Ep. 261: Why Purpose And Passion Must Work Together

Sean: How about the people who were so passionate and the purpose was clear at the get-go. I mean, I'm going to take you as an example since we already have your story here, you started out, you said you love your job. You were in your twenties and then moving to your thirties, forties, somewhere in between the line got blurry.

It's not, I don't believe it's just, you're a bad boss, although that does contribute a lot to kind of mud - muddling, muddying down your passion in your purpose. Right. But somewhere in between, and this happens to a lot of people and they lost their passion because they lost their purpose.

When does that happen usually? And what triggers that?

Lou: Well often it's such an unseen thing that it can happen so slowly. It usually just gets eroded away over time. I think what happened to me was, and I don't think in my twenties when I was loving what I was doing, that I realized I was fulfilling my purpose.

I was just doing what I loved and looking back now I can see that it was really aligned with my values. And I think then we change. We grow don't we - we moved to new jobs. We moved to different careers and we think that that's going to be the golden bullet and it isn't, the grass is always greener.

 And that's the danger, I think because it can be very difficult to recognize that the passion and the purpose of, you know, disappearing because it can be such a slow, unseen process. And it can be, you can get 10, 20 years down the line, turn around and look back and go, how did I get over here? I was supposed to be over there and, and, and that's the danger because people don't realize it's happening.

You know, when either they get so sick because they're so stressed out or whatever, or, you know, like hit a milestone birthday or something like that makes them just stop. Or, you know, the global pandemic has made a lot of people stop and reevaluate their life, that you can turn around and look back at your journey and say, was I really supposed to be here?

And that's when it happens. But I think overall it's a slow sort of eroding of your purpose and your mission.

Sean: And this is why it is so important to have, if not a daily then every other day, right. Just stop, pause, take a walk, think, breathe the fresh air, journal and realize, am I still on track with my life's purpose?

Lou: Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more.

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