A Way Out of the Purpose Paradox toward Meaning, Happiness, and Legacy

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity.

0:49 In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want working on Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor Elise Cortes. Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program, which has been brought to you with passion and pride since February of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning again this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, Doctor Earl's Cortes. If we have not met before and you don't know me, I'm an organizational psychologist, management consultant, local therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at GUSTA and I help companies to unlive and and fortify their operations by building a dynamic, high performance culture and inspirational leadership activated by meaning and purpose. And did you know that inspired employees outperform their satisfied peers by a factor of two point twenty five two one.

1:34 In other words, inspiration is good for the bottom line. You can learn more AboutUs and how we can work together at gustodashnow dot com or my personal site at Leastcortes dot com. Before we get into today's program, I am thrilled to announce that registration is out is now open for a fabulous new conference for women for which I'll serve as the MC. It's called Thrive in twenty five and is a jam packed few days in Chicago June twenty fifth through the twenty eighth, twenty twenty five. It's designed to devote women as whole selves, from bolstering your mindset to your financial acumen, to leadership to incorporating nature and art in your life to raise consciousness in much more. Visit Thrive in twenty five the number for information and to register. You can use my promo code Gusto all caps to gain access to the free books and programs. I'll be gifting registrations registrants as well. See you there now I'm getting today's program. We have with us today Jordan Doc G. Grummitt, who is the creator of Wealth with Purpose Mastermind, where he is focused on helping members integrate financial wellness with a sense of purpose and identity. He's a host of the Earn and Invest podcast and the author of a couple of books, the latest of which is called The Purpose Code, How to Unlock meaning, maximize happiness and leave a lasting legacy, which you'll be talking about today. You joined today from the Chicago area, Doctor Grummitt, Welcome to Working on Purpose.

2:52 Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Isn't it nice to be on the other side of the MinC once in a while, you. Know, I like both sides. I love interviewing people I love. Also being a guest, awesome, awesome. Well, as I told you before we got on air, Jordan, I really really loved your book, just consumed it and giggled with it, and you know, was enthusiastically saying, yes, that's right. I know that to be true. So thank you for sharing it with us. It's beautiful. Thank you for reading it. Very welcome. I appreciate that too. When somebody actually reads my book, I'm like, wow, that's so great. We have a reader in the house. But before you got into the space that you are today, you have a pretty interesting story that I just want to briefly highlight for our listeners and viewers who haven't yet read your book and don't know you. You know, starting off really as a doctor and the story behind that, working with various patients in general medicine and also with hospice.

3:43 I know you still work with hospice today, but will you share first the story of why you became a doctor and then really why you decided to move away from it. So basically, at the age of seven, my father died suddenly. He was forty years old. He was an oncologist, a cancer doctor, and he went around at the hospital one day, got a severe headache and collapsed and died. As a seven year old, I saw the world through my own particular lens. Right seven year olds think that they're responsible for everything, So his dying must have been my fault. Somehow, somehow I wasn't enough, and so over the months after he died, I decided I could cosmically fix everything by stepping into his footsteps, becoming a doctor like him, and that would solve the tragedy of my early childhood. And that's exactly what I did. At the time, I had a learning disability. I overcame that. I went to high school, college, medical school, and I became the doctor I always thought I wanted to be. And something happened when I got there.

4:39 I realized that it did not tragically solve the death of my father, and I didn't particularly love the work as much as I thought I would. And way to open it up, Jordan, I mean way just to knock the rocket out of the ballpark. Fantastic way to open and get the attention of our listeners and viewers. Okay, so next, this is really quite interesting. You've uncovered some pretty important things in your book, and I want to start with the idea of what you refer to as the purpose paradox, which of course you refer to as the challenge, that purpose can be both life affirming and destructive at the same time. Well, here's the thing. I wrote my first book, taking Stock, to teach what the dying could teach us about money in life, because as a hospice doctor I got some of these really difficult questions answered. One of those big questions for me is what comes first, money or purpose?

5:32 And after writing this book, I really decided that we should put purpose, identity, and connections first and then build a financial framework around it. But when I went to go market this book and give talks about this idea of putting purpose first, I got a lot of pushback. People yell at me and they'd say, I've been searching for purpose my whole life. It's pissing me off. I'm getting frustrated. Stop telling me to find my purpose. And so, of course I did a deep dive into literature and I found two things that totally contradict each other. The first is there are tons of great studies out there that show that having a sense of purpose in life is associated with health, happiness and longevity. I'm not talking one or two studies, sometimes tons of them. On the other hand, I found other studies that show that up to ninety one percent of people at some point in their life have something called purpose anxiety, this idea that finding their purpose causes them stress, depression, and frustration. And so that's why I set off to really write this book.

