we really want for our young people in addition to psychological well-being there's actually a decent amount of research coming out that looks at physical health benefits it turns out that individuals with a purpose in life tend to be physically healthier than individuals who lack a purpose um and so things like cardiovascular functioning is better among young people with per individual I should say really

24:42 adults most of the research here is with adults with purpose less chronic pain individuals with purpose sleep better they have fewer they report fewer sleep disturbances at night which I always um is kind of remarkable but but maybe not as remarkable as the fact that research pretty consistent certainly finds that individuals with a purpose in life they live longer lives so purpose is associated with longevity um and it could be the case that uh you know a lot of This research is sort of

25:10 correlational so it could be that um having a purpose in life contributes to good health or that being you know maybe healthier people are more likely to develop a purpose but it turns out that most of the research suggests that having a purpose in life is likely to contribute to um to these health benefits so there's all kinds of epigenetic research looking at that and um people with purpose tend to engage in more Health sustaining Behavior seeing

25:36 their doctor getting enough sleep all these different kinds of things so really inspiring there and then sort of the third bucket um is the academic well-being so we're talking about young people with purpose and as they are figuring out what their purpose is they're more likely to um to report high scores of grit and grit is sort of this this desire to stick with it I realized you you know I mean certainly taverio is he talked a

26:00 lot about working on these phones I think he he didn't it wasn't successful of his first one um but he stuck with it and um and we do see that that young people with purpose tend to be grittier they also tend to be more resilient they're they're better prepared to sort of bounce back from the challenges that they encounter at school or outside of school and um one thing that's really remarkable but I think you see this in

26:25 in tiberio's story they they find their schoolwork to be much more meaningful and I think that makes sense if if you know what it is that you are hoping to achieve in your life and you can see how the things that you're doing in school now are helping to get you there it makes sense that that work would feel more meaningful to you and tiberio didn't necessarily talk about what he was doing in school but I mean he

26:46 definitely found a lot of meaning and sort of struggling with these phones and figuring them out uh once you realized what he was gonna you know do with them so there's certainly lots and lots of benefits for people adults as as well as young people in understanding their purpose and living their purpose let's um talk a little bit if we can about how they get there like what I know you've studied I don't know if you'd call them

27:13 interventions or ways to help young people or adults I mean lots of adults would like help with this work too so how would you would you do you have different categories of those that you could let us know about yeah yeah so lots of different strategies that we have found um to help cultivate purpose so I'll share a few of those strategies with you one of the things that I do want to sort of preface this with is that

27:43 um what works for one person may or may not work for another so if this uh strategy if this is something you maybe you're working with young people and you're thinking I don't know if that would work but maybe if I changed it like this try it try it there's nothing magical about what I'm sharing and um okay I think that uh making modifications doesn't necessarily mean these won't be effective um and and I just want to the other

28:08 thing I want to say too is to keep in mind especially if you are a young person that finding your purpose in life it's it's a developmental thing it kind of goes along with things like identity development figuring out who you are um and and often at the same time so figuring out who you are sort of the identity part but a lot of young people are also trying to figure out what is it I want to accomplish in my life and

28:29 that's sort of that purpose part um they tend to kind of go along together but you can't really Rush identity development and so purpose development is also going to unfold a little bit at its own timetable so be patient with yourself um that said we do have some some strategies that I can share with you I think it's always I always like to start with this um the the the very first one of the very first studies we ever

28:55 conducted on youth purpose was where we sort of stumbled into uh this idea of how we might be able to help cultivate purpose so like all good science it was a sheer accident um we were doing this study right yeah yeah um in all humility um it we were doing the study and we administered surveys to about a thousand young people across uh North America and the surveys were designed to get a sense of how much purpose they had in their

29:24 lives we just randomly selected about a hundred young people and they participated in this interview with us the interview was like a one-time maybe a 50-minute conversation um designed to take a little deeper dive into how they developed their purpose what they saw their purpose as right the content of their purpose Sports and obstacles to to pursuing their purpose that kind of thing and invariably we would finish the interviews and young people would say like wow I said some good stuff in there

29:55 um I liked where I was going can I can I get a copy of that recording or can I get the transcript and that got us wondering like is it possible that this interview was an intervention without you know meeting to be so um as as luck would have it we'd actually plan to survey everybody all thousand young people several months later after the interview so it was like 18 months between the two survey periods so one of my colleagues um Matt bundick

