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Afford Anything | Get Smarter With Money
Your Last Thoughts Won't Be About Money, with Dr. Jordan Grumet
01:20:32
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- [00:00]
A
Our most valuable asset and our most valuable resource is time. And the ultimate limitation to time is the amount of time that we spend here on this planet. Today we speak to Dr. Jordan Grummet, a hospice doctor, which means that he treats patients who are at the end of their life, and in doing so, has deep conversations around reflections, regrets, and purpose. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice carries a trade off, and that applies not just to your money, but to your time, which we're going to talk about today, and your energy and your focus, your attention to all of the resources you need to manage. So what matters most and how do you make choices accordingly? Those are the two questions this podcast exists to answer. My name is Paula Pant. I'm your host. Welcome, Dr. Grumit.
- [00:55]
B
Time, Regrets, and Purpose 3 My Favorite, Favorite Things to talk about.
- [00:59]
A
All right, well, I hope you won't regret joining us for this conversation. How long have you been a hospice doctor?
- [01:07]
B
So I started doing hospice work in about 2010. So I finished residency in 2002, and I did general internal medicine, and I was treating patients in the hospital and I took care of a lot of elderly people. And one day I was treating a patient and one of the hospice nurses came by and she said, you know, you're really kind of good at this. You do end of life care. Why don't you come work for us? And it was at the time I was getting really burned out in medicine, so it was like a medical side hustle. I'm like, I can work with hospice and I can get a stipend every month to do this, but it wasn't related to my practice. So that was one of my first forays into side hustles.
- [01:39]
A
Oh, wow. It's not something I would typically think of as a side hustle.
- [01:43]
B
Yeah, doctors, we have lots of them. So you can be medical directors of all sorts of things, which you get paid for. You can do medical expert work. And so doctors do side hustles, too.
- [01:52]
A
Wow. So in the time that you've spent as a hospice doctor in the last 14 years, what was that experience like when you began and how has it morphed over the span of those 14 years, both in terms of how you interact with patients and in terms of the impact that that leaves on you?
- [02:11]
B
Well, it's funny, when I first started doing it, I was much more worried about the technical, like, what is the right medication to use? How do we alleviate pain? How do we alleviate nausea? Interestingly, Enough. As I did it longer and longer, what I found is what people also want to help alleviate is all the non physical things. Like people when they are told that they're going to be dying soon, whether that be days, weeks or months, they really start thinking about their life. And so they want to talk about these deeper questions. Have I lived the life I wanted to live? Did I become the person I wanted to become? What do I regret? And so as I evolved as a doctor, I realized that some of the physical stuff was really easy to treat. Like, we try one thing, it doesn't work, we try another. But dealing with some of the emotional fallout of being a human being is something that I evolved to start really understanding and listening to people and talking to them about. You hear me talk all the time about a life review is this process where we talk to hospice patients about their past, right? So they can come to terms with what's happened to them before they die. So we ask all these really deep questions about what were the most important moments? What were the things that mattered to them? Who are the people that mattered to them? And a lot of time we talk about regrets. And I think there's this intimate connection between regrets and purpose. Because when we're dying, there's not much we can do. We don't have agency, we don't have time or energy to deal with regrets. But when we're young, regrets can become the nucleus of purpose. Because often if we think, boy, if I were to be on my deathbed, I'd really regret this. It's a great place to start thinking about what I call a purpose anchor, which is the beginnings of something to build a life of purpose around.
- [03:48]
A
In a moment, I want to follow up on the notion of when I'm on my deathbed, I might regret doing this or not doing this. But before we get there, just to establish some of the basic elements of what we're talking about, what exactly is hospice? And when a patient goes into hospice, how long do they typically have to live?
- [04:07]
B
So let's talk about palliative care and then hospice, because people get them confused. Palliative care is about palliation. So this idea that we don't only look at the clinical outcome, like how many years of life can we add? But we start looking at symptoms and quality of life. So anyone can receive palliative care, but when you have six months or less to live, palliative care becomes hospice. So it's this very specialized type of care where we let go of things like life saving Treatments, we stop worrying about the duration of time left and we really start thinking about the quality of life. And so it's quality, not quantity. Six months. And it's really about symptom control, helping people be comfortable, but also dying in the place they want to die. Like, do you want to die at home or in an assisted living? Or some people even want to die in the hospital. And so those are all the kind of considerations that we think when we're talking about those last six months.
- [04:57]
A
What age of patients do you typically see?
- [04:59]
B
Thankfully, the majority are still people in their 70s and 80s. We go as high as in the hundreds. I've had 105, 106 year olds. But occasionally we deal with people in their 20s. And hospice is available also in the pediatric population. So I am not a pediatric doctor, but many hospices take care of kids, babies, all sorts of people who are basically at that juncture. Unfortunately, disease and especially things like cancer can hit you at almost any age. And so sometimes the toughest deaths are those in people in their 20s or 30s, or especially mothers or fathers with young children. But thankfully, the grand majority still tend to be older adults.
- [05:34]
A
Let's go back then to what we were talking about earlier, the notion of when I'm on my deathbed, I might regret either doing X or not doing Y. It strikes me that from where I sit right now, I have a certain menu, so to speak, of values, goals, ideas, priorities. But what those are in my life right at this moment is different from what they were 10 years ago. And it's going to be different from what it will be 10 years from now. And so I'm struggling to come up with the exact term. It's something like retrospective hindsight, the projecting your current priorities, your current sense of self, onto who you will be and what you will value when you're in your 70s or 80s. It seems like there's some projection going on there.
- [06:30]
B
I don't think you have to think forward into the future. The point of this process is to think back into the past. And most people can tell you that there are things, they're Beckonings, they're inklings, they're themes in their life that they never fully pursued. And so Brownie Warehouse talks about the five regrets of the dying. It's a famous book. And the gist of most of them is I really regret that I didn't become a better version of myself and pursue those things that were important to me. Instead of projecting forward and saying, what will I regret in that sense, between now and the day I'm dying. We never know when we're going to die. So let's just look at it today. What looking backwards, will I regret not pursuing. And most people, when they quiet themselves down and think about what's really important to them, we have these whisperings, and most people know what they are. Usually we just don't give ourselves the permission. So, for instance, for me, I kind of did this whole exercise myself. And I realized that traditionally, publishing a book was something that was deeply important to me. And I knew that if I kept on putting it off and kept on putting it off, eventually I would never do it. And I would totally regret that on my deathbed. And so a bunch of years ago, when I wrote my first book, Taking Stock, it was exactly that process. This is something deeply important to me. And so I took it from a regret and I flipped it over into what I call a purpose anchor, which is an inkling or a beckoning of something that could be purposeful. But here's the problem. You can't just think about it. You actually have to take action. And so I always tell people, we don't find our purpose. We build or create a life of purpose. So you need something, an inkling, a beckoning. But then you actually have to take action and build that life. And that's where a lot of us get stuck. Like some people say, I just don't know what my purpose is. But a lot of us deep down inside maybe know. But there's never enough money. There's never enough time. And a lot of times there's not enough courage to actually do this thing that's deeply important to you, to do the work, to take the action.
