Fulfillment Over FIRE w/ Dr. Jordan Grumet #929

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
today we're talking fulfillment over fire with doctor Jordan Grummitt.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, what does it mean to pursue joy and purpose
in your life? Is this like some sort of eternal
scavenger hunt where we're hoping to find something that is
just out of reach right where it's just like it's
just hidden behind the next corner. Or is it something
that we're able to achieve because it's something that we've created.
And I think our guests today would argue that it's
more of the latter. We are joined by our friend,

(00:48):
doctor Jordan Grummitt to talk less about the what and
the how behind personal finance and more about the why
and how our money is one of the many tools
that will allow us to achieve our end visual sense
of purpose. In his new book, The Purpose Code, it
delves into these more amorphous topics in a way that
allows readers to have a sense of clarity and understanding,

(01:11):
even like a to do list, as Jordan prescribes different
actions to take in his book. And so we're excited
to talk about all of that and more. Jordan aka
dot G, thank you so much for joining us today
on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Ohs, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
for this conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yes too, Man and Man, if you let me blurb
your book, I would have said, if you like the
Da Vinci code, you'll love the Purpose code. They're very similar, right,
a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Of overlap, of course, of course, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Well, the first question we ask everyone who comes on,
and Jordan, you've been on the podcast before, but what
do you like to sporge on? What's your craft beer equivalent?
You're obviously smart with money, investing, saving for your future,
but you're spourging a little bit in the here and
now too. I'm assuming, right.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
I am, and my daughter and I like to go
to Barnes and Noble and buy lots of books. I
know you can get them in the library. I know
you can get them other places. It's kind of fun
to sometimes buy a new book. And she loves to
do it, and I love to do it. I like
reading crime novels, I like reading fantasy. I'm still a
big Lord of the Rings fans. Yeah, okay, quickly, it's

(02:14):
we're spending money on.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
What do you think of the new series Rings The
Power specifically the second season. Jordan.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
So I have only got to like the first episode
of the second season, but I'm biased because I like
the feel. So it doesn't even matter the plot line.
I just like the kind of.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
The fact that you have been thrust into Tolkien's universe
makes you happy.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's like, that's mad Men for me. The feels so
delightful that I'm just like, I don't even care if.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Joel just wants to kick back and smoke cigarettes and
drink scott while on the job. I mean they really
made close.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
They really make it look good that drinking Scotch in
the middle of the day, like when you're waiting for
clients to come. I mean, it does look pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, sure, never minds the rosis of the livery it was,
it wasn't a thing back then. It didn't exist.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
It didn't exist.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
It was Jordan, let's talk of. So, your last book
was taking Stock, and I originally when we met you,
like we knew you as like a financial independence guy.
But more and more it seems like you've been pivoting,
talking a good bit more about meaning and more about purpose,
and so I guess what prompted you to pivot and
go in that direction even more with your latest book.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
It was actually my first book, Taking Stock, that led
to writing the Purpose Code, and the reason why is
a main premise of that first book is that we
should put purpose, identity, and connections before building a financial framework.
So I was steeped in the financial independence movement. I
was talking to people all the time about it, and
they could tell me how much or how, but a
lot of times they couldn't tell me why or what

(03:40):
enough looks like. And that's why I wrote that first book,
The Purpose taking Stock. But the problem was when I
went to market it, and I'd go and do speeches
and go to conferences, people would come up to me
after my talks and they'd be kind of angry. And
the first time this happened, I thought, well, it's a
one off, no big deal. But it happened over and
over again, and they'd all say the same thing. They'd say, Look,

(04:01):
you keep on telling me I need to find my purpose.
I have no idea what my purpose is. It's making
me really anxious and in fact, I don't think there
is a purpose. Stop telling me to find my purpose.
And of course this sent me down a huge rabbit hole.
I'm like, Okay, I know purpose is super important, but
I also know people get really anxious. And I looked
at the data. And when you go down there and

(04:23):
you look at all the data, you find that having
a sense of purpose in life is clearly associated with health, longevity,
and happiness. There are tons and tons of studies. On
the other hand, there are other studies that show that
up to ninety one percent of people, at some point
in their life get purpose anxiety. This idea of purpose
actually makes them frustrated or anxious. So the question is,

(04:43):
how could it be both. It's a paradox, and that's
why I wrote this book to help resolve this paradox.
Help you find more of that health, happiness, and longevity
and stay away from the anxiety.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
That is.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, the whole purpose thing, it feels like one of
those things where you maybe some people from early on,
they put their finger on it and they're living it
out the rest of their lives. Then other people, I
don't know, maybe their purpose morphs or changes. And I
feel like I've lived many lives in one lifetime. I
don't necessarily know that I have one overarching purpose, but

(05:15):
I've had different ones over time, and I think when
we talk about purpose, a lot of people assume that
their job or their career is supposed to be kind
of that essential, that fulcrum of their purpose. But then
that can it's depending on what your job is too,
can maybe leave a lot to be desired. What are
your thoughts about how your career fits into your purpose

(05:36):
and how people think about that.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Here's the problem. People think purpose is like this big
thing that I either find it and life is good
or I miss it in life is horrible. The truth
of the matter is purpose is many different things, and
you can have kind of these versions of purpose that
take up your whole life, and then their versions of
purpose you only have in smaller seasons, maybe for weeks
or months. And so the idea is we want to

(05:59):
fill up as as much time as we can with
these things that light us up. What I call little
p purposes is process oriented activities that light us up,
and we want to get rid of as many things
as we loathe. Now, a lot of us have been
programmed to believe that purpose has to be big and audacious.
It has to be killing it at work or making
lots of money, or traveling or having six pack abs, whatever,

(06:22):
we were taught, but a lot of times we carry
this with us and we build these careers thinking we're
going to find some type of version of purpose that's
going to make us happy. But because it's not internal,
it's more external what society tells us we want, a
lot of times we find ourselves burnt out. So the
goal is a lot of times we are in these
jobs and they make us money, and maybe it doesn't

(06:43):
light us up, but how can we start bringing some
things into that work time that feel purposeful? And so
this happened to me. I was working as a doctor.
I felt burnt out. I had kind of co opted
my dad's version of purpose, which was being a doctor,
and he died when I was seven years old. I
thought I could fix the world by becoming a doctor
like him, and I co opted his version of purpose.

