The Purpose Code | Jordan Grumet | 528

23:30I just kind of like, I wound up helping and then not commandeered the team because that sounds like a negative, but I did such a good job that I wound up being the coach and I just loved it. It was so great. And like to the point where I actually said to my daughter, because she didn't want to keep playing after the second season, I'm like, I want to keep coaching. Like, how can I keep coaching? You know, it's kind of weird for a 40 something guy to just be like, hey, I'd love to be a coach, but I have no daughter. And you know what's really exciting about this? And I think this takes us to the next level here.

24:02When you do this thing and you love it, you show up in a way that's more authentic and lit up and the people around you notice it and they want to collaborate with you. They want to connect with you. Other parents may be like, hey, maybe I can help you out. The kids might have been like, hey, coach, did you ever think about this? So let me give you an example from my experience, but it's very similar to coaching. I had two different teachers in high school and one taught Spanish and the other history. I'm a science guy. I was going into medicine. I have no interest in Spanish. I have no interest in history.

24:34But these guys taught from such a passion and excitement and they had such a verb for it. The kids who went through that class saw someone doing something that lit them up. But the downstream effects of it was all of those kids were given permission to get passionate. it. Like I became a doctor, but I'll never forget what I learned about teaching from these people. 30, 40 years later, these two teachers have still had a huge impact on my life. And I am a different, more organized, better teacher just because of them. And that is impact and legacy. And so everyone says little P purpose sounds great, but big P purpose is how I'm going to change the world.

25:12I would argue one of the ways you are going to change the world is you're going to coach these kids and you're going to connect with some of them, or you'll connect with their parents, or you'll connect with someone because you're doing something that deeply lights you up, and it will change their lives, and they will go on to live a better life because of it. And I would say that Choose Fi is exactly that too. Brad, you didn't go into doing Choose Fi, the podcast, because you wanted this big, audacious thing. You didn't want to get a million downloads. You didn't want to make millions of dollars.

25:41You did it because it lit you up. But think about the thousands and thousands and thousands of people have now learned about financial independence because of you and how different their lives could be. That's little p purpose. That's not big audacious purpose. That's not, I'm going to be a billionaire. I'm going to change the world, but you have single-handedly added to your impact and legacy just by doing things that lit you up. Yeah, that's a cool frame on that. And what's interesting in there, and obviously we're using me as just but an example here, but like in my mind, I would have thought just because of the significant impact of Chooseify, that it would be big P purpose, but it's actually not, which is so wonderful.

26:20Here's the thing. And people get this wrong all the time. I am not against goals. I just think you can't define your happiness or the success of what you're doing based on those goals. If your purpose is solely to get to that goal and you're not enjoying what you're doing in the process, then you've lost your way. On the other hand, you can start a podcast and be like, I want to help millions of people and I want millions of downloads. But as long as you're enjoying what you're doing, it doesn't matter whether you get there or not. You can still have that goal and it can be a wonderful thing to strive for.

26:51As long as if you don't get there, you don't feel lost because you don't ultimately always have agency over whether you get to those million downloads or not, but you have a lot of agency over what your moment to moment activities look and feel like. Right. Yeah. It's, it's process, right? Like that's over and over again. It's process. It's just process. Yeah. That is, that's just such a critical aspect of living a good life is thinking about process, process, process, because that you have agency over, right? We're using that word constantly. You can define what the process is, what your inputs are.

27:22You have some say over the outputs, but some at best. And if you define yourself and the success or failure of whatever it is that you're undertaking by the outcome, that's a recipe for a very unhappy life, in my opinion. Yeah. But look around you at the people who love the process and you're going to see people who are just very quietly changing the world. And we all know them. We all know them. I bet you can look back to your life, to mentors, to people who just loved what they did and had such a positive impact on you and who you've become today has something to do with them. I call that generational growth.

27:58It's the exact opposite of generational trauma. We always talk about generational trauma when it comes to money, things that people or our families hand down to us that give us these bad coping mechanisms. But we never talk about generational growth, which is these really positive versions of purpose that people hand down to us that then changes us and gives us permission to pursue our own sense of purpose and affect other people. And like you said, with the teacher in a completely different area of life than you would ultimately focus on, that teacher is one you remember. And that's absolutely critical.

