Eight years after speaking to the Prince Albert Daily Herald about helping people find purpose in their lives, Corliss Rassyle is challenging the idea that purpose needs to be found at all.
The Prince Albert speaker, coach and author delivered a TEDx Talk titled “Why ‘Find Your Purpose’ is the Wrong Advice” at TEDxSugar Creek Women in Charlotte, North Carolina, on March 28. The TED Talk ended with audience members rising for a standing ovation.
Rassyle said the talk represents an evolution in her thinking since the Herald first featured her in 2018, shortly after she published her book, Lead Your Life.
“My TEDx Talk is actually an evolution of what I’ve discovered,” Rassyle said. “Finding your purpose is common. It’s often how most of the experts globally actually teach it, and what it alludes to is that people are searching for purpose and they have to try and find it as if it’s out there.”
That search, she said, can lead people to measure their lives through achievements, recognition, validation or service to others. Even after reaching their goals, they may still feel unfulfilled.
Submitted photo
Prince Albert speaker and coach Corliss Rassyle is featured in promotional artwork for her TEDxSugar Creek Women talk, Why “Find Your Purpose” is the Wrong Advice.
Rassyle said people can instead live with purpose by intentionally using the skills, experiences, talents and lessons they already have.
“It’s a much more empowering approach than ‘find your purpose’ to actually choosing your purpose,” she said.
Her understanding developed through personal experience. Around age 40, Rassyle became a single mother of three and watched the life she had worked to build change significantly. She moved from her dream home into a smaller apartment and began questioning the roles and titles that had previously defined her.
“When my life got interrupted at 40 years old, and everything that I had worked for in my life had kind of vanished, then I was faced with the hard question of what is this really all about, and who do I really want to be?” she said.
The experience led her into years of personal development work and training. However, she said some teachings still left her with questions.
One trainer described purpose as something on the horizon that people are always moving toward. Rassyle understood the idea, but said it did not help her understand how to live purposefully in the present.
“If it was always on the horizon, how do I live it right now?” she said.
One of the central stories in her TEDx Talk involves her mother, who raised eight children and helped build a farming business with Rassyle’s father.
During an Easter Sunday conversation, her mother began crying and said she believed she had done nothing with her life.
Rassyle said the moment showed her that her mother had not lacked contribution. She had struggled to recognize the value of what she had already done.
“Other people can see how valuable and how awesome we are, but because of the societal and cultural things that we’re taught, if you don’t have all these outward successes and accolades, then you don’t feel very valuable,” Rassyle said.
She was initially nervous to ask permission to tell the story publicly. Her mother agreed, saying she would never have a platform of her own but hoped the experience could help someone else.
Rassyle said she could not be who she is today without her mother, who “gave me wings.”
Rassyle said quiet lives can carry as much purpose as public ones. She pointed to her grandmother, who never drove a car but had a lasting influence on several generations of her family.
She also remembered a mechanic who helped her during a difficult time and treated her honestly when he could have taken advantage of her lack of knowledge about vehicles.
“Who we are matters, and what we say and do, and how we live our lives is impacting,” she said.
Rassyle continues to operate coaching and leadership programs, but said her role is not to provide people with all the answers.
“My role is to help people look within themselves to discover it,” she said. “I don’t ever want people to come to me as a coach or as a speaker or to one of my events and think, ‘She’s going to give me the answers.'”
She said the response to the TEDx Talk has been encouraging, with viewers telling her the message made purpose feel simpler and more achievable.
Rassyle is also preparing to host LEAD Conference Canada in Saskatoon on Nov. 13 and 14 at the TCU place in Saskatoon. She described it as the largest personal growth conference in Canada and said she hopes to continue sharing her message through larger events and more speaking opportunities.
For those in Prince Albert, she hopes the talk reminds them they do not need to earn their value.
“I hope that people recognize that they matter, that they’re important and that they don’t have to prove anything,” she said. “They just have to own it themselves.”
arjun.pillai@paherald.sk.ca
