Rethinking Purpose: Why Chasing Big Goals Might Be Making You Miserable with Jordan Grumet
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This is Smart People Podcast. A podcast for smart people, where we talk to smart people, but not necessarily done by smart people. Oh, hey, so it's been a while.

Chris and I had to unexpectedly take a few weeks off because, well, life's busy. I've got a two-month-old and a two-year-old. Chris has his two-year-old plus his older boys and a new job, but we're back and we've got a lot of great episodes coming up. So while late, enjoy the episode. Hello and welcome to Smart People Podcast, conversations that satisfy your curious mind. Chris Stemp here. Thanks for tuning in.

Today, we are rethinking purpose. You know, the big P word. See, what if the real secret to finding purpose isn't about climbing higher or pushing harder, working longer or changing the world even? What if the answer is much simpler?

Today, I sit down with Dr. Jordan Grumet, physician, hospice worker, and author of The Purpose Code, to ask him a question most of us are too busy to consider. What is our purpose? Does it matter? And if so, how do we find it? After years spent at the bedsides of the dying, Jordan has seen firsthand what people regret when time runs out.

And spoiler, it's almost never about money, titles, or even accomplishing goals. The thing is, if you're listening to this, you probably knew that. But just knowing that doesn't tell you what to do. In this conversation, we'll explore why the pressure to find your big purpose often backfires, how doing what lights you up can actually create more impact, and why joy in the process matters far more than a flashy end result.

you walk away with a new, more sustainable blueprint for a meaningful life. And maybe you'll breathe a little easier about how you're living it. And don't worry, in true fashion, we will tackle life's big questions without making it feel like a lecture.

If you like what you hear, but wish you had a more concise summary of takeaways and quotes, now is the time to sign up for the newsletter. As you know, we tried out doing that via the reflections episodes. And what we found is although people love them, they still wanted those lessons written down. So why not send them right to your inbox?

Go to smartpeoplepodcast.com, scroll all the way down to the bottom, sign up for the newsletter. We never sell you anything, sell your info, none of that stuff. Just giving you the takeaways from the episodes. Let's get into it. Our conversation with Jordan Grumet on his new book, The Purpose Code, how to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy. Enjoy. Previously, you were in hospice care.

And you now obviously you write about and talk about purpose. You have the book, The Purpose Code.

And what I find interesting is many people would assume that hospice care is the highest form of purpose. And so tell us about the impact that had on you, but ultimately why it wasn't your forever destiny. Well, I will tell you, actually, I do still practice hospice medicine, but I do it at a much decreased amount of hours. So I still run one hospice team, which means I spend about 10 or 15 hours a week doing it.

But I think this is a really big point. You know, purpose doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be small and it doesn't have to be important. It doesn't even have to be in that sense what we consider deep. And this is really, I think, the problem we get with purpose is people look at hospice work or being a doctor or all these kind of things we look at as the harder things to do. And that's kind of this what I call big, audacious purpose. And so it's very grand. It's very goal oriented. Like, I'm going to change the world. I'm going to help dying people.

And I think we get caught up on this bigger version of purpose that's very goal oriented. And it actually makes us upset and frustrated because sometimes it's not sustainable. Like if I did hospice work 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week, I might burn out from that, right? It might be too emotionally exhausting. And so if that became my version and sole version of purpose, I might actually be setting myself up for anxiety and stress and

And so I think we need to take the pressure off of what purpose is. I like to define purpose as something that's much smaller. I call it little p purpose and it's process oriented. So it's just doing things that light us up. Now, for me, hospice is part of that. And that's why I like doing it 10 to 15 hours a week because it lights me up in that dosage. I can manage it without it getting overwhelming. But if I started really...

getting excited about the goal of helping these dying patients, but then didn't enjoy the process of the day-to-day work, which includes things like paperwork and some of the more inane things we do in medicine.

And if I found that I hated everything I do most of the time just for that goal of being there at the bedside for the few, you know, few hours a week I do that, I might be missing the point. Like maybe my time would be better served in a hobby I enjoy or a job that maybe is less profound, quote unquote,

But that sparks my joy while I'm doing it, or I could do it more sustainably for longer periods of time. What's so interesting about everything you just said is I really feel like it's the antithesis of the current definition of purpose. I love it and I'm confused. So for example, you said maybe my time would be better served in a hobby. And I'm going,

Well, wait, but that means then that you're defining the purpose of the time is to be joy and enjoyment and focus as opposed to outcome and value generating.

Many people are going to be confused about that. Yeah. So I think colloquially we think about purpose as our why. And I think that's the trap. It's like, why do I do this? Well, I do this to change the world. I do this for this big, audacious goal. But when you define purpose as your why, I think it really becomes anxiety provoking because then it's like, it's this thing and I either find it and I live a great life or I miss it.

and all is lost. And usually it's so aspirational because most of us grew up with social media and marketing and our parents telling us about all these big audacious things we should do. So we have this version of our why should be something really big and hard.

And the problem is if you look at social media all day, you're going to see people with six pack abs and seven figure businesses and wearing the nicest clothes and traveling around the world constantly. And that's just not attainable for most of us. And so that version of purpose again, can be very goal oriented and very anxiety producing. I flip it around a little bit and I get this, I'll jump to the chase. So people say, look,

That's fine. Do what you love. Do what that lights you up. But that sounds kind of selfish. Don't you want to change the world? And I say, actually, you'll probably change the world more. And so let me give you an example of my own life. My father died when I was eight. And so I decided I was going to become a doctor like he was because that was going to fix, cosmically fix this fact that he died when I was young. And I was going to save the world. Like I had these big, audacious goals for what I was going to do.

I became a doctor and a few things happened. One is I probably helped about a thousand people a year, more or less, right? Some people, maybe I didn't help as much other people. I helped more, but I probably affected about a thousand, 2000 people a year, but I didn't cosmically fix the fact of his death and I couldn't save everyone. So I burned out.

