Wow, what an honor. I always wondered whatthis would feel like.

So eight years ago, I got the worst careeradvice of my life. I had a friend tell me, "Don't worry abouthow much you like the work you're doing now. It's all about just buildingyour resume."

And I'd just come back from living in Spainfor a while, and I'd joined this Fortune 500 company. I thought,"This is fantastic. I'm going to have big impact on the world." Ihad all these ideas. And within about two months, I noticed at about 10amevery morning I had this strange urge to want to slam my head through themonitor of my computer. I don't know if anyone's ever felt that. AndI noticed pretty soon after that that all the competitors in our space hadalready automated my job role. And this is right about when I got thissage advice to build up my resume.

Well, as I'm trying to figure out whattwo-story window I'm going to jump out of and change things up, I readsome altogether different advice from Warren Buffett, and he said, "Takingjobs to build up your resume is the same as saving up sex for old age."

And I heard that, and that was all Ineeded. Within two weeks, I was out of there, and I left with oneintention: to find something that I could screw up. That's how tough itwas. I wanted to have some type of impact. It didn't matter what it was.

And I found pretty quickly that I wasn'talone: it turns out that over 80 percent of the people around don'tenjoy their work. I'm guessing this room is different, but that's theaverage that Deloitte has done with their studies. So I wanted to findout, what is it that sets these people apart, the people who do thepassionate, world-changing work, that wake up inspired every day, andthen these people, the other 80 percent who lead these lives of quietdesperation.

So I started to interview all these peopledoing this inspiring work, and I read books and did case studies,300 booksaltogether on purpose and career and all this, totally justself-immersion, really for the selfish reason of -- I wanted to find thework that I couldn't not do, what that was for me.

But as I was doing this, more and morepeople started to ask me, "You're into this career thing. Idon't like my job. Can we sit down for lunch?" I'd say,"Sure." But I would have to warn them, because at this point, myquit rate was also 80 percent. Of the people I'd sit down with for lunch,80 percent would quit their job within two months. I was proud ofthis, and it wasn't that I had any special magic. It was that I would askone simple question. It was, "Why are you doing the work that you'redoing?" And so often their answer would be, "Well, becausesomebody told me I'm supposed to." And I realized that so many peoplearound us are climbing their way up this ladder that someone tells them toclimb, and it ends up being leaned up against the wrong wall, or nowall at all.

The more time I spent around these peopleand saw this problem, I thought, what if we could create a community, aplace where people could feel like they belonged and that it was OK to dothings differently, to take the road less traveled, where that wasencouraged, and inspire people to change? And that later became whatI now call Live Your Legend, which I'll explain in a little bit. Butas I've made these discoveries, I noticed a framework of really threesimple things that all these different passionate world-changers have incommon, whether you're a Steve Jobs or if you're just, you know, theperson that has the bakery down the street. But you're doing work thatembodies who you are. I want to share those three with you, so we can usethem as a lens for the rest of today and hopefully the rest of our life.

The first part of this three-steppassionate work framework is becoming a self-expert and understandingyourself, because if you don't know what you're looking for, you'renever going to find it. And the thing is that no one is going to do thisfor us. There's no major in university on passion and purpose and career. Idon't know how that's not a required double major, but don't even get mestarted on that. I mean, you spend more time picking out a dorm room TVset than you do you picking your major and your area of study. Butthe point is, it's on us to figure that out, and we need a framework, weneed a way to navigate through this.

And so the first step of our compass isfinding out what our unique strengths are. What are the things that wewake up loving to do no matter what, whether we're paid or we're not paid,the things that people thank us for? And the Strengths Finder 2.0 is abook and also an online tool. I highly recommend it for sorting out whatit is that you're naturally good at.

And next, what's our framework or ourhierarchy for making decisions? Do we care about the people, our family,health, or is it achievement, success, all this stuff? We have tofigure out what it is to make these decisions, so we know what our soul ismade of, so that we don't go selling it to some cause we don't give a shitabout.

