You might make a billion dollars and give 500 million dollars away. The problem with that is eventually that money ends. Eventually that money gets all used up and it's gone. But if you be the person you want to be and impact the people around you, the ripple effect of that can continue on for God knows how long.
Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast with your host, Jamila Sufrant, as a money expert who walks her talk. She helps brave juniors like you, get out of debt, save, invest, and build real well. Join her on the Journey to Launch to Financial Freedom in five, four, three, two, one.
If you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode. In the show notes, you'll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned and so much more. Also, whether you are an OG journey or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey.
It includes the top episodes to listen to stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources, and so much more. You can go to journey to launch.com slash jumpstart to get your guide right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode. Hey, juniors. Welcome to the journey to launch podcast. This week we have Jordan Grumant. Jordan explores financial independence and wellness through his blog.
and the Earn and Invest Podcast, which by the way, won the Plutus Award for Best New Personal Finance Podcast in 2019 and has received numerous nominations. Taking stock, a hospice doctor's advice on financial independence, building wealth, and living a regret free life was published back in August of 2022. He came on the podcast back then, episode 281. So I'll link that in the show notes so you can check out that episode. And now his new book,
The purpose code is set for release and it should be out by the time you listen to this episode. It's all about purpose, as you could tell from the title, but Jordan has basically committed his life's work now to understanding purpose and helping us understand our purpose. So welcome to the podcast again, Jordan. Jamila, it's so great to be back here amongst the journeyers.
Yes. And I mean, I didn't say this specifically, but in your taking stock, the book title, you know, it says a hospice doctor advice. So you were an hospice doctor. And I think in our first conversation on the podcast, episode 281, you talked a lot about that because you were talking about that book. But now your new book is all about purpose. And I wanted to understand like the connection between the two. So
Can you talk about money and financial independence and you came from this world where you were doctor and now we are talking about something a little bit different but very interconnected so can you explain for you what that connection is. Certainly well hospice actually.
show some of my ideas about purpose in two different ways one is when i found that i didn't enjoy being a doctor anymore and i started burning out i started subtracting out everything i didn't like about being a doctor and the one thing i was left with the thing that i would do even if i wasn't being paid for it was my hospice work so hospice for me is a huge version of purpose.
But the other side to that is that by dealing with hospice patients with sitting with people at the end of life, as they were telling me about their lives and we're doing something called the life review where we ask them these structured questions about their life. So they can come to terms with what's happening to them. I heard a lot about regrets and here is the amazing thing.
Regret in a person who's dying is very disappointing, right? Because you don't have agency to do much about it. You're tired, you're in bed, you don't have much time, you don't have the energy. So that's a very disappointing thing. But if we think about regret in a young, healthy person, it's really another name for purpose. So if you can imagine, what would I regret when I'm on my dying bed? And you can imagine that now. It's a great place to start with working on purpose today.
And let's start from the basics. What is purpose?
What does that mean? So purpose originally and generally is described is the why of what we do. Why do we do what we do? In my opinion, it's a key ingredient of happiness. So what I often say is that happiness is meaning plus purpose. Meaning is how we look at our past. It's how we cognitively think about the things that have already happened to us. It's the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Meaning is all about feeling a sense of enough and it's about your past.
Once you get to that sense of enough and you feel good about your past, then we move to present and future and purpose is all about action and present and future. It's about those things you do that fill you up. Now, you'll notice it's not about the things you do that are going to give you impact and legacy, although I do believe that if you do purpose correctly, you'll have a lot of impact and legacy.
But the point of purpose is not to prove that you are enough, not to prove that you can do anything or achieve anything. The idea behind purpose actually is that it helps you be intentional and do the things that are deeply important to you now. It's all about action. Can you give me some ideas? Let's talk through what are some examples of a purpose that someone would have.
So let me tell you about how I really came to writing this book. After writing my first book, Taking Stock, I basically wrote this book with one major premise, or at least one of three premises. And the premise was that we should put purpose identity and connections before
We put our finances and we should build a financial framework around purpose identity and connections. And as I was marketing this book and talking about it and going to meetups and discussing it with other people, I would have occasionally people come up to me and say, you know what, I loved your book.