6:25 How can it be both? How can it be both the most anxiety provoking thing as well as our savior? Right? Because if we had a pill we could take, then we could live longer, happier and healthier. We all would take that pill. And what I recognize is probably we get purpose wrong. It's probably not one thing, but two things, and that's the crux of our problem. Beautifully explain. I can tell you when I'm out speaking to audiences as well, Jordan, that on the one hand, I can probably feel people leaning in also just really desperately wanting to be able to glimpse an idea of their purpose. And then I also see the other but that you're also describing that are kind of either disgusted with the whole idea or have gotten frustrated, disappointed and just felt bad about themselves because they didn't have one.

7:10 So it's really aligned with what. You talk about in your book, which is another one of the many reasons I wanted to have you on the show to talk about it, because you bring a very very well researched, very deep perspective, and it's also anchored in this notion of what we learned from people who are dying, which is where I want to go next. You say that dying tends to clarify one's feelings about life. Indeed, right, So if you could say a little bit about what you've learned from people about in regard to purpose, especially when they're on their death bets. So what I've found is that we have all these mirages throughout our life. These things that we're told they're supposed to be important, are these versions of purpose that other people give us. Right, So money is a huge mirage, and we spend a lot of time worrying about money, and yet we don't think about what that money is in you four, what are we supposed to use that money to accomplish? We think a lot about what people have told us should be purpose in our lives. We watch TikTok and Instagram and we have society and commercials.

8:10 All these things are telling us what purpose should look like. And so if funny thing happens when you're given a terminal diagnosis, it lets people drop all these mirages because all of a sudden they realize that life is finite and they have very little of it left, and so they become very clear on what's important to them. And so often when I'm sitting at the deathbed with someone and we talk about their life in general, a lot of them will come out with this idea that I really regret that I never had the energy, courage, or time to do. And then they fill in the blank right, because for each of us it's something different. For me, for instance, it would have been if I had not traditionally published a book. I know, if God forbid I had gotten sick ten years ago, that would have been one of those huge regrets. And so it almost like clears the cobwebs, and for the first time, you're able to see very clearly not what the world wants of you, but you one of yourself. And I'll tell you, it's almost never money. It's almost never I wish I worked more nights and weekends. It's never. I wish my net worth was five hundred thousand dollars when I died, and it was only two hundred and fifty. It's usually about those deep, important things that we either had the courage to do or not.

9:16 I really appreciate that. I also I am a huge fan of Dan Pink. I keep trying to find a way to get him on my podcast. He's always said, I'll do at least, but you got to get past my publicist first. She's never said yes yet anyway. So one thing that I also got from reading Dan Pink's book on Regret was he has something in there called halftime, and it's well, that's sorry, that's not that's maybe that's in his first book, Win, The Science of Win. But what I got from that relative to the notion of dying Jordan, was that he talks about teams that were slightly behind at halftime, be they football teams or something like that, oftentimes would go on to win the game because they had just enough juice in the tank, just enough to be able to see if if we push, we press on, we can actually win this thing. Whereas if you're so far behind, you're probably not going to make it. So I really aligned with that Jordan, because I felt when I was in my early fifties that I was at halftime and slightly behind or more than slightly behind. And it gave me this tremendous energy and pretty soon I had three or four books out because I was driven by that notion of well, I can see death in my front mirror here.

10:27 Yeah, I mean the idea is memento mori. Right, So this idea, the mento moury, to carry the idea that we are constantly dying with us during our daily activities. And look, I do something called a life review right after a person who's on hospice has had their symptoms controlled and we get them to the right venue, right are they going to die at home or a nursing home or in a hospital. Once all of that settled, we do this life review. Is this attempt to ask them about the big questions of their life. What were the big things they accomplished, what did they fail at, what were their regrets, what were the most important relationships in their life? And let me tell you, even with dying patients who have weeks and months, we sometimes can help resolve some of those big life issues right. So if their goal was always to write a book, Okay, maybe they won't do that, but maybe they'll dictate the important stories of their lives to a family member who then will make it into a book later and pass that on to other family members. So if people who are on their deathbeds still have a hope of at least finding some resolution, then the rest of us have no excuses, right, we have no excuses. If you can imagine that one day I will regret something on my deathbed, then you have no excuse not to turn that into what I call a purpose anchor, which is an activity to start building purpose around. This is one of those inklings or beckonings of important things in our life, and that's a great way to start thinking about it. If I was going to die tomorrow, what would I regret?

11:44 Let's turn that into an activity where we can start building some purpose. Amen. Amen. Now we already talked about some of the studies here, Jordan, but I did want to go into a little bit more depth here because I was really pretty dazzled by the University of Michigan's work on their retirement study, and you talk about how they'd interviewed about twenty thousand people every two years, and there were some amazing things that came out of that. If you could just say a little bit about some of the physical piece of really what happens with how purpose manifest in terms of our actual physical health. Yeah, I mean it's amazing. And there are number of studies I pointed in there, and they really you know, talk about the fact that people tend to live longer, they have less cardiovascular disease, which was amazing, less cancers, they get better sleep, I mean, and they're happier when measured objectively. So basically, like I said, if I could give you a pill and I'd say you live thirty percent longer, you'd be thirty percent happier and thirty percent healthier.