- [08:30]
A
I think where I'm still struggling is how this squares with the reality that people often go through different phases of their life. So, for example, I went through a phase in my 20s where I was really into the outdoors. I was super into camping and hiking and climbing. And I was just. I wanted to be outdoors in nature all the time. That is no longer a deep priority for me. How it changes.
- [08:57]
B
I get what you're saying. I mean, I think it's an iterative process. And so the idea is that people think purpose is a one big thing, and you either find it and you live a happy life and it's great, or you don't find it and all is lost. What I'm actually trying to argue is purpose is many things, and you can have many of them in your life, and some last for seasons. And those seasons can be really, really short, or those seasons can be really, really long. But I would submit to you, let's say you were that 25 year old and you really like the outdoors and you're not pursuing it because you're too busy at work, or you're too busy in relationships, or you're too busy in whatever you're doing, you would regret not pursuing that thing. Especially if at 26, you got a horrible terminal diagnosis. Now, granted, as you turn 30, maybe you fulfill those wishes, you fulfill that sense of purpose. You built a life of purpose around that anchor and you feel relatively happy with that. At 30, it might turn to something professional, like, I really wish that I went for that job, or I went for that promotion, or I wrote that book or whatever it might be. And it's iterative. It all starts again. It's very clear that we change. But a lot of the times it's hard for people, especially if it is one of those real inklings or beckonings. It's hard to move past it if you never tried to pursue it. It's easy to move past it if you pursued it and you did it and you moved on, or even if you failed at it. Like you tried to do that thing and you never made it, but you're like, at least I left it all on the table. But if you don't try and if you don't pursue it, those do become regrets. And so I think we continually iterate. And so what feels like purpose today for you might not feel like purpose in 10 years. I do think that some people have some underlying version of things that light them up, that continue to light them up their whole life. But I also think we grow and change, and I'm a perfect example of it. When my father died, I was seven and he was a physician. And I built a life of purpose around becoming a physician like him in a lot of ways, because I thought I could make up for his death by doing that. But that was deeply purposeful and joyful for me. While I was doing it, I would have really regretted not having done that. On the other hand, as I got older, I burned out and it stopped feeling as joyful and purposeful. And I pivoted to doing a lot of the things I do today, which is podcasting and writing and public speaking. I had passed that season of my life where being a doctor felt like purpose, but I would have deeply regretted not trying or being involved in it. The inkling to do things like public speak and write was always there, even As a little kid. And I kept on pushing it aside saying, no, being a doctor is what you should do. And it was only later in life where I was able to actually pursue those things. And I would have deeply regretted not making that pivot.
- [11:33]
A
Hmm. How does a person distinguish between an inkling, which is a signal for a purpose, versus a passing phase?
- [11:42]
B
I don't think it matters. Here's the thing. A purpose anchor is just something that's an inkling or beckoning, but then you build a life of purpose around it. And the point about building a life of purpose is the difference between what I call little P purpose and big P purpose. Big P purpose is big, audacious, goal oriented purpose. In America, we say, you know, if you can think it, you can build it. So often it focuses on things like curing cancer, becoming president, or having an eight figure business, this really, really big stuff. And the problem is, most of us don't have the agency to do that. We're not the right person at the right time saying the right things. With a lot of luck and good genetics. A lot of times one of those things isn't in order. And so you're never able to reach that goal. And because it's all or nothing, it's very scarcity mindset oriented. People think it's abundant, but it's actually very scarcity mindset oriented. I contrast that to little P purpose, which isn't goal oriented, but is process oriented. And so the point about that is it's very abundant. Just find things you enjoy the process of doing. And so let's talk about this idea of is this really a good anchor for purpose or is this just a phase? The point is actually moot. If you are doing something that you enjoy doing it, enjoy the process of doing it, then that's worthwhile and that's a version of purpose. And you can try building a life of purpose around that. If you start building these activities and you don't enjoy them, then you might say, hey, this is a phase and it's time to look at a different purpose anchor, or at least build different activities around this anchor. On the other hand, if you do those things and it lights you up, then you keep doing them. The biggest argument I get from people is, well, big B purpose is important because I'm going to have impact and legacy. And little B purpose sounds a little selfish, but the truth of the matter is when you start doing things that light you up like a moth to the flame, basically people are attracted to you and you end up Collaborating and building and connecting. And so the secret is really this, and I argue this all the time. There are tons of studies that show having a sense of purpose in life is associated with health, happiness and longevity. I mean, tons of studies. The truth of the matter is it isn't even purpose. It's actually that especially little P purpose is a great conduit to community and connections. And there are some really great long term studies about what truly makes you happy. The Harvard Adult Developmental Health Study is big. Studies started in the early 1900s, followed thousands of people, interviewed them every two years, eventually did like MRIs, EEGs, blood tests. And they found the thing that most connects to happiness isn't your job, isn't money, isn't achievements, isn't even purpose per se. It's interpersonal connections. Little P purpose just connects you to other people and it brings you those connections. And I think that's the real way.
- [14:14]
A
We get to happiness with that little P purpose. You talked about how little P purpose is associated with process. Find things for which you enjoy the process. Would it be accurate to state that the distinction between little P purpose and big P purpose is that little P is firmly within your locus of control, whereas big P is outside of that locus of control?
- [14:36]
B
I think agency is a huge portion of what makes little P purpose so exciting. And we know it because here's the thing, like I said, all these great things associated with purpose. But there are other studies that show that up to 91% of people at some point in their life have what's called purpose anxiety. The idea of purpose actually makes them frustrated and depressed. And I think this has very much to do with big P purpose. So there are a lot of people out there who haven't quote unquote found their purpose because they think you have to find it. And since they haven't found it, what do they do? They look at the people around them and specifically they go to social media and marketing and all the messages society is sending us. And so if you go to TikTok or Instagram and say what is purpose? What are you going to find? You're going to find people, people with six pack abs, you're going to find people traveling the world, you're going to find people wearing the nicest clothes and it's easy to co opt their version of purpose. But the problem is unless you have the right genetics and time and money and resolve to do those things, you're most likely to fail. And so you're feeling lost when you start. You're getting all these images and messages of what you should be, and then you're realizing you don't have agency to achieve them and you're feeling even more lost. And here's the kicker. Most of the people selling these things to you don't really care about you or your purpose. They want you to buy something from them. They want you to follow them on social media. They want you to buy that thing they're marketing. So they're going to create an image of what purpose should look like for you. And so many people get caught under this wheel of what they think purpose should be because society has told them it's this big, audacious, high stakes thing. And what you got to do is grind it out until you reach this beautiful thing that looks like all these wonderful things we see on social media and it just leaves people feeling miserable.
