The Napkin Test: 9 Questions to Unlock Your Passions and Purpose

Excerpted from the 4th edition of The Power of Purpose: To Grow and to Give for Life © 1997, 2010, and 2015 by Richard J. Leider, 2025 by Richard J. Leider and David A. Shapiro. Reprinted by permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Available everywhere books are sold. www.richardleider.com.

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap.” — George Bernard Shaw

The Napkin Test

When people meet Richard and find out that he is a life coach, they invariably ask him, “Got a minute? Can you tell me what to do with the rest of my life?” In response to this inquiry, he has them do what we call the “Napkin Test.” You can try it right now, yourself. Grab a cocktail napkin (or similarly-sized piece of paper). On it, write down the following simple recipe: G + P + V = C, where G stands for “gifts,” P stands for “passion,” V stands for “values,” and C stands for “calling.”

Gifts + passions + values = calling. It is really that simple. Uncovering our calling means identifying our natural gifts, applying them in support of something we are passionate about, in an environment that is consistent with our values. To do so is the key to unlocking the power of purpose.

What’s Worth Doing?

Now that you have considered your calling, where do you express it? For the sake of what? An important next step is to identify your passions and find out what moves you. This is the hard part for many of us because we believe the old adage that “anything worth doing is worth doing well.” Most of the emphasis— mistakenly, we believe—has been put on the “worth doing well.” The real question is, What’s worth doing? This is a much-neglected question for many of us. What issues, interests, causes, or curiosities capture your genuine enthusiasm? What keeps you up at night?

Found within the answers to questions like these, we can identify and articulate our passions. Simply stated, our passions are our curiosities—those things we care most deeply about. Whatever form they take, passions are identified by a “felt sense.” They are “alive” and we feel them deeply. A passion moves us to action in the world. A passion doesn’t quit but keeps recurring in our thinking and experiences. When you have a good idea of what your gifts are and what moves you, you will have two of the three key ingredients of the power of purpose (the third is your values, as we alluded to in chapter 5 and elsewhere). Life and work choices based on gifts, passions, and values produce a good life.

The answer to the question What’s worth doing? will be different for each of us. But we must ask ourselves this question to unlock our passions.

Someone Ought to Do Something!

Writing the first edition of this book, Richard worked at a small antique desk in his hundred-year-old, hand-hewn cabin built by immigrants—people who were new to the United States—in the north woods of Wisconsin. He was surrounded by books on purpose, so absorbed in his writing that he sometimes felt he was in an altered state of consciousness. He often lost track of time as idea after idea popped into his mind from some deep well of curiosity.

According to the late Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, distinguished professor of psychology at Claremont Graduate University, Richard was in “flow”—so curious about his topic that he lost touch with time. In Csikszentmihalyi’s book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he states that we come closest to total fulfillment when in the flow state. He has concluded from his research that a passionate drive to solve problems and meet challenges causes us to derive pleasure from performing the task itself. By losing ourselves in our passions, we lose ourselves in time. To consider potential opportunities where we can plug in our gifts, we must tap into the flow state to clarify what moves us in our work, our organization, our family, our community, or society in general. We must then examine those problems, issues, or concerns we feel curious about.

What are the needs of your family, neighborhood, community, business, spiritual organization, the world? What needs doing? What issues do you feel someone ought to do something about?

Passion Questions

But how do we find our passions? To stimulate curiosity, ask yourself these questions:

• If you were asked to create a video special about something that moves you, what would it be about?
• What magazines intrigue you most at a newsstand? What sections or articles capture your attention?
• If you started a business or organization to solve a need in your town or city or elsewhere, what would it be?
• What issue would you like to write (or read) a best-selling book about?
• What subjects are you curious to learn about? To go back to school for? To study under a master in?
• In the past year, what cause did you contribute time or money to? What interests does it reflect?
• Who are the people you find yourself voluntarily getting together with, again and again, for deeper discussions? What are your deepest conversations obsessing about?
• How would you use a gift of a million dollars if it had to be given away or designated for a cause, issue, or problem that moves you? What business or venture would you start?
• Is there any need or problem you believe in so strongly you’d love to work at it full-time if you were paid to do it?

The answers to these questions can help reveal your passions. Your passions, then, can help reveal your purpose. Unlocking your passion therefore is key to unlocking your purpose.

Richard Leider, founder of Inventure – The Purpose Company, is the author of twelve books, including two best sellers, which have sold over one million copies. Repacking Your Bags and The Power of Purpose are considered classics in the personal growth field. Richard’s PBS Special – The Power of Purpose – was viewed by millions of people across the U.S. His recent book is Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Old?: The Path of Purposeful Aging. His newest book is the 4th edition of The Power of Purpose: To Grow and to Give for Life with longtime co-author David Shapiro, released in December 2024. (www.richardleider.com)

David A. Shapiro is a philosopher, educator, and writer whose work consistently explores matters of meaning, purpose, and equity in the lives of young people and adults. He is a philosophy professor at Cascadia College, and has a long-standing teaching and leadership role with the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO), which brings philosophy and philosophers into K-12 classrooms. Dave has coauthored five books with Richard Leider; he has published two books of his own on ethics and philosophy with young people.

Excerpted from the 4th edition of The Power of Purpose: To Grow and to Give for Life © 1997, 2010, and 2015 by Richard J. Leider, 2025 by Richard J. Leider and David A. Shapiro. Reprinted by permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Available everywhere books are sold. www.richardleider.com.