But you keep on telling me to find my purpose and I don't know how to do that. Will you please stop telling me to find purpose? In fact, I don't think there even is such thing as purpose. I've been looking for it and I can't find it. And so this made me really do a bunch of research because I knew a purpose was important, but I couldn't explain why. And I found two things that contradict each other. First, all the scientific studies seem to suggest that having a sense of purpose in life increases your health, your happiness, and your longevity. Okay, so this is really important and there's great data for this.
On the other hand, I found other data that showed 91% of people at some point in their life develop something called purpose anxiety. Means the idea of purpose is stressful for them and actually may cause depression. So to me, this was a paradox. Like how can purpose be the most important thing?
And yet also causes stress and anxiety and what I realized throughout this research when I took the research and I added it to my experience of being a hospice doctor and I added that to being a podcast and a personal finance expert. What I really came up with is we get purpose wrong.
We think of it as one thing, but probably purpose is two different things. And one of them is healthy and is probably associated with this health longevity and happiness. And one of them is probably unhealthy and is associated with this anxiety. And so what I call those in my book are little p-purpose and big p-purpose.
And so little pea purpose i think is what fills us up and what is good for us and big purpose is probably what stresses us out and so i think it's the dichotomy it's recognizing the difference between those two that makes all the difference. Okay so what is an example of for you what's your little pea and then big pea purpose that you found.
So let me explain what those are, and then I'm gonna give you some examples from my life. So little P purpose is process oriented, not goal oriented. So it's not about making it to some goal, but it's about doing things you like to do. So it's very abundant, right? We can all think, hey, there's tons of things we could possibly like to do. There's really no way to fail. Really, all you gotta do is show up and do that thing you like to do.
And so it's this very comfortable, low-stakes version of purpose. On the other hand, big, big purpose is what I call big, audacious purpose. It's all about goals.
The problem with big P purposes is usually it is this kind of big audacious idea. I have to become a billionaire. I have to be president or I have to be a professional football player. All those things are great, but they're really, really hard to achieve. And a lot of times we don't even have agency to achieve them. So you have to be the right person at the right time doing the right things with a bunch of luck.
You might be a gifted politician and very smart, but you might have been born outside the United States and not be a US citizen when you were born and you became a US citizen later. So no matter how talented you are, you're never going to be the president of the United States. It is out of your control. You have no agency over that. So the problem with big P purpose is it's scarcity mindset oriented. Often only a few people can win and everyone else loses. So it's pretty much win or lose.
succeed or fail. And so I think it sets us up to be very unhappy because it's very goal focused as opposed to process focus. So let me talk about some things in my life that relate to that. Little pea purpose in my life is everywhere. Podcasting is a perfect example. I love podcasting. You put me in front of a mic and I start talking and I light up and no matter what happens,
That hour I spent interviewing someone or podcasting is time well spent, regardless of what happens afterwards. That's little pea purpose. Doesn't matter what happens to that episode. A hundred people listen to it, a thousand people listen to it. Doesn't matter because I enjoyed that hour.
Now, when I first started podcasting, I got caught up just like everyone else does in big P purpose. I started having these big audacious plans. I wanted a million downloads a month. I wanted to make all towards some money doing it. I wanted to be famous. The problem was that was really, really hard. And I actually realized I didn't want to spend my time doing what it needed to be done to do that. Like, I didn't want to spend six figures getting people to promote my podcast. I didn't want to spend 60 hours a week doing it.
I didn't feel comfortable in public in that way that you need to to have a really successful podcast. So in a lot of ways, I didn't have agency doing that. And if I had really stuck with that as a goal, I would have to do things I didn't enjoy doing most of the time just to get to that goal. And guess what? If I got to that goal, I feel pretty certain that I would been petrified that I would lose it and I double down and want to have two million downloads a month.
And so for me, podcasting can both show the joy of little P-purpose, as well as the problems with big P-purpose. And so I've had to be really intentional about letting go of that big P-purpose, because it caused me anxiety, and it sets me off in a direction in which I stop enjoying the daily process of what I'm doing. And I've had to really focus on the joy of creating. And here's what's really cool. Someone could say, you know what, Jordan, I hear you.
But if you focus on big P-purpose and you do get those million downloads a month, you can make lots of money, you can affect a lot of lives, you can do all these amazing things.