30:23 he actually decided to look at the young people who participated this interview their time one and time two survey scores on purpose and the young people who didn't participate in the interview and their rate of change and purpose and as you've probably anticipated that the young people who participated in this one-time interview about the things that matter most to them had significantly higher scores on purpose so this is and that was like two months later wasn't it

30:49 oh it was like nine months later yeah yeah so um so I think uh so I guess this points to a couple things one is that you can find your purpose um and this is probably why I also believe that everybody had a purpose probably before and the interview this active sort of talking it through with young people and pushing them a little like say more tell me more about that and um you know asking questions what do you

31:16 want to accomplish in your life and why why would that be important to you uh you know these kinds of things really push them to help to help them connect with something that was probably already there yeah but they hadn't really articulated before and in fact this interview was so effective we actually turned it into an activity my colleagues um at Stanford did that's available online and it's called understanding purpose through interviews um maybe we can put a note to it in the

31:44 show no link yeah yeah um but it's it's a widely it's available anybody can use it and it's it gives you some guidance on how to sort of do an Abridged version of the interview that we administered it also takes you through this sort of Mind mapping activity where you think about what are the things yeah that you care about and connecting those to skills and uh helps you sort of draw some of those connections so I think that's the first

32:10 strategy to think about is maybe you want to try it if this is appropriate for for you oh I think well it reminds me there's there's quite a bit of values research on priming right right you prime a value and then you measure if you prime a caring value you measure the caring recommendations people make about the environment or the things that they're going to do to help the researcher there's a there's a bunch of studies out there and and so it sounds

32:37 like that's kind of what you were doing you took your Prime and you turned it into an intervention which is really creative yeah and I think one of the key things too is there's a reflective component so I think that in our busy lives we don't always step back and think about what is it that I want to accomplish in my life in this interview it necessarily carved out time and um focused the young person on that you

33:02 know take some time we would there's moments in the interviews where there's just silence to say take a moment and think this through and and um and that's that could be pretty powerful to help carve out that time in that space and scaffold that that self-reflective process that I think is really key to cultivating purpose that's great and and the online intervention if people are involved as counselors in schools or Community leaders or something like that those are

33:30 things they have kind of a template to start to work with the people with the young people who come into their orbit exactly exactly it's an easy um it's an easy uh sort of guided activity to walk through with uh with a young person um but if that's not an appropriate way to interact with the young person another option is to to be a model of purpose I think that um we as adults we interact with young

33:59 people and we don't always step back and share our own person our own purpose in life with the young people in our lives so whether you're a teacher or a parent or a mentor there are opportunities to to think about you know if you're if you have Clarity around your own purpose to share that with a young person and to um to use the language of purpose and to sort of talk about the the way in which

34:24 you discovered your purpose so in some ways tiberio's example is so inspiring that it might make some young person feel like wow he's amazing and I'm not sure that I could do something quite so so impressive um and so but if you know if you are working with a young person as a teacher or a you know Mentor or something your example might feel a little more accessible at least there's that possibility so so consider talking with

34:51 the young person about your own purpose we also find that when you share something as intimate and personal as your own Purpose with the young person it tends to result in bonding right there's going to be some so even if even if that's not the uh uh the the the story that that cracks it all open for the young person which it might be but even if it's not there's going to be good stuff that kind of comes out of

35:15 that um so I think that's another thing to think about and it is it is true that when we talk about our purpose in life that's something that's moving okay like if I I know when I do this I feel almost shy yeah right right there's a vulnerability yeah yeah yeah yeah and yet it's and and that's I think that that facilitates that social connection too so um it can really help a young person it provides them with a really

35:45 unintimidating example of purpose um it helps them start thinking about their own purpose and like I said it has this sort of added side benefit of often uh sort of cementing or strengthening that social Bond yeah wonderful um one of the yeah one another activity that we have tried in our own lab and found to be quite uh effective is this email activity and what we did in this activity was we asked young people um send an email to five different

36:16 adults who know you well so these could be extended family members it could be a boss it could be a coach it could be um a mentor but identify five adults who you think know you really well and ask if they will answer three questions about you the young person and the three questions we want these adults to answer are number one what do you think I do particularly well number two what do you think I really enjoy and

36:46 number three how do you think I will leave my mark and it turns out that you want to make sure to ask the adult please only spend five minutes you want their gut reaction you do sometimes adults will get a little Tangled Up and oh my gosh I want to word this just right that's not the point the point is that gut reaction you want to make sure they get to it and get it back but what we've found is for the