12:44 You would take that pill. And yet we don't even have to take something that has side effects. We can start pursuing purpose and it's associated with all these benefits physiologic as well as mental health. Okay, and now I got a really burning question, what about how does it help our sex life? Well, I am not a sex life expert, but I'll tell you when we are happier, when we feel more comfortable, when we feel like we're more purpose driven in our life, almost everything gets better, so I would assume that would help that aspect of our life too, although I have not researched those studies. Specifically nicely answered and nicely danced around Jordan, beautiful. I couldn't help out asking you that. I know you could just ride with it.

13:27 I'm a podcaster, I know how to dance. I know I love that about you already. Okay, So now I don't think I've ever come across this phrase before, so we must entertain it. The dark side of purpose. Well, as I was talking about, there are really two types of purpose, not one, and this is the mistake we make. There's what I call big P purpose. This is big, audacious purpose. And in America we say if you can think it, you can build it. So we're not just talking about a big goal. We're talking about becoming president or curing cancer something really really big. Big P purpose tends to be really difficult, right, because only a few people are going to become president or cure cancer all those kind of things, so most people fail.

14:08 You've got to be the right person at the right time, saying the right things, with the right genetics and a whole lot of luck. And the truth of the matter is those things don't normally line up in our life, and so instead of being abundant, big p big audacious purpose tends to be scarcity mindset oriented. Let's talk about little pa purpose. Little bit purpose is the opposite. It's not goal oriented, it's process oriented. So think about all. The abundant things we could do that we could enjoy doing. And there's really no way to fail. If you stop enjoying doing it, you just do something else. So what's the dark side of purpose, Well, it's what those ninety one percent of people are having anxiety about. Big audacious purpose tends to make us feel really lousy. And a lot of times we co opt someone else's version of purpose by looking at Instagram or TikTok. So it's not only becoming president, it's having six pack abs, it's traveling the world, it's running a six or seven figure business. Again, all these things are really really hard to achieve, and so we go on to TikTok, we go onto Instagram.

15:05 We saw all these influencers or maybe even some of our friends doing these things, and we feel horrible because we're not the right person at the right time with the right genetics and a whole bunch of luck, and maybe truthfully, we don't want to spend the hard work and the time to do these things, and so it makes us feel purposeless. And so we get what I call purpose nihilism, right, this idea that well, there must not be a purpose because I've been looking at all these things on TikTok and Instagram and I can't seem to achieve any of them, and so I must not have a purpose. And I think it leads us to very dark places. And I do too, very. Very very well explained, and that is exactly what we needed to be able to hear there, because really, when people like I said, I got it in the audiences as well. But people don't necessarily know, but they don't know.

15:52 So the way you to explain that was beautiful a probably way for us to send people into the break so they can kind of think about that for themselves. I'm your host, doctor Olie Quartet. We've been on the air with Jordan dot G Grummitt Greater of Wealth with Purpose Mastermind, where he is focused on helping members integrate financial wellness and a sense of purpose and identity. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more, or to invite at least to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. Working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise alisee at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

17:19 Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I am your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I am dedicated to help them create a world where people realize their potential at work and are led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness, and we do business that matters the world. I keep researching and writing my own books, so my last one came out in March of twenty twenty three. It's called the Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose can radically in liig in your business and in order to help leaders understand the lay of today's land when it comes to employees the workforce, what do they want and need to stay with you and give you their best? And then I offer you twenty two best practices to help build a culture around that. You can find my books on Amazon or my personal site at leastcoretes dot com if you are just not joining us. My guest is Jordan Grummot, effectually known as Doc G. He's the host of the Earn and Invest podcast, author of the Purpose Code, how to Unlock Meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy, and many other things. Okay, so now let's talk a little bit about what happens when that purpose anxiety starts to manifest and we're not really sure what's going on here.

18:22 So you talk about showing up and there's in some clear cut psychological distresses and it was pretty intrigued by some of those manifestations. Can you share those with us? Certainly so. Some of the signs and symptoms of purpose anxiety, even though we don't identify it, things like job hopping. So we see this all the time that young people hop from job to job to job. And you know a lot of people say, well, it's to make more money, but often what also happens is they find that the job isn't fulfilling them. They have this idea of purpose. This doesn't feel purposeful to them, It feels stressful, they're not meeting their needs, and they jump from job to job to job. Another one is imposter syndrome. Foster syndrome is being in a job and feeling like you don't have what it takes to do that job. And we think of that as a normal thing actually when you're stretching yourself and you're growing and you're learning, But it also can be a fear and anxiety that maybe this isn't feeling very great or purposeful, or you weren't meant to do this job. And so there's a lot of purpose anxiety there. And maybe the most important is just this idea that there's this big version of purpose and you either find it the one thing and you live your best life, or you miss it and everything is lost.

