 One of the most common coaching calls I had for years was with 20-somethings trying to figure out their life purpose. In other words, trying to figure out how to find something that really lights you up for work that can also pay you. Now this video, I wanna share a very simple strategy and a very simple process you can go through to save yourself literally years of struggle trying to find what you love. Hey, it's Alex Hine, author of the book, Master of the Day. Now I've included down there below a free journaling worksheet. Now one of the best things that helped me specifically in my 20s was becoming reflective through journaling. So if you click that first link, download that, you'll also get a journaling exercise every couple of days. So this 390 method is super simple. It solves the problem of trying to figure out what to do with your life. And what I mean is very, very easy. For 90 days, which is one season of your life, right? A quarter of the year, you're gonna have three calls or three coffee meetings a week with someone who's in a field you're prospectively interested in. So let me talk about this more. When I was in my 20s and just like so many of the people I've coached, I had about 30 different things I could do. I thought about moving to New York. I thought about becoming a writer, a blogger, a videographer, a podcaster. I thought about all these different fields, which included going back to school and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. I also considered moving across the world about a dozen times and I even bought a one-way ticket to China when I was like 22. So I was all over the map, just like so many other people, which is honestly pretty typical for your 20s, but sometimes for your entire life if you have diverse interests. Now the problem was I didn't know which of those was gonna work out. And so I said to myself, you know, hey, I've always thought about going to China to become a monk and study martial arts. Why don't I go do it? Now, even though I had an amazing year of life in retrospect, there's only so many of those experiences you can do before you get to an age or you can't do that. So what do you actually do? Well, if you're like me, not only are you considering different adventures, you're considering different careers, different school paths, whether or not to go back to school, where to move, who to date. But behind all of that, the problem is that you're trying to navel gaze and figure out these solutions in your head. Rather than practically, pragmatically figuring them out. Now the solution is rather than trying to do this all in your head through journaling and through all these things, you cut down your list to whatever the core essential things are. And every week you have a coffee meeting with somebody in that field or you have a call with somebody in that field. So let's say you're considering being an architect, a vlogger on YouTube and an acupuncturist, okay? These are three big career, it's the fork in the road for you. You don't know which one you wanna do. Now rather than going back to architecture school, bad idea, and then figuring out you don't like it, rather than starting acupuncture school, bad idea, and figuring out you don't like it, or rather than doing your third option and then realizing you don't like it, what's the solution? Instead, go online and type in acupuncturist in New York, architects in New York, or architects in Topeka, Kansas, and actually write down a list of five of them. You have the list of architects, of acupuncturists, and then you could even reach out to a small-sized vlogger you follow online. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna shoot them a simple, simple email. And the simple email says, hey, Mark, I think I'm super passionate about being an architect, but I don't know what it's really like or whether or not to go back and study for this. Do you have 10 minutes where I could buy you a cup of coffee and we could chat? I would love to know what the field is really like. You send out five of those to architects. You send out five of those to acupuncturists. You send out five of those to vloggers. And guess what? In one month, one of those people guaranteed is gonna respond to you, because people that love what they do are usually very willing and eager to share. But they're doing you a massive favor, because in one month, rather than spending six months or a year to do pre-rex for school, go into school, drop it out after a year, or getting the degree, and even worse, owing debt and having to keep working when you don't like it. In three weeks, in one month, you spoke to five architects or one architect, and you leave the meeting with kind of a lukewarm feeling in your belly. You don't feel that excited as much as you thought you'd be. And then you talk to the vlogger and they tell you how hard it really is. They tell you that most of the day has not spent vlogging, it spent studying business and learning conversion rates and creating products and all this kind of stuff you didn't think you'd be doing. But something about it excites you. And then you talk to a few acupuncturists and they're like, this is what it's like, this is what we do, and you're on the fence about it. And now after a month, you basically just saved yourself three years of life because that email series you sent to those people and those coffee meetings or those phone calls or those Skype chats, whatever it is, now they've given you practical real-world data, that real-world data on what it's actually like to be in that field. And from there, it's up to you following your gut. Do you feel excitement after this interaction or do you not? That's how you know what should be guiding you going forward. So why do this? Everyone gets stuck in their head, second guessing themselves, thinking you're gonna find your passion by thinking. You won't. What to do? Three coffee meetings a week for 90 days. Try to do it for every single field you're interested in and by finding five of those people and reaching out to them directly with that pitch email that I gave you. Now an example of how I use this in my own life is super simple. Years ago I was considering whether to go to conventional med school, take a break, or go to alternative med school. Now I reached out to a bunch of doctors who were people that I knew were great people. I knew they were the good doctors in terms of they were ethical and they were good human beings. They were great at what they did and they were still in the field. So they wanted to be there presumably or they were stuck. And I asked them, how did you know the field was right for you and what is it day to day like? And they told me, I just couldn't see myself doing anything else. One doctor I talked to said he would either be in the military, a priest, or a doctor. I don't get where those three came from considering they're so different. But he said, I just don't know what else I would do. This just fits me the best. Now, many other doctors told me how shitty the profession was and how much paperwork there was and how working for a hospital sucked and how they would not go back to med school again if their kid asked them. That was great information. And then I reached out to acupuncturists and alternative medical practitioners. And I found that across the board, they were so happy. They were so jazzed up about life they were so grateful that they could be treating their patients the way they did. And they were just all in a good mood. And that was really telling to me. That kind of said everything. And even if they never said anything else, their mood said it all. But then they told me the downside that many of them struggled with finances because they went into private practice and had to learn business for themselves. So there I was and in one week, I just saved potentially years of my life and a quarter million dollars of debt to know intuitively when I spoke to these people what I should be doing going forward because rather than guessing or journaling or philosophizing, I did those coffee meetings with five people in each field to get the real nitty gritty like what is a day in your life really like? So I hope this can help you. Again, the big thing in your 20s is to really to not to value money not to value any of that is to value your time which is ultimately always true for life but to value your time to the point where you're not wasting it going down a career path that you're not sure about. So try this coffee meeting methodology or book a phone call or do a lot of research on what the profession is like or shadow a person in the field, walk around with them for a day but don't guess and don't commit to something that you're very lukewarm about. All right guys, I hope that helps. I literally would have killed to know this when I was in my 20s. That's why I wrote that whole book. My second book, Milk the Pigeon, is all about that. It's the Bible I wish I could have handed myself when I was 20. So again, check the first link below for a free journaling worksheet. It'll help you plan out kind of your strategy plan for finding your passion and your purpose and how to reinvent your life. Check it out down there below and then before you go come check out this related video right over here.