- [16:16]
A
Did purpose anxiety predate social media? Did it exist even before the Internet?
- [16:21]
B
Yes. I mean, I think we've always had purpose anxiety. And so, for instance, I look back, so 2018 is not before the Internet. It's not before social media, but certainly we weren't as obsessed with it. Actually, it would even go back to 2014 when I realized that being a doctor probably wasn't filling me up as much as I want to. And I think it was around 2014. I had a huge amount of purpose anxiety because it was the only thing I had ever considered myself doing. And it was the thing for me. Becoming a doctor was big P purpose because in a sense, I thought I could achieve the goal of making up for my father's death like the cosmic wrong that I went through as a kid. And the problem was I became a doctor and I was pretty successful at it. And it still hurt that my father died. It didn't fix it. So this was before social media had such a hold on us that I had a huge amount of anxiety because I had to walk away from society's messages of what I should be. I had to walk away from my own version of trying to make up for this trauma I went through. I think that purpose anxiety has always been with us. And I think it's very natural. It's very natural for us to question, why am I here? And so we confuse purpose with the why question. And so people think the colloquial term of what purpose means is the why I do things. I don't think that's what it is at all. I think purpose are the actions we take in the present and future that light us up. I think if you want to get into the why question, it starts getting anxiety because the why starts to feel like really high stakes and big. Like it has to be this really big thing. And I either find it or I don't. Why is much more of what I call a meaning question, because I think meaning and purpose are very different. Meaning is about how we look at our past and our cognition about our past. It's the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And so I think a lot of us are searching for a why because we don't feel enough inside. But the answer to that is not finding purpose. Because if you do that, what you find is if you don't answer the why or if I'm enough inside, you get to that thing, that big achievement, you thought that was going to fill you up, and it doesn't. We see this with money all the time, right? People don't feel enough inside. And so they get to this place where they have a net worth of a million dollars or $2 million, and they're like, once I get there, it's going to be enough money, it's going to be enough life. Everything's going to be great. And they get there and they realize they still have a hole on the inside. The problem is that that's a meaning issue. And meaning is about going back and looking at the stories of our past, of our traumas, and realizing that we already are enough and we don't have to use purpose to prove that we're enough. We don't have to use purpose to prove we're good enough or worthy enough. We have to already have that. But once we do, you can go into purpose, which is present and future and actions like really joyfully, because it doesn't have to prove anything anymore. You don't have to prove your reason for being in the universe. You just have to go do things that light you up. Now, strangely enough, when you do that, I think your impact and legacy get exponential, and I think you actually change the world more.
- [19:11]
A
So would you say then that meaning is the why and purpose is the what?
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B
Very much. And the way I like to frame it is meaning is about our thoughts about the past, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And purpose is about the present and future. And it's all about action. And it turns out you need both for happiness. So I think happiness is a mix of having a good sense of meaning, feeling enough on the inside, and then building a life of purpose. And when you put them both together, what leads to is community and connections. And I think that's where we really find the happiness.
- [19:42]
A
So that's an interesting definition of happiness because I've often heard happiness defined as essentially reality minus expectations.
- [19:51]
B
Yes. So in a sense, if you end up having either low expectations or reality really kicks butt on those expectations, that gives you a momentary sense of happiness. And we all disagree on what happiness like. Some people think it's like this ephemeral chemical thing that comes and goes, and then other people are like maslow and self actualization and we have lots of different words. In my last book, I talked a lot about purpose, identity and connections. But I think we mostly mean the same thing. I think we want to walk the earth and feel like we have some sense of meaning and that what we do matters and that we touch people around us. And so is it like I'm walking around on cloud nine all the time? No, But I think back a lot to my dying patients when they do that kind of life review. Question is, is there some satisfaction? Like, I lived my beliefs, I was intentional, I did those things that were important to me, or at least I tried really hard. I was in the arena, I fought the valiant fight. And so I think that's what it all comes down to. So whether we want to call that happiness, I'm not sure. But what I found is that if people go back and understand their past and trauma better and so have a good sense of meaning and feel enough, and then if they joyously jump into the future and take action and build a life of little purpose, you spend a lot more of your time in what I call flow, right? This state of doing things that excite you, that light you up, where you forget time and you even forget about goals. I mean, ultimately, as you said at the introduction of the show, we have zero control over time. Time is so important. And from the day you're born to the day you die, you get a certain amount of time. And of course you can wear your seatbelt and you can abstain from alcohol and you can exercise. You can do all these things to try to give you more time. But let's say it's a given. You have a certain amount of time on this earth. And the truth is, you can't buy it, you can't sell it, you can't trade it. Time passes no matter what you do. So how do you win the game? The way you win the game is you take these time slots, days, months, years, whatever you want to call them, and you fill up as many of them as you can with purposeful, joyful activity that Lights you up, being in a state of flow. And then you get rid of as many things as you loathe. And that's it. That's like winning the game. Is that happiness? Is that contentment? I would say it's what the dying, when they look back at their life, hope they did. And so from being a very young age, right, let's say when you're 22 and you go out into the workforce until the day you die, what you really want to do is be looking at your calculator and slowly adding in joyful, purposeful things and slowly getting rid of things you loathe. And there's some really good ways to do that. And we often make the mistake that money is the only tool we have in doing this. And I would argue that we have tons of other tools, but that's what we really want to do. That's where we want to go.
- [22:33]
A
With regard to filling up your days with the things that light you up while getting rid of things you loathe in terms of tactically, how to execute that, there is, of course, an inherent amount of. Loathe might be a strong word, but an inherent annoyance to taking the subway or sitting in traffic or having to clip your toenails.