When I realized I had my finances in order enough not to work medicine full time, I did the exact opposite. Instead of going for something that was big and audacious and could save the world, right? Something other people would say, that's a great version of purpose. I said, why don't I just do things that light me up, that excite me? And so I started podcasting and writing about personal finance because that was exciting for me at the time. Eventually that led to books. Here's the thing. In this world I live in now where I do things that deeply light me up,

Millions of people have listened to my podcast. Thousands and thousands of people have bought and read my books. My reach is exponential compared to the way it was when I was a doctor. But that was never my plan. See, the thing is, I just started doing things that lit me up. But because I came to them as my authentic self and enjoyed them, it led to collaborations. It led to bigger and better things. And other people saw me doing something that lit me up.

And so they wanted to get involved. They wanted to read my book or listen to my podcast because they saw how excited I was about it because I was coming at it as my best self. And so a lot of people are like, well, I got to do this big audacious thing. My purpose has to be my why. And they eventually burn out and never get there.

Whereas if you start doing those little purposeful things that excite you, it's going to connect you to other people. And believe it or not, your impact and legacy might even be greater. It turns exponential. Actually, when you just do things that light you up because other people are going to take notice. To dig into this, then I need your concise definition of purpose. Easy.

purpose are the activities you do in the present and future that light you up. That's it. It has everything to do with the present and future, and it has everything to do with action. Now, I will contrast that to what people confuse it with. Remember when I said purpose people think of as your why? Meaning is your why. Meaning is a completely different thing from purpose. Meaning is about your past, and it's all about cognitive. It's about the stories you tell yourself about yourself.

So meaning speaks to your why, like why I'm doing this. And it usually has to do with your past and the stories you tell yourself about yourself, like what's important to me and why. Whereas purpose is all about your present and future. And it's simply action oriented. It's not about thoughts. It's about things you do that light you up. How do we remove current and future activities from the outcome if it's going to be purposeful? So let me show you.

Here's the thing. And remember I said meaning and purpose are two different things. And in my belief system, happiness is meaning plus purpose. So you need them both. So let me show you how they fit together.

Meaning is our cognitive beliefs about the past. It's the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And meaning is a journey to feeling enough. Okay? So happy people tend to tell themselves heroic stories about their past. They had these traumas. They had these issues. And they got through them to be where they are today. And they were enough back then, so they'll probably be enough in the present and future. They feel pretty good. Unhappy people tend to tell themselves a victim story.

They were thwarted in the past. They had these traumas, these problems, and because they were thwarted, they are where they are today, still feeling thwarted, and in the present and future, they're likely to feel thwarted. Purpose is about the present and future. It has nothing to do with your thoughts. It's all about actions.

here's why people are constantly struggling for impact and legacy and doing these big audacious things for purpose in the present future. They actually don't have a purpose problem. They have a meaning problem. They don't feel enough in their past. And if they feel like, since I don't feel like I'm enough, the way to get there is to have these big audacious plans. And once I achieve this thing, I'll feel enough. So they're trying to purpose their way to enough. They're trying to purpose their way to happiness, but they don't have a purpose problem. So

Let's look at some people in pop culture who completely fit this bill. Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was adopted. I imagine if you read all his biographies and stuff, he felt like the key people in his life didn't love him, didn't feel like he was enough and gave him up. So what did he do? Instead of dealing with that not feeling enough,

He went and tried to purpose his way to enough. He built an amazing company. He had all these wonderful products. He created all this cool stuff. He was a millionaire. And yet the guy looked miserable. Like he had a horrible relationship with his daughter. He had issues with relationships with significant others. I mean, honestly, he looked miserable. Elon Musk is another one who kind of looks miserable, although they've purposed their way to doing amazing, amazing things.

And so when you start talking about purpose having to do with these goals and achievements, I say you don't have a purpose problem. You have a meaning problem and you need therapy, something called narrative therapy. You need to go back and look at those narratives in your life and try to figure out why you don't feel like enough in the first place. Because once you relieve yourself of that, purpose becomes light and easy and free. And it allows you to let go of the goals and focus on doing things that you just really enjoy doing. Yeah.

Yeah. So is it fair to say then that somebody could do the exact same actions and one could be in this definition purpose and one could be actions with the goal of solidifying your meaning. So it's more of the kind of driver of said actions. Exactly. So let me give you another perfect example in my life. Podcasting.

So podcasting is what I call little P purpose. Little P purpose for me is process oriented. I can't fail. I just love doing it. So every time I get in front of the mic and I interview someone for an hour, that is an hour well spent. And even if I lose the episode or no one listens to it in the future, it was still a really good use of my time that I enjoyed heavily. That is purpose to me. That's little P purpose. But let's say,

I get really excited about podcasting and decide I want to have a million downloads a month. All right. So to get those million downloads a month, I realize I have to do more than I'm doing now. So just getting in and interviewing people isn't good enough. I have to go on TikTok and Instagram and make reels and market myself. But guess what? I don't like doing those things.

And so what I'm doing is I'm spending all my time doing things I don't like to get to this goal that I might or might not get to. And even if I get to that goal, what's going to happen? I'll probably double down. Why? Because that goal has become really meaningful to me, not purposeful. It's become really meaningful to me because there's something in my life that doesn't feel enough. And the way I'm going to get there is by getting those a million downloads. But how

How often does hitting a goal really solve your issue of feeling enough? Do you know anyone who didn't feel enough who hit a goal and then all of a sudden felt enough? No. Usually they double down and they go to the next goal. So even if I did hit those million downloads, I'd probably double it to two million once I hit the million. And I'd be petrified that all of a sudden something would change. The algorithm would change and less people would listen to me. And so I would double down on doing all those things I don't like.

the marketing stuff, the TikTok, the Instagram. And so what I did is I took my little P purpose, something I deeply enjoyed doing, and turned it into big purpose, big audacious purpose, big goal-oriented purpose. And I've kind of killed my joy.