And I say, yeah, that's possible, but it's pretty unlikely I'm going to get there. On the other hand, if I focus on little people purpose, I can do something I enjoy and you will see me most intentional and lit up by what I'm doing because I love this. And you and I will work together and we'll collaborate. And when you write a book, I'll have you on my podcast. And when I write a book, I'll be on your podcast. And when we happen to be at the same conference, we'll hang out and have lunch together. And all of a sudden,
This little purpose is turning into collaborations, it's turning into friendships, it's turning into connections, and ultimately what I think eventually leads to happiness. So do you still have a big P purpose? Have you switched it? What does that look like for you? So I've actually let go of big P purpose. I don't feel it really fulfills any of my needs. However,
What I do is I'm not afraid of goal. So remember I said big P purpose is goal oriented. Little P purpose isn't, but that doesn't mean that you have to be goal phobic. Little P purpose is goal agnostic. So let me talk about my book, The Purpose Code. I would love a million people to buy it. I would love everyone to get this book. I would love it to be a smashing success. But the truth of the matter is my happiness, my joy in writing the book, my joy in coming onto your show and talking about it,
will be the same regardless if I sell a million copies or if I sell a thousand. And so the idea is to be goal agnostic. I can have these big goals, but if my full joy and sense of purpose only occurs if I meet that goal, then I'm probably going in the wrong direction. So I don't think we really need to have big P purpose. I think your success and even some of these bigger goals is a happy side effect of being really intentional and doing the things that let you up.
I love the differentiation between the two because I'm wondering for anyone listening. That kind of alleviates, hopefully, some of the pressure we put on ourselves to accomplish the big goals that we do want.
Do you feel like some people or many people should let go of the big P or the big P purpose is still important, but it depends. Depends on your mindset and where you are. Like how does one decide like, should I keep holding on to this big P or should I let it go? Let it go. I don't think big P purpose actually serves anyone. I think again, you can have big goals, but if the goal is the only importance, then you're probably doing the wrong thing. And here's how I put it. Let's go back to the podcasting.
My big goal, my big audacious purpose could be to get to the million downloads a month. But the problem is what I need to do to get there, I really wouldn't enjoy. So let's say I spent 95% of my time getting there, doing things that maybe didn't feel comfortable or felt solicitous or things that really weren't a good use of my time.
I might get to that big purpose, but I spent 95% of my time doing something I didn't like for that 5% that I hit that moment that felt great when I met that goal, but that only lasted short period of time because after you meet that goal,
you know, you hedonically adapt to whatever it is. And then you either have to double down and create another big goal and then spend 95% more of your time doing stuff you don't like to get there. Or you get petrified that you're going to lose it that all of a sudden I had a million listeners, but a bunch dropped off because I went to once a week instead of twice a week because I was exhausted and I didn't want to put out two episodes. But now I have to go back to two times a week because I can't have, you know, all the numbers go down, etc, etc.
So the point being is I just don't think we need to really make it about big purpose. The reason people love big purpose is because they think that is the way to impact and legacy. But my argument in the book is actually we have a deeper impact and more legacy when we focus on little purpose, even though that's a little counterintuitive to people. But it tracks because as I'm thinking about sports or athletes,
I think about the process. And for a lot of this, for a lot of athletes, especially, you know, starting young and working your way up to become great in something, you have to fall in love with the process of working. And in that, whether it's sports or something else, when you fall in love or at least accept the process and like, you know, it is what it is and you find, you know, you don't have to necessarily go to the NBA.
but because you're doing so well and working and pushing yourself in your way to make a difference whether it's on your youth league or as a coach or whatever that is you are having an impact and you are making a difference in your own life because you're pushing yourself forward and sometimes within that little p you get to the big p
And it's when i hear about the stories of people who have made it further it's like, it's almost like even if they didn't make it in that thing they would still be doing it because they enjoy it and love it. So it's almost like a catch when people like try to start from the top and say well that's what i want that's the only thing that i want versus.
Actually, I'm going to fall in love with like who I need to become and the process that no matter what if that goal comes to fruition or not, I would have fulfilled what my life's work is even if there's not a million people cheering me on like when it happens. It's like I just have to share myself on.