19:39 And so I think those are some ways that we show our signs of feeling purpose anxiety in our everyday life. It's amazing. Yeah, And I think a lot of people listeners are gonna be like, yes, oh my gosh, he's talking to me, He's talking about me. One of the things that I have really laid my foundation on for me, Jordan, in terms of the work that I do today, is when I did my PhD years ago, I studied meaning and work and identity, and then I did postdoc research on that and found these fifteen modes of engagement that are based on the extent, the level, the kind of meaning, the depth of meaning that I mapped over to Maslow's hierarchy, as well as the extent to which the work related to the person. Was it an expression of them, Did it resonate and just fit them? You know it was it was it detached or in conflict to them, something like that. And so I was really intrigued with your story of Celia and how she really was following the footsteps of her mother when it came to the charity, I think, the soup kitchen and what the disconnect was.

20:38 So if you could share that story, because I want to explocate, because I think what happens too is people don't understand what is the disconnect. That's why also why they job hop is they don't understand what's missing or what are they trying to find. So Celia is a great example of the difference between little pe purpose and big pe purpose. Celia's parents ran a restaurant. They were very, very successful, and they started to charitable arm where they had a soup kitchen and had a homeless shelter. And Celia joyfully worked in those places and she loved the moment to moment. She loved being there, she loved handing out food, she loved being with the people. Unfortunately, her mom became terminally ill, which is when I met her, and eventually died in hospice, And to Celia's surprise, her mom had decided to work with the board to basically have Celia take her place when she died, because her mother was really the chairman of all these charitable organizations. The problem was that pulled Celia out of doing the things she loved, the things she loved the process of doing right we're talking about the moment to moment. She loved being there and being with the people, and she became an administrator, so she had to go raise revenue, raise money, go to board meetings, all these things that she didn't particularly enjoy. So the interesting thing is her goal was the same. She wanted to help the homeless. But the problem was when she took over her mom's role, her goal became much bigger too.

22:02 It was like, Okay, well, we're helping in this shelter, and we're helping these individual peoples, but maybe we need to start serving the community better by opening up more shelters, opening up more soup kitchens. And so she was, in a sense doing some of the similar things. She was helping the homeless, but the process had changed. It changed from something she loved doing is something she didn't like doing, which was sitting in boardrooms. It became a version of big Peeper, but something where she loved the goal but didn't like the process of doing it, and so she burned out. She no longer felt like it was serving her. And I think this happens to a lot of us. We liked this idea of this big goal. For Celia, it was serving the homeless, but we lose track of enjoying the moment to moment process. And the more we double down and the bigger we make the plans not just one shelter, but two shelters, three shelters, not just feeding a neighborhood but feeding a whole city. The goals get so much bigger we start spending our time doing things we don't enjoy to meet that goal. So Celia was in board meetings and writing up grants and all these kind of things she didn't particularly like. That's the trap a lot of us fall into, especially when we focus so much on the goal that we forget to enjoy the process.

23:13 Yeah, and the way that I would conceptualize what you were describing there is, you know, those are very very very different activities. When you're actually in the soup kitchen, labeling the soup to a homeless person and maybe having a conversation with them, looking in their eyes, giving them some sense of hope and encouragement, that is radically different activity than when you're writing grants or you're looking and scouting for other locations totter. Those are radically different activities. And so as a logo therapist, I know you talk about meaning as a cognitive sort of endeavor largely in the past, and purpose being something that is more what action oriented in the present. In the future as a logo therapist. You know, how we look at meaning is meaning is always registered along our value system. So what you find meaningful from what I find meaningful because we have different values and therefore that it also is really has got an emotional component to it. That's what makes it sticky. So what I would say to her for her is, you know she was really she didn't find as much meaning in those activities that she was doing as you know, the administrative and she was when she was on the front lines. And this is what I want to all of our listeners and viewers to think about for themselves and consider is you know, what are you doing? If you isolate the actual activities, you can start to recognize if this is a little P or a big P for you, and if this is the right kind of work for you or not. Because if you're not enjoying the day to day there there is probably something amiss here for you.

24:41 And I would argue that your impact on legacy is actually bigger when you do things you enjoy the process of doing these little p purposes. So what happened to Ceily, what happens to everyone. What happened to me as a doctor. Is we burn out, Yeah, because the work no longer fulfills us, even if the idea of the goal. The bigger the goal, the harder we have to work. The more we don't enjoy the work, the faster we burn out. Whereas when we do those little things that light us up, it changes the world around us. We collaborate with people, we connect with people in a different way, we form these communities, and that changes the world. And I think often we forget that because we again were really trained to believe that big and audacious is better, and in this case, I don't think it is.