And what is the difference? In this case, it all had to do with meaning. I somehow convinced myself that I would be more than enough or better if I could just get those million downloads. But if I had a good sense of meaning in the first place and was like, I'm already enough, I don't have to prove myself, I could still set a goal. So I could, podcasting could be my little P purpose and I could set that goal of a million downloads a month, which I'd love to have. Hey, that's a great goal. But the difference is if I have a good sense of meaning,

I'm not going to spend all my time doing things I don't like in service of that goal. In fact, if I don't hit that goal, it's completely fine. I'll be goal agnostic, right? It's kind of like I had this goal, I didn't hit it, but I wasn't willing to spend my time doing these things I didn't like to do to get there. And ultimately, let's think about that. How much of your life do you want to spend doing things you don't want to do, you don't enjoy the process of to get to these goals that really don't make you happy long term?

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That's what I was just about to say. And we convince ourselves that that is the valiant approach because it is more striving. It is more accomplishment. And so many people, though, feel like it's a game that is not meant to be enjoyed. It is meant to be won. But let's think about that. So what you're really saying is impact and legacy are the goal.

And, and that makes the game worth playing, even if you don't enjoy it. And again, I'd argue that if you really think impact and legacy are the goal, then you probably don't feel enough and you have a meaning problem and you need to go back and look at your childhood traumas and figure out why you don't feel enough. But here's the other side to that. If you look at me as an example,

I actually had much more impact and legacy when I let go of having an impact and legacy. Like when I stopped being a doctor and just started doing things I loved, my impact and legacy grew exponentially, but it was kind of a happy side effect because I finally gave myself permission to be my best, most authentic self, not a self who is doing stuff just to have the notch marks.

Right. But I finally said, I'm just going to do what I really like. But I was a heck of a lot more effective doing stuff that lit me up. That was exciting for me. I was much more likely to impact the people around me, even though I wasn't trying. What about the argument that the biggest...

Positive benefits to society have come from people who have done hard things, often at the detriment of their experience, to benefit our experience. If we all took the approach that purpose should be something we enjoy, how do we solve for the like? But we need on a humanity basis to do things that sometimes aren't enjoyable. Well, I don't know how you make that argument. So you can mention...

Steve Jobs, right? And you can say, look at all the great things he did. But then I can say, look at all the depression and anxiety and problem with our young people. And that also comes from iPhones. But then I can look at my maternal grandfather who no one ever knew

who had a love of math and that love of math translated into me having a love of math. And I became a doctor and I used my skills to help people. And those people went out and changed the world and helped other people. And there's exponential growth, but no one's going to look at my maternal grandfather who no one knows his name. And he died in the 1960s and say, boy, that guy changed the world, but he did. Everyone's going to look at someone like Steve jobs and says, well, he changed the world, but he also changed the world in both positive and negative ways.

And so to say that the people who we recognize did things that disrupted the world, they're the changers and they're the ones we should be worshiping, I don't know if that's true. I think there are a lot of people out there just doing what they do, changing the world in ways that we don't recognize, but cataclysmically change the way we all live. I think we just don't know about it. And so I think that's a false dichotomy there. Where I agree...

I do think when people are doing things that best uses their entirety, which is not just their skills and capabilities, but it is their soul and their fire. That is more accomplishing than those who grit and bear it and push through to try to fill a hole in the back. I mean,

The genuine approach that somebody takes when it's all encompassing and there's joy and there's flow tends to yield in my experience as well, better results, both for those around them and their self, which allows them to continue that cycle as opposed to, you know, remove it. Here's the problem. How do we define results? I

I mean, I think a lot about Bruce Jenner, right? Bruce Jenner, who's now Caitlyn Jenner. Like if you look again, a lot of the biographies, a lot of the documentaries about Bruce Jenner, you know, Bruce Jenner knew from a very young age that he didn't identify as a male. Right. And that drove him. In fact, that drove him to do the most manly thing ever, which was to basically, uh,

train 12 hours a day for 10 years straight to win a decathlon, the arguably most manly thing Bruce Jenner could have done, but ultimately it was in service of a goal of trying not to be transgender is my guess. Like I'm putting a lot of possibilities and beliefs on this. And did that make Bruce Jenner happy? Probably not. What probably eventually made Bruce Jenner happy was becoming Caitlyn Jenner.

And so, you know, this is a big question, right? So what is the outcome? The outcome is Bruce Jenner is an Olympic hero who won the most manly sport ever. But 100 years from now, is that what really we're going to remember Bruce Jenner for? Are we going to remember Caitlyn Jenner for having the courage to stand up and be their authentic self? I don't know the answer to that.

But the point being is that I don't know if the aggressive, goal-oriented, process-hating activities that led to all these accomplishments are actually any better off than the activities we do where we love the process and we become our more authentic self and then show our more authentic self to the world. And so maybe history will tell us in Bruce slash Caitlyn Jenner's story. I don't know.

But I think you lose that argument if you say that the outcome of Bruce Jenner winning the Olympics is,

change the world more, for instance, than what happened afterwards. How does this change in your mind or how is this different from the old adage, follow your passion? I mean, I think it integrates it. So I'm not silly enough to think we all should drop our jobs that are paying us lots of money and just follow our passion because I don't think that's realistic.

But I think we have to be aware of our passions because I think passion is a version of little P purpose, right? Doing things that light you up. And I think ultimately winning the game is integrating more of these things that light you up into your life over time, right? And so we have a set amount of time on this earth. We're born one day, we die another day. We have no idea how long that's going to be. We maybe can prolong it a little bit by exercising and not smoking and things like that. But ultimately we have a set amount of time on this earth.

And we have no control over that time. We can't buy it. We can't sell it. We can't exchange it. Time passes no matter what. So all you can do is somewhat control the activities you're involved in as time passes.