Yeah, you know, it's funny, and let me try to put this in terms of an example, like running, right? So a lot of people will say, I'll be happy when I run the marathon, right? So it's an experience or a goal, and they think that's gonna make them happy. That's one group. Another group says, I wanna be a runner, so I'm gonna buy expensive shoes and I'm gonna get a tracker, so they're trying to spend money to get to be who they want. The other group is trying to achieve a goal to get to who they want, but I would argue,
If you become a runner, if that's what you do and what you enjoy and you enjoy the process of doing it, if you become the person you want to be, you know, the goals come and go. But it's being that person, the spending you do on the thing comes and goes and makes you briefly happy for a moment or two. But what gives you that deep enduring happiness is being the thing you want to be and
So rarely is being the thing you want to be depends on the goal. It's more about being in the process and doing the thing. You don't become an author when your first book comes out. You become an author or writer when you start enjoying the process and sitting down and doing the writing. Same with a podcaster. You don't become a podcaster when you've had your millionth download. You become a podcaster when you sit down on a regular basis and become the person who does the thing.
And so a lot of the times that's why process to me is so important because it really relates eventually to identity it's who we are it's when we are the person who does the thing not necessarily what we achieve. So with purpose right obviously wrote a whole book about it and when you talk about the anxiety of it and what people.
shy away from, which causes so much, probably angst for them in their lives. So then what should a person who's listening to this do if they find that one, they don't even know how to identify their purpose. I mean, they know the things that kind of make them happy, you know, work is bogging them down. So they feel like there's not a lot of time to seek out or identify what that is. But then how does one find purpose? Is purpose meant to be found? Or is it, is there another word for how you uncover in your life?
Yes, in fact, that's a great point, something I definitely want to talk about. First and foremost, though, I have to point something out. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does the US time survey on a regular basis. They find the average person has at least five hours of free time a day. And in fact, people in lower socioeconomic status have a little bit more than five hours a day. So this idea, I don't have enough time to
Deal with purpose. I just don't buy. I get it. A lot of people work in eight to six. They have families, etc, etc. But there is a lot of time in the day.
Sorry, I just had to jump in because I just saw again, this is one of the reasons why I say I don't have time is I was scrolling on social media and then there was like one of those funny, I guess memes are the viral things going around where she looked like a mom and she was like, you know, talking about all the things I can't do in the day and how I'm so overwhelmed and then she was doing something and she was on the bed scrolling and laughing and then like the real reality and I'm like,
That's what I do too. But anyway, I'm just like, yes, that's a reality for a lot of us. But I will say that maybe whatever mental decompression, like when I drop my kids off or when I finish a task, even talking to you, I typically need a like downtime where it feels like, yeah, that's taken away from my time to do productive things because I need, I need a break from whatever task I just finished doing. But anyway, go ahead.
So let's talk about this idea of purpose. Do you find your purpose? I actually make the argument that we don't find purpose we create or build purpose, but it is true. You'd have to understand what those inklings are, those beckonings.
of what we should build purpose around. So what I call those are purpose anchors. And so what we're really talking about is not how do I find purpose, but how do I find these anchors to build purpose around? And there's some really basic ways to do this which I talk about in the book. I mentioned four or five and there's some exercises in the book that show you exactly how to do this.
But let me run through a few of them. If you read my last book, Taking Stock, I talk a lot about the life review. This is a structured series of questions that we go through with dying patients to help them review their lives. Questions like what were your biggest successes? What were your biggest failures? Who were the important people in your life? And very importantly, what do you regret?
And so in a dying person, regret is very disappointing, right? Because they don't have the agency to accomplish these things. But in a young, healthy person, regret is another name for purpose. So a life review is a great way to start looking at what are some of the purpose anchors I can build purpose around. Specifically, if I found out I was going to die tomorrow, what would I regret never having the energy, courage, or time to do? The answers to that question are a great place to start thinking about purpose. So that's the life review.
Another one which I also talked about in my last book is the art of subtraction. Let's say you go to an eight to six and you don't like your job. What I tell people is make a list of every single thing you do at your job and start scribbling out everything you hate and see what's left. Is there a day of the week that you actually like going to work because you do that one task that lights you up and you do it for an half an hour an hour but then you're done and you have to go back to the boring judge work?
That could also be a purpose anchor. So what do you like at work even if you hate your job? What tasks? What people do you like working with? What do you have an ability to do that other people don't have? So the art of subtraction is also a great way to start looking at purpose anchors. A third way is to look at the joys of childhood.