25:25 Mmmmmm. I think you just have. You're providing such important instruction and hope for people, Jordan, and I'm right there with you. So you've also helped to clarify and crisp my message a little bit too. So I really appreciate that. One of the many reasons I keep hosting the show because I need amazing people like you who encourage my thinking and my learning and champion something. Further, So, what we were just kind of talking about there, when you were talking about legacy and connection, one of the things that I thought was interesting much I had come across to in some of my previous other studies was the research that you talk about in terms of longevity, et cetera and overall happiness and what's really under that, what's under that overall happiness is ultimately positive social relationships.

26:11 Yeah, so I grew up in the personal finance space, right, So after I moved out of doing so much physician work, I really did a deep dive into personal finance, which led me to purpose and so a lot of there's a lot of arguments about money and happiness, and we can go over the studies, but there's some major sentinel studies which suggest there's a connection to money and happiness, but they're just not the greatest studies. They're retrospective, which means they take data that was already collected. These data has been collected for short periods of time. There's something called the Harvard Adult Developmental Health Study, which started in like the nineteen thirties and it's been ongoing for eighty years. And they took people and studied them every two years. They made them do questionnaires, and then eventually they started doing MRIs and EEGs and blood tests and all sorts of analyzes on these asking that one basic question what makes people happy? And it's funny, after eighty years they came to conclusion it wasn't money, it wasn't achievements, it wasn't your job, and it wasn't even purpose. And I'll talk about that in a moment. What it was were these interpersonal connections. Now I could hear a bunch of people listen to just right now going. But you just said, all the studies show that purposes associated with happiness. Well, here's the thing. I think when you are involved in little p purpose, it lights you up when you show up as your best self, and that's what connects you to other people, like a moth to a flame. Other people are attracted to you. They want to work with you.

27:32 If they have something to teach you, they want to be your teacher. If they have something to learn from you, they want to be your student. And that's where those interpersonal connections come in. And it's a very different level. So they're different types of communities, their identity communities. Right ones, I live in Chicago, so I'm part of the Chicago community. Or maybe I was born to a certain religion, so I'm part of that community. But communities of internal purpose are communities that we come to because we have shared common beliefs, values, or an interest in a particular subject. And so when we become part of these communities of internal purpose, we really connect with people in a much deeper way, and I think that's where the happiness really comes from. So little pea purpose is a great conduit to community connections, those interpersonal relationships that I think happiness is really connected to.

28:19 All Right, two things on that, Jordan. One, what you're just talking about here with this connectedness now and this these connections you I'm sure probably know that the Attorney General or surgeon general has said that loneliness has become an epidemic. It is the equivalent in terms of detrimental tooryal health to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. So all we have to do is step into these these little p purpose activities to be able to find our tribe. And so now we've also helped to eradicate that epidemic. So that's I want to put that out there. And I even want to add something. We're not going to go into politics here, but I actually think a lot of our political problems are because of this purpose crisis.

29:01 We have a lot of people who feel disconnected to their neighbors. Right, fifty percent feel one way and fifty percent feel the other. But a lot of this is because there's a crisis of purpose and we're not building these communities of internal purpose, and because of that, we don't have that connectedness to other people who think differently than we do. So a few months ago, I was at a personal finance conference and we were talking about politics before the election, and this guy who I really respect and we see eyed I on on eight out of ten things, said I'm not going to vote this year because I don't like either candidates. Now, if I had encountered that guy on the internet on Facebook and didn't know him very well, I would have either ignored him, unfriended him, or fought with him. But because it was someone that I was part of an intern community of internal purpose, I was much more likely to actually sit down and talk to him and really flesh out his ideas and really listen when he told me how he was feeling. What if we did this across our country, where we were connected with these people, and we could sit down to people who are connected to for other reasons and then hash out some of these political differences, how much better conversations could we have? How much less anger could we have?

30:12 Short and grummit for president. I don't think I'd be very good at it. I think that's beautiful. In my neighborhood here in Dallas, close in East Dallas, there are signs in some of my neighbors loans that say. Can we talk if we voted differently? Can we still be friends if we voted differently? I just think that's great. So Okay. The other point that I wanted to raise about the back what you were saying about with money and happiness, et cetera. You got to tell the story of Dietrich Dietrich. You know that he's a perfect example of what I and what I think people misconstrue about money and how it's supposed to make you happy. Well, Dietrich gets close to my heart because I come from a cohort of people very like him. So I grew up in the financial independence retire early community. It's a community where a lot of people who don't like their jobs, so they try to make as much money as possible so they can live off their investments and not work anymore. And Ddrik was very much like that he liked parts of his job. He was a computer programmer, and he liked some of it, but he didn't like working for someone else. And so he built up this mirage of wealth that hey, if I just have enough money, I can stop working and everything I'll be great. The problem was he stopped working and had no idea what he wanted it to do with himself. So, just like everyone else, he played video games for a while, he went on some vacations, he sat on the couch and did nothing, and that got really old after a few months, and so then he had to do the hard work of trying to figure out what purpose really looked like in his life. And he actually realized that he liked computer programming, maybe not for his job, maybe not for

