Jordan Grumet tells people his wake-up call was his kids leaving home. The real one was smaller and earlier: a panic attack the day the numbers said he could finally afford to quit medicine.
If you've built a life that looks right from every angle and still can't say why you keep showing up, that's the question underneath it. Are you there because you love it, or because it's the only proof you've got that you're enough?
Jordan is a hospice doctor who left private practice, and the author of The Purpose Code. His case: you don't find purpose, you build it, and meaning, the story about your past, has to come first or purpose turns into a treadmill.
It didn't resolve the day he quit, and it won't resolve in one sitting for you. But the question his dying patients taught him, what would you regret never having had the courage to try, you can answer tonight.
Start there.
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Meet the Guest
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Are you someone who's lost?
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Maybe you're someone who's waiting for a sense of purpose to magically appear.
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Or are you someone who would like to build a sense of meaning in their life? You just don't quite know how.
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Today. I'm joined by Doctor Jordan Grumet,
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author of The Purpose Code, host of the Urn and Invest podcast,
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the associate medical director of a leading palliative care hospice
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the USA.
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is on a mission to help people build their own sense of purpose and meaning in their lives.
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A lot of times we think purpose is our why. And I often tell people actually it's more of our what.
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that 91%
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people at some point in their life get purpose anxiety. What that means is this idea of finding their purpose causes them depression, anxiety, and stress.
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that your average person, if they think about the kind of things they like to do and how they'd spend a day doing something they enjoy. They start realizing they're a million things they could do that are fun, exciting, interesting.
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all, we don't find our purpose. I really think we build or create it. And so it's a very active process
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Doctor Jordan, Gromit, welcome to Don at the old man. I'm so pleased to have you here.
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Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for the conversation.
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Unknown
So am I. When we. When we did our research around the whole topic of purpose and identity and making meaning, partaking in the second half of life, your name kept popping up everywhere. Primarily, of course, because you're with a great book called The Purpose Code. So that falls back into this whole topic, but also your own podcast and all your writings and blogs over the last couple of years have really positioned you as someone who's got a lot of interesting thoughts in this whole topic.
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Unknown
So I'd like to talk to you about a few different things, including your hospice work, because you are someone who's right up close with folks who are going through the end stage of life, either as a family member or the person themselves. And I also want to talk to you about pivoting careers in midlife, because you've successfully done that as well.
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Unknown
But can we start with purpose? You separate the idea of meaning, the story that we tell each other from our past, from purpose, which isn't the present in the future. Can you explain that to us?
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Well, I started thinking about what really makes us happy. And there were lots of studies about purpose and how people have a sense of purpose in life, live longer or happier and healthier. But a lot of us get stuck on what is purpose. And so I actually wrote a first book called Taking Stock, where I kept on telling people, I'm dealing with these hospice patients, and I'm hearing their regrets.
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And what I really learned from this is we have to put purpose and identity before we build a financial framework. And I went out on the road to talk about these concepts, and people would come and look at me and say, okay, great, but how do I find my purpose? And that's why I kind of did a deep dive into the purpose, the idea of purpose.
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And I realized that we get purpose wrong. A lot of times we think purpose is our why. And I often tell people actually it's more of our what. What do I mean by that? Well our why if you start thinking about I need to find my purpose and it's my why for living, it becomes this big, anxiety provoking idea, like a needle in the haystack.
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And you either find your perfect purpose in life is great, or you miss it and all is lost. And so I started thinking that purpose is not our why. It's more of our what. It's what we do in the present and future to light us up. And so then that begs the question, well, what is your why? And so I started thinking about the difference between meaning and purpose.
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And I think happiness requires both. And I think meaning is how we cognitively look at our past. It's the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. It's all about thoughts, and it's all about our past. On the other hand, purpose is about the present, and future is simply the actions we take that light us up. And so when you put it together that way, instead of looking for that needle in the haystack, you start realizing, well, if I want a sense of meaning, and I often basically use meaning as a journey to enough of feeling enough on the inside.
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Unknown
A lot of times, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, whether we tell ourselves a hero story in which we were enough and we overcame difficult things, or we tell ourselves a victim story in which we were thwarted and never overcame these things. What we're really saying is our sense of meaning. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves is a journey to enough, and people who successfully make that journey, who work on meeting.
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They look at their past and they tell themselves better. Stories are much more fit to then jump into purpose, because purpose is just action in the present and future. The mistake a lot of people make is that they don't have a good sense of meaning, and they don't feel like they were enough in the past. And so they decide, well, I can just purpose my way to feeling enough.
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And so instead of going back and dealing with meaning, they start achieving things and they say, well, if I make it to $1 million, then I'm going to finally feel enough inside. If I make it to chief partner of the law firm, I'm going to finally feel enough inside. And what happens is they get to these places and they realize that it doesn't feel that kind of inner hole and that inner turmoil they have that's really based in the past.
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And that's why I kind of separate the difference between meaning and purpose.
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love that distinction because I have a bit of a love hate relationship with the notion of purpose. And what I mean by that is, I feel for myself, I lead a very purposeful life. I haven't always done that, but I feel I do now. But I feel there is so much noise, particularly at airport bookstores, about, hey, read this book and you find your purpose.
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And it's almost like a eureka moment. I'm waiting for it to arrive, which I which I always think is such a waste of time.
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I think there are a few things that dispel that notion. First of all, we don't find our purpose. I really think we build or create it. And so it's a very active process first and foremost. And second of all, I think we need to take some of the tension away from purpose. Purpose is not our why for existence.
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Purpose is not going after that huge, audacious thing that no one else can do. Purpose is not meeting goals. When we make purpose simple, it's just the things we ever do. Every day that we enjoy the process of that light us up. It becomes light and airy and that really takes the stress off of it. Purpose is abundant.
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What do I mean by that? I mean that your average person, if they think about the kind of things they like to do and how they'd spend a day doing something they enjoy. They start realizing they're a million things they could do that are fun, exciting, interesting. And if you're looking at me listening to this and saying, you know what?
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Unknown
That sounds great, but I have no idea what my purpose is. There's some really simple exercises we can do. And often when I do these with coaching clients, I find that within 15 minutes we can come up with 50 different types of purpose in their life and already start mapping out little activities they could do to start, you know, enjoying themselves and pursuing purpose.
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Unknown
want to ask you to explain that in a second, because I think that's a real practical conversation that we should have. Before we get to that, you split purpose into the big pea, in the little pea, the audacious big goal, and then the what we do almost on a on a daily outcome, like, you know, the the process or the action part.
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Unknown
And so for folks who are not akin to that, can you just explain the difference between those two?
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Unknown
So let me explain how I got here. When people came to me after I gave talks about putting purpose before money, and they often said, I can't find my purpose, I've been looking forever. I don't think there is a purpose. This really sent me down the rabbit hole to look at the data. And the interesting thing I found is there's a lot of great papers in the scientific literature about the connection between purpose, health, happiness and longevity.