So what's winning the game? Winning the game is doing things you love as much of that time as possible and doing things you loathe as little of that time as possible. It is not an on-off light switch. When we are young, we may spend time at jobs and doing things that we sometimes even loathe to make money, which is a great tool in living a life purpose, one of many.

But over time, we want to be changing that calculus of our schedule to bringing in things we love more and doing less and less of things we loathe. And so what we have to really be able to do is start identifying what looks like our little P purpose, process-oriented purpose, what lights us up,

And when we're young, sometimes that means doing those things outside of the workplace. But over time, we start integrating them into the workplace, into the rest of our lives. And hopefully by the time you're my age, which you're in your 50s, you're doing mostly things you love.

whether at work or at home, and doing very few things you loathe. That's what winning the game looks like. But if you don't spend enough time thinking about what your true authentic purpose looks like, not what society told you, not what Bruce Jenner told you because he was a decathlon winner, not what your favorite influencer taught you because they have six-pack abs.

When you start really thinking about what your version of purpose looks like, you can then start integrating that into your life more and more. And we're talking about decades of work. We're not saying you're going to all of a sudden figure out what purpose looks like in your life and then live that life tomorrow. We're saying you're going to start getting clear on what lights you up and start bringing more and more of that into your life. I think, especially for those listening,

That last part is the, it is the answer. It is the advice. It is in my mind. It is the 20 last 20 years of my life summed up. If you're anywhere between 15 and 35 and you're confused, listen to that. I wish that is the message I would have received. I mean, I don't know if I would have done anything differently, but the point is, you know, Jordan, you catch me on this, this really interesting day. It is the last day of,

of, uh, my, I guess, current job. Um, and in two weeks I have a new one and I've never been, I've never been more excited to do a job. In fact, to the point where for the first time in my life, aside from podcasting, which isn't really a job, if somebody said you can either not work or do this, I would choose do this. I've, I've never believed that to be a possibility. And the reason I say this is because when I was younger, I

I always felt like if I wasn't enjoying what I was doing, I was failing. What I want other people to know is exactly what you just said is if, if every second of your life is terrible. Yeah, maybe. But if there are momentary and sometimes longer moments of things you're not enjoy, but you are consistently learning what that is pushing towards it.

recognizing it, learning it along the way to continue crafting a life that will provide you more time to do the things you enjoy that in the way we have constructed since society, in my mind, it's the best use of your time.

And here's the thing. It's actually really easy. And this is where people get messed up. I talk to people, young people all the time. And like, well, that's really privileged. Like you're a doctor. You made lots of money. You're now financially independent. Of course, you can talk about purpose. But, you know, I came from a poor family. I barely made it through college. And now I'm 23. I'm working at this job I don't particularly like, but it was the only one I could find. But it's putting food on the table. Of course, you could talk about purpose. But that's not realistic for me.

And so when I look at these people, let's say first and foremost, there are so many ways to improve that calculus of your life and winning the game that we talked about. For one, if you're 23 and you're working, let's say 60 hours a week, because you have tools that I don't have, like I have a lot of money. So that's my tool, right? Because I'm now in my fifties.

But if you're 23, you're probably not married. You probably don't have a mortgage. You probably don't have any kids. And you've got more energy than me. So you could probably still work 50, 60 hours a week. And then on Sunday, you could just go do something that you enjoy doing, something that lights you up. You've added in a little purpose to your day that you didn't have before. So already you're improving that calculus. Already you're adding more joy into your life, even if you haven't gotten rid of that 60-hour-a-week job you don't like.

And so what you did is you used a tool that was not money. You used your youth and your energy and your free time, all tools that many of us have in place of money so that even at the age of 23, stuck in this job you don't like, you're already improving things. Now, let's walk that out six months. Let's say you do something on the weekend that you're passionate about, that you enjoy, that maybe you turn into a side hustle.

And let's say after six months, you make a touch of money at that side hustle. Maybe you can work 50 hours a week instead of 60 hours a week. Maybe you can leave that job that's a grind and join another job that's a little bit less of a grind, but you make a little bit less money, but now your side hustle is making a little bit of money. So all of a sudden we use the joy of addition. I added something purposeful in, which is already improving my calculus of my week. But then that's giving me a little leverage to use the art of subtraction, which is subtracting out something I don't like.

And so we have all these tools and levers. Even when we're young, people tell me all the time that there's two main reasons that they can't pursue purpose or be happy. The two main reasons I always get, which are totally the wrong reasons, are time and money. And so let's look at the time thing. So the Bureau of Labor Statistics does the American Time Survey every few years, and it finds that your average American has between 4.5 and 5 hours of leisure time a day.

4.5 to 5 hours of leisure time a day. And people in lower socioeconomic classes possibly have a little bit more. And so if you're telling me you don't have enough time, if you're an average American, you have time. So then let's talk about money. There is a study called the Harvard Adult Developmental Health Study.

Okay. It studied Harvard students starting in the early 1900s, studied them literally for 80 years. We interviewed the, uh, we interviewed the key, the current key researcher on that study. Yeah. And so they started with questionnaires every two years, eventually started doing like lab tests, eventually MRIs, EEGs. They started with just Harvard students, but then brought in their families, then brought in controls from Boston. What did they find was most connected to happiness?

It wasn't money. It wasn't your job. It wasn't even purpose, which we can talk about. It was actually interpersonal connections. And so we know that if you want to have a sense of purpose and happiness, you don't need money. There are people who live in the poorest countries of the world that happen to be the happiest. And so it isn't time and it isn't money. It's courage. That's the one no one wants to talk about. It's courage to live the life that lights you up and makes you more authentic.