Have you ever gone back and looked at your childhood room in your memory or in your parents' house if it still exists and looked at what posters were up? What trophies you won? What are the drawings on the wall? A lot of times we have these joys of childhood that we put aside when we decide we're going to become adults and do adult things.
But those childhood joys often mean a lot to us. I often talk about me. When I was a kid, I loved collecting things. I loved collecting baseball cards, stamps, coins. I don't have enough time in my life right now, but if I was really looking for what purpose could be in my life, I used to love collecting. Every time I'm on Facebook and I see something about coins or baseball cards, my eyes light up. So what did you enjoy during childhood? That's another great way to find some of those purpose anchors. And last but not least, I talked to people a lot about the spaghetti method.
If you have no idea what purpose looks like in your life, throw a bunch of things against the wall and see what sticks. I mean, say yes to things you normally don't say yes to. Hang out with people you don't normally hang out with. Do things that cause you a little anxiety because you'd usually stay away from them and see what brings you joy. We're not talking about something major here. We're just trying to figure out what are the things you could do where you'd enjoy the process of and it would be a good use of your day. Once you do that, once you have these anchors or inklings, then's the hard work.
You have to build a life of purpose around those. That's what I call the climb. It's the process of building that life of purpose around these anchors. But those are the first steps.
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can your purpose change? So you can have cared about or felt strong about and passionate about something, you know, in your 20s and 30s and you can even some, using these anchors, the purpose anchors find something and then do it and one find that, okay, that's not it or do it for a while and love it and feel really attached to it, but then also wane from that and not like it anymore. Does that mean that it was never your purpose to begin with or that you can change your mind and find something else?
You could totally change your mind. You can have one purpose or many. Your purpose can last a week, a month, a year, or your whole lifetime. Your purpose can change the world, but it doesn't necessarily have to. It can just change you. That's the beauty and abundance of little pea purpose. The only definitions are that you have to enjoy the process of doing it while you're doing it. And there is nothing wrong.
with doing things that you really love for three weeks or six weeks or a year or two and then deciding that that isn't enduring to you anymore and you're feeling more discomfort or unhappiness while doing it as opposed to joy. And then you move on and you'll probably find most healthy people have many versions of little p-purpose and some of them are more enduring that they do for their whole life. For me, communicating, writing, podcasting, public speaking, very enduring.
Those are a sense of purpose I'm going to probably have for the rest of my life. Collecting baseball cards, something I did with the kid was very purposeful for me for a few years and then stopped. I enjoy books. I go through periods of reading books every day or reading for a few hours a day and then I go through periods where I don't do that at all. That might not be as enduring. Certain friendships, certain activities, certain joys may not last as long and that's completely fine.
What about the difference between responsibility because you need to and have to do something and confusing that with purpose? So as a parent, as a mom, I do feel like part of my purpose is to raise my kids and get them into the world as happy adults. But I have a bit of time with them to do that.
But it's also just my responsibility to do that for them. And, you know, I brought them into this world. We brought them into this world. And so the responsibility part sometimes, you know, I don't enjoy every aspect of parenting.
Just like I'm a runner now. I'm actually training for by the time this comes out that I would hopefully have completed my first half marathon, but I'm training for it. And I don't enjoy every aspect of it. While I'm running, I'm like, why am I doing this? But obviously there's a payoff. I do feel good after I do a run. So just with parenting, there are hard times. And then I'm like, wow, there are those moments where I'm just like, oh, that was whatever. So the parenting part goes back to the responsibility where it's just I'm responsible to do this.
And then the running part reminds me just of like, that's not all enjoyable. Like I don't always enjoy that process. So how does one differentiate between like what's responsibility and then even like, what if I don't enjoy this thing? Is this still my purpose? So let's break those up because they're two different things. Let's first talk about the running.
I don't enjoy every bit of podcasting. There are times when I don't enjoy editing. There's times when there's parts of it I don't enjoy. But ultimately, I have complete control over the activity. If I decide not to edit, I don't have to. If I decide not to do it anymore, I don't have to. Ultimately, at some point, I make a decision that the joy I feel from putting out this podcast overtakes the momentary dislike I have for certain parts of it. And I would say exercise is very similar. There are points of exercise none of us like.