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Unknown
Great studies very much correlated. But I also found other studies, especially one by Larissa Renee, that showed that 91% of people at some point in their life get purpose anxiety. What that means is this idea of finding their purpose causes them depression, anxiety, and stress. And so my big question is how can purpose be both of those things?
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Unknown
It's a paradox. And what I realized is that we generally think about purpose. Wrong. I think it's not one thing, it's two things. And one of those things probably does cause stress and anxiety and the other causes, I think the happiness, health and longevity. So I separated them into big p purpose and little p purpose. Big P purpose is goal oriented purpose, and it is big and is audacious.
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Unknown
I often talk about here in the US, we often say that if you can dream it, you can build it. And so we have a bunch of people walking around who think they're going to be Mickey Mantle or Elon Musk, or they're going to travel to the moon or travel to Mars, or they're going to be president. And while those are wonderful goals, they're also fairly unattainable.
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Unknown
You've got to be the right person at the right time, doing the right things with the right genetics and a whole bunch of luck. And so obviously, most people fail that type of big P audacious, goal oriented purpose, and it leaves them miserable. So of course people are feeling anxiety about purpose. Now let's talk about little p purpose.
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Little p purpose doesn't worry about goals. It just is saying, okay, what is the process? What things do you like doing that let you up and just spend time doing those things, regardless of whether you meet a goal or not? So whereas big B purposes all or nothing, you either reach a goal or you don't little purposes, all or all, you just go do things you like and keep doing them while you like them.
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And when you stop liking them, you do something else. So it's very abundant. And this is the difference between the two types of purpose. People ask, well, you need to have your big P's and your little piece. I say, no, actually, I think big P purpose is always bad. I think it's always toxic. It's not that I have a problem with goals.
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You can have little p purpose and have goals, but the point is you enjoy doing the thing whether you reach the goal or not.
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Years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing a a sushi master in Japan who had spent 30 years literally making sushi every day and mastering the knife cutting of of the tuna fish.
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Unknown
Right. And when I look at how content and happy that person was was extraordinary, but doing the same thing every day. And so the the joy that that person and that whole industry gets from perfecting as well as they can the presentation of food, which will be consumed immediately, and then they come back the next day and do the same thing again.
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Unknown
To me, that falls into that little pedi of how much do you enjoy what you do every single day?
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Unknown
And what's great about that is it can be individual and personal. So of course they're going to be some people who have the same version of little P purpose. I want to write a book. You want to write a book. We both enjoy book writing. Okay. That's both of our little p purpose, but that might be just for a season of my life.
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Unknown
I might write that book and love it while I'm doing it, and then be tired and never want to do it again. And I might decide to spend the next six months playing pickleball, because that becomes my little p purpose. Maybe I do that for a lifetime. Maybe I do it for a few months. Purpose doesn't have to be life changing, although it can be.
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Unknown
It doesn't have to last forever. You can have one version of little P purpose. You can have 10 or 15. It all depends on you and what's important to you and what kind of time commitment you
00:10:39:00 - 00:10:50:12
Unknown
You know, I wonder, Jordan, a lot of our society is waiting for a magic pill to fix our health. Do you think this idea of waiting for purpose to arrive is a version of the magic pill to fix my life?
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Unknown
Well, the problem I have with waiting for purpose to arrive is it takes all the agency away from you. And so I'm a doctor, and I love this idea that I could give a person a pill and it would increase their longevity, health and happiness. That's great. And some pills do those things or bits and pieces of those things, but you know it.
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Unknown
So does exercise. Exercise isn't easy. You just got to go do it right. You got to spend the day. You got to take action. You have to have agency. Purpose is the same way. Like, I love the fact that I can prescribe you purpose and say, find your little p purpose. Do a bunch of these exciting activities, have it help you connect to other people.
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Unknown
These are the things that are going to enrich your life and eventually help you live longer and healthier.
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Unknown
Let's talk about something very practical. You you outlined in your book. This notion of purpose doesn't arrive. You know, we build, we do something, we take action. As you said, we have agency. And you suggest one of the places to start is doing an audit of different things a regret orders, a childhood orders, a subtraction idea. And this notion of trying spaghetti at the wall, which I really loved.
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Unknown
Can you outline these ideas for folks who are not cross them?
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Unknown
So as I was saying, I always say you don't find your purpose, you create or build it, but it is true. You have to have these inklings, these whisperings, these beckoning, these things that call to you. And I actually call those purpose anchors. And so the better question is not how do I find my purpose? It's how do I connect with my purpose anchors to then build a life of purpose around it?
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Unknown
Remember, purpose is all about action, agency, activity. And so the better question is, how do I figure out what are purpose anchors in my life? And that's where we get to the audits and the things you were talking about. There are 3 or 4 good exercises you can do to basically try to figure out what looks like a purpose anchor in your life.
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Unknown
One easy thing to do, and I learned this from my dying hospice patients, is what I call a regret audit, or what some people in the hospice world would call a life review is ask someone if you were told that you have a month to live, what would you regret? Never having the energy, courage or time to do?
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Unknown
And so I actually asked myself this about ten years ago, and I said I would really regret not traditionally publishing a book because that was really important to me. So here's the exciting part. When you're not dying and you actually have some agency, some time, you can turn that regret around into a purpose anchor. So then all of a sudden, writing a book became a purpose anchor for me.
00:13:12:07 - 00:13:25:07
Unknown
Now that was the easy part, figuring out what would light me up. The hard part was then taking action. I had to figure out, what do I want to write a book on? I had to start talking to people who wrote books. I had to figure out, can I get an agent or not? How do I find a publisher?
00:13:25:08 - 00:13:41:10
Unknown
I had to practice my writing and start a blog. All of these things were the actions I had to take, but I had my purpose anchor, and so that's a really easy way. It's just to do a regret on it and say, if I was to be on my deathbed, what would I regret not doing? There's some other really great ways too.
00:13:41:11 - 00:14:01:06
Unknown
You mentioned a few of them. One is is a childhood audit, what I call the joys of childhood. So think back to your childhood room. What were the trophies? What were the pictures? What was on the walls? What were in the cupboards? What did you love as a child? Often we love things as kids. And then we get really serious and go to school.
00:14:01:06 - 00:14:16:24
Unknown
And we start thinking about what we want to do for a living. And we drop all those childhood joys. But a lot of times, those things we loved in childhood, we still love. And those can be purpose anchors, too. I always tell people, when I was a kid, I loved baseball. I used to watch baseball games and I collected baseball cards.
00:14:16:24 - 00:14:44:20
Unknown
And now if I'm on Facebook or Instagram and I see something having to do with baseball cards, my eyes just light up. And so if I was looking for a purpose anchor or something to build some sense of purpose around, I could go back to those baseball cards. And so there's some other ways to do it too. Something called the Artist Subtraction, where we look at what we're doing in our job and we write out all the roles and responsibilities, and we get rid of all the things we don't like, and we see if there's anything there that we actually do love.