And I mentioned there that the Harvard study didn't show purpose, right? Which is interesting because a lot of people, like if you look at the studies, there are tons of studies that show that purpose, having a sense of purpose is associated with health, happiness, and longevity. On the other hand, the Harvard study didn't say it was purpose. It was interpersonal connections. My belief is that little p purpose process oriented purpose that lights you up, connects you to other people. Like when you are lit up and doing things you want to do,

It connects other people to you who want to collaborate and that becomes your community. And I will go on a limb here and say, you podcasting lights you up probably doesn't make huge amounts of money, but it connects you to other people, which probably increases your happiness. It's funny how your story, although much different is, is similar to an extent. When we started this, we didn't tell anybody we were launching a podcast.

We didn't we didn't even care if people listened like that's not that wasn't even in the impetus. In fact, I was positive nobody would. So why did you start it? Because I wanted to talk to smart people who could help me figure out what to do in my life.

That was why. And so that's still to this day. All right. So gosh, this podcast has been going on forever, 15 years or something still to this day, despite all the pressures from everybody to, uh, change our focus or to niche on snitch down onto something or to all these things. I kind of try for a minute and then I don't. And talking to you, I'm realizing it's because I don't need the podcast to be successful.

It's cool that it is to an extent, or maybe if it isn't or whatever I do, but it doesn't, I don't need that at all. I do need to enjoy it because if I don't, I have other things to do. I mean, boom, there you go. That's little people. That is other people trying to turn your little P purpose into big P purpose. And you saying, basically, I don't want to spend my time doing things I don't want to do because the goal is not nearly as important as enjoying the process.

And I would say, again, for someone like you, that's winning the game. You are filling your time up with process-oriented things you enjoy. My bet is, again, you probably connect to more people and you change the world more and you have more impact and legacy. And if you took the whole suggestion to go towards more big people, you'd start doing these things you don't like doing. And if you kept at it, you'd eventually burn out and stop.

Yep. A hundred percent. That's why we've done it. And then you'd have zero impact with this thing that started as something you loved. Exactly. Why is this so complicated? Why isn't this obvious? I think it's complicated. Actually, I think that's the question.

I am continually souring on consumerists, capitalistic society. And I think that's why I think we, they're really trying to sell you something like the influencers when they're showing you the six pack abs, the big P purpose, when they're showing you the travel, when they're showing you the seven figure businesses, uh,

They are saying either follow me because it's going to make me money or buy my product because it's going to make me money. When you have the marketers who are giving you the TV commercials, giving you images of what the perfect life could look like, they're saying if you co-opt my version of purpose, you'll buy my thing.

Even your parents who really have good intentions, when they say, no, no, no, you're doing it all wrong. You have to do this. What they're really saying is, no, no, no, I did it all wrong and I want to stop you. So I'm going to give you my version of purpose and give you this big audacious purpose of all the things I messed up and try to convince you to fix it. But all of those forces are trying to say, don't look for your own version of purpose and what excites you. They're saying, take my version of purpose because it serves them.

but it doesn't serve you. And why is, why do we have an epidemic of burnout? Because we've all been chasing big P purpose. We've all been trying to co-op someone else's version of purpose. And either we're not good enough. Like we're not the right person at the right time saying the right things with the right genetics and a whole lot of luck. And so if, if watching, you know, if watching, uh,

Some baseball player like when I was a cup, you know, I grew up a Cubs fan. So watching Ryan Sandberg becomes my version of big P purpose. You know, I'm just not that talented. I don't have those genetics. I didn't have a great coach in little league. Like if that was my version of purpose, I'd have felt thwarted. I would have failed miserably. Was you talk about parenting and baseball? It's funny. Those both came up. So I I'd say, yeah,

In another life or on another planet, on my preferred planet, I did become maybe not Ryan Sandberg, but like it was Don Mattingly for me. I was a Yankees fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like Don Mattingly. Yeah. Now I have three young boys. And one of the things that literally consumes my thoughts is

is how I can at least make sure one of them is great at baseball. Now, I'm self-aware enough to know that that should not be foisted upon them. But I also know that it does subtle. Do you play baseball now? I do. I play softball. Yeah. Okay. And do you watch the games and you do all the things? I don't watch as much baseball anymore. I watch a lot of football.

football. But you're giving them your version of purpose, but you're almost there. So here's the thing. Here's my maternal grandfather and here's where him and you could connect. Okay, good. So my maternal grandfather loved math. Guy I never met. He died in the 1960s. I was born in the 1970s. Loved math. And so he became a CPA. Not because it was going to save the world. Not even because I think it was like something to make good money. It's just like he loved math. That's what he did.

So when my mom was five years old, he would put her on his lap. And back then, obviously, they didn't have computers. He had these huge pieces of paper, these spreadsheets with all the boxes, and he'd have to put all the numbers in. And because it was joyful for him, he would put her on his lap and show her what he was doing. He'd like, oh, this is what I do here, here, here. So what happens is she, as a child, did what all kids do. They saw this behavior modeled for them, and she tried on that version of purpose. It wasn't that he forced it on her. She actually tried it on.

She said, he loves this and I'm seeing my father lit up. Is this something I could like? And you know what? She actually decided she loved math too. Fast forward years later, she becomes a CPA. When I was a little kid, I had a learning disability and I couldn't read. Like all my friends were learning how to read. They were in their beginning readers and I couldn't do it. I felt completely lost. Like I was coloring in a coloring book. The only thing that saved me as I also had seen this love of math modeled. So I was really good at math. So I was at the top of the class for math.

But at the bottom of the class for reading, that gave me the confidence to realize that I wasn't a bad kid. I wasn't dumb. I could get over this. And I eventually did. I become a doctor, highly mathematical field. One day I'm rounding at the hospital and I see a patient whose labs are off. A guy, he's a young guy. He keeps on getting admitted over and over again at desk doorstep dehydrated. And I look at his labs and because of my love of math, I see a connection no one else has made. And I'm like, I think he has this disease because I can tell because of this mathematical relationship.