(07:03):
But eventually I realized I didn't like the day to
day activities and I started to burn out. But here
was what was exciting. When I started really looking at
my job, I realized I didn't like a lot of it,
but there was one piece of it I did like,
which was being a hospice doctor. And I was doing that.
Let's say five or ten percent of my time when
I figured this out, Now, if I was stuck in

(07:23):
a job and I needed the income and I had
no other choices, I now had a way forward. I
could increase the amount of time I was doing hospice
and decrease the amount of time I was doing other
things like my private practice. And so I think we
don't necessarily have to quit our jobs when we realize
that it's not our passion or that it doesn't feel purposeful.
But the idea is, over time, how to build in

(07:45):
a little more purpose into that job, and if you
can't do that, build in a little more purpose into
your life outside the job, because we want, over time
to feel like the amount of purpose in our lives
is increasing and the amount of things we don't like
doing is decreasing. And that's kind of the goal over
long periods of time.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It makes me
think of so Micro's dirty jobs, right, like where you've
got these people doing like god awful, disgusting, terrible most people. Yeah,
I don't want to like do I have anything to
do with like in those instances it's not about like
mind over matter, Like no matter what you are in
those kind of scenarios. And so for those individuals, do

(08:23):
you think it's about them changing their mindset and like,
so they're not changing like their actual physical environment or
what it is that they're doing. Is it looking at
the work that they're doing through a new lens or
do you think in more cases it's them, like you said,
finding some of that purpose outside of that actual job.
I guess what I'm trying to drill down on is
should folks be looking for maybe more of that purpose

(08:43):
within their work or say, you know what, I'm actually
not going to find that purpose here within this sort
of framework of a nine to five job, and instead
I should be pouring my efforts into something else.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
I think we should be doing both. And so what
we're talking about here are levers, and so so you
have multiple levers that can bring more purposeful activity into
your life and get rid of things you loathe. So
when you're talking about adding in purposeful activity, you're talking
about the joy of addition. And that's one really great lever.
Even if you don't like your nine to five on

(09:14):
the nights and weekends, you can still add in purposeful
activity and that can feel like a benefit. But then
We can also use another lever called the art of subtraction,
which is getting rid of things we don't like. And
specifically we can look at our work lives and see
how we can shift things around. Right. Can we change
bosses so we like our boss more even if we
don't like the job. Can we change the activities we

(09:36):
do in the workplace. So a great example I always
use is, let's say you work in a restaurant and
you hate working upfront, but you love doing the stock
in the stock room. Well, maybe you need to go
to your boss and say, hey, I want to spend
more of my time in the stock room and less
time upfront. You still have the same job, you still
have parts of it that you don't love, but the
idea is over time, you're trying to maximize the things

(09:57):
you like and get rid of the things you don't like.
So we can use these levers, and I think both
are important. So definitely add in purposeful activity to your life,
whether that's at the job or off the job, and
then subtract out the things you don't like, especially at work.
See if you can make sure the time that you're
required to be there, Because we all need a paycheck,
but at least maybe you're enjoying it more.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
So, you know that the saying that the grass is
always greener on the other side. And I think it's
really easy for people to see maybe the negative or
downsides where they where they're currently placed, whether it's it's
I think social media makes a comparison game just so
much more significant in our lives, and so it's really
easy to see the things that we don't have or

(10:39):
the ways in which our lives are inferior to others.
How much of it is like Matt's kind of referring
to the mindset thing, Well, maybe it seems like subtracting
something would be would be the most beneficial thing to you.
But then you subtract that thing and you realize, actually
it's not as green as I thought it was. This
grass is kind of yellow. I don't know, Like, how

(11:00):
how do you think about that part of purpose too?
That maybe some of it is idealism and hopes for
things that are maybe too lofty.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
So here's the thing. I think part of the reason
why purpose feels so difficult is we don't know how
to search for it in our life. We don't know
how to build or develop it. And so we go
searching for purpose through other people. And of course, if
you're going to search through purpose for purpose through other people,
what are we gonna do. We're gonna look at the internet, right,
We're gonna look at TikTok, Instagram, We're gonna look at marketing,

(11:28):
which the focus of that campaign is to sell us something.
And so if you look at TikTok or Instagram, everyone
either has six pack abs, they have an eight figure business,
or they're wearing the nicest clothes, or they're traveling to
the most beautiful countries. And so it's really easy for
us to co opt a version of purpose that isn't
ours from people who are trying to sell us something,
whether it's their influence or whether it's their product. And so, yes,

(11:51):
I think it's very easy to think of the grasses
greener on the other side, especially when we go after
the wrong kind of purpose. Remember I mentioned this idea
that there was a type of perse that's more associated
with anxiety and probably one that's more associated with health, longevity,
and happiness. What I call those are big P purpose
and little P purpose. Little P purpose is process oriented,
meaning doing things that you love doing that light you up.

(12:14):
It's very abundant, and it's kind of individualized, right, I
might like one thing that you don't like, and you
might like one thing that I don't like. When I
was little, I loved baseball cards. So a version of
little P purpose for me is collecting baseball cards, trading them,
buying them, maybe reading blogs about baseball cards, or going
to conferences like that's unique to me. There might be

(12:34):
some other people who have that, but in general it's
much more individualized. The kind of purpose most of a
shoot for is what's called big P purpose. It's big
and audacious. This gets back to the six pack abs
and the eight figure businesses. The problem with that is
usually that someone else's version of purpose that they're trying
to sell to us, it usually doesn't light us up.
And in fact, a lot of times to get to

(12:56):
that big audacious purpose to be successful, we have to
do things we don't enjoy the process of doing, and
it burns us out, and a lot of times we
don't even reach it right. Because you got to be
the right person at the right time, saying the right things,
having the right genetics and a bunch of luck to
become for instance, a billionaire, but if we look at
TikTok and Instagram, that's what they're telling us to do.
So of course we feel lost. Of course the grass

(13:18):
doesn't feel greener on the other side, because we're jumping
from something we don't like, like our job, and trying
to co opt someone else's version of purpose that they're
trying to sell to us for nefarious reasons. And so
I think we have to start searching deeper of what
lights us up on the inside. What are those inklings
are beckonings, I call them purpose anchors that basically get

(13:38):
us excited, and then we have to build a life
of purpose around that. And this is where I think
most of us make our mistake.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
I love that. It's crazy, how like you just highlighted
how we can co opt not only the things that
we consume, like the products that we buy, but how
we can also lend that to what we should be
doing with our lives and the Maybe I could even
like dictate the kind of charities that were involved with
and the things that we give our money to. But like,
on one hand, I think that could be good though,
because I think about the fact that there are a

(14:07):
lot of products or organizations or movements that you may
not even be aware of, and the fact that they're
out there being broadcasted, people are talking about it on
the Internet. It can open your eyes and so there
is a sense of discovery there. I think what you're
getting at, though, is that if we do that without
at all questioning whether or not that is moving the
needle for us, that could, I don't know, leave us
feeling pretty pretty empty inside. But you're talking about the

(14:29):
pursuing the things that light us up individually. Somewhere in
your buckyard, you talked about how like we're calling some
of our childhood interests, that's actually one of the steps
that can actually lead you to some of that I
don't know, some of that more fulfilling purpose in our lives.
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (14:45):
So the problem comes down to a lot of people
say I don't know how to find my purpose. And
as you've heard me say multiple times already, you don't
really find it. You build or create it. But it
is true you need these inklings or these beckonings what
I call purpose anchors, to build a life of purpose around.
And so what we're really talking about when we say
I can't find my purpose you're saying, well, I don't
really know what my purpose anchors are. And that's where