28:29So I wanted to talk about another purpose anchor. So art of subtraction. When you were talking through that, it reminded me in a weird way of what we talk about in the five community, the F you money concept, not in the, Hey, I'm, I'm burning it all down and running away, but in the, okay, maybe there's some aspect of my job that I really love that really lights me up. And I'd love to keep doing that. I think most people, most people think everything in life is binary, that they have so little way to negotiate. And I think that is just such a fundamental misunderstanding of the world. Like, and you never want to get into some Machiavellian like power struggle.

29:10I'm not, we're clearly not arguing that, but power dynamics in life are very important. And I think we have highlighted that in the fight community often, right. In terms of our jobs, you're the VP of your department or your boss is quite unfamiliar with someone coming in from a position of strength. They're used to people groveling because those people's lives are going to fall apart within 90 days if they don't have that job. So where is the power dynamic. It's squarely on the side of the company. But when you are approaching FI, at FI, if you're on the path to FI, everything changes. And Jordan, that reminds me of this art of subtraction.

29:45I'd love for you to talk more about that. Yeah. And I'd even broaden this discussion a little bit to say, so money is a tool. And so when we're on our path to FI and we get to that FU money level, we have enough of that tool to start practicing the art of subtraction. But I really want to remind people that money is just one tool. And so to give you like a really broad framework, it's going to take a moment, but I want to give you this full picture of what this looks like. Let's talk about winning the game. Winning the game looks like this. You're born one day and then you die another day. And the amount of time in between there, I always like to say it's set.

30:23We know it isn't set, right? You can exercise and wear your seat belt. You can do some things to make it longer, but you've got the set amount of time and time Time passes no matter what. You can't buy it. You can't sell it. You can't commoditize it. You can't trade it. It just passes. All you can control is what activities you're involved with as time passes. I like to think of these time slots, months, days, years. And so winning the game is filling up as many of these time slots with purposeful, joyful, intentional activities and getting rid of as many things that you loathe as you can. And that's it.

30:56from whenever we're old enough to start making decisions to the day we die, we should be looking at our calendar every week and trying to increase the number of time slots filled by things we love, little p purpose, and get rid of things we loathe. So it's not binary. And this is why it's not binary, because we have both tools and levers that are going to help us change the calculus of our schedule to get better and better over time. So let me talk about tools and then levers. Money is the number one tool everyone thinks about, but it's only one tool. We also have our relationships. We have our skills.

31:28We have our passions. We have our energy. We have our youth. So let's think about this. I have money. When I realized that I didn't want to be a doctor anymore, I was already financially independent. So everyone's going to say, you are privileged. You use money to use the art of subtraction to stop doing things you didn't want to do. But if you're 22 years old and working a job you hate and you have to work that job to put money on the table, you've got other tools that I don't have. At 22, you have your youth, you have your energy, you might not be married yet, you might not have kids or a mortgage.

31:59And so you might not like that job, but you've got all sorts of possibilities of other things you can do. Let's talk about some of the other tools you could do. Let's say you live in the same neighborhood as your parents. Well, that's a tool. It's your family. Maybe you could stop renting an apartment, go live with your parents for free, and maybe use that as a reason to work four days out of a week instead of five. That tools your relationships. Or you have your energy and free time. At 22, it's no big deal on a Sunday to spend four hours doing a side hustle. And if you can find one that's really purposeful and passionate, then hopefully not only are you adding in some purposeful activity to your day, but you also might create some money that creates margin.

32:40So those are your tools. Let's talk about your levers. So even if you don't have a lot of money, you have the art of subtraction, you have the joy of addition, and you have substitution. So that person who's 22 who adds in four purposeful hours on the weekend because they have the tool of energy, even if that doesn't make them any money, they'll still, if you look at their calendar, they just added in four more purposeful hours. So they've already won. If they happen to make some money and can subtract a little from work, they've actually decreased things they loathe and increase things they love.

33:08As a 22-year-old with almost no money, boom, you're already winning. The art of subtraction. That conversation we had about what if I work in a restaurant and I like stocking, but I hate doing everything else. What if you went to your boss and said, hey, we have 10 restaurants and I love doing the stocking. Why don't I stock every restaurant each day of the week? I'll go to a different restaurant. And why don't we have Millie go ahead and work at the front because she likes serving people and I don't. Boom. You just use the art of subtraction to majorly improve the calculus of your schedule by filling up that schedule with things you love.