- [22:59]
B
Yeah, I mean, there are some banal things we have to do, and I don't think there are any escaping those. But we all know that those are still a tiny percentage of the things we loathe. Most of the things that take up a huge amount of our time that we don't like are things we feel we have to do. It's that nine to five that people don't like. But, hey, I got to make the paycheck, so I better do this. It's the saying yes to stuff you really don't want to do because you think you have to. And spending days and months and weeks helping other people who you don't like and are on missions you don't believe in. There's so much we do that we don't need to do. And a lot of people live their whole lives this way. Filling up their weeks, looking at that calendar with stuff that maybe they don't loathe, but they certainly don't love. And the space where they're doing things that really light them up is so small, but yet they never feel like they have agency to look at that calendar and start changing that calculus to be better. I really hear two big reasons, and I hear them over and over again. I either don't have enough time or I Don't have enough money. So let's talk about the time question. The U.S. bureau of Labor Statistics does the U.S. time survey on a regular basis. And basically it shows your average American has five hours a day of free time. And that in fact people in the lower socioeconomic class probably have a little bit more, not less, more. And so to say you don't have enough time just doesn't make sense. So the other thing people say is that they don't have enough money. And the truth of the matter is, like I said, money is a great tool, but it is not the only tool. We have some other tools and what I call levers to actually improve that calculus, make our schedule better. And so there really is agency there. The hardest part is convincing people that they do have agency. But like I said, building a life of purpose is work. It's action based. And so you've got to be willing to build or create it, which means you have to start looking at your schedule. You have to start looking at some of these tools and levers, and we can certainly talk about what those are if you'd like. And then you have to start slowly changing because you will regret it. And I'll tell you this now, from sitting at the bedside with enough dying people, you will regret it if you don't change these things.
- [25:04]
A
We'll talk about the tools and levers in a moment. But my first follow up question in the BLS study that you just cited, how is free time defined?
- [25:13]
B
That's a good question. I think free time is defined as time in which you're not either employed. Right. Working for an employer, working on your own business, as well as not doing specific either home oriented or family oriented activities. So. Right. So not so if you're taking your kids to school or if you're taking care of a toddler. Those kind of things are not considered free time. We're talking about time that you're surfing on your phone or watching TV or daydreaming, those type of things.
- [25:42]
A
Often those breaks we'll call them, are not continuous blocks of hours, but rather found in the margins. So for example, in the middle of the workday, I might take 15 minutes to daydream and stare vacantly out the window. Right. Just to give my brain a break. But that's 15 minutes in the middle of a workday rather than if you do that, let's say in three hour increments. But it's sure that's going to add up. But any given 15 minute block is insufficient to do anything that would require.
- [26:18]
B
I disagree. Beyond that, I disagree. So this is the problem. We think that purpose and purposeful activities are so big and audacious that they have to be these really deep things. Let me give you an example. One way to find purpose anchors is to think of your joys of childhood. So when I was a kid, I loved collecting baseball cards. I mean, I just, I loved it. And something happened as I got older and I got busy and I started thinking about becoming a doctor. I totally dropped it. But the thing about it is baseball cards still lights my brain up. Like, if I'm on Facebook and I see something about baseball cards, I'm enthralled. And so here's the thing. Let's say I'm 25 years old. Let's say, God forbid, I'm widowed, I have three kids, and I'm just barely struggling to make it. I'm working 60 hours a week, et cetera. One of the levers to help you live a better purposeful life, to have that calculus of your calendar better, is the joy of addition. Adding in purposeful activities into your life, even if you don't get rid of anything you don't like. So if during my 60 hour work week, I'm feeling frustrated, tired, and I take a break and stare out the window, what if I read a blog post about baseball cards? Something that just makes me feel good inside. Every time I see something about Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle, I get so excited. And if there's a picture of the baseball card, there's. So I would submit to you in an otherwise incredibly busy, stressful, anxious life, if in that 15 minutes you stared at a blog about baseball cards, listened to a short podcast about that, scanned the newspaper, that is now 15 more minutes of little p purpose than you had before in your day. And if you look at that calendar, you've used the joy of addition, a huge lever. Joy of addition added 15 more minutes of purposeful activity. And if you incrementally do that over time, you're going to have much more purposeful activity. And in the meantime, if you also use another level, the art of subtraction, maybe you hate your job, maybe even switching who your direct management is, but doing the same thing in your job makes it just that much bearable. So you've used a little bit of the art of subtraction. You've used a little bit of the joy addition. You're making incremental changes. And if you do that over years and years and years and decades and decades and decades, you're going to get to the point in life where you have much more things you love on your schedule and many less things you loathe. And again, that's as close to winning the game as we get. And that can be done by just about anyone.
- [28:42]
A
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- [30:27]
B
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- [31:10]
A
The two levers you've mentioned so far? One is the joy of addition and the other is the joy of subtraction. Which comes first?
- [31:17]
B
I don't think it matters. Depends on how much agency and control you have, right? So if you are stuck in a job and you actually can't change anything. So talk about the joy of addition, the art of subtraction. The third level is just substitution, right? Changing in one thing for another, doing what you can. So let's say you are in a horrible, awful job that you can't change a thing. Then you're going to jump to the joy of addition. On the other hand, like me, I was a doctor. I was burned out. I had no idea what purpose looked in my life, but I built a financial framework that allowed me to pull back at work. So the first thing I did was use the art of subtraction. I took my job. I didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I didn't quit everything. I just said, you know what? I no longer enjoy owning my own practice. So I'm going to give that up. But I'm going to still do my nursing homework. I'm going to still do my hospice work. I'm going to still do my in hospital work. There was all these other things, but I was like, that's the thing I really don't like. And thankfully, financially, I'm in a reasonable enough place. I didn't have to use as many levers and tools because I was in a good place. I had the great tool of money in this case. And so I could use the art of subtraction and just get rid of one thing that was really giving me hassle, which was that practice. And so that's what I did. And over time I even subtracted more. And then I started adding in more. So I subtracted enough at my job as a doctor, I realized the one thing I never wanted to subtract out was hospice. I would do that even if you weren't paying me for it. So I knew, aha, there's a purpose anchor. And I can build some purposeful activity around that by becoming a medical director. But here's the fantastic thing. We talk about those time slots. And as I subtracted out owning my own practice and working in nursing homes, et cetera, I all of a sudden had some free time during those other time slots. So I was only working 10 or 15 hours a week being a hospice doctor. And so then I could start doing different activities during those time slots. For me, that was blogging and podcasting and public speaking and eventually writing things that I always had an inkling, a whispering that were important to me. But I also told myself, well, that's not what you do for a living. That's like a That's like a hobby. What you do to be successful is be a doctor. Well, when I gave myself permission to actually start going towards those things I really like doing, I found that the art of surrection gave me more of these time slots to fill with better stuff. And then I could bring in the joy of addition when I was more in touch with what felt like purposeful. And here's the really funny thing. People say, oh, you became a doctor. You were affecting and helping so many people. Well, in any given year, maybe as a doctor, I helped a thousand people, Maybe. But when I started writing books and podcasting and writing in general, things that filled me up, things that I did because I enjoyed the process, I didn't have, like, this major goal of impacting this many people. How many more, thousands of people am I now impacting? Because my reach is bigger. But the reason my reach is bigger is, I think, because it lights me up more. And so I make more of those collaborations. I connect with more people. People listen to my message, and they see me lit up and excited about what I'm talking about, so they want to get in on the conversation. And so my impact is actually getting exponentially larger. But that was never my thought. I just decided to do something that lit me up more. But I think it made what I was talking about way more attractive.