(15:05):
we get into a deeper discussion of what are some
of the exercises that anyone can do to start discovering
these purpose anchors. The Joys of Childhood is a perfect example.
Think back to what your childhood room look like. What
were the posters, what were the drawings, what were the trophies.
A lot of times kids pursue purpose before they've been
told who they're supposed to be, and a lot of

(15:27):
times it's process oriented. Person's purpose, right they want to
go out and play tennis all day, or cops and
robbers or build a fort, and a lot of times
it doesn't even matter if they accomplish their goal. They
get so lost in it they forget time and come
home late for dinner. That's really purposeful. But then they
get older and they get told what they have to
do for a living, and they get interested in academics,
and they kind of drop all that stuff. So if

(15:48):
you're trying to figure out what are your purpose anchors
to build a life of purpose around, a great place
to start is the Joys of Childhood. Again, going back
to me, I loved baseball cards when I was little.
I actually just don't have enough time. I have plenty
of parts anchors, But if I was searching to build
some purposeful activity in my life, I could use that
as a purpose anchor and start building a life of
purpose around it. And I think we all can do

(16:09):
that if we're in that searching phase where we feel
like we don't really know what feels like purposeful in
our life.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
So I guess my purpose is cookie crisp and cinnamon
Toe's crunch. Jordan, if that's what we going back to childhood, Yeah,
I thought it'd be more basketball related for you. Joel
well too, but I like to trashy Cereal too, Jordan.
You you also talk about how the circles that we
run in the relationships that we have, and how those
have a massive impact on our on our purpose. I
think that feels truer of me the older I get

(16:37):
that the people I spend time with, or that I'm
closest to their purposes in good ways have rubbed off
on me. Like sometimes it's fun to hang out with
people who like different things than I like, but occasionally
I'll start to like one of the things that they like,
and it's kind of fun to have that overlap. What
is Yeah, how does that work? And how do we
know whether we're maybe stealing somebody else's purpose that doesn't

(16:59):
really resonate with us us or if we're actually just
adopting something in that we do enjoy or that yeah,
it does kind of light us up.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
Well, here's the thing that's pretty cool, right, little p
purpose is process oriented, it's abundant, and when you do
these things, it lights you up. But here's what happens.
When you are lit up doing the thing that feels
really intentional to you, it attracts other like minded people. So,
like a moth to a flame, other people are going
to be connected attracted to you, and they're going to

(17:30):
want to collaborate from you, or if they don't know
as much as you, they're going to want to learn
from you, or if they know more than you, they're
going to want to teach you. But the same works
for you. When you go out into the world and
see someone doing something that lights them up, yes, it's
very attractive, and especially if it's something that you like.
So here's what happens. You interact with them, Maybe you collaborate,

(17:51):
maybe you try to learn from them, and then you
have to assess, well, does that same thing light me up?
And if the answer is yes, it lights me up.
The process of doing this, not the riches these people
have made, not the fame they have, but doing the
activity they do really lights you up. Then it probably
is a version of little people perpose and it was
probably the reason you were attracted to them in the

(18:12):
first place. And so I think that's all really really positive.
And as long as you're able to engage with this
person try on that identity that they have. If you
decide you don't like that identity and you don't like
those activities, it's fine to just walk away. You can
still be their friend, but you're probably not going to
engage with them on as deep of a level.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
You're also making me feel better about the fact that
I changed my major every single year in college, Jordan,
the fact that I tried all these different identities by
taking these classes and then quickly realizing that, oh, yeah,
you know, I guess I'm not going to be a
science major. Pre med isn't what I'm here to do.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
It's also amazing that some of the things that we
knee jerk say we don't like or are not interested in,
like my kids do with certain foods that we put
in front of them, how they become an acquiet taste.
And there are certain things that we might say not
part of my purpose, that's not part of my how
I find fulfillment in life. And then you try it
on for a little bit and then you're like, wait
a second, I kind of dig this thing, and so

(19:08):
I don't know. There's probably some some purposeful purpose experimentation
that has to be done too.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Right, So we call this the spaghetti method. So I
mentioned the Joys of Childhood or a great way to
figure out purpose anchors. There's some other ways I mentioned
in the book, but some people come to me and
say none of that works. And so the people who
say nothing works, I say, try the Spaghetti method. Do
things you don't normally do, hang out with people you
don't normally hang out with. Do something maybe that's a
little uncomfortable for you, and do it for a day

(19:34):
and see what happens. And if you find it resonates
with you or you feel some joy doing it, that
could be a great purpose anchor. And then the hard
part comes. You have to build the life of purpose
around it. Now again, we're high stakes people, so I
say build a life of purpose, and you are all
of a sudden having these big, audacious ideas and plans
of these crazy things you're going to have to do.
But it's not like that at all. If you go

(19:55):
swimming with a friend and you hate swimming, or you
thought you hated swimming, but you said yes to them
because you tried the spaghetti method and you enjoyed it,
building a life of little pea purpose might be once
a week going and swimming and hanging out with the
same people and going to happy hour after with them,
And it could be as simple as that. That's the
beginning of purpose and community and doing things that light

(20:16):
you up, that connect you with other people. It doesn't
have to be so big and crazy and all fulfilling.
It can just be something simple you like doing. And
you have room in your life for multiple purpose anchors.
So one of those purpose anchors could be working as
a researcher on cancer and trying to help the world.
If you enjoy the process of doing that, regardless if

(20:37):
you succeed or not, that could be a deeper, enduring
form of little pea purpose. For you. But you compare
that with some of these seasonal or short term versions
of little pea purpose too, and they all can go together.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
What I love about what you just said is that
it almost doesn't have a name to it. Like going
back to the swimming example, I think somebody who started
doing that, they would never have said, oh, this is
going to be the beginning of this new purpose. There's
little pea purpose in the life for them. Like there's
literally not even a label for it. It's almost like, oh,
this is something I just it's this dumb little thing
I do on TVA as most where I get with
my buddy, but then all of a sudden it turns
into this other thing. And I guess what I want

(21:11):
to ask you now is that it seems like that
there needs to be a level of openness that someone
needs to have in order to discover some of these
different little pea purposes. Do you see this being more
difficult for folks maybe who is just part of their
personality that they are actually less open, Like do you
see certain types of people being able to find their
purpose more easily than others?

Speaker 3 (21:33):
Look, I think everyone is open to happiness, because I
think that's What we're really talking about here is happiness
doing the things that incite you and light you up,
and that you can build a happy life around. But
I will also say that a lot of people have
a litmus test for whatever activities they're going to do
in a big part of that litmus test is impact
and legacy. So they will limit what they do because

(21:53):
they think it's selfish or they think it's not changing
the world. And so there is a certain amount of
openness that you need to say, I'm just gonna do
this thing because I enjoy it. I'm gonna let go
of the goals. I'm gonna let go of this kind
of big audacious plan and just do things that light
you up. Now, that doesn't mean that it won't change
the world. It just means that you stop using that

(22:15):
as the driver and start using the driver of things
that you really love.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, all right, We've got more to get to with
with you, Jordan, and uh, of course we got to
talk about the intersection of money and purpose. We'll get
to some discussion on that right after this.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
We are back from the Brag talking about finding fulfillment
over fire with Doc g aka Doctor Jordan Grummitt. And Jordan.
In your book, you talk about the need for both
meaning as well as purpose, and you you create a
clear distinction between the two. It involves time. But can
you explain the different difference between the two and why

(22:59):
it is that we need both.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I think we need both meaning and purpose to be happy.
In fact, I say that both of them are a foundation.
But they're very different things, and most people don't realize this.
Meaning is how we cognitively think about the past. It's
the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And happy people
tend to tell themselves heroic stories. They look at their past,

(23:21):
they look at their trauma, they look whatever happened to them,
and they say, I was enough and I made it
through that, and so that's why I am where I
am today, and I'll probably continue to be enough in
the present and future. Unhappy people tend to tell themselves
a victim story. I wasn't enough all the way back then.