33:42What else could you do? Maybe it's your boss you hate. So you go work for a different company doing the same thing. Maybe you stay at the same company, but do a different job at that company. That's substitution. So what I'm saying is we have these tools and we have these levers and we can turn this from a privileged or binary decision. I either have money or don't have money to abundance. I have all these tools. I have all these levers it is my job in life to improve that calendar calculus as I go on. And that is my challenge, especially the young people listening to this right now who are like, I'm just not there.

34:16Once I get to enough money or once I get to FU money, I'll be able to do this. I challenge you to look at what you already have and start making those changes. In the meantime, we should all be really smart with our money. We should all pursue financial independence because that money also is a great tool. And if we're smart about it, we can use that tool along with the other ones to not wait till we're 45 or 50 or till we retire to start living the life we want to live. Yeah. I mean, that is a heck of a call to action, Jordan, right? And I think we all need to be, it's like a memento mori, right?

34:49Remember death. And obviously, you know this in your profession better than anybody is. It is coming for us all. We don't know when, obviously, but we have a general timeline. And you and I, so we're talking about 22-year-olds there, but you and I are certainly rounding 50%. We're closer. Darn it, we're closer. And I mean, thinking about adding those purposeful hours, I mean, that sounds pretty damn good to me. When people find out that I'm a hospice doctor, they always ask me, how do I have a good death? And I always say, well, you tend to die like you live. So if you want a good death, you're going to have to have a good life.

35:27And if you want a good life, you're going to have to start addressing these big things in your life now and not waiting. And that's why there is that call to action, right? That's why we need to have memento mori. That's why we have to carry this vision with us because we want to take action. Remember, purpose is about present and future, and it's all about action. We want to actually take action. Yeah. And thinking about it in terms of this, it's not all or nothing, right? That is, for me, the biggest takeaway because I think so many people get caught up always in, it has to be perfect. It has to be perfect.

36:02It can't be something little, right? But it can, it can just be, okay, you have 168 hours in a week, right? You have roughly what 112 waking hours in a week. What if you just made one, two, three of them more purposeful or just better in some way? Yeah, totally. That sounds pretty darn good to me, and that, that seems eminently doable to just work on one or two hours a week. And I've used intentionally this term little p purpose, and it can be deceiving. Because when I talk about little p, I'm contrasting it to big p, which is this big audacious purpose. But I want to be clear on the point that little p doesn't mean little impact.

36:44It doesn't mean little happiness. It only is little in the sense that it's not society's version of quote unquote killing it. but just because we call it little P doesn't mean that it's not super impactful and has a really huge, you know, effect on your life. Yeah. And it kind of goes back to like the small things are the big things in life, right? Like you're not going to look back on the deal that you closed when you were 37. And that that's like the highlight of your life. I mean, if that's the highlight of your life, it's a pretty sad life, frankly, right? Like you're going to look back on the relationships you've built.

37:21You're going to look back on the amazing experiences you've had with people and traveling or the impact you had on your community. You're not going to look back, even if you have the massive big P purpose, I almost guarantee you're not going to look back as that being the highlight. It's just, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the human condition as far as I'm concerned. And I also want to be clear about this. And I say this in the book, which surprises people. It's not even about purpose. Now I did say that studies show that purpose in life leads to more health, happiness, and longevity.

37:50But I think especially when it comes to happiness, little p purpose is just a conduit. It's actually a conduit to interpersonal relationships and connections, which goes back to you coaching the team. It's the people. I think little p purpose is just a great way to light yourself up so that you attract other people to you, so that you collaborate, so that you form those deeper relationships. And we all know this because a lot of people are like, oh, I need more relationships in my life. I need more friendships. And so they go and they get themselves involved in a bunch of things that don't light them up just to meet people.

38:25And it's really hard. I say, do it the opposite way. Do things that light you up. And whether you try to or not, it's going to connect you to other people. I call them communities of internal purpose. They're identity communities, right? Like where I live, what state and what city, that's a community of identity. I'm in the district 65 school district because where my kids grew up, that's a community of identity, But a community of internal purpose is a community in which you're deeply excited or involved in some idea. And therefore, you end up part of that community because you have the strong interest or belief system.

38:59And so, for instance, for me and you, FI is a community of internal purpose. Podcasting is a community of internal purpose. For you, coaching and the team is a community of internal purpose. It's something you've chosen because of your passions and interests. Yeah, I'm curious. So if I was sitting in the audience, I'd be like, okay, I get this. I understand the intersection of passion and purpose here. But what about just like something as simple as, hey, I love soccer. I love playing soccer is literally joining a team. Like I'm thinking, okay, it checks off. Like obviously it's passion. It's great exercise.

