Like a ripple in the ocean, the effects of Little P Purpose can travel far and wide. They can change lives over miles and decades. They can be your legacy. And the simple reason is generational growth.
My great grandfather loved math. Although I never met him, my mother used to tell me stories of how she would sit on his lap as a child and he would work on his spreadsheets. My grandfather was a CPA and back in the 1950’s and 1960’s there was no such thing as quickbooks or powerpoint. Old fashion accounting was done on large pencil marked pieces of paper of which my mom, as a child, was introduced to by her father.
You see..he loved being an accountant. He loved his spreadsheets. He wouldn’t have traded his job for any other in the world. My grandfather had a pretty developed sense of Little P Purpose. Because of this, he modeled for my mom this same love of math. She, as a teenager in the process of “growing up”, tried on this modeling for herself. She eventually decided that she too loved math, and wanted to become a CPA like her father.
Years after his death, my mom expressed the same joy and excitement to me. At the time, I had a profound learning disability and was unable to read. Yet, just like my mom had done with her father, I tried on her joy of all things numbers and found that it resonated with me. In fact, I was ahead of the class in mathematics even though I was soundly behind in everything else.
This ability, this confidence, was one of the main reasons that I believe I eventually got over my learning disability. If I was that good and loved numbers that much, how could I possibly be dumb?
Indeed, I wasn’t, and math was huge part of my progress—a huge part of my life. It was no surprise that I eventually chose medicine which is a highly mathematical field. Nor that I stumbled upon financial independence which is wholly based on an understanding of numbers, formulas, and spreadsheets.
One day, during hospital rounds, I was seeing a patient for recurrent hospitalizations and dehydration and noticed a unique mathematical relationship in his lab results. That realization led to the diagnosis of a rare disease with a simple yet life changing treatment. It is even possible my patient would have died if I had not made that connection.
That patient happened to be a pastor at a local church who spent much of his time providing shelter for the homeless and runaway children. He was an oasis of comfort and caring in a desert of cold hard reality.
This is what generational growth looks like! My grandfather, who died decades before my birth, pursued his sense of Little P Purpose and his love of math was passed down to my mom and I. Hundreds of miles away and 60 years later that love of math helped me make a life-changing diagnosis so that my patient would still be around to welcome in a new runaways into his church and provide food and shelter.
Like a ripple in the ocean my grandfather’s legacy still exists today even though many will not even remember his name. He is written into none of the history books. Yet he has impact even now. He has created a legacy.
And he did it through Little P Purpose!
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Path to Purpose Coaching
Over the last year, writing my new book The Purpose Code, I have spent a huge amount of time thinking about, writing about, and discussing purpose. I have offered one-on-one and group coaching to my mastermind group, Wealth With Purpose. These discussions stem from my real life encounters with dying hospice patients as well as the numerous interactions I have had with people after reading Taking Stock.
What I've found is that most of us who listen to the Earn & Invest Podcast struggle with three basic issues:
How do I define purpose in my life?
How do I transition to a more fulfilling career?
What is enough money look like? Enough life?
To help navigate these waters, I have decided to offer the Path to Purpose coaching program. This is one-on-one coaching with me to help you further define purpose, direction, and career. Sessions will be spread over five weeks with a goal to provide a more concrete and enjoyable path to crack the purpose code and start living your life now whether you are broke, pre financial independence, financially independent, or beyond.
https://www.earnandinvest.com/coaching