- [34:18]
A
The example that you just cited is one of a pretty major subtraction. What are some ways that a person who's listening to this could use the art of subtraction, could implement that in their life without making a big, dramatic, drastic change like the one that you used in your example?
- [34:38]
B
I think it can be just as simple as, for instance, subtracting out an hour of social media a day to do something that feels a little bit more exciting or purposeful or joyful. So I think that's an easy one. But it's really hard to have these conversations without talking about the levers, too, because what I call these levers are actually the tools we use in order to make a better life. So we know that money is a huge tool. So if you have a lot of money, you can almost subtract out anything, right? You can pay someone else to nanny your kids if you don't want to take care of your kids. You can pay someone else to clean your house. You can pay someone else to do a lot of these things. But that really is a place of privilege. Like, when I became financially independent, I was in a place of privilege because I was a doctor, and I had a Huge income and I had great financial behavior modeled for me as a kid. So I did all these great things. But not everyone has that privilege. But I really want to tell, especially the young people today that money is just one of the tools. So we have have our youth, our energy, our relationships, our skills, our communities. Those are also wonderful tools. And you can then use those to either add or subtract or substitute. So let me give you a perfect example. Let's say you are that 22 year old and you're working 50, 60 hours a week and you don't love it. But here's the thing, at 22 you have some tools that I at 51 don't have. So you have your youth and your energy. And Most likely at 22 you might not have a mortgage yet, you might not be married, you might not have kids anymore. So you have this tool of some unencumbered time and some energy to do something with it. So even if you're working 50, 60 hours a week, maybe on Sunday you can start doing something for three hours. You really love and enjoy something that's little P Purpose. In the book I talk about this gentleman who I met who was very frustrated and when we really talked about, well, what feels like purpose to you, what are some of those anchors? He remembered being in high school and he used to competitively bike, right? So he was a bike racer. But the thing is he didn't have a lot of money and so he had to fix his bike when something went wrong. And so he had a few bikes and he raced very competitively. So he was an expert at fixing bikes. So he was stuck in a non for profit that he didn't like, but it was the only way he was going to make money. And so we started talking about this and I said, well, you have more energy than me. That's one of those tools you have. You don't have a family yet on Sunday, why don't you spend a few hours getting back involved with the bike racing community? I mean that really lit you up as a kid. And so what he did is he started a side hustle where he would help competitors fix their bikes. Because although he didn't have money and didn't know how to fix his bikes, so he had to learn. A lot of people don't know how. And so he'd show up to all these races and he would be there and the minute something went wrong, people would come off the track and he would help them fix it and they'd pay him for it. And he started doing this for like six months. And here's the thing. So if you do this for six months and you're successful. And what has he used? He used the tool of his free time. He used the tool of his energy, his youth, et cetera. He used the tool of a skill that he had from childhood. After six months, if he made enough money, maybe that gave him some margin and he could start working four days a week instead of five. And so here's the funny thing, what has he done? He's used these tools. We talked about his energy, his free time, his passion to then pull some of those levers, right? The joy of addition. He added in three hours of fun stuff every week, even if he didn't change anything else. But since he started making some money, he could also then start using the art of subtraction and subtract out something he didn't like, which was his 60 hour workweek. Let's say he had done this for six months and he didn't make a single cent. He still used that lever of the joy of addition and still has three more purposeful, enjoyable hours. You win. No matter what, he wins the game. If he consistently does things like that over 30, 40 years, he's going to build a life that's deeply important to him. And I would submit if he really does things that light him up, most likely it will end in collaborations. And things that probably do make him money, probably do give him some margin. Because like I said, when you do things that light you up, it just attracts people to you. It doesn't have to, but it tends to.
- [38:38]
A
It strikes me that in that example he would also be building community by virtue of going to these bike races.
- [38:43]
B
Which is key to happiness. So all the big things, community, agency, purpose, they're all very reachable. And this is what I really want to tell people. People think purpose is this far away thing that's scarce and they can't grasp it. But we're talking about having agency to build a life of purpose. And it's abundant and it's right there in front of you. You've just got to go after it. But if you do go after it, things progressively in your life can get better.
- [39:13]
A
What would a person do on the topic of community if the things that light them up tend to be solo activities like reading books?
- [39:21]
B
Here's the thing. So could I imagine a world in which you pursue little p purpose that doesn't connect you to other people? Certainly, like, I love going on walks and so I will Put classic music in my earphones and take a walk on the lake, Lake Michigan, because I live right by it. And that feels incredibly purposeful, joyful to me. It actually does tons of things. It gives me good health, relaxes my brain, decreases my anxiety about life, all these really good things. So I could imagine that that is little people for me and it doesn't connect me to other people. But I'll tell you, even if you try your hardest, most of the time, that does connect you to people. Because when I'm walking, I run into people and I start running into the same people and we start having conversations. And if you love books, yes, you could sit at home alone and read books, but you eventually start meeting other people that read books or start getting involved in book clubs. It's really hard. You have to actually try not to build community when you're doing things you love. Because unless you are in complete isolation, you become lit up. And like a moth to a flame, people see you lit up and they want a piece of that. They want to come in, they want to interact with you. If they like the same things, they're going to push you to interact with them. And so we all know introverts, right? We know tons of introverts in our community. But see them at a conference they particularly like or see them doing something they like, and they're whole different people. I'd submit it's really hard to do things you love in isolation. Not impossible. You can do it and you could even be happy maybe doing it, but I think it's going to push you towards other people.
- [40:50]
A
The example that you shared about the gentleman who didn't have a whole lot of money, but had the skill of fixing bikes and therefore could spend three hours on a weekend going to competitive bike races, and actually started a side hustle from that. That was an example in which someone used the joy of addition and parlayed that into the art of subtraction. And so one fueled the other. The thing that the other lever, though, that you mentioned, but we haven't talked about or given an example of is substitution. What would be an example of that?