00:14:44:23 - 00:15:00:04
Unknown
For me, I was getting exhausted practicing as a general internal medicine doctor, and when I started doing the art of subtraction, getting rid of all the things I didn't like doing, the one thing I loved doing was hospice work. And so I knew I could invest more in that activity and start dropping or subtracting some of the other activities.
00:15:00:07 - 00:15:16:11
Unknown
And last but not least, you talked about the spaghetti method. If if you have no joys of childhood, if the regret audit does nothing for you, if the art of subtraction does nothing for you, you don't like anything at work, then you just try a bunch of things. Say yes to people you normally don't say yes to. Do activities you normally don't do.
00:15:16:12 - 00:15:27:06
Unknown
Do things that scare you a little bit. And at the end of the day you say, was that an exciting, fun day that I'd like to do that again or not? That's throwing a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. And those are all ways of finding purpose anchors.
00:15:27:09 - 00:15:44:18
Unknown
I love those, and I want to I want to maybe wrap a bow around these because they're so important and they're so important because they're so accessible. And one can do these at any time. Sitting in a coffee shop, sitting in your car, driving home, sitting in the pub, you can you can do this by yourself. You can do it as a group of friends.
00:15:44:23 - 00:16:07:20
Unknown
The regrets one, I think is one of the fastest catalyst ones that any of us could do. And I play with this in different versions, be it a month to live or five years to live, or what would you do? And and each time I've done that for myself, I've just got so much clarity of what's actually important, what is still important that I haven't even touched yet.
00:16:07:20 - 00:16:23:04
Unknown
That is still important to me. And it's it's a very powerful idea. When you limit your time, you become really, really clear as to what's important. And and invariably what's not important is working extra hours in the office for the sake of it. That drops off straight away.
00:16:23:04 - 00:16:32:17
Unknown
I was about to say none. None of my hospice patients on their deathbed, not a single one of them looked at me and said, I wish I worked more nights and weekends. Never had someone say that to
00:16:32:20 - 00:16:55:12
Unknown
Can I interrupt you for a second? I hope you're enjoying that episode. We have some great episodes lined up over the next couple of months, and I want to make sure that you get every single one of those into your feed. The only way I can guarantee that is if you're subscribed. So can you just pause for a second and either press like or subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to or watching this on?
00:16:55:13 - 00:17:03:03
Unknown
Then I know you're going to get the episodes that I've already recorded, and I'm excited about coming to you. Back to the show.
00:17:03:03 - 00:17:25:03
Unknown
One of the reasons why this whole podcast exists is I turned 50 in 2020. So I'm 56 now, and on my 50th birthday, around the time I heard this story about Clint Eastwood and on his 84th birthday, and someone saying, you know, for your birthday, he says, I'm going to make a movie, Clint, your 84. He goes, every day I wake up trying not to let the old man in.
00:17:25:03 - 00:17:41:18
Unknown
And then the guy, Toby Keith, wrote a song called Don at the Old Man name, which became the theme of that movie and won an Oscar. And I remember hearing this story going, I love that idea. I've got to remember that as I get older. And then my next thought was, I wonder, did Toby Keith by the domain Don at the old manning.com?
00:17:41:21 - 00:18:02:08
Unknown
So I would line just to check and he hadn't. So I bought it and but that was like trying spaghetti on the wall going, here's an idea, I want to come back to this. And then I catalyzed this whole and I want to spend the next couple of years in great conversations with people who really have lovely ideas about how not to let the old man in in various ways.
00:18:02:10 - 00:18:15:03
Unknown
And that's now become a very daily, purposeful, action taking process for me. That gives me a lot of joy. But it started from here. Just an idea. Let me just play with this over time and see what happens.
00:18:15:05 - 00:18:35:14
Unknown
And that that's a perfect version of little P purpose, by the way. So let's let's look at that. You found something that you up that excited you, but then you had to do the hard work. You actually had to build an activity around it. You had to create this podcast. But when we free ourselves, you weren't sitting there going, I need to get a million downloads a year so that I can make lots of money on this.
00:18:35:14 - 00:18:53:19
Unknown
So this can support my living so I can quit my job, because by then it would have become big B purpose and you would have found yourself doing things you didn't love and you would have quit. Maybe because it wasn't lighting you up and it wasn't exciting. So that's a great version of little P purpose. And I think that's what we need to do more of in our lives, follow those passions and build.
00:18:53:21 - 00:18:57:24
Unknown
take an action requires something different from the current state.
00:18:57:24 - 00:19:15:06
Unknown
Otherwise you wouldn't take an action. And sometimes it requires courage for someone who's listening to this is going, I like what you're saying, Doctor Gromit. But dot dot dot dot dot, there's some sort of a restraint going on. What what what's your conversation to them about taking action or not taking action?
00:19:15:12 - 00:19:34:12
Unknown
So here's what I love about all these concepts of meaning and purpose and happiness. You are 100% correct if you want to have the same outcome you were having now, you should 100% do the same thing. But if you want something different, you're going to have to do something different. And every time we do something different, we leave our zone of comfort.
00:19:34:12 - 00:19:59:21
Unknown
And so by nature we are uncomfortable. And here's the difference between someone who feels enough on the inside and has a good sense of meaning, and someone who doesn't. Someone who feels enough on the inside and has good sense of meaning when they come up with an idea that feels purposeful, that will light them up. They don't get all those voices inside their head that say, but, but, but you see those voices I like to call those demons.
00:19:59:21 - 00:20:23:12
Unknown
And what those are are those imprinted stories in your brain that you've told yourself about yourself for your whole life. And what I found is often we are dealing with traumas from the past where we didn't feel we had agency, we felt like we were thwarted, and so we had to do something to overcome that problem. And so we created a story that helped us move forward.
00:20:23:16 - 00:20:49:03
Unknown
But a lot of times as we get older and more successful, those same stories basically thwart us and hold us back. Let me give you a great example, and I'll give you a great example. Just right from my life. When I was seven years old, my father died. He was an oncologist, a cancer doctor, and as a seven year old, given kind of developmentally where I was in the age I was, I was convinced it was my fault.
00:20:49:04 - 00:21:11:10
Unknown
Like, I wasn't good enough. I wasn't smart enough, I had done something wrong. And later I found that that was actually a very normal thing for a seven year old to feel when when a parent dies. So I developed a story to help me cope, and the story was when my father died. But if I become a doctor, if I walk in his footsteps, and if I save countless lives, then this is all going to be okay.
00:21:11:14 - 00:21:30:14
Unknown
Then I'm okay that I'm good, right? And so let's think about this. I had a sense of meaning, a story I told myself about my life, that my father died and I wasn't enough, and that was the reason he died. So if I just did this thing, if I just purposed my way to feeling enough on the inside, it would all resolve itself.