But the general joy you get from the process of doing it and then feeling good after is enough that you're not going to get rid of this activity. If the pain ever got so bad that it wasn't better than the joy, you'd stop doing it. And it wouldn't be purposeful for you anymore. So I think that's a way to look at responsibility. And don't get me wrong, I'm not Pollyanna. We all have life responsibility. So it doesn't mean we're going to enjoy everything we do. And not everything we're going to do is purposeful.
But if you think about it, our goal in life winning the game should be filling as much of our time as possible with joyful, purposeful activities, right? So time passes no matter what we do. We have no control over it. You can't buy it. You can't sell it. You can't trade it. Time passes. So all you have is control over what activities you fill that time with.
Our goal should be to fill that time with as much purposeful, joyful activity as possible. Does that mean we'll fill it all? No. We're all going to be going to the doctor and doing things we don't want to do at times. But we should be trying to maximize that time. That is the calculus of, I think, happiness.
Now let's go to parenting and I really do talk about this a lot in the book. I believe truly that other people can't be your purpose. Now that doesn't mean that we shouldn't love our children or spend lots of time with our children or give to our children. But there are two reasons why I think it doesn't work. One is your children grow up and move away and if your children are your purpose they need to pursue their own lives and it's going to leave you feeling lost and barrens.
Children or your parents or your dog is your only sense of purpose. Unfortunately, other people are somewhat ephemeral and you don't have a lot of control over them. So once they leave, you find yourself lacking. That's part of it. The other thing, and let's specifically talk about children. What do you want for your children? What I want for my children is not that they live for their kids or if they decide not to have kids to feel like they have no sense of purpose.
I want them to go out into the world, find things they enjoy that fill them and light them up, and do those things. Well, if I want my children to do that, what's the best way to teach them? Well, the best way is not to tell them that, and the best way is not to spend all my time paying attention to them. The best way to teach my children that is to do it myself, is to build a life full of little P-purpose where I am intentional and lit up and have them see me doing those things.
And that's what I call generational growth. It's the exact opposite of generational trauma. Generational traumas we hand down behaviors that don't help our kids. I want generational growth. I want my kids to see me doing things that light me up. And they will try on that identity that of being like me and start doing things that light them up because ultimately when they're adults, I want them to have a life of little P purpose. And the only way to do that is if I do it myself. I totally agree with that, which is why I share with
my kids like the process of me training for this goal. I have a completing the marathon and you know, like letting them see like I am a full person too outside of being your mom. Like there's a lot of things I want to do that I do. Yes, I'm going to meet my friend like you can't come. Mommy's going to hang out, you know, like things like that, which you know, at the time you're like, that's not fair. I'm like, it's totally fair. Like you guys have your time, right? You like it. This is my time. So yeah. And let me explain why this matters.
Why actually doing that leads to bigger impact and legacy? Because a lot of people say, well, that sounds selfish. So let me tell you the story about my maternal grandfather, a man I never met. He died before I was born. My maternal grandfather loved math. Not because it helped society, not because it was good for his kids. He loved math because he loved math. That was his little purpose. So he became a CPA.
And when my mom was little, she would sit on his lap, and this is back in the 1950s, so he'd have his big spreadsheet, and he would show her what numbers he was putting into each box in the spreadsheet and why. He was modeling for her his little pea purpose. And she tried on that identity and said, you know what? I kind of love math also. And she went out, and as an adult, she became a CPA.
My mom loved math, and I saw her being a CPA, owning her own company, and loving what she did. She loved it. And so I tried on that identity, and I loved math, too. And you know what happened when I was little? I had a learning disability, and I couldn't read. Everyone else was on their basic readers, and I was coloring and coloring books, because I just couldn't do it. In fact,
I should have felt really stupid. But I didn't feel stupid. You want to know why? Because I was really good at math. And so I knew if I was good at math and I could process that and do well at that, I must be okay. I eventually got over this learning disability, became a doctor, and I was once seeing a patient in the hospital who got admitted deathly ill. He kept on getting admitted. No one could tell why. He was dehydrated, really sick.
And I saw two of the numbers in his lab results, and I noticed a mathematical connection, because I loved math, that no one had ever noticed before. And we actually diagnosed him with a rare disease, and one of those rare diseases that actually had an easy treatment. We put him on the right medicines. He stopped being dehydrated. He didn't almost die.