- [41:31]
B
So substitution is what we use when nothing else works. So again, let's say you hate your job. Maybe you go work for another company doing the same job, but it's slightly better. Or maybe you stay in the same job, but you switch bosses. Or maybe you stay in the same job, which you hate, but then ask to do the thing you love. Perfect example. Let's say you look, work at a Restaurant. And you hate working at the restaurant, right? But you start thinking about the art of subtraction one lever, and you start saying, well, what do I like about this job, if anything? And you're like, you know what I really love? Every Thursday morning, I don't have to be at the counter helping people. I get to go back and I do stock for two hours, and I make sure everything's arranged, and I look at what's not there, and I look what is there, and et cetera. And I really love that. It's the only part of my work I like. So how could you use substitution? You could go to your boss and say, hey, we've got 10 stores, and each of them needs to be stocked. And there's Lucy over there who hates doing stock, which you make her do once a week, but she loves being in front at the front desk. And then you have me, and I hate being at the front desk, but I love doing stock. How about I do stock for all 10 stores and we let Lucy do my countertime? You substituted. You didn't add anything. You subtracted a little bit. But what you really did is you started substituting things out. And I think we can do that when all else fails. But as you can tell, these things are intimately tied, because am I substituting or subtracting? I don't know. We're using the levers we have. But the point being is, how can we use one of these three, either alone or in concert, to start making that calculus of our week better as.
- [43:10]
A
A person is thinking through addition, subtraction, substitution. You said the calculus of our week. Should they be thinking strategically in terms of. All right, here's my week ahead. When I look at my calendar for the next week, what lights me up and what makes me glum? Should they be thinking on that timescale? Or for planning purposes, is it better to think on the timescale of days or months?
- [43:35]
B
I think when you're a beginner, it actually works to look at months as a scale. And so first you look back at the last six months. If you're like me, everything's on my calendar on my phone. So what I could do is I could pull up my phone and just start looking through my calendars. What does my average week look like? And specifically, what percentage of my time lights me up versus what percentage of my time is me either doing things that are mediocre, things that I don't like? I'd say, what's little P purpose versus big P purpose, but specifically, what's little p purpose versus just meh. Right, Right. And then I can start looking at, well, what does the next six months look like? And is there a way I can start engineering with all my tools and levers to have that start looking better? But I think when you become a pro, you start doing it on a monthly or weekly basis. Because then you start saying, ah, like, I'm getting much better at these tools and these levers. How can I start change things? But I will say that we're really looking at longer periods. So you're going to find weeks or months where you can't change things. And that's okay. I think some skills, some abilities, like if you want to use the art of substitution, you might have to convince your boss, for instance, to let you work from home as opposed to come into the office. It might take you six months to make that argument and have it stick. And so I don't think we have to limit it to I'm going to change this week versus that week. I don't think we have to limit it to them to look every six months or every year. I think each person is going to have to see what works for them. But what you really want to see is, over time, that calendar is starting to look better. And so for each of us, it's going to be different. If you were in the most dire of circumstances, that might be slight changes every year. But I think if you're at a place of financial freedom, for instance, you could drastically change that calendar, possibly. So it depends on what tools you have available to you, Right? Because the more tools you have, the easier this is going to be. I just want to convince people that everyone has tools. Some people are going to have more of one than the other. Like in financial independence, sometimes we say, forget everything else about money, but build a lot of that tool up. And so when you get to that place where you have a lot of that tool, where you're financially independent, you have FU money, you have so much of that tool that all of a sudden you can really start changing that calendar. But I'm going to say that most people aren't in that place. Most people don't have FU money. So we're looking at much more gradual changes. But I would say there are other tools too. Like don't forget that same person who loved bike racing and who hated their job. Even if the bike racing doesn't work, if their parents live in town, maybe they can stop renting and go live with their parents and save $2,000 a month. And that might be enough to really give them some power and some agency. Maybe they can do what we call geo arbitrage and move to another country, but still work virtually on their business. But when they're in that other country, their cost of living goes down 50%. I mean, that's a huge change. All of a sudden you're getting 50% of your money back. You're still making the same thing and you're just living somewhere else because that person has the tools of their youth and energy. Them moving to, let's say, Spain or Mexico or something like that. So easy for them. Me at 51, I don't have those tools available. It's much harder for me to pick up and move countries with my 17 and 20 year old. So yeah, it's about utilizing and maximizing those tools. But for the people who are finding themselves really on the margins of being able to make change, we want to start really small. Like what are the little things you can do? What are the 15 minutes of adding in something that lights you up that's purposeful? It's all about momentum. Hardest thing is to start right? Once you start building that little momentum, you start making those changes and you've got a lifetime. But if we put it off forever, you might find yourself sitting in a hospital room and a doctor like me is walking in and all of a sudden you realize, oh my God, I no longer have time. And so I want to get everyone to start thinking about the fact that now that you do have some of this time in front of you, let's actually change something. How high is the interest rate for the new Laurel Road High Yield Savings Account?
- [47:40]
A
This high.
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B
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- [48:11]
A
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- [48:14]
B
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- [48:15]
A
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- [48:18]
B
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- [48:41]
A
Mentioned at the top of this interview Bronnie Ware who is the author of a very, very popular book called the Top five Regrets of the Dying. One of those top five regrets that she wrote about is a high percentage of people who say that they regret making decisions that were based around someone else's expectations of them.
- [49:04]
B
Big P purpose. Big P purpose.
- [49:07]
A
When we talk through addition, subtraction, substitution, one thing that strikes me is the dimension that we haven't discussed yet is how should a person work through it if by virtue of doing that they are defying the expectations that perhaps society has of them, perhaps a very opinionated parent has of them, perhaps that their spouse has the people. Often it's the people who are closest to a person in their lives who in some cases want to govern the decision that that person makes.
- [49:44]
B
Look, I'm not going to say this is easy. I mean, we have all these messages that are trying to get us to co opt their version of purpose. Like I said, we've got social media, we've got marketing, but we've also got our families in society that says I've got to be this super successful fill in the blank. Doctor, lawyer, professional athlete, whatever it is, this isn't going to be easy. Living the life you want to live and actually getting to a place where you feel more contented and happy is not easy. On the other hand, at some point, if you follow the dictates of social media or society or your parents, you are going to burn out. It's exactly what happened to me. Like I kept on trying to fulfill someone else's sense of purpose and it didn't fill me up. And that is a great way to burn out. And so you're gonna have to deal with this because you know what happens when you burn out? You either quit or you get really depressed or anxious, or you have a mental health issue, it doesn't serve you. And so that's when people get to that point where they followed everyone else's version of purpose to such an extent that they have no other choice and then they have to start thinking about their own version of purpose. And this is also where the anxiety comes in because they're like, I can't find my purpose. What is my purpose? Like I said, you don't find your purpose, you build or create it. But you've got to start thinking about what those purpose anchors are in your life. And so that's step one. That's step one. When your family's told you who you're supposed to be, when society's told you who you're supposed to Be you're burned out. You are not happy. You are feeling anxious all the time because you're trying to live up to something that either you don't enjoy or you can't reach. You have to go back to I am enough already working on your sense of meaning. I am enough. I don't have to prove it anymore. And once you're feeling okay with that, what lights me up, and those become your purpose anchors. And then you have to do the hard work and build a life of purpose around them. Not going to be easy. They're going to be naysayers in your life. They're going to be people who are disappointed. Hey, when I walked away from medicine, there were people who were like, this is the only version or conception of you that I know or understand. On the other hand, all those people, six or seven years later look at me and say, you look like such a happier human being. So the people who love you will stick with you. Everyone else, unfortunately, becomes part of that subtraction, which I hate to say, but I think it's the reality.
