The Toxicity of Big Audacious Purpose

How Big P Purpose Leads to Dissapointment

Frankly, I was a little shocked by last weeks poll:

A majority of you said that goals are not a main driver of purpose in your lives. Yet, would you believe, that when it comes to your everyday person, the exact opposite is true? Let’s start with a real life example.

I met Leah a few years ago interviewing Earn & Invest listeners about the show. While she, like many, felt trapped in corporate America with a good salary but meager career prospects, she began to consider side hustles and side projects that could augment her yearly income and give her a sense of purpose. Her search led her to many different corners of the internet. Although she had some interest in general entrepreneurship, she found herself especially enamored with real estate.

Leah was enthralled by several social media influencers who were using real estate and leverage to build wealth quickly. In fact, she was so inspired by the hustle culture peddled by one of them that she decided that she could build an empire (and co-opt a sense of purpose) similar to his. In fact, she felt that her life goals very much aligned with his…to become a billionaire.

This was a big audacious goal that Leah could really sink her teeth into. It ticked off all the right boxes when it came to purpose, inspiration, goal setting, and a pure focus on getting where she wanted to be. Where she deserved to be!

Taking her mentor’s course Become a Real Estate Billionaire in Ten Simple Steps (which cost her $10,000), she blew through the lessons in a few short weeks. She quickly implemented each and every step down to the most minute detail. Within her first year as a real estate investor she bought several properties, renovated, and became a highly successful landlord. Although she couldn’t leave her corporate job completely, she did have a huge amount of cashflow available to buy more properties.

As the years passed, Leah made impressive headway. Yet, she never made it even close to amassing the billion dollar portfolio that had been her original big and audacious goal. In fact, she never even made enough money to quit her corporate job completely.

Leah’s financial situation was a thousand times better than when she started. She now had extra money to save, invest, and enjoy. But she couldn’t help feeling disappointed. She was miles away from her original goal with no likelihood of closing the gap. She just didn’t have enough time, money, energy, or expertise. Although she could pay for another course or join another mastermind, she felt that they were unlikely to move the needle.

More importantly, she came to a very difficult conclusion just a few years into her venture. She hated being a landlord. The thrill of the new venture was now gone, and she felt herself weighed down by the minutia. Even hiring a management company (which cut into her profits) did not make her real estate tasks seem less arduous.

No matter how successful Leah became, she couldn’t help feeling a failure.

She had become a victim of what I call Big P Purpose.

This type of purpose, the kind that focuses on big audacious goals, is often the cause of purpose anxiety. It is defined by outsized, hard to achieve, goal-oriented tasks, that we rarely have the agency to achieve.

Let’s bring some perspective. Leah, no matter how hard she works, is statistically unlikely to become a billionaire. In fact, as of 2023, there were only 735 of them in the United States. This is a goal that most will fail at. They will either not have the appropriate skills, energy, or luck to reach this vaunted level of achievement.

As opposed to the abundance mindset (I can achieve anything) we are actually stuck with scarcity (success is based on a difficult and singular goal which Leah is unlikely to achieve).

No wonder Leah was starting to feel anxiety and disappointment. She had defined her sense of purpose on a highly fail-able goal. Although she was actually doing great, she found herself always coming up short. And more importantly, she locked herself into an activity that she no longer really liked. She was spending her time worrying about landlording, rent collection, and homeowner’s insurance.

Topics, it turns out, that are not particularly interesting or fun for her. Of course she is feeling disappointment. She has little agency to make her “dreams’ come true.

What if instead of focusing on these big goals, Leah could find something else much smaller and manageable to build her sense of purpose around. Could she possibly turn scarcity into abundance? Can she move from purpose causing anxiety to all those other benefits we previously talked about in the last post (health, longevity, happiness)?

If you’re not sure of the answers to these questions, stay tuned for next week’s Substack where we discuss the magic of Little P Purpose.

In the meantime, give us your opinion on this week’s poll.

Did You catch this weeks episodes on Earn & Invest? (Click to listen)

Comments From Facebook

I'm already there after retiring last summer. I'm currently at about 3x of my current expenses in passive income. People understand the math but let fear guide them and thus worry about "when is enough". It's an interesting thing to see that should be worked through with a therapist.

Quit my job then went to Vegas with my husband last weekend.

Was saved for and planned but felt reckless.

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:

1. How do I define purpose in my life?

2. How do I transition to a more fulfilling career?

3. 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