(23:41):
These traumas happen to me. They thwarted me. I'm continuing
to be thwarted today and most likely it'll happen in
the present in future too. They don't feel enough. Here's
the difference between meaning and purpose. While meaning is about
cognition in the past and is really a journey to enough.
Purpose is about the present and future, and it's all
about actions. It's simply doing the things that light you up.

(24:04):
Why is this important. It's important because there are a
lot of people who actually don't have the greatest sense
of meaning. They don't tell themselves heroic stories, and so
they don't feel like they're enough. So the way to
deal with that is to go back and rewrite those stories.
But instead they think they can purpose their way to enough.
What I mean is they're like, if I just do
these big, audacious things, it'll prove that I'm good enough,

(24:27):
and life will be good and I'll be happy. And
we know, of course that just doesn't work. If you
question whether it works or not, look at someone like
Steve Jobs. Before he died, he was one of the
most successful guys ever. He had some of the most
money than other entrepreneurs. He's very wealthy, and yet he
never looked particularly happy. You could say the same thing

(24:47):
about Elon Musk. They have all these wonderful things and achievements,
but until they kind of go back and rewrite those
stories of their childhood and deal with their traumas. They're
going to continuously try to prove their enoughness by doing
bigger and better and more audacious things, and it just
doesn't work. You cannot purpose your way to enough, You
can't purpose your way to happiness. You need both meaning

(25:08):
and purpose to truly get there.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, that's a good point, and I think, yeah, you're right.
Sometimes sometimes people, especially of that ILK, think if I
create the most successful technological product of all time, then
I will be I will have arrived. And the truth
is there is no arriving. And if you're not kind
of satisfied in your soul in a deeper level, no
amount of earthly success I think will give that to you.

(25:32):
You obviously care a lot about money. You talk about
personal finance. You're a personal finance nerd. I would say, allah, Matt,
and I but like, what's the intersection of money and
purpose here? And how big of an influence should our
income or our ability to make financial progress, How much
influence should that have on kind of the purpose that
we have for our lives.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Let's talk about two things, the intersection of money and
purpose and then the intersection of money and happiness, because
I think the second one actually is the bigger story.
So the intersection of money and purpose, in my opinion
is money is a great tool to pursue a life
of purpose, but that is all it is. It gets
a little more problematic when we talk about money and happiness,
and we know, like to get nerdy for a moment.

(26:14):
There are tons of studies about money and happiness. Condom
and Deeton, I think it was twenty ten Matt Killing's
Worth twenty sixteen. Both of them did studies about money
and happiness. Condom and a Deeton used data that was
gathered for something else and retrospectively analyzed it. Killingsworth prospectively
meaning he started with his hypothesis and gathered data, but

(26:35):
the kind of data he gathered was like texting people
multiple times a day for a number of months and
collecting their responses. And both of them tried to decide
whether money was related to happiness, and they both came
to the conclusion that at least up to a point
for sure. Condom In and Deeton talked about seventy thousand
dollars back in twenty ten. If you you know, money
increased happiness up to making about seventy thousand dollars a year,

(26:56):
and then after it it didn't have as much of
an effect. Killingsworth said, well, not exactly. There are some
people who are making more money does make them more happy,
but maybe it's not to the same extent that the
first seventy thousand does. I want to compare those studies
to the Harvard Adult DEVELOPMENTTAL Health Study, which I think
is a bigger, more important study. One of the reasons
I think it's bigger and more important is because it

(27:17):
went on for eighty years. So it started back in
the early nineteen hundreds. They grabbed Harvard students and started
doing questionnaires every two years. Eventually they brought in their
family members. Eventually they then added in thousands of controls
from the Boston area. They basically study these people for
eighty years. They started by doing questionnaires, Eventually they did
blood tests, MRIs EEGs, They looked at their income at

(27:40):
various times in their life, and when they finished, their
conclusion is there was one thing that was clearly and
obviously positively correlated with happiness. And it wasn't money. It
wasn't career, it wasn't achievements, believe it or not, it
wasn't even purpose. It was interpersonal connections. Interpersonal connections is

(28:01):
what makes people happy. Now you just heard me say
it wasn't purpose. But what about all that data that
show that purpose is associated with health, longevity, and happiness. Well,
here's my belief. If you practice little P purpose, well
it becomes a conduit to building communities and connections. It's
all interpersonal relationships, and I think the way we get

(28:22):
there is little P purpose. I think that's that connection
to happiness. Money is great, and if you are trying
to build the life you want to live, having enough money,
for instance, to pay someone to clean your house, or
to work four days a week instead of five, or
to get rid of as many things you can as
possible that you loathe. If you can get rid of

(28:44):
all those things with money, it becomes an incredible tool.
But of course most of us don't have tons of money,
especially if you're at the beginning of your career. So
I want to remind people that money is just one
of the tools. We also have a bunch of other ones,
like our relationships, our youth, our energy, our passions, our skills.
Those are all tools and we can use those two

(29:05):
to also pursue a life of purpose. So Money's great,
but it's not the only way to get there.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
So you're highlighting something too though, when it comes to
money and its impact on our purpose, Like, just the
further along you get towards financial independence and the more
I think restrained you can be, especially some of those
bigger line items, let's say a mortgage or rent or
the cars that you own. It means you can potentially
say no to a five day work week and have

(29:31):
the four day work week so that you can pursue
hobbies that you love with a community you care about
more deeply, Like, instead of funneling, potentially tell me your
thoughts on this more money towards bigger purchases that maybe
we think are going to put a smile on our face,
we should be thinking about it in kind of an
inverted way.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
I think winning the game is trying to control time.
But you and I know we can't control time. It's impossible.
Time passes no matter what we do. The only thing
we can do is fill that time with more or
less purposeful activity. So winning the game is basically looking
at your calendar and breaking that calendar down into time segments,
whether we're talking about days, months, or years and filling

(30:10):
as many of them as possible with things you love,
little p purpose and getting rid of things you loathe.
And so we have a bunch of tools to do that.
And like we said, money is a great one. So
the smarter you are with your money, the more you're
a valuist, the more you spend money on what's important
to you and don't spend it on what's not important
to you, the more you're going to have left over
to use as a tool to live a more purposeful life.