00:21:30:14 - 00:21:52:10
Unknown
And now I had a learning disability at the time. So actually I had trouble reading and I was way behind my peers. First second grade I was coloring coloring books while everyone else was reading, but magically I got a bunch of tutors, I got better, I dedicated myself like a madman to studying in high school. College. I went to University of Michigan, a huge football team, on Saturdays.
00:21:52:10 - 00:22:14:12
Unknown
When everyone was at the football game, I was in the law library studying, became a doctor. And then what happened? I burnt out because at some point I realized first and foremost, becoming a doctor didn't bring my dad back like he was still gone. And so it didn't resolve that issue. The story I was telling about myself, about myself was just wrong.
00:22:14:12 - 00:22:32:11
Unknown
It wasn't going to fix it. It still hurt. It didn't solve the problem. The other thing is, I kept on telling myself I was going to save the world. And of course, you become a doctor, realize people are sick and bad things happen. And so the story I've been telling myself about myself feeling thwarted and not enough, I thought I could purpose my way to feeling better about that.
00:22:32:13 - 00:22:54:04
Unknown
And it just didn't work. But if I had been less in tune, I could have tried leaving medicine and said, this is not giving me joy anymore. I'm financially stable. I can leave this thing. But then they're the demons, the voices in our head. But what'll happen if you leave medicine? What will that mean about your father's death?
00:22:54:04 - 00:23:17:16
Unknown
What will that mean about your ability to change or affect the world? Those were my demons. And they were based in the story. A very unhealthy story, right? I wasn't a bad kid. I didn't cause my father to die. But it was the story that pushed me along and made it manageable at the time. And so when you get those dissenting voices, when your body and brain say, oh my God, this is exciting, and it lights up and you're like, this is me.
00:23:17:16 - 00:23:33:14
Unknown
And I'm excited about this, and I want to do this. And then all of a sudden, you get this overriding voice in your head that says, don't do that. This is going to put you at risk. This is going to you're going to walk away from the one thing that makes you a reasonable enough person. You're going to walk away from it.
00:23:33:16 - 00:23:54:16
Unknown
The thing is, if you really have a good sense of meaning, you realize you're enough already. You don't have to prove it anymore. Like, I didn't have to prove that I wasn't responsible for my dad's death, I was enough. I was a good kid. And look, all these things I did because I was able to come to that conclusion, I could then move away from being a doctor when it didn't serve me anymore, because I didn't have to prove myself.
00:23:54:16 - 00:24:17:16
Unknown
I didn't have to prove I was enough. I didn't have to prove I was good. I could just remember purposes about present and future, and it's about actions. I could let go of the past because I felt like enough, and I could look at the present and future and say, what activities will light me up? And so when I hear someone who gets excited about something and then starts talking themselves off the ledge, I really want to look at that story they're telling themselves about themselves.
00:24:17:16 - 00:24:25:08
Unknown
What is that voice saying? And how is that voice maybe a remnant of the past and not really appropriate for the present future?
00:24:25:08 - 00:24:26:12
Unknown
there is so much there.
00:24:26:12 - 00:24:47:03
Unknown
And what you've just said, I want to pause and unpack it a bit, because I think what you've just outlined here is the crux. For most adults not moving forward, be it in purpose, be it in careers, be it in relationships, be in whatever it is. And it's it's so important. I spent 25 years now as an executive coach, and I've been lucky to work all over the world.
00:24:47:07 - 00:24:52:10
Unknown
The patterns never change. The accents and countries might, but the patterns never change.
00:24:52:14 - 00:25:24:13
Unknown
I've actually there's a term I used to describe this phenomena of getting stuck in meeting and not feeling enough, and I call it the Rosebud effect. I don't know if you ever watch Citizen Kane, but the idea is Citizen Kane. Spoiler alert. Wealthy, successful guy, but never quite felt like any of it was enough. On his deathbed, says the word Rosebud, and the movie is somewhat about figuring out what that word Rosebud means, and we never find out until the end when they pan the room and you see an old sled with the word rosebud on it.
00:25:24:13 - 00:25:45:23
Unknown
Rosebud was the name of a sled, and to Charles Foster Kane, the main person in the movie Citizen Kane, it was a memory of when life was good, before everything was taken away from him, and he had to go to school and get good at business and became wealthy. And that was his Rosebud. And so I often talked to people about, what is your rosebud?
00:25:45:23 - 00:26:16:15
Unknown
What is that trauma, that thing from your childhood that causes you to create these stories of enough of being thwarted and not being enough? And how does that then affect your older life, even if it served you when you were younger, it made you successful because it drove you. A lot of us are still struggling with our rosebuds, and that's why we get things like utter success, lots of money, and yet this idea of leaving, for instance, a job you no longer love, even when you have plenty of money is petrifying.
00:26:16:17 - 00:26:35:18
Unknown
yeah, you're right. There's this to me. There's three key things that you've outlined there that all flow into the Rosebud effect, which is a lovely metaphor, by the way. One is the expectations, like you as a seven year old suddenly builds an expectation that I am responsible for my dad's death day, for I have to rectify that.
00:26:35:20 - 00:27:02:20
Unknown
And of course, there's an, you know, as a seven year old who knows what happened to make you think that. But that expectation became very, very loud for you. And the amount of really successful on many levels, but often deeply unhappy leaders I've met over, over my career are doing what they're doing, because somewhere along the way, they felt an expectation from their parents or their society that they should be doing X and now they're doing X.
00:27:02:23 - 00:27:20:21
Unknown
They're very good at X, but they hate everything about it, but they're still doing it and they wrap themselves up. And as you mentioned, a partner in a law firm, any kind of professional service firm is where I see this a lot. You end up being a partner and then you're stuck in terms of, I have built up this expectation of what life looks like.
00:27:21:01 - 00:27:49:10
Unknown
My family have it, of what life looks like around me, and therefore I'm stuck. And so the expectations are are often on misunderstood, are not even aware that they're there, but they're living their life according to it. The second thing you said is risk. And what's a great question to ask yourself sometimes is what's at risk if I decide to do X or Y differently and that that that's kind of surfaces sometimes these expectations and stories.
00:27:49:12 - 00:28:17:22
Unknown
And then the last thing you said story. I have told I have told this a few times on my podcast, but my dad had a big change in his career and his whole life and the way he did life and and we as his adult children noticed him changing dramatically. And as we said when he died, my sister said at his funeral, he had the privilege of adult children watching our dad turn into a great man, which was quite different to when our childhood experience.
00:28:18:01 - 00:28:40:23
Unknown
But he said to me, the night before he died, I had a story of me that was killing me. So I decided to kill the story. And then I started living. And it was that whole notion of change. The plot changed the character. Then you get a different story. And I think what's what you've outlined here is, if you really want to particularly find a small P, you've got to change the story.
00:28:41:00 - 00:29:03:03
Unknown
Yeah. And you know, it's even more amazing. There's something called memory reconsolidation. Which means every time we go through something new, we incorporate into our old memories and actually slightly change those memories. So you know how different people remember the same thing differently. Well, part of that is because we have new experiences which then help us consolidate and change that memory.