And he did. It was one of these diseases. We could put him on a simple medicine and it solved his problems. Stop being dehydrated. Stop coming to the hospital. He was a pastor at a local church and he took in runaways. And so think about this. My maternal grandfather's love of math in the 1960s is affecting someone 60 years later, hundreds of miles away, grew up in New York. We're in Chicago, hundreds of miles away, long after he's died, uh,

Like a stone dropped in the ocean, the little displacement of water, the little wave it made became big and mighty by joining other waves at times. It became small and tiny and dissipated other times, but it's still coming to the shore all these years later and affecting lives.

When we're talking about you and your children, stop telling them to love baseball and model the behavior of you loving baseball. Take them to your softball games. Show them what you love about it. Do a baseball podcast or a blog or collect baseball cards or bring them along on the journey and then let them try on that identity and decide if it works for them. And if it was meant to be purpose for them, they will model that behavior and

And they will use that modeling positively, not to become a baseball player, not because it's what dad told me to do, but they'll independently see what you do and decide if it fits them. Because you know what? Maybe that kid of yours doesn't want to be a baseball player, but a cheerleader. And maybe he was never meant to be a baseball player, and you trying to push him to do it, no matter how hard you try to push, isn't going to lead to that success.

intentional, beautiful behavior that lights them up. If they do it for you, they're going to be doing it because dad wanted them to. And it's going to be very goal oriented and probably won't be particularly happy. Just show them the best thing as a parent you can do is not to teach them what their purpose should be. It's to have them see you deeply engaged in little P purpose and model that behavior and give them permission to pursue things that light them up. That's what you do as a parent. That might be baseball, but it might not.

When you notice them making their decisions to be aware enough to let them go in that direction and not try to redirect them in yours. Yeah. I mean, ultimately you don't want to bring your kids up to be a baseball player. You want to bring your kids up to do things that deeply light them up and gratifying them. And so the way you do that is you show them that you do that on a regular basis. In your case, it happens to be baseball.

that you would give up. So if I gave you the choice, your kid could become a professional baseball player, but be miserable and hate it and live a miserable life for the next 50 years because he made these choices to be a baseball player, something he was amazingly good at, but didn't love. Or he could end up doing something completely outside of baseball, maybe even something that didn't make him a huge amount of money, but that was enough, but that he loved. And he woke up every morning excited and ready to do that.

which path would you choose? You'd choose the second. Right. Of course. That's cool. I love that. How much of this ideology or thought process was shaped by your work in hospice? I mean, a huge amount of it. Because what happened is I would be sitting with people to deathbeds and I'd hear what their regrets are. Exactly. And I love deathbed regrets are just another name for purpose. But the problem is when you're dying, you don't have agency to accomplish them. So it's disappointment.

But if we could think about what our deathbed regrets would be while we're young and healthy, we can then turn those into anchors of purpose, things to build a purposeful life around. And so I would listen to people dying and they wouldn't say like, man, I wish I made it to partner. They wouldn't say, man, I wish I made millions of dollars. They'd say some version of I really regret that I never had the energy, courage or time to do. And then you'd fill in the blank. And usually it was something deeply purposeful and exciting to them.

Maybe it was writing that book. Maybe it was climbing Mount Everest. Maybe it was, you know, learning how to fly a plane or a helicopter, you know, whatever it is. That's what people regret. They don't regret at their deathbeds that they didn't reach some preconceived notion of greatness that never connected to them. Almost no one talks about money on their deathbed, by the way. Very few people do. I would imagine that.

And I think I'll never forget. We interviewed, excuse me. We interviewed Melissa Bernstein. So she's the co-founder of the company, Melissa and Doug that makes like kids toys. Yep. Yep. And she said the, basically the worst day in her life was when she made her fortune or recognized her fortune from that business.

And up until that moment, you know, and this wasn't that long ago, eight years or so ago, I'm going, oh my God, I hate it when rich people say that because it's so easy to say that when you're rich.

But I genuinely thought about it. And she had a great way of articulating it because she said, because then I had to ask the honest question of what I wanted to do and why. And when money becomes the proxy for that, it is easier, albeit potentially doesn't feel as good. And I think that's so much of the challenge is we all assume only rich people say that. And then we

We're not willing to look at how many rich people say, don't do this. And I think it's, you're providing a little bit more of a roadmap and some meat behind that. Yeah. I mean, money is a mirage. It's a great tool, but a horrible goal.

And so if money becomes your goal, often you either don't get there, which just makes you feel thwarted and unhappy, or you do get there and then don't know what to do with yourself because it's just a number. It doesn't mean anything. And so you're like, okay, well, then I can double down. And now I'm just, I want double the money. And then you go back to living a miserable life to get there.

Or you get petrified, you're going to lose it, loss aversion. You're like, well, now I have this money, but the market could go down, I could lose it all. And then you just get more and more anxious. Money is a tool. It was meant to be used to either give you time, space, or the equipment you need to live a purposeful, exciting life.

But guess what? You can actually do all that without the money too. Right, right, right. And so this is where it becomes a conundrum. Yes, you need enough money to support yourself. Yes, you should be planning for your financial future and retirement. And I'm a big fan of financial independence, but not at the expense of developing your sense of purpose. Because if it comes at the expense of it,

then you've actually started concentrating on the tool and gotten rid of what that tool is supposed to accomplish for you. Okay. I know we're coming up on time here. So I want to get specific on, on two things. One is I know a lot of people who have those metaphorical golden handcuffs. Yep. And, uh, despite me talking to them and I do think having an impact,

In fact, a friend of mine said, Hey, texted me a couple of days ago. I got a new job. A lot of it is thanks to the conversation you and I had about exactly what you and I are talking about this, this money myth, but there's many who are stuck on that. They just can't see how did I spend 20, 25 years grinding, sacrificing, sacrificing health, time, family, joy to get to close enough and then walk away.

despite an unhappiness, despite some even saying, I know it's killing me. How do you reach them? How do you start painting a picture of a future that is okay if not defined by monetary success, especially add on this layer, as you well know,

When you have a family is different, not just for support, but you tell yourself that your kids lives are going to benefit from this money and your spouse is going to appreciate you more because of this money. I mean, so I talk about Warren Buffett.