(30:33):
But again, I want to make sure people who don't
have money realize that you have other tools and it
behooves you to start using them today. So, for instance,
if you are twenty five years old and you don't
love your job and you feel like you can't pursue purpose,
but if you had a little extra time, maybe you

(30:53):
could start doing more purposeful things. Well, maybe you can
use one of your other tools. Maybe you have family
that lives in the area and you can stop renting apartments,
start living with them and save enough each month to
work four days out a week instead of five. You're
still twenty five years old, you're still a little bit
strapped for your finances, but now you've been able to
change the game using a tool other than money, in

(31:15):
this case your connections, your family to live a better life.
And with that extra day a week you now have,
you can fill it with something purposeful, and that's winning
the game. We use the joy of addition ad in
purposeful activities. We use the art of subtraction get rid
of things we loathe, and we do it over and
over again, wash, rinse, repeat, every week, month or year

(31:38):
until our schedule looks more like things we love and
very little like things we don't want to do.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
And that example that you just shared, though, what's so
fascinating about that is I think there are very few
twenty five year olds out there who would hear you
say that and actually follow through and do it right,
like because they have co opted mainstream media and what
is quote unquote successful out there. It takes courage, like
it takes guts, And I'll just be honest, like, I
just don't see many people doing the kind of quote

(32:05):
unquote crazy thing out there. And like, oftentimes, I think
there are just so many distractions that are lives that
keep us from sort of doing some of that self examination.
Like I'm even thinking about technology you know, how much
blame do you think lies there that has potentially prevented us,
maybe from self examining even more as to what it
is us bringing about purpose and happiness in our lives.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
I think a huge amount, because as long as we
are trying to find our purpose instead of looking deeper
inside and realizing what lights us up. As long as
we're trying to find our purpose, there are going to
be tons of outlets that are willing to give us
this version of purpose. And usually it's big and audacious,
and usually it benefits them and not you. But unless
you start getting really thoughtful about this, you're going to

(32:49):
be fed what other people want to feed you. And
you have to be really clear about these decisions, especially
if you don't have a lot of that tool of money.
You got to be really clear about these decisions if
you want to start improving that calculus of your schedule
and doing more things you love and less things you loathe.
But here's the magic and the excitement. Once you understand it,

(33:11):
you start realizing there are millions of things you could do.
What else could you do? Well? You know, if your
company lets you go virtual, you could move to another country,
a country that costs less, and yet you're still making
your salary from the US and boom, before you know it,
your expenses are down fifty percent, but you're still making
the same money. You now have more of that tool

(33:31):
of money. You could do a bunch of different things,
and I could go on and on their abundant ways
to build purpose in your life. But we've been sold
this bill of goods that purpose is difficult and big
and painful and hard to find until we accept the
fact that it's actually abundant and obvious, and all we

(33:51):
have to do is start building around it. Once we
start accepting that, it gets a lot easier.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Talk to us about what you call the climb. You
say that it's the concept of purpose into action. And
since you know, I think you've done a really good
job at making purpose feel more relatable and doable and
actually maybe like a smaller endeavor than maybe people previously
thought it was, which is which is good to know,
especially as we're starting off a new year and people
are like, how do Yeah, this is a question thatsaw

(34:19):
people's mind. What's the climb and how can that help?

Speaker 3 (34:22):
So the climb is exactly that, it's purpose and action
So when people are trying to find their purpose, like
we said, actually the better activity is to connect with
your purpose anchors. But here's where it gets a touch difficult.
Once you know it feels like purpose in your life
and ancher, you then have to build a life of
purpose around it. That is the climb. And for any
purpose anger, you could do an infinite number of climes.

(34:45):
So Joel really liked basketball when he was a kid.
He's now an adult and feeling like his life is
not as purposeful as he wanted to be. He knows
a purpose anchor for him as basketball. What could be
a number of climes he could build around that, depending
on what his interests are and where they lie. Well,
Joel could play basketball. He could join a basketball league

(35:05):
every week of people like him, professionals. Maybe he could
find a podcasting basketball league. I mean, as crazy as
that sounds, that could be a climb for him, and
that could feel really purposeful. It could connect him to
other people, it could increase the enjoyment in his life.
But you're saying Joel doesn't like playing anymore and his
knees hurt. Well, maybe Joel could start writing a blog

(35:27):
about basketball. Maybe he could do a basketball podcast. Maybe
he could start the Chicago Bulls fan club because we
know he loves Chicago, and who else would you ceer on? So,
I mean, there are so many different things he could
do related to basketball, and those are all different climbs.

(35:47):
And here's the magic. All he has to do is
start building a life around that purpose anchor. And if
he doesn't enjoy the climb, jump off the mountain and
start a new one. That's it.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
So is a climb sort of like brainstorming in regards
to well the.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
I those action. I think purpose anchors are kind of
like the brainstorming. The climb is very action based. It's
actually doing something very nice.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
So we're gonna take a quick break, and I'm not
even sure where the conversation is gonna get because I've
got multiple questions for you, Jordan, But we'll get to
all that and more right after this. We are back
from the break, still talking about finding fulfillment with Jordan
Grummitt and Jordan. Before the break, we're talking about how

(36:33):
like a lack of money, or first of all money
generally speaking, you were presenting it essentially as a tool
when it comes to pursuing our purpose there are multi like,
we've got a whole tool belt full of tools, and
the one tool that Joel and I talked the most
about is money. That's out of money. But I feel
like there might be some younger folks out there who
are thinking, Okay, yeah, you can say that you guys
and your y'all are middle aged men, you've had a

(36:55):
successful career quote unquote successful. I don't know how successfully
I would call myself, but it kind of sounds like
an old man's game, and I guess I want to
put a little pin in a criticism that might get
lobbed our way where it's like, sure, you can afford
to have these kind of conversations later in life. You've
got money invested in the market. Oh great, Yeah, the
market's up thirty percent. I'm glad you're able to enjoy

(37:18):
that after having invested for twenty years. I'm not in
that kind of position. Do you think that at the
stage of life that we are in, that we are
over indexing some of those other tools like youth, energy skills,
things like that, because the fact is you can do
a lot with the right amount of money at a
pretty early age.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Yeah, I'd say, as we get older, we're under indexing
those other tools in over indexing money, which is fine
because we're in this place, hopefully of privilege, where we
have a little money. But I think what you're really
getting to is that privilege discussion.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Right.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
I'm twenty two, I'm working sixty hours a week. There's
no way I have enough money to do what you
old wealthy guys are doing. And so the argument there
again goes back to the tools and the levers. We
have all all these tools. Our youth and our energy
are great tools, by the way, and then we have levers,
which are the joy of addition, the art of subtraction
and substitution. So let me give you an example. Twenty

(38:09):
two year old working for a non for profit. I
talk about this guy in my book. Hates his job
but has to make enough money to put food on
the table, and feels lost like he's a victim of
this life and there's no way he has time or
energy to pursue purpose. First and foremost, let's just talk
about time real quick. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics
does the Time Survey every bunch of years and basically

(38:32):
shows your average American has five hours of free time
a day, and in fact, the lower socioeconomic classes have
slightly more. So I don't think time is really the reason.
So let's talk about money. Well, as a twenty two
year old, this person I talk about my book doesn't
have some of the things that I have, Like I'm
fifty one, i have kids, i have a mortgage, i'm married.