39:35It keeps me healthy. It's community building. I'm meeting new people. Like how does something as, as simple as that fit into the framework? So you've just defined a great purpose anchor, soccer. So soccer is a purpose anchor, but then we have to take that purpose anchor and take action and build what I call climbs, which are these purposeful activities around it. And so that's what you do. You say, I love soccer. That is an inkling of beckoning. So let's build a life of purpose around that. That could look like a million things. And this is where the abundance comes out. You can become part of a team.

40:06You can really bond with those people. Maybe that leads to happy hour Friday nights. Maybe that leads to stronger connections. Maybe you meet your spouse there. Maybe it just means the lifelong friendships that you connect with because you have this love of the same thing. But it's not just joining a soccer team. Maybe you start a podcast. Maybe you start a blog. Maybe you start a fan club for your favorite player. Maybe you decide, I love this so much, I'm going to go volunteer at the stadium. And you start doing that, and they offer you a job, and it becomes a weekend gig. And before you know it, you're moving up in the system, and you don't even need your regular job because you're doing this thing you love and you're so good at because you're so into it that people keep on tapping you for bigger and bigger jobs.

40:47That's the thing about it. When you do something you deeply love and enjoy, it will connect you to other people. And whether you want to or not, most likely you will become part of a community of people who have similar interests, but not only that, but they are seeing you as your best self. And that is like the most attracting thing possible. Seeing you as your best self. So that jumps off the page to me, because I'm thinking about the five community, right? The reason, and no, obviously I'm a podcaster, so I have this as a little P purpose, but even putting that aside, the reason why I show up at five events, like I just went to the five freedom retreat in Bali is because of the people.

41:26Yeah. And you never know what kind of relationships you're going to build or friendships that can last a lifetime. And you never know where, because those people have similar areas of life that light them up. a lot of people are into travel or experiences or whatever it may be. Like, it's not just the five part. It's the, Oh, where am I going to meet a travel partner or a group of friends? I know there's a bunch of people like Becky Heptig and Mark Chapman and that whole crew who are, they call themselves the slackers now. And they, they are lifelong friends. They travel the world together and they met at a five event.

42:01And that's, what's so cool about it. As far as I'm concerned, I think it's amazing. It's a virtuous circle. I mean, look at my story. I burned out of medicine. I discovered financial independence, started writing and blogging, ended up going to a camp fi. I became close friends with people like JL Collins. I eventually met Grant Sabatier. Grant Sabatier became my friend. He's like, dude, you really need to write a book. And I've always wanted to write a book, but I never had the courage. But now I had a friend who had an agent And I knew you and Jonathan and you had an agent. And all of a sudden, I had the support in this community that was lifting me up, that was getting me to do things that were deeply important to me that I was afraid to do.

42:44It started with little p purpose. But as that virtuous circle turns, it actually leads to more connections and more purpose, which leads to more happiness. And so when I look at my life today compared to, let's say, six to eight years ago, the number of friends I have, the number of communities I'm a part of, and the number of things I've accomplished far outweighs what happened as a doctor when I was grinding it out and hitting the books and going for all those super achievements because it didn't light me up in the end. and this stuff does. And I would even argue my impact when I was a doctor, I could see maybe a thousand patients.

43:24And so I was affecting maybe a thousand lives. Some of them, they wouldn't come that often. They just come for a physical. I wasn't doing much for, but here's the thing. Now that I'm a podcaster, a blogger, and an author, 20, 30, 40 ,000 people may buy my book. All these thousands of people might listen to my podcast. And some of those people are going to hear my words and it's going to help them or spark something in them. And they're going to go out and change the world. So in a sense, my impact, my legacy has become exponential, not because I set out to do that. It's because I did things that deeply lit me up and it ended up attracting to me people who thought and acted like me.

44:01You and I became friends. I became friends with all these other people. I ended up collaborating with them. And that's where this all comes from. It was never the point, but thank God I did it because I actually feel like the things I'm doing now are more impactful than ever. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? And, and to me, right, as you're describing it, it's, it's finding that passion and following it where it takes you. And I think that's the key, right? So as you were describing like that soccer example, and obviously this is just off the top of your head, but I suspect it could be like 2 % off putting to some people in the sense that like, oh, you mean I have to start a blog?