00:29:03:09 - 00:29:26:16
Unknown
And so think about how we have agency to connect to purpose and identity in our lives and reconsolidation some of those harder memories and change the perspective. Right? I was not a bad kid. I was a good kid in a bad situation. But it took a lifetime of new experiences and memories to help me change and renovate that
00:29:26:22 - 00:29:49:02
Unknown
Can I switch a little bit towards career and career pivoting? When we were doing some research ahead of of inviting you on to our show, and we're looking at what kind of questions do our listeners ask are interested in in the broad idea of purpose and identity, a common topic was particularly from Maine, was changing career at midlife and getting stuck in a career.
00:29:49:06 - 00:30:06:05
Unknown
And one thing I love about your story is you haven't just written books, you've actually lived a lot of this stuff yourself, and the books have come out of it. Yeah. You wrote an essay called Ten Truths I've Learned in 53 years. And at the same time, your kids were leaving home and you were now starting to explore.
00:30:06:05 - 00:30:17:24
Unknown
What does all this mean for me as a, as a, as a father and as a man, as a provider? Tell us about that moment and how that started shifting the way you thought about the next number of years you were going to live.
00:30:18:05 - 00:30:47:14
Unknown
Interestingly enough, the profound change for me about how to start moving forward in a career and an identity that connected more with me was not my kids going to college, which happened very recently. What really caused that major change was when I realized I probably had enough money where I could step away from medicine. This was a number of years ago, and that was when I had that oh moment where I felt complete joy when I read a book, and it taught me about what financial independence is.
00:30:47:14 - 00:31:14:01
Unknown
And I looked at my own numbers and I said, wow, I'm pretty close. And I had a moment of and excitement. And then I had a panic attack because I realized I'd spent all my time fulfilling the sense of purpose that was no longer connecting me to who I thought I was. And that was very, very stressful. That was that pivot moment where I had to start deciding and looking at my past and saying.
00:31:14:03 - 00:31:32:00
Unknown
Am I enough? Because if I don't have to do this for money, then the only reason I'm staying, for instance, in medicine, something that I'm burning out at and isn't filling me up is because it makes me feel like enough. Or it answers that meaning question. And when I realized it wasn't doing that adequately and started looking at myself and said, you know what?
00:31:32:00 - 00:31:51:08
Unknown
You're a pretty successful guy who came through some hard stuff and really did wonderfully and have enough money, and you're in this good place, then I could kind of let go of proving that I was enough and I could joyfully jump into just whatever excited me now. I always loved writing. I started blogging years and years and years ago about medicine.
00:31:51:10 - 00:32:09:02
Unknown
I always wanted to write a book. I enjoy communicating, so things like blogging and podcasting were natural to me. So once I gave myself that permission to feel enough, it was easy for me then to say, I don't need to prove anything. I don't need to be the most successful podcaster. I don't need a New York Times bestseller.
00:32:09:05 - 00:32:25:17
Unknown
But what would you enjoy the day to day of doing? And that's what I did. I dove into blogging, podcasting, and book writing, and it's led me to where I am now. Interestingly enough, my kids leaving didn't really change our life hugely because my kids were very, very independent and we had taught them to live their own lives.
00:32:25:17 - 00:32:30:10
Unknown
And I had made a big point of living my own life and pursuing my own purpose while they were still at
00:32:30:13 - 00:32:31:04
Unknown
Right.
00:32:31:07 - 00:33:00:19
Unknown
give them that same permission when they got older, to pursue what lights them up, as opposed to me just doting on them 100% of the time and not really developing myself on the outside. The interesting thing about when my kids left is I just was very clearly to the end of one season of my life, and the idea philosophically and emotionally about realizing that this season of my life is now over, even though I'm doing fine and I miss my kids, but we talk all the time and they can come home
00:33:00:19 - 00:33:17:02
Unknown
because they're not that far. My day to day life is not amazingly different, but my understanding of my life again, the story I tell myself about myself is shifting just because. Now part of that story includes, you know, a parent who successfully began the launching of their children.
00:33:17:06 - 00:33:45:08
Unknown
I drop to you for a second? We have some great guests lined up over the next couple of months. We have a medical specialist on dementia and Alzheimer's, and how we have full control to reverse our manage any symptoms of dementia within their own hands. We have a great expert talking about how we overcame 25 years of alcohol addiction, and how he's now helping hundreds of other people take the first step on that road themselves.
00:33:45:10 - 00:34:04:19
Unknown
And we have the whole world of AI and the chief medical officer talking to us on how AI is helping medicine and what lies in store for us over the next couple of years. Now, the only way I can guarantee that you're going to get these episodes into your feed is if you're subscribed. So can you pause for a second and press like.
00:34:04:19 - 00:34:13:19
Unknown
or subscribe and whatever platform you're on. And then I can make sure you're going to get access to these great experts and stories. Back to the show.
00:34:13:23 - 00:34:43:14
Unknown
The premise of this whole show we have here is that the second half of life, or the second season, can be the best half of life, if you choose it to be. And but it takes agency, it takes action, it takes choice, it takes all those things. One of the things it also takes is the postponement of or the deletion of a habit that you've written about, which is the once I have syndrome, once I have enough money, once I have this, once I have the title, once I have the status, once I have this, then I'll be okay.
00:34:43:18 - 00:34:58:16
Unknown
And what I notice about this kind of part of life where we're in is this where a lot of us get stuck is we have worked really hard to get to that place. Suddenly I have it. And in your case, you said you had a panic attack and you go, what do I do now? A lot of us don't even have the panic attack.
00:34:58:16 - 00:35:17:10
Unknown
We just kind of go, oh, I have it. And dot dot dot dot dot and we just don't think about it. What is the the first step, do you think when you realize I now have what I wanted or indeed it's coming close by, no longer want it. What's the first step in once you realize that?
00:35:17:14 - 00:35:40:05
Unknown
So here's what I always talk about when I talk about once I have oftentimes when we're putting off life because they're saying once I have, we're under the delusion that we are not enough to start with. And once we get to a certain goal or a certain place, whether it be economically, career, what have you, once we get there, we're going to feel enough on the inside.
00:35:40:06 - 00:35:56:24
Unknown
And so that's the lie, unfortunately. And if you're putting your life aside and you're not doing the things you love to do, and you're not pursuing purpose because you need to get to some goal, it's, well, one of two things can happen. You could be like my dad who died at 40, right? Which is tragic. You may never get to that goal.
00:35:56:24 - 00:36:14:16
Unknown
So you've put off purpose and excitement and joy for so long. And now, you know, life ends early and you never get there. So that's kind of a tragedy. But what also people don't realize is hitting that goal is not the nirvana we think it is. In fact, there's this a rival fallacy. We think once we arrive, everything's going to be great.
