Speaking / Keynotes

The 3 Questions of the Soul’s Purpose

Format
keynote
Runtime range
30–45 min (45–60 with Q&A) · 10-min version available

Most people ask “What is my purpose?” and get stuck — or skip ahead to “What should I do?” and get stuck there too. This keynote argues both are the wrong entry point, and offers a different one: a single question most of us avoid, asked first, that unlocks the other two.

Built from Fred’s own reckoning with the question, delivered as story rather than lecture — a framework audiences can carry out of the room and apply to their own lives, not just hear once and forget.

Directly-tied workshop: “3 Questions of the Soul’s Purpose” (also bookable standalone).

Related

Related talks & storiesmore speaking on this theme

Work together to consider Who am I? Why am I here? How shall I live? — an intimate 5–8 person companion to the keynote.

A childhood errand to a derelict Air Force station in the Pacific Northwest woods, and the stranger in an old jumpsuit who offered to show him around.

Growing up as the only kid who looked like him in a small, unkind town — and the unlikely place an escape route showed up.

Related essaysthe written companion

A simple truth of life is that we all influence and shape it, through our actions and choices. This is what karma means, not a ledger of good and bad deeds, with rewards and punishments dolled out, rather, the collective effect of every choice we all make. And by all, I mean all, not just […]

Notes on a Play – fred chong rutherford

Essay

Curses

When Mom was angry at me from the ages of 7 to 9, she’d say a phrase, 야메노새끼야. Yameno-seikiya. It means, “Yameno little bastard.” Yameno isn’t a Korean word as far as I can translate. A lot of her language was hangul, but some of it was different. Some from North Korea. Some from other […]

Book this talk

Ask about this talk for your event.

Ask about this talk →

Opens the contact form on the homepage — mention this talk and I'll take it from there.

Just here to read?

Get occasional notes instead — no schedule, no noise.

Subscribe →

← Speaking