How many of his billion dollars would Warren Buffett give up to be you or I? And the answer is he'd give it all up because he's 94 and we're in our 40s and 50s or however old you are. I have no idea how old you are, but I'm 52. He would give up every single cent he could to be my age. Time is priceless. You cannot put a price on time. So every second you spend doing something you don't like that you don't need to do is

is a time that you're completely wasting the most precious commodity in the world. It's not a commodity. It passes. You're filling your time with horrible stuff you don't like. That's one thing I say. The other thing I say, which is utterly true, is if you're at the place where you're having golden handcuffs and hopefully you've been financially savvy enough, which means you have an asset allocation, you are invested, you've been putting money in your 401k for the last 10 or 20 years, almost all those people die with too much money.

Hands down. It is not the people who get cold in handcuffs that die broke mostly because mostly, again, they've done some other good financial things. It's the people who never invested, who didn't even know what a 401k was. So the likelihood is you're probably going to die with way more than you ever needed.

Again, do you really want to spend your time doing these things that don't fill you up when we have zero control over time? Everyone worries that they're going to live and run out of money. Almost no one worries about what if they run out of life. So those are the kind of things I say to them.

You know what this conversation does, I think, is it it makes you ask, is that my belief system? Because I don't think I've ever questioned running out of money. I have questioned if I don't make enough money, will I have been successful? Will will I have mattered? Will I have been good? You know, so to your point, this is the meaning component. Exactly. It's what are we tying it to?

you're already successful and good and enough. And until you come to that conclusion, purpose is going to be laced with that anxiety about production. I mean, Jordan, you want to really like talk about the, the, the pinnacle of this. I mean, that's why I started my career in finance was to fulfill that meaning. And then you talk about how it leads to anxiety. I didn't know what anxiety was prior to that. And then there was a market point around,

around 22, where then anxiety started. So the real answer becomes for you, and this is very painful and difficult, I warn you. Sure, yeah. What is your rosebud? And so what do I mean by rosebud? So if you saw the movie Citizen Kane from years and years ago, this idea that this wealthy guy dies and

On his deathbed, he says, Rosebud, no one knows what it means. The whole story is about how they go back, track back and figure out what Rosebud meant. And Rosebud was his sled when he was a little kid. And it signifies the time that he was happy before I think his parents died. He was adopted and he ended up in this very wealthy family where everything was aggressive and competition. And that was like the end of his good life. And so the sled was his Rosebud sled.

This trauma that happened that he's forever trying to make up for by achieving things.

And so the question for someone like you is what is your Rosebud? What is the thing that made you not feel enough when you were younger? Most likely when you were a kid, it's either generational trauma, something your parents just kind of thunk down your head or it's lived trauma and the types of lived trauma. There's kind of like the major trauma, like, Oh my God, a family member died. But most of the time it's also minor trauma. Like I was made fun of as a kid, or I had this episode that really stuck in my mind.

And so the question for people like you who get very achievement oriented and feel like they can't pursue what they love doing because they have to achieve. A lot of times the real question is what is your Rosebud? Like what is that thing from childhood that told you you weren't enough that you're forever trying to make up for? And the answer is not to keep trying to make up for it. The answer is to try to go back and tell yourself a new, better story about what actually happened. So my Rosebud was my father dying. He was a doctor and,

I felt guilty when he died. Like I somehow was responsible. And so my journey to enough for a lot of my childhood was trying to make up for his death by becoming a doctor, just like him. Right. And I got there and it didn't work. Right. Right. I had to go back.

And it's called narrative therapy. I had to go back and tell myself a whole different story about my father. Not that he died and I was going to go to the doctor to take his place, but that he died and I was a good kid. And look at this heroic story of this good kid who not only survived, but thrived and was successful. But I could let him let go of that and say, I don't have to continue being a doctor. This is the thing that isn't filling me up for the rest of my life. Like I can see the heroic story that was and realize that even if I pivot away from being a doctor, it's not a loss.

I can just thrive at the next thing I do. And so again, the question is, what is your rosebud? What is the thing that's keeping you in the mindset that you have to prove that you're enough by having these outsized achievements and rewriting that story and realizing that you were just a good kid in a tough situation and that you actually came out pretty well. Yeah. You know, what's fascinating, you know, what's really fascinating about that. And, and I, I do this because I hope I know, right. People listening can't help it to ask themselves, okay,

I don't think I've ever necessarily identified my rosebud and I'm going to continue thinking about it despite trying. I no longer feel nearly as I think I'm I genuinely I think I'm pretty close to to winning my game. I really do. But I think I've had to do it.

through a different way. And I'm interested in, in your take on this, which is to keep screwing up and keep recognizing the pain and then continue asking why I don't think I was able to like release whatever caused this mindset and then pursue passion or, or, or, you know, little P purpose.

But instead, it was just through so many trial and errors to eventually be like, well, it's not that it's not that it's not that it's not that and kind of recognize through that none of these are filling that. So let me just do what I enjoy because that's all there is anyways. Does that make sense? No, it does. I mean, I think the problem is a lot of people don't know how to identify what little people just looks like in their life. And so a big portion part of my book is to actually say, well, these are the specific ways you start identifying little people in your life.

I think a lot of the reason why people can't identify their rosebuds is because they think it has to be big. And so for a lot of people, their rosebud is actually something small. So I hate to use the same terminology, but actually, if you look at the trauma terminology, there's something called big T trauma and little t trauma. It sounds like big P purpose and little t purpose, but it's something completely different. Big T trauma is those life-altering things. Like I was abused, a family member died, I grew up in a war-torn area, blah, blah, blah.