44:36I have to start a podcast. I have to join the local club. Like, no, of course not. Like if that's your takeaway, you totally missed the point, right? Like that is but one possible, you talk about all like the sliding doors options of where your life could take you, right? Like I'm thinking, hey, I'm a massive soccer fan. I love Arsenal Football Club from London. Like there's a supporters club here that meets every single match and watches the games together. And just me showing up there and who knows who I'm going to meet and who knows when I can fly to London with them and go see a couple matches at the stadium.

45:10I'm not forecasting that, but you never know where life is going to take you. And I think following your passion enables that. And I want to say a word for the naysayers, the poo-pooers who are listening to this. If you are in a place in life where you want change, you're looking for purpose or looking for a why, and yet you're hearing all this and you're saying, but I don't want to start a blog. I don't want to start a podcast. Here's what I'd say to you. If you want a different outcome, you're going to have to do something different. If you keep doing the same things, you're going to get the same outcome.

45:41Here's what happens when you do something different. You step out of your comfort zone. What happens when you step out of your comfort zone? You feel uncomfortable by definition, by nature. So if all of this sounds anxiety provoking and scary, it's actually a call to action because you're looking at your life and saying, I want something different. Now, if you're looking at your life and you're saying everything's great, it's hunky-dory and what I've been doing in the past is working, then don't listen to this. But if you're saying I'm feeling this purpose vacuum and I don't know what to do with myself, this is a call to action to maybe be a little uncomfortable, to step out of your comfort zone and try doing something different to get a different outcome.

46:19Yeah. A lot of good things happen. As my friend, Dominic Cortuccio, who's been on the podcast so many times that we've said it's like you have that little bit of like throw up in your mouth as you know it's kind of an odd an odd visual but it's like you when you're living on that edge is what he called it and sometimes finding that edge a lot of us live safe lives yeah and i know i've done that for many many decades now it's just it's all right my life is pretty darn good it's a nice safe easy life that i've curated and it works wonderfully and i've succeeded in all these good things. But how many times, you know, again, with that kind of weird visual, like how many times am I have that little, that nervousness, that fear where there's that little bit of like, this could go either way, you know, and that's, that's kind of a cool concept in terms of, wow, you really do have to lean out over that edge to find this.

47:09And it's not going to be easy all the time. It really isn't. Yeah. And it's a mindset shift. And I really got this when I started thinking about public speaking is, you know, when you go to public speak and even those of us who do it a lot, and I do it a decent amount, you get that anxiety, the butterflies, the nervousness. Right before you step on stage, you're like, am I going to totally screw this up? Well, here's the mindset shift. That's excitement, not nervousness and anxiety. That's like, I'm about to step on the stage and tell these people something that's life changing and it's so exciting to me, I can't contain myself.

47:40And if I didn't feel this right now, I'd probably do a horrible job because whatever I'm going to go talk about on stage probably isn't that exciting. And when you do that mindset shift, when you realize, okay, that little bit of panic, anxiety, heart racing means that you're in the game, you're in the arena, and you're fighting the valiant fight. But you got to have the courage to fight that fight. You got to. And I think that's where we live the most. Not whether you succeed or fail. Failure is fine. What you regret at the end of your life is not whether you failed or succeeded. It's whether you had the courage to try.

48:14And that's what this is all about. little b purpose, action, the courage to try, the courage to get in the arena, step out of your comfort zone, and put yourself out to the universe and succeed or fail. But do it with intention. Let it light you up. Jordan, there is no better way to end the podcast than right there. That is a beautiful way to summarize. The book is incredible. Obviously, anybody listening here knows this is really critical stuff. As we talk about ad nauseum here at Choose a Vi, the numbers are but the smallest part of this journey. It's finding what lights you up. Jordan has done an immense service to all of us, to humanity for creating a book like this.

48:58And like we said, it comes out January 7th, 2025, the purpose code, how to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy. Jordan, my friend, I'm so happy for you. I'm so excited for this to be out in the world. And And thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for this great conversation. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player and just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning.

49:37So just head over to chooseify.com slash subscribe. and it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there. And I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsourced personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in-real-life community, we have Chooseify local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to chooseify.com slash local, and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world.

50:15And if you're just getting started with FI, or you have a family member or a friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways. Chooseify episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community. And even though it's a couple of years old at this point, it still stands up. And it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence? What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life? And then Choose a Vi created a financial independence 101 course that's entirely free.

50:50Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.

51:04Thank you.