31:43 an employer, but started volunteering his time for groups of programmers who then would do work for non for profits, et cetera. And so. It really speaks to this idea that money solves money problems. And so if you don't have enough money, getting to the where you have enough money to provide food and shelter and all those basics is really really important. But after you get past a certain point, having enough money won't fix other things in your life. It's like oxygen. If you don't have enough oxygen, all you can think about is where you're getting your next breath. But once you have enough oxygen to survive and be comfortable, giving you more oxygen doesn't make you feel any better. And I think money very much is like that. And that's what Dietrich learned is that it was great having enough money to be able to quit work, but it wasn't incrementally improving his life. He had to actually go out and build a life of purpose, one that he really deeply enjoyed.

32:39 And he found people that he really cared about it who cared about him in the process. Just again, we get. Back to those interpersonal connections in community. The Harvard Developmental Health Study really says it all, and so I think we'll, you know, we see these examples of people who when they are connected to communities feel a different kind of way health. But when I think that's much more healthy and nurturing. Agreed, And on that note, let's take our last break. I am Alice Cortez, your host. We are on the area with Jordan Grummitt, who is affectionately called Doc G. He's the creator of Wealth with Purpose Mastermind, where he is focused on helping members integrate financial wellness with a sense of purpose and identity. We've been talking a bit about how some of the examples in his book illustrate little P and big P purpose. After the break, we're going to talk first about this concept of the climb that he has. We'll be right back.

33:47 Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infuse cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease a LISEE at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

34:39 Thanks for starting with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I am your host, Doctor Elise Cortes. I mentioned my last book, The Great Vitization, came out recently. What I did for you is I created a simple, three page, free organizational assessment for you to be able to determine the extent to which your current culture is meeting the needs of today's discerning workforce. You can find it at gustodeshnow dot com if you are just now joining us. My guest is Jordan Grummit. He's the host of the Earn and Invest podcast and the author of the Purpose Code, How to Unlock meaning, maximize happiness and leave a lasting legacy. So, as I mentioned before we broke, I really love your concept of the climb. I think it's I think it's simple, it's alluring, it really speaks to action. It's it's actionable, it's it's doable. So what's the climb?

35:28 So people all the time come up to me and say, how do I find my purpose? And I say, well, you don't find your purpose, you build or create it. So it's very action focused. And they say, well what do I build purpose around? And I say, there's something called purpose anchors. These things, inklings, these beckonings, these things we should build purpose around. We talked about one of those exercise to figure those out, which is to ask yourself that question about what would you regret if you found out you were dying, and then turn that into a purpose anchor to build some purpose around. So, once you have your purpose anchors, these things that light you up, then it's time to build some activities around those. And those are the climbs. And so the goal is that we have many climbs in our life. That there's this huge abundance because there's a million different purpose anchors. We could have a million different things that could excite us, and then for each thing that excites us, we can start building different activities around them. So let me give you my favorite example of the clients. My purpose anchor is public speaking. I love public speaking, and so that's a purpose anchor for me. I know because it's an inkling, it's a beckoning. When I get up in front of a crowd, I just it's I feel alive. And so that was a purpose anchor. But then I had to do the hard work, which is build a life of purpose around it. So I built a series of climbs around that. One is I started working at a speaker's Bureau.

36:43 So I developed a certain number of talks that I give on a regular basis. I ended up signing up for Speakers Bureau. So now I've built purposeful activities where I go to different conferences and I speak about these things that are deeply important to me. That was one client. Let's talk about another client. I do a podcast called or in an Event, so one of my favorite things is to be behind the mic and interview other people. And in fact, this is why it's little pea purpose for me, because even if at the end of that hour I put out my episode, no one listens to it, it was still an hour that was well used. So for me, that's another climb. Now you can build some incremental gain into your client. So it's not that you don't have to have goals. You can have some goals like I might have a goal of becoming a better interviewer.

37:25 So maybe I will watch really good interviewers. I'll listen to their podcasts, I'll take notes, and I'll try to incorporate some of those things into my podcast. Something I have agency over, I have control over. That's still a little pea purpose. What if I changed things around and I say my goal now is to have a million downloads on my podcast every month. Well, that just turned little P purpose into big P purpose, because you know what, that's a really hard thing to achieve, and really to get there, I'll probably start doing things I don't love doing to get more audience, because I'm gonna have to get on Instagram, I'm i have to get on TikTok, I'm gonna have to make a bunch of reels and videos, and you know what, I don't really like the process of doing those things. So I just took my little P purpose, my climb, this thing I love doing, this purpose and action, which is what a climb is, and turned it into big P purpose, which means I stop enjoying it. And so that's what we want to avoid.