00:36:14:16 - 00:36:33:23
Unknown
And then we get there and we realize we're the same people with the same problems and the same sense of not feeling enough on the inside. Now, one of two things or three things can happen. One is we can become petrified. We're going to lose whatever we got. And I see this with net worth all the time. People are like, I need this net worth so I can leave my job.
00:36:34:00 - 00:36:52:17
Unknown
And they say, I need $2 million. And what happens? They get to $2 million. But you know what? Tomorrow the market could go down and that 2 million could be 1.98. And so they become petrified. They're going to lose whatever they got. That's loss aversion. Same with career. I became a partner, but now I'm afraid I'm going to get fired if I don't keep on showing up and producing.
00:36:52:20 - 00:37:11:22
Unknown
And loss aversion kind of says we're doubly is afraid of losing what we've just gained, then we are of never getting it in the first place. So that's one outcome. The other outcome is we get to this huge goal, this big, audacious goal, whatever it is, and we realize we don't feel any fuller on the inside. And so the easiest thing is to double down.
00:37:11:24 - 00:37:29:04
Unknown
So my goal was a net worth of $2 million. Now let's just double it to 4 million. And now I can, you know, grind away again just to get to that next place. Or I'm now a partner at the law firm, but I don't feel enough on the inside. So now I want to be chief partner at the law firm.
00:37:29:07 - 00:37:49:06
Unknown
And so or last but not least, you get to your goal and you just burn out because you're exhausted, because you had to grind so hard to get there. None of those outcomes are particularly healthy. The idea is we want to feel enough on the inside already. So you get to the goal. Great. You don't get to the goal, you keep working towards it, but you build purpose in other parts of your life.
00:37:49:08 - 00:38:06:21
Unknown
And so you die at 40, you die at 80. You get to the goal. You don't get to the goal. You retire. You don't retire. The the idea is to win either way. And so once you feel you're enough on the inside, you start building purpose in your life. And the once I have or once I am just cools off a little bit.
00:38:06:21 - 00:38:25:15
Unknown
You're like, okay, maybe I'll get there, maybe I won't, maybe I'll find I can retire without 2 million and that's fine. Or maybe I can leave my job and never become a head partner. And you know what? I can feel fulfilled. And that was a good career. I'm tired of it. And now I can look at other parts of my identity that I've been ignoring and start building on
00:38:25:17 - 00:38:50:13
Unknown
I want to distinguish between there are many, many people who are, say, chief executive, chief partner, head teacher on a small business and they love it. And because they, they, they are very purposefully driven by what they do every single day, they're not focusing on the ones that have aspect of that. They're focusing on the the leadership part of it, or the building part of it, or the customer service part of it, or whatever it is.
00:38:50:17 - 00:39:01:21
Unknown
And that very much falls into that small p of the purpose that we spoke about. And so hats off to those folks because they are doing exactly what they want to do, and they love doing it.
00:39:02:00 - 00:39:18:24
Unknown
And there's a simple question if you're not sure, is this little p purpose or big p purpose? There's all sorts of questions you can ask, but a real easy question would you keep doing what you're doing if you weren't paid for it? And would you keep doing what you're doing if no one knew you were the one responsible for getting this thing done?
00:39:19:00 - 00:39:32:12
Unknown
And if you can say, hey, I would do this even if I wasn't being paid for it. Which for me, like hospice, I totally do it if I wasn't being paid for it. And if you could say, you know what, I keep doing that thing. Even if no one gave me the accolades and knew I was doing it, I would do hospice work.
00:39:32:14 - 00:39:42:06
Unknown
My patients don't even know that I'm behind the scenes of signing the order, doing these things. If you can answer those questions with yeah, I'd be fine with it, then you found something you truly, truly
00:39:42:08 - 00:40:06:19
Unknown
One more question about careers. And you've you haven't pivoted away from medicine because you still obviously work in hospital settings and you're the associate medical director. I think it's for unity, I think was a unity hospital. So you're still very involved in medicine, but you're also run a financial independence type podcast, which is so different to your your upbringing and where you come from.
00:40:06:21 - 00:40:27:06
Unknown
Here's a question for you, the notion of subtraction, where you start stripping away parts of the job that you do to allow yourself to focus on what you love doing. It also makes up space for other interests to suddenly emerge. And and when I look at people who successfully pivoted their careers, they're very, very tuned to noticing what am I interested in?
00:40:27:10 - 00:40:49:18
Unknown
How do I do more of that? Oh, I can get paid for it as well. Oh, that's that's interesting. And I'm wondering, to what degree do they you starting to strip away the internal medicine part of, of the medical role you were doing to allow yourself to, to only do hospice? To what degree do that space that emerge, allow other interests for you to surface, and therefore you could pursue them.
00:40:49:20 - 00:41:08:01
Unknown
It was certainly huge. And I come from a place where I had also built my finances well enough that I could afford to make less money. But I think this is a really important point for young people everywhere. A lot of people struggle. Should I go after my passion or should I make money right? Should I go for the passion job?
00:41:08:01 - 00:41:25:19
Unknown
Maybe I won't make any money, but I'll love it. Or should I go for the thing I'm good at and what I always tell people when you're young, do what you're good at that makes you money. But careers are long things. And so what happens is you start by doing something you either love or don't love, and most of the time you don't even know until you do it for a while.
00:41:25:21 - 00:41:47:04
Unknown
But if you start using the art of subtraction and start adding other things both in your work life and outside of your work life, most really successful people I know take the career they have and they just slowly pivot into their interests. And so I started doing this when I started realizing I didn't love medicine. I was doing a hobby blog about medicine, writing about my thoughts about being a doctor.
00:41:47:08 - 00:42:07:04
Unknown
But at some point, people started hiring me to write for their websites, and people started asking me to come speak at their conferences. So all of a sudden, this thing I was doing, this little p purpose I was pursuing on the side just for the joy of it, started encroaching on my job and started actually paying me so that I could do less of the things I didn't like.
00:42:07:04 - 00:42:23:14
Unknown
And my job. Same also with hospice. And so even if you are strapped for cash, even if you're like, I'm in this job that I make a lot of money up, but I don't love if you build a version of little P purpose outside of work, you might be able to slowly bring some of that into the workplace.
00:42:23:14 - 00:42:46:06
Unknown
And I found over ten, 20, 30 years, a lot of times you actually have a lot of agency to start bringing your unique talents to the workplace and bending and changing the job to actually be more exciting and enjoyable to you. And if not, you can always leave the field. But I've seen lots of people I know, tons of people who brought their unique talents into their workplace, and just by force of will and excitement.
00:42:46:07 - 00:43:01:05
Unknown
When you're doing something you love, it naturally attracts other people and they want to engage and learn about it. And I've seen people countless times bring these joys into the workplace and eventually change their job into something they like a lot more than when they started.
00:43:01:11 - 00:43:22:04
Unknown
My business partner, Steven, is a classic example of what you've just said there. Jordan. He's someone who's had a hyper successful corporate career in the software industry. He's been a CEO of multiple different businesses. He's had a whole range of very successful, corporate stuff. That and on the outside look at go, he's doing exactly what every successful person should be doing.