- [52:06]
A
But how do you deal with disappointing people? I mean, the people who love you and the people who you love are the ones that you most don't want to disappoint.
- [52:15]
B
I think it's. It comes down to very deep conversations of this thing that you feel is important. Part of me is not filling me up, and in fact, it's making me feel dysregulated and burnt out and disconnected. And I know you as someone who loves me, wants me to feel connected and fulfilled and doing things that are deeply meaningful to me. So you, family member, need to understand that this thing which you feel is my calling is actually not filling me up. And yet there may be this other thing that feels really joyful to me. And if I were to be on my dying bed tomorrow and realize that I never pursued this thing because I felt like I had to stick with this other thing I didn't like because I was going to upset you, I would have real regret. And I want to be the loving, caring, wonderful family member you're looking for. And the way for me to do that is to be filled to the rim with things that I love that light me up. That's how I'm going to be your. Your best family member, friend, associate, colleague.
- [53:21]
A
Right. Okay, so. And then what if they come back to that by saying, well, this is going to affect me too? You know, it's going to affect me in the following ways. And if they're a spouse or if they're a parent and everybody's going to talk, it'll affect our social standing in the community. If our child is a comedian rather than a doctor, or if it's a spouse, like, hey, we have bills to pay, we have kids to support. What do you do when they come back and say, this affects me too, and you have a duty?
- [53:52]
B
Yeah. I mean, I think it all comes down to why. And so that's going to differ depending on who you're talking about. Like, the conversation of this is going to affect me because we as a family and you or my spouse have bills to pay, and all of a sudden you're not going to be able to pay those bills is a very different conversation than this is going to affect me because you are my son and I'm going to lose face in our community for it. What I really think it comes down to is asking progressive why questions. Why is this going to affect how you stand in the community? Because you are a doctor, and in our culture and in our family, being a doctor is really important. And if you stop doing that, I'm going to lose value and face.
- [54:31]
A
Right?
- [54:32]
B
And then you say, why? And they'll say, because it's really important that you're going to be successful. And then you say, well, why is being a doctor successful? And you say, because it's this really great thing. You'll be able to make a lot of money. It'll really make you happy. And then you say, but what if it doesn't make me happy? Or what if I don't feel successful? Or what if being happy and successful actually looks like not being a doctor? And so these very slow, patient conversations. And again, that's a very different conversation of, I want to be a writer, and so I'm going to stop being a doctor. And your wife looks at you, your husband looks at you and says, yeah, but. But who's going to pay the bills? And then that's a conversation of, well, I'm not going to abandon medicine. I'm going to do it slightly less so that we have enough money to pay the bills. But in my free time, I'm going to start doing freelance writing, or I'm going to start journaling, or I'm going to write the great American novel, and then we'll see how it plays out. We're still going to have enough money because I'm going to go down to 85%, and I'm going to use that 15% of my extra time to write. And if that writing starts makes money. Maybe we'll, you know, move it a little bit more, down to 50%. Maybe that writing doesn't make money. I'm going to leave it at 85, 15, and I will work some extra years if I have to to make sure we get to where we are financially. But it's an open conversation. I choose to believe, and this may not be right, but I choose to believe that most of the people who truly love you want you to be your happiest, best self. So the key is to really break down those conversations, to get to the whys, to get to what it really comes down to, and then start answering those questions. Because if they truly love you, they really want you to be filled up. And if they're having fears or anxieties about their status, then maybe it's time they started reflecting on their own sense of value and enough and meaning. Because maybe it's them who has the meaning problem and they're trying to live through you, not vice versa. But don't get me wrong, these are hard conversations. They're not going to be easy, right?
- [56:27]
A
If you have the conversation over and over and over and it's just not breaking through.
- [56:32]
B
As I'm listening to this, I could throw the same question back at you. I imagine your parents had a very specific idea of what they thought you'd be and who you would be. And by taking what back then would have been called a non conventional pathway, nowadays being a podcaster and a content creator is becoming more conventional. But I imagine you must have had these iterative conversations with your parents a little bit about what it meant to be doing what you're doing and why you're doing it, as opposed to walking away from being a journalist, which at least fit maybe more into their conception of what they thought you could be.
- [57:04]
A
I think the biggest thing was that I wasn't going to be a doctor or an engineer. So that even before I became a journalist, the conversation was not around leaving journalism in order to start my own media platform. The conversation happened much, much, much earlier around not going into stem, right.
- [57:23]
B
But I bet there were some deep conversations you had to have and it probably wasn't easy. And there was a lot of, oh, I don't get that. And you probably had to be like, well, this is why. And this is.
- [57:34]
A
Well, on that one I held my ground. But there have been other conversations about very significant elements of my life where I kowtowed I caved. Because it would have, as they told it, it would have reflected badly on their social Standing within the community.
- [57:52]
B
Why do you think you didn't kowtow on the one, but you did on the others? What do you think was the difference?
- [57:56]
A
I think I knew that I had the fortitude to hold my ground on one, but I couldn't hold my ground on their. On everything.
- [58:06]
B
Maybe it was a little bit more deeply important to you.
- [58:09]
A
Yeah. I picked the one that I was gonna hold my ground on. I held my ground on that one, and then I caved on everything else.
- [58:15]
B
And I would submit to you. For the people who get burnt out, torn down, and are about to do this thing that goes counter to everything society and their family has told them, that for a lot of them, it's probably the one thing too. It's important. It's big. If you're going to leave being a physician, this thing that gives you all sorts of accolades and money and all that everyone told you you ever wanted to be, if you're going to walk away from that, it's got to be deep. You hold your ground.
- [58:44]
A
At the beginning of this conversation, we mentioned regret, but we haven't really talked about that in depth. What should a person do? I imagine there are a number of people who are listening to this who regret not making choices at certain moments of their life for which that door is now closed. So, for example, after 30, you're too old to take up a brand new sport for which you will be an Olympic athlete. I see that you've never played before.
- [59:15]
B
I hear the big P, purpose coming in with the Olympic athlete.
- [59:19]
A
Right.