And that guy was a pastor at a local church who brought in homeless children and gave them social services and food. So let's think about this. My maternal grandfather, who I never met, who died in the 1960s, his love of math directly relates to some kid in 2024, hundreds and hundreds of miles away,
getting support at the worst time in their life. And that's impact, that's legacy. And that's why when your kids look at you or someone looks at you and says, why are you being so selfish? Why aren't you spending time on your kids? And you're saying, no, I'm doing the thing that lights me up. I'm doing this podcast or I'm going to this conference or I'm meeting up with these friends. What you're doing is you're practicing little P purpose and you're creating this generational growth. You're actually creating your impact and legacy that will probably far outlive you.
That was a really beautiful story. And how important is it for us to actually connect those dots? Because the connection and your impact would have still happened if you did not connect it back to your grandfather. But I do think awareness is so helpful because then it continues to validate the choices that we've made and what has been done and the generations or whatever before us. But there are probably things that we are doing now as adults that there was a
passed down a positive thing that happened, that started way before us. But we don't even know the connection. So you happen to know the history and your connection so you can make that. And I think that is profound for you because then literally it's a story you can tell and validates what you're doing. And I think of like so many things
in our life that we don't even know. We still know what we don't know. And how important is that us to know what it is and why we're doing it versus to let it be and to not have to know? Well, here's what I'm trying to convince people. I'm trying to give you permission to practice little P-purpose even though you might not see the immediate impact and legacy.
So the point being of my maternal grandfathers he was just doing what he loved and if you read my book the beginning story is actually about a guy who ran an antique store and decided to sell baseball cards because he was passionate about it and excited him and he created a community for people like me nerds geeks losers who didn't have a community.
and it positively impacted us, and we went out into the world and changed that world. The point is, when you do this little P, you might not see all the ripples, but when you do what lights you up, you attract people to you, like a moth to a flame, people see you at your best, and other people who have interests similar to yours are gonna wanna collaborate, and they're gonna wanna learn from you, and they're gonna wanna teach you, and these are those deeper, more important connections
that cause that generational growth, that cause that displacement of water, right? When a stone is dropped in the water, it causes a displacement, and that displacement continues. Sometimes it adds on to other waves and gets huge. Sometimes it dissipates, and what happens is those waves that displacement of water eventually ends up on a sandy beach, hundreds and hundreds of miles away. You might not see it, but I want to give you the courage to be involved in little pea purposes.
A, because it's going to impact other people long term, and B, it's going to give you a greater sense of happiness and connectedness. I mean, the studies are clear. We talk about things like money and happiness, and there's all sorts of studies about money and happiness, and we can argue about why they're good or bad. But one of the greatest studies about happiness was the Harvard Adult Health Study, and they took people back, I think, in the 1920s and 30s, and they took a bunch of Harvard students.
And then they added on about 1,500 other family members, and then eventually they added on a bunch of controls from Boston who weren't part of the Harvard community. And they literally interviewed these people every two years. And they eventually did MRIs on them and did EEGs and drew blood every so often, interviewed their family members. And after 70 years of watching these people throughout the whole time, they tracked their income, they tracked their happiness, they tracked everything. After 70 years, they found the thing most connected to happiness
was not money. It was not achievements. It was not accolades. And I'll let the cat out of the bag. It wasn't even purpose. You know what it was? It was interpersonal connections and community. It was the people. The argument I make in the book is we know through studies that purpose improves health longevity and happiness
I think the Harvard study tells us the way it does that is through interpersonal connections. If you follow this idea of little P-purpose, you will connect with other people, you'll form communities, and that ultimately is what's going to bring you a sense of happiness. That's the real gift or the real nugget there is like the purpose leads you to deeper connections with yourself and other people around you.
And that leads to impact. So you might not see it. But we know it's there. We know through stories like my maternal grandfather. We know through stories like the guy who owned the antique store that I tell the story about in the beginning of the book. Those stories are there. And so we don't always see them. But I want to give people the confidence to know that that's where their true impact lies. You might make a billion dollars and give $500 million away. The problem with that is eventually that money ends. Eventually that money gets all used up and it's gone.