00:43:22:06 - 00:43:49:22
Unknown
Over time, he started getting a yearning for philanthropy and getting involved in those kind of areas. And he crafted his last role to help lead the foundation of that organization. And over time, he moved away from a CEO role into a global human resource type role, which gave him more time for the foundation. And when he eventually decided to leave corporate life for stop, he still runs the foundation.
00:43:49:24 - 00:44:06:23
Unknown
So and now the rest of his life is involved in philanthropy and teaching people by philanthropy. And he's just finished a very successful season one of a podcast called The Giving Habit, which is all around philanthropy. But it wasn't day one. You know, stopping a Friday start on a Monday. It was crafted over a number of years.
00:44:07:03 - 00:44:14:21
Unknown
And I would suggest he's he's from a fulfillment point of view at one of the happiest phases of his career because of being able to do that.
00:44:14:23 - 00:44:15:05
Unknown
yeah.
00:44:15:05 - 00:44:36:19
Unknown
What a perfect example of figuring out what your purpose anchors are, and building a life of little purpose through the art of subtraction and the joy of addition. Right? When you know what you love, you start adding it more and more into your life and just crafting the life you want to live. Look, we live on this earth a very short period of time, and the one thing our most precious thing is time.
00:44:36:20 - 00:44:55:21
Unknown
But you can't buy time. You can't sell time, you can't trade time. The only thing you can do is somewhat control the activities you're busy doing as time passes. So how do you win the game of life? You get rid of all the things you loathe, and you add in all the things you love and you wash, rinse, repeat till you get to an age where you're doing mostly what you love.
00:44:55:21 - 00:45:14:10
Unknown
And I think if we talk to 22 year olds all going into the workforce and try to help them build that life through the joy of addition by learning what little purpose looks like in their life, the art of subtraction, slowly getting rid of what they don't like, and this manipulation of what they're doing during their time, which is utterly precious.
00:45:14:12 - 00:45:18:12
Unknown
Everyone, once they hit their 40s and 50s, should mostly be doing things they love.
00:45:18:12 - 00:45:49:00
Unknown
Can I switch to hospice? In some senses this is a it's a bit of a heavy conversation but not a sense as this actually probably the most important conversation many of us should have at some stage of our life. You work as a physician in hospice palliative care, people who are at the end stage of life, who who are, who have a terminal diagnosis and the work that you do and the work that you and your colleagues do is to help them pass as well as they possibly can, I suppose is is the way I would think about it.
00:45:49:03 - 00:46:10:24
Unknown
So you've spent many years in conversations with either people who are dying or with the families of the people who are dying, and you've already said you've never heard someone regretting that they didn't spend more time at work. That's not a regret that comes up. And we hear that so often. What kind of regrets do you hear from people if they express a regret?
00:46:11:01 - 00:46:30:11
Unknown
So the regrets are all different based on the person, but the ideas are usually the same. And if you ever read Bronny, where's book the Five Regrets of the dying, they sound very similar. It's this idea that I was too afraid and didn't have the courage to be the best version of me, right? And that could have to deal with spending time with the people you love.
00:46:30:15 - 00:46:48:15
Unknown
It could be having the courage to do the things that lit you up. It could be having the, you know, using your money appropriately to live the life you wanted to live. And so that's where I really see the regrets, is that people didn't do things that were deeply important to them, because there was always something in the way.
00:46:48:15 - 00:47:04:23
Unknown
They didn't have enough time, they didn't have enough money, or they didn't have enough courage. And when you really look at it, most of us have plenty of time in this lifetime. We mostly realize that money is a great tool, but a lot of times we have other tools that help us, not just money. And that courage is what really holds us
00:47:05:01 - 00:47:10:16
Unknown
Is there a difference between men and women in any way with these kind of regrets?
00:47:10:18 - 00:47:11:03
Unknown
00:47:11:05 - 00:47:25:07
Unknown
I have not seen, a huge difference. I'd only say possibly that men are more focused on achievements, and women tend to be more focused on people when they talk about the regrets, but I don't know if that's 100% universal.
00:47:25:11 - 00:47:41:02
Unknown
How about the what happens for the person left behind? So the widow or the widower or the family member taking care of the person? What do you notice about the first couple of weeks or months or years in terms of after that?
00:47:41:04 - 00:48:01:16
Unknown
Well, everyone grieves differently. The best situation usually is when the conversations are open, and that what I always say about people come to me all the time and they say, how do I make sure I have a good death? You're in hospice. That's important to me. I'm afraid of paying. I'm afraid of anxiety. I'm afraid of all these things.
00:48:01:18 - 00:48:23:21
Unknown
And I always tell people there's an old hospice saying that says you kind of die the way you live. And so if you really want to have a good death, you have to have a good life. And that's why I talk a lot about these regrets and connection and people and purpose. If you build a really great life, the likelihood is you're going to have a peaceful, calm and dignified death if that's the kind of life you have, and that is the gift you give to your family members.
00:48:23:21 - 00:48:57:15
Unknown
And the grieving family is when you die with dignity and happiness and connectedness. Because you live life that way, you're giving them permission not just to mourn, but to also move on and to celebrate your life, as opposed to constantly mourn your passing. And so it really depends. The more we have these open conversations, the more people connect and communicate about their lives while they're still living, the more they plan for their death, especially when they know it's near and get the appropriate care and pain control and nausea control and those kind of things.
00:48:57:18 - 00:49:29:08
Unknown
The more we'll have peaceful deaths and the better the family members will do. Because I always say, you know, the dying patient's pain ends. Unfortunately, the family members pain, anxiety and guilt can last for years and years and years after. And that's why it's kind of important for us to really try to get this piece right, this dying piece, not only for the dignity of the person who's dying, but also for the family so that they can walk the next decade, 2 or 3 of their lives knowing that at this really important in their time, in their life, they did for their loved one what they
00:49:29:09 - 00:49:36:14
Unknown
I have never heard the phrase before. You kind of die the way you live. That's that's very profound. That's so profound. Yeah.
00:49:36:16 - 00:49:45:00
Unknown
it is very rare. You see a very happy person die a bad death. It just generally doesn't happen, especially especially when from chronic disease as opposed to an
00:49:45:03 - 00:49:46:05
Unknown
Yes. Yeah.
00:49:46:09 - 00:50:06:16
Unknown
I are a listener of your who's, who's, who's just heard what you've just said now is gone. Wow, that really hit me. That notion of you die the way you live or a version of that. If we could spend an afternoon in a hospice with you, walking around with you, watching what you do, listening to the conversations, listening to the conversations with those folks who are in the bed.
00:50:06:19 - 00:50:14:01
Unknown
What would you want us to walk out knowing or experiencing or or changing because of that experience?