(38:52):
But at twenty two you have some of these tools
of your youth and your energy. You might not have
a lot you have to do on a sadder or
a Sunday. So this person went and they started thinking
about their purpose anchors, like what's important to me, what
excites me. They use this exercise of looking at their
joys of childhood and realized that they loved bike racing.
It was something they did in high school and because

(39:13):
they didn't have much money then either, they became really
a droit at fixing their own bike. So what does
this person do well, they say, well, I can use
the joy of edition and I'm working sixty hours a
week and that's not making me happy. But I can
add in something joyful on Sunday because I'm young and
I have some energy, and I don't have a family,
so I'm going to go to the local bike track

(39:35):
and I'm going to offer to fix people's bikes for pay,
something I love doing and I love being at the
racetrack and I love hanging out with those people. And
let's say that person does that for six months. One
of two things happens. Either they make no money at it,
but they're still winning the game because now all of
a sudden, they're spending three or four hours on Sunday
doing something more purposeful than they were. So they use

(39:57):
the joy of addition to add purposeful activity in the
And remember when we talk about that calculus of your schedule,
over many, many, many years, you are bringing in more
purposeful activity in your life. But let's say the other
thing happens in he does start making some money, and
let's say that money gives him a little margin that
he can start working four days a week instead of five,
or maybe eight hours a day instead of ten. Basically,

(40:20):
then you're using the art of subtraction to get rid
of something you don't enjoy, which is work. So joy
of addition to add in purposeful activity, art of subtraction
to get rid of activity you loathe, and you're winning
the game. And if a twenty two year old can
do that. Think about over the weeks and months and
years of our career, how we can continuously improve things
so that we are doing less we loathe and more

(40:43):
we love. And so that's the power and the magic
of understanding what your purpose anchors are and starting to
build these climbs around them is it makes you super adaptable,
and it improves your life. And just imagine if you
practice this threat right your twenties, how good in your
thirties and forties you're going to be at this And

(41:03):
in the meantime, if they listen to your podcast and
start spending wisely and saving and investing in all the
things you guys are talking about, they're not going to
only be crafty with all these other tools in their
tool about, but they're also going to have plenty of money,
and then it becomes super powerful.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, So you were talking about my love for basketball
as a kid. I don't really love basketball anymore. Honestly,
If I have nothing to do with basketball for the
rest of my life, that's okay, except for maybe the
occasional pickup game with friends or something like that. But
I found other things that kind of light the fire
under me that I would have said five years ago
not interested in, and now for some reason, they're this
meaningful part of my life that take a good portion

(41:40):
of my life. How does purpose change and morph over time?
And how do we know maybe when to kind of
like subtract or add something in that maybe isn't kind
of hitting that same sweet spot that it used to be.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
It's all about simplicity. Purpose are the actions in the
present and future that light you up. Can be big
or small, It can be long term or short term.
It can immediately impact the world, but it certainly doesn't
have to. There are no rules other than you like
the process of doing what you're doing, and so then
it just becomes the comparison game. This thing feels purposeful.

(42:14):
I love and enjoy doing these activities until I don't,
and then I stop doing those activities and start doing
other ones. And there'll be times when you have different
purpose anchors in your life and you build climes around them,
and you'll find one climb becomes more dominant than the others,
and in fact, you stop doing some of those other
climes because this one is filling you up and lighting
you up more. Here's the thing that's all totally okay.

(42:37):
There are no rules other than fill your time with
more stuff you love and less stuff you loathe. So
you're going to continuously being the joy of addition and
the art of subtraction and substitution the rest of your life,
and that's totally fine. You can't go wrong here. There's
almost no way to fail once you look at it

(42:57):
this way.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Do you think that there is any like inherent virtue
to like you're talking about dropping or you know, the
artist subtraction right, dropping certain anchors adopting new ones. Do
you think there's anything that's inherently virtuous about sticking with
a certain anchor over a longer period of time or
for a duration as opposed to what some folks, I

(43:19):
don't know, I'm just making this up, but might call
it like anchor hopping to borrow your terminology. But as
they're going from one thing to the next, only giving
it maybe a couple of years before maybe moving on
or even finding themselves that they're drawn to something else.
I'm curious to get your thoughts there.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
So here's the deal. When you do something that lights
you up, that's when you're gonna have maximal impact and legacy,
You're gonna connect to more people, You're gonna do more
meaningful collaborations, You're gonna eventually touch more people. So here's
the thing. You kind of have to go with how
you feel. So if you are a purpose anchor hopper

(43:57):
or a climb hopper, but that's you know, but it
fills you up for a certain amount of time, then
it stops filling you up. If you stick with that
thing that isn't filling you up for some kind of
larger goal, it goes from being little pea purpose the
really healthy kind of big p purpose, and you're gonna
burn out and it's not gonna light you up anymore,
and you're not going to impact people as much, and
it's not going to feel as meaningful. And so I

(44:21):
think it just depends on who you are as a person.
There is no virtue in sticking with something that's lost
its thrill just in service of some type of big,
audacious goal, because ultimately you'll leave. And that's the same thing.
I could have said the same thing about medicine. Maybe
I should have stuck with medicine because my ability to
help people and change the world was greater, But the

(44:42):
longer I tried to do that. The more I burned out.
When I started doing things I loved, like podcasting and
public speaking and blogging, something strange happened. I might affect
a thousand patients a year at most, but when I
started blogging and podcasting and public speaking, I started affecting
thousands and thousands and thousands of people more because I

(45:05):
was doing something that lit me up. That was never
my plan, that was never my goal, but I ended
up attracting detracting people because like a moth to a flame,
and they saw me lit up and they wanted to
be involved. And that's what led to all these collaborations
and to all these guests on my podcast and eventually
getting an agent and books and all of that came
from doing things that lit me up, and I ended

(45:27):
up having more of an impact than being a doctor.
But I would have never known that at the start.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Drilled down a little bit on kind of your journey
with purpose, because in the book, you make it sound
like the first forty years of your life were not purposeless,
but that you had a hard time figuring out what
your purpose was. But now it sounds like you're like
living in it and living your best life.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
So here's the thing. When my dad died, he was
an oncologist, a doctor. I felt responsible because I was
seven years old. He had a brain in years man
nothing to do with me, But seven year olds kind
of see life through the lens of they are everything.
So I figured he died because I wasn't enough or
something was wrong with me, and I thought I could
cosmically fix that becoming a doctor like him. So I

(46:12):
had a big, audacious purpose. I wanted to fix his death,
and the way I was going to do that was
to become a doctor. So I co opted his version
of purpose, thinking that would make me happy. Now, I'll
tell you, there was a lot of joy in this
idea of becoming a doctor and the excitement about it.
And I loved studying and all those things. So it
wasn't that it didn't fill me up in a way.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Yeah, it wasn't a waste.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
It wasn't a waste. But as I got older, I
realized that those things I thought it was it wasn't like.
I became a doctor and guess what, I didn't fix
my father's death. It didn't work. So instead I was
doing these things, which by the time I was practicing.
I realized I didn't enjoy the process of doing them.
So I was filling my time doing things I didn't

