A Free Course · Four Weeks

Crafting Your Purpose

My foundational course on creating a life and work you love, helping others and changing the world. Today the whole thing is free — every video, workbook and companion recording, right here on one page.

Over the years a lot of people have asked me how to fight overwhelm, create a life & work they love and find more balance. These are my favorite exercises in one place. I’ve picked the top exercises that have helped me focus my life, work with great people & build projects I love — and I made them short, powerful and as easy as possible, because I know your time is precious.

The course is designed for people who want to:

We spend four weeks on four themes: your values, your most important roles, your remarkable people and your awesome project. Take it a week at a time, the way the first class did, or download everything at once. It’s your choice. No sign-up needed.

  1. Week 1Your Values
  2. Week 2Your Extraordinary Roles
  3. Week 3Your Remarkable People
  4. Week 4Your Awesome Project
Start here

Welcome to the Course

A short hello from me, and the welcome letter I sent everyone in the first class. It lays out what each week is for and why I chose these exercises: I’ve designed each week to be simple & impactful, and I’ve only chosen exercises that have really made a difference in my life.

Week 1

Your Values

We take a close look at the values that matter most to you. This provides focus & perspective and helps guide everything that comes next.

This exercise comes from my wonderful mentor and friend Jenny Blake, author of Pivot. You circle the twenty values that resonate most, narrow them to ten, rank your top five, and then write a “value string” for each one so the words mean what you mean. It’s still one of my favorite exercises, so it now lives on this site as a guided, interactive version you can do in about ten quiet minutes.

Do the Values Exercise online

Week 1 challenges

  1. Share your top five values with someone you love
  2. Tell someone your top five, but have them guess the order
  3. Print the exercise out for someone else
  4. Find out your best friend’s top five values and discuss
Week 2

Your Extraordinary Roles

We redefine the roles that are highest priority in your life. This allows you to schedule your big rocks and put first things first every week.

List the roles you play — student, artist, wife, friend — then choose the four to six you most want to be extraordinary at, the ones that express your deepest values from last week. Pick at least one that’s renewing for you — Covey calls it sharpening the saw. A Life Circle shows how balanced (or, like mine, a little off balance) things are right now. Then comes the fun part: scheduling one or two “big rocks” for each role at the start of every week. I start every week this way, and it’s made a huge difference in my life.

The ideas here come from one of my favorite authors, Stephen Covey: the limit of four to six roles, and the big rocks, from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — if you want to fit big rocks and gravel into a jar, put the big rocks first. They’re also featured in FranklinCovey’s The 5 Choices by Kory Kogon, Adam Merrill and Leena Rinne.

The companion audio above is my ten-minute walk-through of this week’s workbook, page by page. (It goes quiet for a few seconds where the original played Buried, a short FranklinCovey video about everything coming at us all day.)

Week 2 challenges

  1. Share your roles with someone you love
  2. Brainstorm how to make your role extraordinary
  3. Print the exercise out for someone else
  4. Find out your significant other’s roles and discuss
Week 3

Your Remarkable People

We reflect on the people who are most special to you. These are your remarkable advisors, and we reach out to them in a creative way.

Making deposits in the lives of wonderful people who have made your life great. List ten to fifteen people who have really made a difference in your life in the last year, brainstorm creative ways to thank or help them, then pick two to reach out to this week and four more this month. It’s the idea behind what Stephen Covey calls the emotional bank account: make deposits in the relationships that matter most, not just withdrawals.

Week 3 challenges

  1. Reach out to one person and ask them to be your mentor
  2. Send a thank you card with a small gift certificate
  3. Plan a fun day with someone remarkable you appreciate
  4. Ask someone you admire to be your mentor
Week 4

Your Awesome Project

We put everything to work on a project you’ve been afraid to do. It’s guaranteed to be awesome.

It’s time for you to do something special you might be afraid of. Write down the things you’ve always thought about doing but may have been afraid to try, circle one, and decide what you can do this week to get started — and who you can ask for help, guidance or resources to make it real.

Week 4 challenges

  1. Share your project with someone you admire
  2. Brainstorm with a friend on finding extra help
  3. Ask yourself who may love collaborating with you?
  4. Share your project broadly to increase accountability

My own Week 4 project: for my 30th birthday, the week the first class finished, I shared 30 Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 30 Years (free PDF).

“I feel like this exact thing has been the most difficult for me to pinpoint as I have attempted things such as this in my past… I really wanted to message you to let you know how proud I am of you for stepping out and putting this on, as well as thank you for allowing me to be in the first round of this group.”

— A student in the first class

Moving forward

I really want these lessons, and the exercises that lead each week, to be meaningful for you. Take your time with them. Come back to your values next year and see what’s changed. Schedule your big rocks on Monday. Thank someone remarkable this week. And start the project you’ve been afraid of.

If you’d like to keep going: Influences is the free class I taught high school students, and Leading Happiness is the master’s thesis this course grew up alongside.

While you’re here

One short essay on optimism, purpose, and enough — every Saturday morning.

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