00:50:14:03 - 00:50:35:12
Unknown
Well, here's what I learned from doing hospice before I did hospice and before I was at the bedside with people who died, I had a lot of fear about this idea of death that it was going to be painful, scary, anxiety ridden, etc. what I've learned over time is that, believe it or not, death is often fairly quiet and gentle.
00:50:35:14 - 00:51:00:19
Unknown
And so what I think people would learn by and through my experiences is that death is a lot more peaceful, and they'll have more peace with this idea that one day they'll be there. Because once you experience enough of it, you kind of realize that most of us actually go just fine. Most people are not in pain. Most people are surrounded by their loved ones.
00:51:00:21 - 00:51:04:02
Unknown
I feel a lot of comfort. After doing this for a
00:51:04:08 - 00:51:22:11
Unknown
I'm, I feel a, I'm happy you said what you just said. My wife and I, for some. I don't know why this conversation happened a few weeks ago, but we were just chatting with each other about how would you like to die now? We're hopefully we're a long way from that for each other. But we both said the same thing.
00:51:22:12 - 00:51:37:16
Unknown
It would be. Wouldn't it be lucky to have a dinner with our family and our friends and have a laugh and share some stories and go to bed and just not wake up? He said. That would be just lovely in terms of just happiness and peace, and we've had the conversations that we wanted to have and then it quietly moves on.
00:51:37:18 - 00:51:56:20
Unknown
Of course, it doesn't quietly move on for the fox left behind you, but hopefully no one's left behind with feelings of guilt or anger or wondering like those kind of emotions are laid to rest. Obviously, we miss each other when we pass, but those emotions that linger and cause cause pain over time, hopefully that they never exist.
00:51:56:21 - 00:52:20:07
Unknown
There's a way of talking about and dealing with death that I think alleviates that. And actually, one of my future books is going to be on Death and Dying, and I talk about how we can create a safe external structure for a lot of our grief and pain during the dying process. And I think it is with words, as opposed to what we normally see, is that we don't verbalize and connect with both the dying person and the people around us.
00:52:20:07 - 00:52:35:06
Unknown
And so we tend to internalize all that pain and grief, and it tends to cause pain and damage and harm, as opposed to putting it out in the world and creating external structures with words, ideas and stories which are allowed to grow and then dissipate out in the world where they can't hurt us
00:52:35:08 - 00:52:54:18
Unknown
Well, I'd love to invite you back when that book is ready, because that that topic is such an important conversation for for our age of life, not just for ourselves and our spouses, but for our parents, because a lot of us are taking care of our parents. You know, the classic sandwich generation where where we both have our children and our and our parents in care of ourselves.
00:52:54:20 - 00:53:15:13
Unknown
In previous episodes in this show, we've had some folks who are very involved in, say, voluntary assisted dying and that whole movement share some stories. I would love to hear your your insight when that book comes out. This has been a fabulous conversation. I'm so glad that we were able to have you on the show, Doctor Jordan, what have I not asked you that I should have asked you or should ask you?
00:53:15:15 - 00:53:34:06
Unknown
Well, the one thing I like to tell people at the end of an episode like this is, I think the big mistake we think about purpose is that it's difficult. And so what I want to leave people here with today, above and beyond to talk about hospice, but to go back to the idea of purpose is that purpose is really straightforward, easy and abundant.
00:53:34:08 - 00:53:53:06
Unknown
It feels difficult because maybe you haven't been taught or read a different way to look at it. And I experienced this when I discovered personal finance and investing. I thought it was the most complicated, difficult, black box, ephemeral thing. And then I read a book and my eyes open. I realized it was one of the easier things in life.
00:53:53:08 - 00:54:05:00
Unknown
The same goes for purpose. It feels like it's hard to reach and far away and difficult, and I'd like to remind people it's right there and it's abundant and it's easy. You just have to understand how to go about
00:54:05:06 - 00:54:35:10
Unknown
I have one more question for you. But on the not you've just said, I want to tell a very short story. I was at a function yesterday, called music making a difference. Mad. And this, this organization is 25 years old, and its purpose originally wants to help kids on the streets or kids who are growing up in very, very tough circumstances to use music as a way to foster hope or a sense of of direction or just a way to stop taking drugs or whatever.
00:54:35:13 - 00:55:12:18
Unknown
And they're gone for 25 years now. And University of Music, the record company, have been a major sponsor for this whole project. And a few of those kids have even gotten music deals on the back of it. So this, this, this event yesterday was celebrating 25 years, some of the current crop of kids going through. And when I say kids, I'm talking about 14 to 22 who've had terrible lives in terms of tough lives, being in foster systems, being in refuge centers, being on the street, etc., what every single one of those kids said was coming into this program has given me a sense of I matter, I belong somewhere.
00:55:12:20 - 00:55:33:11
Unknown
And on the other side of the program is I realized that I can do something every single day that gives me a purpose. Like every single child said that. And if you said, you know, I'm never going to be the person on the TV with a with a record deal. But I know what my job is like. I know what I can do, and I can do something here that I really, really enjoy.
00:55:33:13 - 00:55:53:00
Unknown
And as I walked out of it, two things struck me. First was it was just a great afternoon and well done to the folks who have been running for 25 years. But a lot of us adults spend 40 years waiting for that purpose to arrive. And these kids have it at 20 and and and their version of it is every single day I'm doing this.
00:55:53:00 - 00:56:05:01
Unknown
So that completely validates what you said. It doesn't have to be hard at all. Taking action every single day might be difficult because of consistency, but it's not. It's not a mystical thing that's going to arrive in your door. Tail.
00:56:05:05 - 00:56:08:06
Unknown
are your final words of wisdom for our audience?
00:56:08:08 - 00:56:22:19
Unknown
Go out and do it. Go out and do it. Find what's exciting to you and pursue it. Don't be afraid. Failure is fine. Find the things that let you up and have the courage to believe you're enough already. And you can just go do them and enjoy
00:56:22:24 - 00:56:40:19
Unknown
Fantastic. Doctor Jordan Graham has been a pleasure having you here. We're going to link your websites, your Substack, writing, which I really enjoy into our notes. Anyone who wants to follow you can find out you through your website, through your Substack, and indeed through your books. Been a pleasure having you on our show.
00:56:40:21 - 00:56:41:23
Unknown
Thank you so much for
00:56:42:00 - 00:57:01:11
Unknown
I hope you enjoyed that episode. He got some value from it. New listeners keep telling me that they found our show because someone like you shared an episode with them. So if you think this was helpful for you, can I ask you just to think about 1 or 2 of your friends or someone in your family that might enjoy it and share it with them?
00:57:01:13 - 00:57:25:18
Unknown
If you haven't been on to our website. Don't let the old man in. Please go there because there's some free resources that might be useful for you, and you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter so you never miss out on what's coming next. And lastly, if you haven't subscribed one more time, can I ask you? Press the button to subscribe on whatever video or audio platform you're on to next time.
00:57:25:20 - 00:57:28:00
Unknown
Don't let the old man in.