(46:58):
like in order to reach a goal that was pretty
much impossible. And so that's how I started to finally
realize something's wrong here. And I knew because you know,
I didn't have a lot of doctor friends, like I
wasn't building the community and connections because this identity, the
sense of purpose, wasn't fitting me. I didn't like hanging
out with doctors. I didn't like telling people that I

(47:19):
was a doctor. I was almost embarrassed, strangely enough, when
I started pursuing what really felt like little purpose py
purpose to me because I knew I liked writing and
blogging and podcasting, and when I started doing that stuff,
I started to connecting to people like you guys, and
I was like, I found my people, because after ten
or fifteen minutes of talking to fellow bloggers and podcasters,

(47:39):
I felt like I knew them more than I do.
Doctors I had known for decades, and so I wouldn't
say that the beginning of my life was purpose less.
I think I was pursuing a version of purpose that
ultimately wasn't going to make me happy, and that's why
I had to pivot.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
All the while you were still able to provide value
to the world. It's not like you were some sort
of leech on society, Jordan, but like, and it did.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Fill me up. I mean, I you know, even the
things I do now, Like I wrote a book about
what the hospice patients can teach us about money and life.
So clearly this has had a huge impact on me,
my ability to tell stories, and some of the lessons
that I now put in my books are all gleeding
from that time as a doctor. And so again, remember
we talk about the different difference between meaning and purpose.

(48:23):
I tell myself a heroic story. I say, I went
into this thing that didn't suit me, but look at
all this bounty that came from it. I wasn't thwarted,
I wasn't a victim. I lived a magical life, and
that life has brought me here where I get to
do these things which are amazing and exciting. My sense
of meaning. The story I tell myself about myself is

(48:46):
a heroic journey, and so I can't imagine looking at
it and saying, boy, that was a waste all.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Right, last question. So the Fire movement is all about
financial independence, retire early. It's like saving sixty seventy percent
of my income so that I can you retire at
thirty eight or thirty six or whatever it is. And
you know, I get why that's appealing. But sometimes in
order to be able to live the purpose you want to,
especially in some of those really important years where you

(49:15):
have typically better health, you have your youth, that fire.
There's a big trade off that comes from working extra,
banking extra, and maybe missing out on things that would
provide fulfillment. So how do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Now?

Speaker 1 (49:30):
I see like some serious flaws and it seems like
the fire movement has moderated in some ways. But the
fulfillment versus fire or they like, I don't know, smashing
heads a little bit.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
Well, here's the problem. I mean, fire is wonderful and
I'm so glad I found financial independence because it gave
me the vocabulary in the framework to build the financial future.
On the other hand, it's very money focused, so what
you're really doing is focusing on the tool. So you're
making a trade off. You're saying, I'm going to spend
a lot of time not doing things that are important

(50:02):
to me to make money so that one day I
can stop working at making money and then live this
life of purpose and activities that I love doing and
things that light me up. So you're making this intentional decision,
which is wonderful if you are for sure going to
live to eighty or ninety and for sure are going
to succeed, and for sure don't mind putting off some

(50:24):
of your life. Like you know it so happens when
you're in your twenties. A lot of time that's the
first time you meet your spouse, right, so it's a
season of your life that doesn't come back that honeymoon
phase and like you cannot go on awesome vacations and
you can spend weekends and nights in the office instead
of spending time with that spouse. But once that time
is gone, for instance, once you have children, that time

(50:46):
of being newlyweds or together without children is gone. Do
you want to miss that season of your life because
you've decided that building this tool of money is more
important than living life. Now to be really intentional about
that decision, I think grinding it out is okay on
some level, especially if you're very intentional, but if you

(51:07):
take it to an extreme, you miss out on all
the good stuff, and sometimes those seasons pass and you
can't get it back, or God forbid, you're like my
dad and you die when you're forty and never really
get to use that tool of wealth to live the
life you want to live. So I want to empower
people to feel like they can start building purpose in
their life now, whether they have enough money or not,

(51:29):
but also build a financial framework around it so that
they can begin now today when they're twenty two or
twenty five or thirty, but then they can continue improving
the calculus of that calendar, building up enough money to
use it as a powerful tool to get rid of
things you loathe, to build in more things you like.
It's all an iterative process. But I wouldn't want people

(51:52):
to just give up on purpose early in life because
they think they got to grind it out and reach
fire first, because you just don't know what the future
is going to bring or even if you'll live to
that vaunted time that you reach financial independence. And some
people never make it to financial independence, and I don't
want that to preclude them from living a good life today.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Man Well said I personally feel empowered based on what
you're saying here, Jordan, and it's man, it's so true,
like it's so much about trade offs, and you said
something else do just about this being an iterative process,
the fact that I think for folks to hear that
they're not necessarily going to get it right straight out
of the gate, but that this is something that we

(52:31):
continue to refine and something that we revisit over the
years to see what it is that's going to make
the biggest impact in our lives and our families, lives
and our community, all of the above. But Jordan, we
really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today.
We will certainly make sure to link to your book,
which came out yesterday actually, and so we'll link to
that in the show notes. Anywhere else you want folks

(52:52):
to go to learn more about you and what's going on.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Easiest place to go is Jordan Grummitt dot com. That's
j O R D A N G r U met.
There you can find links to both my books, taking
Stock and now the Purpose Code, as well as all
the places I create content, including the Earned and invest
podcasts and the Purpose Code substack check me out Jordan
Grummitt dot com.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Nice Jordan, always a pleasure man, Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Thank you so much for having me man.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Always so fun to talk with our friend Jordan Grummitt. No,
but what was your big takeaway though with our conversation?

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Man, there's so much overlap between kind of what Jordan
talks about and we talk more about the money stuff.
But we want that purpose and meaning to infuse everything
that we talk about instead of just talking about the
nuts and bolts of moneies and roth I rais And
that obviously plays a part because we want to make
money progress, but it should get specific, Yeah, but it
should influence I think the overarching goals and purpose of

(53:45):
our life agreed. And when he talks about community and connections,
I think that's spot on, right, because even if you
get into something a new athletic endeavor or a new hobby, like,
the connections you can make inside of that world are
typically the most fulfill part of it. Like, yeah, do
you like pickleball?

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Cool?