And then the next step is our experiences. Allof us have these experiences. We learn things every day, every minute aboutwhat we love, what we hate, what we're good at, what we're terrible at. Andif we don't spend time paying attention to that and assimilating thatlearning and applying it to the rest of our lives, it's all for nothing. Everyday, every week, every month of every year I spend some time justreflecting on what went right, what went wrong, and what do I want torepeat, what can I apply more to my life.

And even more so than that, as you seepeople, especially today, who inspire you, who are doing things where yousay "Oh God, what Jeff is doing, I want to be like him." Whyare you saying that? Open up a journal. Write down what it is about themthat inspires you. It's not going to be everything about their life,butwhatever it is, take note on that, so over time we'll have this repositoryof things that we can use to apply to our life and have a more passionateexistence and make a better impact. Because when we start to putthese things together, we can then define what success actually means tous, and without these different parts of the compass, it's impossible. Weend up in the situation -- we have that scripted life that everybody seemsto be living going up this ladder to nowhere.

It's kind of like in Wall Street 2, ifanybody saw that, the peon employee asks the big Wall Street banker CEO, "What'syour number? Everyone's got a number, where if they make this money,they'll leave it all."He says, "Oh, it's simple. More." Andhe just smiles. And it's the sad state of most of the people thathaven't spent time understanding what matters for them, who keep reachingfor something that doesn't mean anything to us, but we're doing it becauseeveryone said we're supposed to. But once we have this framework together, wecan start to identify the things that make us come alive. You know, beforethis, a passion could come and hit you in the face, or maybe in yourpossible line of work, you might throw it away because you don't have away of identifying it. But once you do, you can see something that'scongruent with my strengths, my values, who I am as a person, so I'mgoing to grab ahold of this, I'm going to do something with it, and I'mgoing to pursue it and try to make an impact with it.

And Live Your Legend and the movement we'vebuilt wouldn't exist if I didn't have this compass to identify, "Wow,this is something I want to pursue and make a difference with." If wedon't know what we're looking for, we're never going to find it, but oncewe have this framework, this compass, then we can move on to what's next-- and that's not me up there -- doing the impossible and pushing ourlimits. There's two reasons why people don't do things. One is they tellthemselves they can't do them, or people around them tell them they can'tdo them. Either way, we start to believe it. Either we give up, or wenever start in the first place.

The things is, everyone was impossibleuntil somebody did it. Every invention, every new thing in the world, peoplethought were crazy at first. Roger Bannister and the four-minute mile, itwas a physical impossibility to break the four-minute mile in a foot race untilRoger Bannister stood up and did it. And then what happened? Twomonths later, 16 people broke the four-minute mile. The things that wehave in our head that we think are impossible are often just milestoneswaiting to be accomplished if we can push those limits a bit. And Ithink this starts with probably your physical body and fitness more thananything, because we can control that. If you don't think you can run amile, you show yourself you can run a mile or two, or a marathon, orlose five pounds, or whatever it is, you realize that confidence compounds andcan be transferred into the rest of your world.

And I've actually gotten into the habit ofthis a little bit with my friends. We have this little group. We go onphysical adventures, and recently, I found myself in a kind of precariousspot. I'm terrified of deep, dark, blue water. I don't know ifanyone's ever had that same fear ever since they watched Jaws 1, 2, 3 and4 like six times when I was a kid. But anything above here, if it'smurky, I can already feel it right now.I swear there's something in there. Evenif it's Lake Tahoe, it's fresh water, totally unfounded fear,ridiculous, butit's there. Anyway, three years ago I find myself on this tugboat rightdown here in the San Francisco Bay. It's a rainy, stormy, windy day, andpeople are getting sick on the boat, and I'm sitting there wearing awetsuit, and I'm looking out the window in pure terror thinking I'm aboutto swim to my death. I'm going to try to swim across the Golden Gate. Andmy guess is some people in this room might have done that before. I'msitting there, and my buddy Jonathan, who had talked me into it, he comesup to me and he could see the state I was in. And he says, "Scott,hey man, what's the worst that could happen? You're wearing a wetsuit.You're not going to sink. And If you can't make it, just hop on one of the20 kayaks. Plus, if there's a shark attack, why are they going to pick you overthe 80 people in the water?" So thanks, that helps. He's like,"But really, just have fun with this. Good luck." And he divesin, swims off. OK.