37:09 young people who get responses from from the adults in their lives it can be really eye-opening like wow three of the people who who knew me said um they really recognize my skill with uh maybe into various Case Technology or with uh you know children or you know who knows and and sometimes that is really enlightening for a young person it can be um help you know so so maybe they the young person themselves doesn't really

37:37 know what their purpose is yet but this collection of adults together might offer Insight that offers a pretty good a pretty good starting point for thinking about what it could be at the very least they come away feeling there are five people in the world who notice me and care about me well and that's that's the other thing I was going to say is each of these activities has um Merit and and utility in their own

38:00 right even if they don't successfully cultivate purpose we have found that they do I mean we have tested them but they don't 100 of the time for 100 of the people uh we compared them to Memory activities and things like that so they do help um but like yes exactly like you said even if they aren't immediately effective around purpose there's good stuff that comes out of them um one of the other activities that I wanted to suggest is it just doing

38:28 exactly what tiberio did which is engaging in the community so he was involved if he hadn't been involved in this volunteer work working with the young people as a tutor um he probably would have never developed this purpose at least it's possible he wouldn't have because he wouldn't have known about the need and um so helping and again research is really clear here that when young people get involved in working in the community in volunteering their services they

38:55 start to see right away how wow I have skills that the world needs right I can be useful to the world Beyond Myself and and um and maybe even I feel a little sense of responsibility now to find a way to give back and to contribute and to use my skills because I recognize that the world needs what I have to offer and again just as with the other ones there's a lot of good stuff that comes

39:19 from volunteer work you develop skills you develop confidence you strengthen social bonds there's all these good things that come from it anyway contents exactly exactly but it can also be an impetus for the development of purpose I will say there are just a couple of two things here though when you are helping a young person engage in the community really important to let them choose the way they get involved um avoid saying you know we all are

39:47 doing this one thing because that may or may not be meaningful to the young person and if they feel like they're doing something that they don't really want to do that they they you know they didn't have any say in it's probably not going to have the positive effect that you're hoping it will the second thing is encourage the young person to really reflect on it encourage them to Think Through what difference are you making what difference you know how how are you

40:12 contributing and what does that feel like but that reflective activity is really important um important to them both you know feeling a connection to the activity and to ultimately um using it as a jumping off point for the development of purpose yeah and is it I mean uh in Canada there are often um parts of courses or School Credit given for uh engaging in the community doing some sort of volunteer activity so

40:42 those are like introductions for young people to to find a place to see okay so what do I like did I like doing this does this this move me yes yes yes and I think that's exactly right young people um especially in the high school and college Years are engaged in that search for self and and to be honest this is kind of where the the search for itself really kind of hits a high point during

41:08 these Adolescent and young adult years the truth is though it is a lifelong process and it extends Beyond so even adults are are thinking about identity development but again as you're thinking about sort of a young person an adolescent or a young adult identity development they're trying to figure out where do I fit into this great big world what's my place and so getting them out there to engage in um the world and to see themselves as

41:35 really useful contributors um is is something that they're kind of ready to do they're like you know developmentally this is where they are and this is where they want to be so you're you're you're helping them um through this process of identity development as well but but it's it's it's very much where where young people are in fact one of the things that we notice about adolescents and young adults is they're kind of hungry for feedback from the

42:00 broader World they they this is why I think that email activity is really useful um I don't know if you have I happen to have a couple adolescents at home myself and I noticed that when I as a parent tell them something it's kind of in one ear and out the other but when a family friend or a mentor or a trusted neighbor says it my kids will kind of hang on to that like you're right I am good at that

42:24 and that is something I should think about or yeah I do care about that you're right and of course I'm thinking I just told you that but they're really attuned to the feedback they're getting from adults outside the family because they're trying to find their place in this world so um that's why I think these kinds of activities that get them out there whether it's you know through an email activity and they're getting feedback from others or or volunteering in the

42:46 community where they're getting some feedback from others um those kinds of activities tend to be really um really effective and adolescents if I AI read your word correctly adolescence is a time where that search for purpose and that search for meaning it can be associated with some distress later in life that it that doesn't appear for young people right no I think that's exactly right yeah we did a study and we found that having identified a purpose

43:14 for your life was associated with life satisfaction in the Adolescent young adult and midlife ages so kind of all the way across the board but searching for a purpose um it was it was sort of neutral at adolescence and young adulthood but if you're still searching it at midlife it can be somewhat distressing and I don't think I think it's really just because of um societal expectations right we sort of we sort of expect young people

