Self as Life's Platform

Joel Peterson is a businessman turned business professor at Stanford and his finding yourself keynote introduces what he sees as the three priorities in an individual's life. Borrowing from Friedrich Buechner, he explains how all one needs to do to find contentment is to "find a person to be, someone to love and work to do."

These objectives can be viewed as a three-legged stool and if you only find two of them, you will never be truly happy.

Peterson then offers four practical ways to discover the person you are meant to become. His first method is to read books by people with completely different perspectives. The second is to memorize things that mean something to you, be it a moment in history, a poem or a mathematical equation.

Peterson's third piece of advice in finding who you are meant to be is to write out a business statement for your entire life. Lastly, his finding yourself keynote suggests going to a funeral once a year and writing your own obituary as a way to think about your legacy and what is important to you.