But for a lot of us, especially those of us who had these like loving parents and had these idyllic childhoods, it's actually little T trauma. It's the, it's the day you like, you know, you peed your pants when you were in kindergarten accidentally and everyone made fun of you. Or it was the day that you loved baseball and you were playing shortstop and that grounder went right through your legs and you lost the game. And like, believe it or not,

The trauma doesn't have to be something huge. I always say all trauma is equivalent. Like the person who lost all their family in wartime, everyone's like, well, that's trauma, but that's the only trauma they know. And it's no more or less than the trauma of being made fun of when you were a little kid at school, because you don't know the other trauma. So you only know your trauma. So all trauma is equivalent in the sense that we only experience our trauma. And so it has a profound effect on us, whether it was big or little or whatever it was.

And so my suspicion with someone like you is you probably didn't have that big T trauma. You might have had some generational trauma, meaning your parents might have just kind of had some traumatic times and handed them down to you. Or it might have been something little that just, you know, shame. Kids have shame. Little things cause kids shame. And believe it or not, that shame can drive a lot of the way we live our lives. You know what? I wonder how much.

Like, is that a is that a bug of humanity, like a purposeful bug to be able to attach to that trauma, which drives action, which propels the species despite our best interest? Well, I mean, again, let's let's go back to Bruce Caitlyn Jenner. Bruce Jenner, like, did this amazing thing, probably based on his trauma and shame. He did produce a lot, but she's happier. And so I don't know. Like, do you want to be?

Bruce Jenner or Caitlyn Jenner? Do you want to be the unhappy person who's extremely successful but feeling disconnected and not

being who you want to be? Or do you want to be Caitlyn Jenner, who may not break as many records, but is probably living a much more true and authentic life? I don't know. It's hard. I would imagine if you asked Caitlyn Jenner, she would say that she'd rather be who she is today. Well, and I'd imagine if you ask most people, they'd say Caitlyn Jenner. And that's kind of my point. And I think it's kind of the reason your work and your book and this conversation has and will resonate is because it is really hard.

And so you have to recognize it, understand it and, and work at it to an extent. You know, it's all the things we talked about. I think society is really good at giving us what we want, but not necessarily what we need. It's what we're seeing now today. And it's why I like these conversations because it's like,

I fundamentally believe this is what society needs. If it was what they want, I'd go talk about like making money and having sex and probably have a much bigger podcast. You know what I mean? So I just remember, I mean, I know a lot of highly successful people. I know a lot of very wealthy people and I know a lot of people who've achieved like these big, huge things. There's a lot of them that are unhappy. So if you think that's going to get you to happiness,

I don't think so. I know a lot of them who are also happy, but again, their happiness when you really look at them is almost adjacent to all they've achieved. I was just about to say that. It's not necessarily the same thing. And it's how they got there. Like I'm related to somebody who's achieved a good deal of wealth through a certain job, let's just say. But-

He just loves the job. Like he just always has the way he stumbled into it, the way, you know, it's, it's your point. It's an out the output oriented. I think we've covered it. Do you know who Dr. Drew is? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Drew, I went to podcast movement. Oh, did you? Dr. Drew was speaking that this was a while back. Yeah. I haven't gone yet. He was being interviewed and he was telling a story and it was like the series of, well, I kind of like doing this. So I just showed up to this thing one day. And next thing I know I was on TV. Yeah.

Like Dr. Drew's really, really successful. He's got a huge media platform and he's made tons of money. But when you really talk to him, he kind of like, yeah, I kind of love this. So I did it. And it just kind of happened to turn into this thing. Yeah. I think that's a great model. Like he's a super successful, well-known guy. But when you really talk to him, his life was a series of little P purpose. Like, and he still practices. He's still like, he could do all these more lucrative things and he still does kind of addiction medicine, which pays him well.

very little compared to what all the media things does. Sure. Because that guy kind of followed his purpose and passion. Yeah. They're not exclusive. In fact, I know, like I said, I also know tons of people like Dr. True who just love doing what they do.

And it actually leads to wealth in many ways, not just monetary wealth, but a wealth of relationships, a wealth of joy, a wealth of all sorts of other things. Yeah. It's incredible. I love this Jordan. Thank you so much. The book is the purpose code, how to unlock meaning, maximize happiness and leave lasting legacy. Um, you,

You also have a podcast. Tell us about that because I'm sure people will be curious. So it's the Earn and Invest podcast. I started in the financial independence movement. So like, how do you become financially independent so you can leave a job you don't love? But it was really graduated from having those kind of 101 discussions about how you make money to the 201 discussions of what does it all mean? What do we want to do with this? Now that we've created wealth in multiple avenues of our life, including monetarily,

How does that translate into actually living a good, happy, fulfilled life? You can learn all about that. The easiest way to learn about me and my books, the podcast, everything is just to go to jordangrummet.com. That's J-O-R-D-A-N-G-R-U-M-E-T.com. Links to both my books, Taking Stock in the Purpose Code, as well as my podcast, my sub stack. I do a lot of blogging for psychology today, so you can find it all there. I love it. Jordan, it's fantastic. Thank you so much. It's been a blast.

A thank you to this week's guest, Jordan Grumet. The episode was hosted, as always, by Chris Stemp and produced by yours truly, John Rojas.

Jordan's book, The Purpose Code, How to Unlock Meaning, Maximize Happiness, and Have a Lasting Legacy is available wherever books are sold. Now onto the quick housekeeping items. If you'd ever like to reach out to the show, you can email us at smartpeoplepodcast at gmail.com or message us on Twitter at smartpeoplepod. And of course, if you want to stay up to date with all things Smart People Podcast, head over to the website,

smartpeoplepodcast.com and sign up for the newsletter. All right, that's it for us this week. Make sure you stay tuned because we've got a lot of great interviews coming up and we'll see you all next episode.