38:15 So exciting, right, And I'm with you on both of those counts. The speaking in the podcast, there's a reason I've done my podcast for a ten years, been speaking for I don't know a lot of decades anyway. So let's talk about some. Of the things that we shouldn't be doing in climes so that would indicate that we're not actually in climb. There's five that you talk about in the book that I think it's important to recognize the properties that are associated with this is not what you mean by climb. Yeah, I mean I think there's some few obvious ones. First and foremost is when the goal becomes everything. Right, So when you go, like I said, from having a small goal of hey, I could become a better interviewer to a big goal which is hard to attain, like I want to get a million downloads a month, that's a pretty good sign that your clim has gone bad when you don't enjoy the process anymore in general, right when you're like, geez, I gotta do that podcast again, I really don't feel like interviewing this person, et cetera, et cetera. Those are kind of some of the main signs.

39:16 I'm trying to remember what all the five signs are that I got them, no worries, I got you. Yeah. So you also say that being on your client must bring you joy. Yeah. Yeah. If you're not enjoying the process, then it's a waste of time and you should start working on another climb. I love this one. You say you cannot fail your climb. So the problem is that big b purpose is very failable, and so the idea behind most of little p purposes that it's so abundant, right, it's just doing things you enjoy, and if you find you're not enjoying them anymore, you just start doing something else. So again, this possibility of failing, it's not really there. You just kind of do the thing and either enjoy it or you don't. Again, because you've taken the goal out of focus or goal agnostic, you really don't care if you succeed or not.

40:04 Yeah, and then you talk about what you mentioned a little bit earlier that climbs can incorporate incremental gain. And again I think incremental gain is great, but it has to be stuff you have agency over, right, So it's not things that are outside of you. It's what can I do that's very achievable. I can, you know, again, study other podcasters. I can increase my followers by being a little bit more engaged in social media and do it in a way that brings me joy. But once I start doing in a way that doesn't bring me joy again, things have kind of lost their way. And the last one is really playful. You say, and I quote, monogamy is optional when it comes to purpose. It's funny So I do a lot of coaching about purpose and people start with I have no idea what my purpose is, and by the end of a few sessions they're like, oh my god, there are so many purpose makers and so many climes. I don't know what to do. And my answer is, you know, take a dart, throw it against the dart board, and two or three of them. Whatever it hits, you do those two or three and are just extra. I have all sorts of purpose anchors and clients that I just don't have time for.

41:05 Pick two or three. If they work, great. If you want to incorporate new ones in great. If you are just so enthralled with one that it fills up all your time, that's also great. There really are no rules, but certainly you do not have to be monogamous. M hm oh. A few more things. I want to be able to get extraction before we end up having to get to close. So what I want to go to next, which I just think is incredible, is you talk about why people themselves cannot be purpose. And I can't tell how often I hear you know, my kids are my purpose or whatever, So let's definitely talk about that. Why can't I think people be this. Yeah, I mean, I think there are two really good reasons.

41:46 Let's talk about the simple one and the more complicated one. The simple one is your kids grow up and move on. And so if people are your foss out the door, yeah. They do, and they get married and they have their own families and maybe their spouse doesn't even like you, and before you know it, or they move. And so if you make that your full version of purpose, you will at some point find yourself lost when those people move on and do what they're gonna do. Or your friends are your purpose. But what happens when you retire and they're still working, They're not around. So you have to be really careful for that reason. But there's another more important reason that especially has to do with your kids and has to do with what I call generational growth. This is what I mean by generational growth. Let me show you the opposite. The opposite is generational trauma. That's when our forebears, our parents, our grandparents that are pass on unhealthy ways of dealing with things because the trauma they went through. And we see this all the time.

42:38 People who grew up during the depression often have money issues and they pass the idea of scarcity and running out of money to their children, their children pass it on to their children, and before you know it, it's just going generation to generation to generation. We often don't talk about the opposite, which is generational growth. We not only hand down bad things, but we can also model these really good behaviors. So why, as a parent do you not want your children to be your purpose? Because you want them to see you doing something that lights you up, something that feels a lot like little prepurpose. Why because when they get older, you want them to have permission to live lives where they're lit up and being their most intentional and best self. And the only way to teach them that is to have them see you doing that. Otherwise they're going to have the same modeling.

43:24 If you make them their purpose, they're going to make their own kids their purpose. And guess what, maybe they don't get married, maybe biologically they can't have kids, maybe it's just not the right place, right time, and we're setting them up to be possibly unhappy just for this one biological thing. I think we need to show them and model for them what being happy and lit up looks like, because ultimately that's truly what we want for our kids. I completely agree with that. I was one of the points of the bookhere. I was like, yes, I completely agree. This is why I embarrass myself in public when I'm reading it in public. But okay, so next, what I want to do is I want to showcase something pretty interesting about you, is that in your history you discovered that you really had enough money where you didn't have to work. You were sufficiently you have accumulated enough that you didn't have to work. And now here you are, of course, helping other people to invest and learn how to invest. So let's talk a little bit about what you're doing. How are you helping in this mastermind community.