43:40 to be figuring these things out young people in their high school and college Years they're meant to be exploring and so we kind of celebrate that that search um and unfortunately by midlife even though many adults don't have it figured out just quite yet um there's sort of a societal expectation that they should which I think is wrong because um we know that that many many probably even most adults don't have it all sorted out yet

44:06 um so I think I think is going to be encouraging for people to hear in a sense like if you don't have it sorted out you're in the majority exactly exactly that's uh that this isn't this is a tough thing to do and and you can get feedback from different places it's it's a kind of a trial and error exactly see if I can do this maybe I could fix a cell phone who knows you know but who

44:34 would know that that would turn into a purpose in a sense so all there's like this this process that uh that's available uh through your lab of kind of asking yourself the questions what am I good at what what do I care about those are are important questions at every every phase of life really exactly and I think when we think about adulthood one thing to keep in mind is uh well a couple things to keep in mind

45:04 first point I don't think we have one purpose in life that we're born with it and we die with it and that's it I think we have multiple purposes in life and these are you can have multiple long-term aims that are so meaningful that they motivate you to act and that they're inspired by this desire to make a difference in the broader world and we expect that to be long term or else it wouldn't be a purpose but it doesn't

45:27 mean it has to last your whole life so I know there's a lot of research to suggest that adults often find uh purpose in parenting um but that doesn't become a purpose until you have children and it doesn't stay a purpose after they're grown up that's what I was just gonna say exactly just need everything they used to need quite the same way yes exactly and and many of us as adults we find purpose in the work that we do right through the

45:55 work that's enables us to hopefully um feel like we're contributing in a useful way to the broader World once we retire or maybe we lose a job or we change jobs we move you know there are all kinds of transitions in life and um and that can often affect the way that our our purpose is Wax and Wane and I think that it's good to approach those transitions as opportunities um they can be times when our purposes

46:20 uh Wayne or disappear altogether but there are also opportunities to develop new purposes and the values that were the foundation of those purposes because I kind of that's that's how I think about it I think of values as leading to purpose and purpose ultimately as leading to meaning if if the values LED you through the raising of your children and Lead You they will lead you to something else too if you look I think that's exactly right right yeah

46:51 so for for adults I think it's important to keep in mind that um you'll have multiple purposes they will wax in Wayne there may be moments when a purpose sort of comes to a logical conclusion for whatever reason and that can feel I think um sort of uncomfortable but that's also an opportunity to embark on a new purpose and there's this really interesting study that actually finds that our purpose tends to dip in years that end in uh or not really dip but at

47:22 least be called into question in years that end in zero so I think what happens is we have these transitions from 29 to 30 from 39 to 40. and just natural right getting a little older and stepping back and thinking about so so even if you don't have a transition where you've lost a job just getting older those their their natural transitions built into that and those are times that people tend to step back and sort of

47:50 reflect on what matters most to them and again I think it's great to approach them as opportunities um rather than you know it's not always the case that you're going to be losing something but as an opportunity to sort of engage in that self-reflection and and thinking about what matters most to you but I thought that was so remarkable that those those years just naturally lend themselves and you're are you talking about like 2020 or you're

48:17 talking about when uh your own your own age okay yeah you move from 19 to 20. and I think we see this among young people um as they get ready to graduate from high school and as they get ready to graduate from college as you go through these transitions yeah these Milestones exactly and as an adult as adults I don't think we have I mean there might be times when you get married or have children or things like

48:43 that but they don't happen at the same age so it's harder to see that you know um and I think that's part I'm sure they go on if we looked at people before they have children that's probably a time you were right after they have a child but they would naturally reflect on this kind of thing but uh but the birthdays it turns out are actually significantly important I know Kendall thank you so much for this this has been a very very

49:04 interesting conversation and I think a real um help in understanding you know like sort of jumping off from tiberio and thinking about this topic in in a a broader sense um and I hope that people are listening really get a sense from you of what to do with the young people in their life to help them in this way well thank you for the opportunity I I opportunity to to share what we're learning with people who might be able

49:35 to actually put it put it into good use so thanks I appreciate the opportunity [Music] I hope you've enjoyed today's episode of hero next door and that the words of our hero to burial malayu and the thoughts of our expert Dr Kendall cotton Bronk have given you ideas that will help you understand and develop purpose in yourself and in the youth that you care about if you enjoyed today's episode please

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