Turns out, the pep talk totally worked, andI felt this total feeling of calm, and I think it was because Jonathan was13 years old.

And of the 80 people swimming that day, 65of them were between the ages of nine and 13. Think how you would haveapproached your world differently if at nine years old you found out youcould swim a mile and a half in 56-degree water from Alcatraz to SanFrancisco. What would you have said yes to?What would you have not givenup on? What would you have tried? As I'm finishing this swim, I get toAquatic Park, and I'm getting out of the water and of course half thekids are already finished, so they're cheering me on and they're allexcited. And I got total popsicle head, if anyone's ever swam in theBay,and I'm trying to just thaw my face out, and I'm watching people finish. AndI see this one kid, something didn't look right. And he's just flailinglike this. And he's barely able to sip some air before he slams his headback down. And I notice other parents were watching too, and I swearthey were thinking the same thing I was: this is why you don't letnine-year-olds swim from Alcatraz. This was not fatigue. All of asudden, two parents run up and grab him, and they put him on theirshoulders, and they're dragging him like this, totally limp. And thenall of a sudden they walk a few more feet and they plop him down in hiswheelchair. And he puts his fists up in the most insane show of victoryI've ever seen. I can still feel the warmth and the energy on this guy whenhe made this accomplishment. I had seen him earlier that day in hiswheelchair. I just had no idea he was going to swim. I mean, where ishe going to be in 20 years?How many people told him he couldn't do that, thathe would die if tried that?

You prove people wrong, you prove yourselfwrong, that you can make little incremental pushes of what youbelieve is possible. You don't have to be the fastest marathoner in theworld, just your own impossibilities, to accomplish those, and itstarts with little bitty steps. And the best way to do this is tosurround yourself with passionate people. The fastest things to do thingsyou don't think can be done is to surround yourself with people alreadydoing them.

There's this quote by Jim Rohn and it says. "Youare the average of the five people you spend the most time with." Andthere is no bigger lifehack in the history of the world from getting whereyou are today to where you want to be than the people you choose to put inyour corner. They change everything, and it's a proven fact. In 1898,Norman Triplett did this study with a bunch of cyclists, and he wouldmeasure their times around the track in a group, and also individually. Andhe found that every time the cyclists in the group would cycle faster. Andit's been repeated in all kinds of walks of life since then, and it provesthe same thing over again, that the people around you matter, andenvironment is everything. But it's on you to control it, because it cango both ways. With 80 percent of people who don't like the work theydo,that means most people around us, not in this room, but everywhere else, areencouraging complacency and keeping us from pursuing the things that matter tous so we have to manage those surroundings.

I found myself in this situation -- personalexample, a couple years ago. Has anyone ever had a hobby or a passion theypoured their heart and soul into, unbelievable amount of time, and they sobadly want to call it a business, but no one's paying attention and itdoesn't make a dime? OK, I was there for four years trying to build thisLive Your Legend movement to help people do work that they genuinely caredabout and that inspired them, and I was doing all I could, and therewere only three people paying attention, and they're all right there: mymother, father and my wife, Chelsea. Thank you guys for the support.