Speaker 1 (54:03):
It's a fun sport, right, But maybe the most fun
thing is when you on Saturday mornings at six am
get up and play with this big group of folks
who also love it and then you hang out and
have coffee afterwards.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
Yeah, and so I think personally, I think that's why
pick a Ball has taken off in our country like
it has over the past few years, because it has
that social connectivity community with settlement. I think a lot
of times folks may not even realize that, but like
that's what they're drawn to. It's the less this little
silly game that they're playing with paddles.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Same thing with Triple f right, which is like the
workout based and people say, oh, yeah, the workout's fine,
but it's the man that the relationships I've developed by
going to that have been instrumental to like my life
and so yeah, one of my friends he says, all
my wealth is in relationships. I like the idea of
growing monetary wealth, obviously because of the podcast we do,
but I think that's not a bad motto to have

(54:50):
for your life, is for your relational connections to be
pre eminent, because I think that that will influence purpose.
And I think that, you know, Jordan boiled down to
that as being one of the foremost reasons for happiness.
So sure, and I think this time of year too,
purpose over goals That's why we wanted to have Jordan on.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Now.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
There's so much talk about goals, goal setting, what are
you going to accomplish this year?

Speaker 2 (55:08):
And those are the yeah, those are the big pie's yeah,
which are good to have, but then it can oftentimes
leave you burnt out and feeling kind of demoralized. That's right.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
So I think that talking more about purpose and being
more introspective about that could potentially get you where you
want to go this year more than maybe some crusty
old goal setting agenda that you were thinking about trying out.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Nice Okay, so my big takeaway is going to be
so he talked a lot about purpose anchors, which are
the things that we can kind of like latch onto,
you know, like like picture like an anchor that goes
into a wall, or even like a boat anchor, right,
and building your life around these things that bring you fulfillment.
And at some point he was talking about going with
how it is that you feel when it comes to

(55:48):
identifying these things, which kind of raise their red flagma
mic because I'm just like Van, what do we know
about feelings? They are fickle and like one day you
might love something, the next day you might hate it,
but ultimately you might find yourself over analyzing it, and
I think what instead, what you need to do is
focus on the things that bring you enjoyment, like over
the long haul. Like think about it like the stock market.
We're not talking about what is it that is going

(56:09):
up into the right just in one day, but zoom
out like zoom out over a week, over a month,
over a year, even over decades, and what is the
activity or the purpose anchor that pretty much is going
to constantly lead to you going up into the right.
Another analogy is makes me think about like a tattoo.
I don't have any tattoos, but if I were to
get a tattoo, and I've even said this to Kate before,

(56:30):
it would need to be something that I'm never going
to change my mind on because I don't want to
have to go back in and get it like laser removed.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
My friends James their minds on tattoos, but there are
very few things that would do that. But for me,
it would be maybe faith based. It would be something
family based. And I think that if there is something
in your life that is that foundational.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
To bald eagle and American flag problem, you change your
mind on America.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Math even still, who knows, maybe I'll end up moving
to a different country depending on the state of become
a front file. But I think it's fine to identify
some of these like major purpose anchors that you can
kind of build your life around, or again, don't overthink it,
Like what's something that just lights you up right without
getting overly analytical about it? And I think by taking

(57:13):
small baby steps like the example he gave at the beginning,
like this, the whole swimming example, it's like, Okay, you
don't have to get a like iron Man triathlon tattoo
because now you're a hardcore swimmer. No, how about you
just start by going one day a week with your
buddy and going to swim, and maybe it turns into
this other thing, but you haven't over committed to something
like that, and don't be a f I guess maybe
I'm speaking out of my own from my own perspective,

(57:35):
but I would be afraid of like over committing to
something and being like, well, I don't know if that's
who I am, And it's like, well, doesn't have to
be who you are. Just take some of these small
baby steps in that direction, and then just see how
whether or not that lights you up or not.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, And I think when he said the feelings thing, Matt,
that also kind of hit me a little interesting, hit
me a little weird, because I, Yeah, there are times
where I don't feel great about coming into work on
a certain day, even though overarchingly I love what we
do exactly and I love the work that we get
to create, and how the money is a big, p
purpose a thing in my life. But you're right, there's

(58:07):
the feelings don't always, shouldn't always dictate.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
Don't always align ye with maybe what it is you
should be doing that longer term perspective. Yeah, which again,
and maybe this is a good application with like the
whole investing thing, but being able to zoom out identifying
like an overarching trend as opposed to like the day
to day gyrations of how you feel or even what
the market's doing. For sure.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
But let's get back to the beer.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
A beer that was sent to us by Mary. Is
it Mary Starboard?

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Yeah, that's from Mary.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
She sent this to us as well as actually, should
we mention not only does she send her husband's favorite beer,
she sent us this all the Christmas decoration and by
all the Christmas decoration. I literally mean it's this Christmas
village miniature all day store that lights up when you
turn it on. You know, like the Christmas village that
you create with like people ice skating. Yeah, you got
you kind of got the white fluff around. This is

(58:54):
something to kind of like slip in there without being
noticed in the background, next to some cottages or something
like that. But she sent this our way, and.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
It's the only Christmas decoration we have, and so thank
you Mary for We really should have put some tinsel
or something up here, but we got We've got an
Aldie store, which is actually perfectly fitting.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Well, the question is how long do we leave this
up in our office because we love aldi all year long.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Well, we've talked about keeping our Christmas tree up all
month of January. Really yeah, so just because it's too depressing.
It's the most depressing month of the year, so like
you got to have some sort of That's what Emily
and I were literally just talking about this how December
is so great because it's cold, but it's festive and
there's lights everywhere, and January is the worst because it's
cold and everyone's taking down their lights anyway prolonged.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yeah, the enjoyment, yeap. The beer. The beer though, that
you and I enjoyed was a cold brewed coffee Logger
by Steel Hands Brewing. But uh, yeah, what'd you think
about this one?

Speaker 1 (59:43):
So this combines two of our favorite things. We love coffee,
we love beer indeed, and usually coffee goes in stouts reporters,
in bigger, darker, roastier beers, which makes sense. But you
don't often get coffee in a lagger. So this is
like a light beer with cold brew kind of infused
into it. And I wasn't sure what I was going
to think about this, but I liked it me too, Yeah, okay, nice,

(01:00:06):
I was.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I was impressed. We both have basically yeah, finished hours
by the end of our conversation with Jordan.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Yeah, And I think it's partly because the coffee didn't
get overwhelmed in the same way that that it tends
to do in some of those bigger thirteen percent stops
or something like that, where there's all of these other
notes going on. This was like coffee on top of
a beer. But I feel like I got the coffee
more so than I would in a lot of other
coffee beer.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Yeah, it was perfectly coffee while at the same time
being perfectly beer. And I feel like oftentimes, yeah, there's like,
I don't know, a mingling of the two. But it
almost felt like these two were like separate as I
was drinking it, Like the initial notes were totally coffee,
but then you get like the better notes from from
the hops there in the lagger. But I enjoyed this,
I'll be honest, more than I was expecting. When I

(01:00:50):
first I was just like, oh man, I'm not totally
sure about this, but I would one hundred percent totally
drink this, enjoy some of this coffee roasted coffee flavors
without the hang up of maybe staying up too late
due to the caffeine intake.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
But that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Really enjoyed it. Mary, Thank you so much for sending
this this one our way. Well, like we said, we'll
link to Jordan's book up on the website at howdomoney
dot com. It is out and now be sure to
check it out. But buddy, that's going to be it.
So until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.

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Joel Larsgaard

Matthew Altmix

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