44:20 Well, it's funny when I realized as financial independent, I had been modeled really great financial behavior by my parents. So I was a doctor, I was saving all sorts of money, I owned real estate, I was invested in the stock market. I did all these things right for decades, not knowing what it all meant. And then this guy, Jim Dally, sent me his book called The White Code Investor, which laid out financial independence, and I could do the calculations, and I was like, oh my god, I have enough money, I can actually walk away from this thing that I don't love anymore. But the problem was I didn't know what purpose and identity then look like. This was the only thing I had ever known, and so it took me a number of years to a subtract out what I did like about my job. I was left with hospice, the one part that I really did love, and then I had to start trying to decide, well, what does purpose look like in my life. Here's the funny thing.

45:11 You have enough money, you can never work again. But work actually enriches us and makes us feel good. And we might get paid and call it employment. But a lot of times when we're done getting employed and we have enough money, we still do things that are work. Maybe that's hobbies, maybe that's cleaning up the house, maybe that's building or creating something. But that's also work. We just aren't connecting the money to it. So I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I realized that there is these things that lit me up. Studying, personal finance lit me up, public speaking, podcasting, writing, All these things lit me up, And strangely enough, there was a busy doctor burned out and working sixty hours a week. You know, eight years later, I am a busy creator, working probably seventy eighty ninety hours a week, constantly working during vacations, et cetera. But it doesn't feel like work, because it just feels like life, Like Saturday is no different than Thursday or Wednesday or Tuesday. Ten in the morning is no different than a ten at night.

46:11 I work kind of in my own circadian rhythms. I take lots of breaks, I do lots of reading, I do lots of exercise, But at ten thirty at night, I might decide to write a blog post and feel energetic and excited. And so what I've really found is that I've been able to build a very busy life, one in fact where I don't sleep enough because I'm so excited and I jump out of bed in the morning to do things, but a life in which everything on my schedule I put there, and I can get rid of any of it at any time whenever I want. And so I'm busier than ever quote unquote retired. But the things I do fill me up much more. And so I think I've got to this point where I don't even really recognize the difference between vacation and work.

46:51 It's just all life. I understand. I really get that, and I think that's important because people say, oh, Lesh, you work too much, but I don't think about it as work. Same thing. It's Saturday and Thursday or condosselar for me. Okay, we're getting close to the end here. I would love to have you close, but let me kind of give you something to start from here, and you close however you like. But I love how you finish your book on page two hundred with this you say in closing. I wish for you to have a life of little pe purpose. I wish for you to use that purpose to build communities of people you love and who love you. I hope that you I hope that you become your teachers and students, mentors and friends. I wish for you to impact so many people that, like the pebble dropped in the ocean, your legacy will last decades and centuries after you have left this world. That is a beautiful way to finish a book.

47:42 I think when you do things that are deeply important to you, you change the world locally and its impact ends up being globally. We've made it way too confusing and way too difficult. We spent way too much time looking on Instagram, TikTok and listening to the age Ola device of what we're supposed to do with ourselves, and it's confused us, and it's made us anxious, and it's made us believe that there's this thing out there that if we just get it, it's going to make our lives great. And the truth of the matter is that most of greatness comes from doing things that bring you immense joy, and if you just do more of that, everything else will fall into place.

48:27 Amen. Brother, what a way to finish Jordan. It is an absolute delight to know you, to learn from you and now be connected with you. You can run from me, but you cannot hide. I'm pretty fast on my feet. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. I'm thoroughly enjoyed. Your listeners of yours. You are going to want to learn more about Jordan Grummitt and the work he's doing, his books, his podcast. You can learn about him on his website. His personal website it's Jordan Grummant dot com. Let me spell that for you, Jordan, j O. R. D. A. N. Grummitt g r U M E t So Jordan Grummant dot com. Last week, if you miss the live show, you can always catch it via recorded podcast. We were on the air with Janet Ioli talking about her work elevating leaders and her book called Less Ego, More Soul, a modern reinvention guide for women, though it also works for men.

49:12 Next week will be on the air with Christy Smith, who is formerly of Accenture, Apple and Deloitte and is now the founder of the Humanity Studio, talking about her co authored book Essential, how distributed teams generate AI and global shifts are creating the new human powered leadership. Promised it to be pretty intense and pretty deep. See you then, and remember that work is one of the best means and adventures and realizing our potential and making the impact we crave. So let's work on Purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four CY. Together we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose They crave see you there. Let's work on purpose.

50:05 Mm hmm