And this is how badly I wanted it, it grewat zero percent for four years, and I was about to shut it down, and rightabout then, I moved to San Francisco and started to meet some prettyinteresting people who had these crazy lifestyles of adventure, ofbusinesses and websites and blogs that surrounded their passions andhelped people in a meaningful way. And one of my friends, now, he has afamily of eight, and he supports his whole family with a blog that hewrites for twice a week. They just came back from a month in Europe, allof them together. This blew my mind. How does this even exist? And Igot unbelievably inspired by seeing this, and instead of shutting it down,I decided, let's take it seriously. And I did everything I could to spendmy time, every waking hour possible trying to hound these guys, hangingout and having beers and workouts, whatever it was. And after four yearsof zero growth, within six months of hanging around these people, thecommunity at Live Your Legend grew by 10 times. In another 12 months, itgrew by 160 times. And today over 30,000 people from 158 countries useour career and connection tools on a monthly basis. And those people havemade up that community of passionate folks who inspired that possibilitythat I dreamed of for Live Your Legend so many years back.

The people change everything, and this iswhy -- you know, you ask what was going on. Well, for four years, Iknew nobody in this space, and I didn't even know it existed, that peoplecould do this stuff, that you could have movements like this. Andthen I'm over here in San Francisco, and everyone around me was doing it. Itbecame normal, so my thinking went from how could I possibly do this tohow could I possibly not. And right then, when that happens, that switchgoes on in your head, it ripples across your whole world. And withouteven trying, your standards go from here to here. You don't need to changeyour goals. You just need to change your surroundings. That's it, andthat's why I love being around this whole group of people, why I go toevery TED event I can, and watch them on my iPad on the way to work,whatever it is. Because this is the group of people that inspirespossibility. We have a whole day to spend together and plenty more.

To sum things up, in terms of these threepillars, they all have one thing in common more than anything else. Theyare 100 percent in our control. No one can tell you you can't learn aboutyourself. No one can tell you you can't push your limits and learnyour own impossible and push that. No one can tell you you can't surroundyourself with inspiring people or get away from the people who bring youdown. You can't control a recession. You can't control getting firedor getting in a car accident. Most things are totally out of our hands. Thesethree things are totally on us, and they can change our whole world if wedecide to do something about it.

And the thing is, it's starting to happenon a widespread level. I just read in Forbes, the US Government reportedfor the first time in a month where more people had quit their jobs thanhad been laid off. They thought this was an anomaly, but it's happenedthree months straight. In a time where people claim it's kind of a toughenvironment, people are giving a middle finger to this scripted life, thethings that people say you're supposed to do, in exchange for things thatmatter to them and do the things that inspire them.

And the thing is, people are waking up tothis possibility, that really the only thing that limits possibility nowis imagination. That's not a cliché anymore. I don't care what it isthat you're into, what passion, what hobby. If you're into knitting, youcan find someone who is killing it knitting, and you can learn from them.It's wild. And that's what this whole day is about, to learn from thefolks speaking, and we profile these people on Live Your Legend every day, becausewhen ordinary people are doing the extraordinary, and we can be around that, itbecomes normal. And this isn't about being Gandhi or Steve Jobs, doingsomething crazy. It's just about doing something that matters to you, andmakes an impact that only you can make.

Speaking of Gandhi, he was a recoveringlawyer, as I've heard the term, and he was called to a greater cause,something that mattered to him, he couldn't not do. And he has thisquote that I absolutely live by."First they ignore you, then they laugh atyou, then they fight you, then you win."

Everything was impossible until somebodydid it. You can either hang around the people who tell you it can't bedone and tell you you're stupid for trying, or surround yourself withthe people who inspire possibility, the people who are in this room. BecauseI see it as our responsibility to show the world that what's seen asimpossible can become that new normal. And that's already starting tohappen. First, do the things that inspire us, so we can inspire otherpeople to do the things that inspire them. But we can't find that unlesswe know what we're looking for. We have to do our work on ourselves, beintentional about that, and make those discoveries. Because I imagine aworld where 80 percent of people love the work they do. What would thatlook like? What would the innovation be like? How would you treat thepeople around you? Things would start to change.

And as we finish up, I have just onequestion to ask you guys, and I think it's the only question that matters. Andit's what is the work you can't not do? Discover that, live it, notjust for you, but for everybody around you, because that is what starts tochange the world. What is the work you can't not do?

Thank you guys.