But if you be the person you want to be an impact that the people around you, the ripple effect of that can continue on for God knows how long. How should we think about or, you know, connecting this directly back to money? And, you know, I know for a lot of purpose, like it doesn't involve money necessarily, you know, like you don't have to spend money, but then some people may think, well, in order to fulfill or
Find my purpose or create my purpose. It involves money that I don't have or have to create this space for. What are some advice around that when people maybe feel already strained or don't feel like they have enough? So let's have the difficult, complicated conversation about privilege.
So a lot of people come to me and they say, you're a doctor, you're financially independent. Well, you have lots of privilege. Of course you have time and energy to think about purpose. And here's my answer to that. We often mistake money as the only tool in our tool belt.
We think that money is the end all be all, but the truth of the matter is, money is just one useful tool, but we have access to all sorts of other tools. So we not only have money, but we have our youth, our energy, our communities, our skills, our passions, and countless more.
So if you take your 22 year old, let's say they went to college, maybe they didn't. They're working eight to six in a job they hate. They're just barely making enough money to cover their food. And they're looking at me and saying, yeah, that's a real privilege take, but I don't have that time and energy and I don't have that money. How am I going to live a life of purpose?
Well, I would say at 22 years old, you might not have a lot of that tool of money, but you have some other tools. You have your youth, you have your energy, you probably don't have a mortgage, you maybe don't have kids yet, you have a lot of tools at your disposal. So maybe you do work that eight to six Monday through Friday, but because I'm 51 and you're 22, you have a little more energy than me.
And because I have kids and all these responsibilities on the weekend and you don't have those yet, maybe you can spend three hours a week on Sunday doing something you're passionate about that maybe also is a side hustle. Take something you really like, see if you can turn it into a side hustle, and whatever it is, the only important thing is you really like doing it for those three hours a week.
And let's do that for six months. One of two things either happens. One is maybe you make a little money and that gives you a little margin and you can work nine to five instead of eight to six. Maybe you can work Monday through Thursday instead of Monday through Friday. That margin gives you some power. Maybe you even get better at it, make more money and you can leave that job totally or go to halftime. Let's look at the other side. What if you do that thing and you make no money? Well,
After six months, you made no money, but guess what? You just added in three purposeful hours to your life every week that weren't there. So in the calculus of your life, you want to fill as much of your time as possible with purposeful activities, you've now added in three purposeful hours every week for the last six months.
Either way you win. So we have all these tools, we have to use them. And then we have some levers, right? So the tools are things like your money, your energy, your time, your joys, your passions, your community, your family. Those are all your tools. But then we also have some levers. In the book, I talk about three of them. I talk about the joy of addition, the art of subtraction and substitution. So the joy of addition, well, that's the case where you do that extra side hustle for three hours a week. It doesn't make any money for you, but you add it in something purposeful for your life.
the art of subtraction. Well, that's where you get rid of something you don't like or you loathe. Maybe at work, there are parts of it you don't like. Maybe you can get rid of some of that. Maybe you can get rid of those things that you don't enjoy and yet still remain employed and still be of service to the job. And so if the joy of an addition, the art of subtraction don't work, then substitution. If you hate your job, maybe it's because your boss, see if you can work for the same company but for a different boss.
If you hate your job, but you hate the activity, see if you can keep your job, but do a different activity. If you hate your job because you hate the company you work for, see if you can do the same thing for a different company. I'm not saying it's easy. This is going to be hard. You have to build a life of purpose, which means you are going to have to work at this. But there are options. You have these tools and these levers. And we know from the US time survey, you have some time. You've got to use them.
I love that. Jordan, I mean, this, this conversation, I mean, I really hope someone
Listening is more inspired to find those little peas in their life, create the little peas in their life with a lot of things you mentioned. But I know that reading your book will definitely really help them. So please tell everyone where they can find your book and more about you. The best way is to go to jordangrommet.com. That's J-O-R-D-A-N-G-R-U-M-E-T.com. There you will find links to both my books.
As well as you can find the books on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. You can also find links to my podcast. You're going to invest podcast. There's a financial blog. I have a sub stack called the purpose code that discusses the things that are in the book. All of that you can get at Jordan Grumet.com. I will link all of that in the episode show notes. Thank you so much, Jordan, for coming back on the show. Thank you so much for having me. The one thing I want to leave all of your listeners with is optimism. You can do this.
What a great way to end. Thank you. Don't forget you can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this. And you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journey to launch.com slash jumpstart.
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