- [59:19]
B
So let's break down regret. Daniel Pink talks a lot about regret in his last book, but he talks about inaction regret versus action regret. Right. So inaction regret is. There was this thing that was important to me. I didn't do it, and I regret never doing it. For me, that would have been book writing. Like, if I never had the courage to eventually write a book and I was on my deathbed, I would have totally regret that I never had the courage to do that. So that's inaction regret. Then there's action regret. Like, I was texting and driving and I ran into someone and I can't take that back. That's something that happened already and I can't take that back. I think those can be really good anchors for purpose because we can start building a life of purpose around those anchors. Let's say you love sports and you missed your chance at becoming a professional baseball player, whatever it was, and now you're 30 and that time has passed. But that Means that baseball, whether playing or talking about or learning about baseball, is a great purpose anchor. So if that was so important to you then and you're searching for what purpose looks like in your life now, maybe you want to become a sports announcer, maybe you want to write that great American blog about baseball, Maybe you want to be a podcaster, Maybe you want to, like, start a fan club, the number one fan of the Mets. Whatever it is, if this thing lights you up, if baseball lights you up, think about the abundant ways in which you could start pursuing a life of purpose around that. And if you do it and you love it, it will create communities. So that's inaction regrets. Let's talk about action regrets. So I was texting and driving and I got into a car accident and I hurt someone and I can't take that back. But a lot of times, I think even action regrets, what you really regret in the end is that you didn't try to make things better because of that bad thing that happened. So I didn't go and apologize to the family. I didn't start a campaign about texting and driving. I didn't do public speaking or do a TED Talk on the dangers of this thing. And so even if it's an action regret, while you can't take that thing back, you could still use it as an anchor to start building a life of purpose in ways that even in a sense, make up for that bad feeling. But it is true. If you confuse big P purpose with little P purpose, a lot of times you're going to be like, that season has passed. I can't do anything about that. But I think if you really look at it as little P purpose, you realize the activities that you can build around things are so broad and so abundant that anything's possible. So you can be a, you can be a 60 year old who always regrets that you never had kids, but you can go volunteer to hold newborns in the nursery, you can foster parent, you could start a blog about people who never had kids and regret it. You can do so many different things, even if it's a regret that that season has passed. And you can still build the sense of purpose around that if that thing is important for you and if talking about that thing lights you up or being engaged in activities around that thing. And so I think there's real power here, real abundance. And I think regrets, again, are just this great anchor. It's like, if I know I'm going to regret something, it's time to get in the arena. And fight the valiant fight and take it on in whatever version or manner that looks like.
- [62:38]
A
What if you're sitting here thinking of a list of 10 potential regrets that you might have, but they're all big and they're all different and unrelated.
- [62:48]
B
Here's the beautiful thing about purpose anchors. If you do it right, you're going to have so many purpose anchors, you don't know what to do with yourself. But here's the thing. It's not the purpose anchor that matters. It just has to be something that kind of lights you up. What matters is the building and creating a life of purpose around it. It's all about that. So take a dart, throw it at the dartboard, and whatever one or two or three things that hits, explore those and see how it feels. Maybe one of your purpose anchors is hiking 30 minutes a week, and you know what? You could do five others and still do that purpose anchor. Maybe another purpose anchor is making your own podcast, and that takes you 40 hours a week, and you're like, I just don't have time for other purpose anchors. That's totally fine. I still love baseball cards. If I ever found myself not having enough purpose anchors or not feeling like I was living a life of purpose, I could get involved with baseball cards in so many ways. It just so happens I have other purpose anchors that right now light me up more. And so I'd rather be podcasting and public speaking and writing books, but it's always there. You can't lose if you pursue 10 of them and it lights you up. You can't lose if you pursue one or two of them and it lights you up. You can't lose. There's abundance here. Choose your own adventure. There's no way to go wrong.
- [64:01]
A
What would a person do if one of the regrets that they have comes in the form of a. A relationship that went sour? But all attempts to reach out to that other person have failed.
- [64:14]
B
So in a lot of sense, I don't think that's a purpose problem. That's a meaning problem, right? So the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves really changes about feeling enough and how we feel. And so if this is a relationship in the past that didn't go well, part of that might be reinterpreting that story and that narrative, maybe realizing. They call this narrative therapy, where you go back and you look at trauma in your life or these major narratives and you rewrite them and realize that maybe it was a relationship that went bad, but you were maybe a good actor and things just didn't go well, maybe you were the best person you could be at the time. It's removing yourself from blame and realizing that you might have been a good person in a bad situation or a good person not prepared to deal with the difficulty of the situation. And so, yes, you might always feel the sting of not having that person in your life, but you no longer have agency to that person in your life. So all you can really control is how you interpret what happened and realizing that you were enough then, but it just didn't work out. You are a good person in a bad situation and realizing that that narrative doesn't have to be one of loss, it can be one of growth and gain.
- [65:26]
A
I think where that becomes complicated is when it's a relationship with a family member, a sibling, for example, or it's hard.
- [65:34]
B
I mean, I just.
- [65:35]
A
Perhaps an estranged child even.
- [65:37]
B
Yeah, I mean, there are. I forgot what the studies show, but There are what, 30 or 40% of people now don't speak to a certain family member. I think that's really, really common and that's really something to work out with your therapist. I mean, it's a really hard decision. It's like, like, is my interaction with this person toxic enough that I want to go non contact because they're really not adding to my life anymore, or do I want to continue to try have a relationship? Even though it can be a painful, difficult relationship? I don't know how much that touches on purpose as much as meaning. I think it's a difficult question. But regardless of what you choose, the narratives you tell yourself about that situation and how you interpret it and what sense of meaning you get from it are going to have a profound effect on your sense of happiness and your ability to pursue other types of purpose in your life.
- [66:30]
A
In your work as a hospice doctor, are there any common themes that you have heard around regrets that people have we talked earlier about Bronnie Ware and the. The regrets that she documented, but what have you yourself heard and how have they been similar to or different from the zeitgeist that's out there around this?
- [66:49]
B
So pretty much the regrets almost always revolve around purpose anchors. It's always that I didn't have the courage to pursue this thing that was deeply important to me. Now the thing is, people have different purpose anchors. So there's some themes, right? Like everyone wants to write a book. So there are a lot of people, like, I really wish I wrote my story down. There's a lot of that. Sometimes it has to do with athletics I really wish I competed on a national level in this thing or I we moved and I lost track of that great coach and I started getting involved in something else. And I really wish I had spent my time pursuing this more. So, so. But it really depends on what are those inklings and beckonings and joyful things in people's lives. And we're all kind of different. So what lights you up is slightly different than what lights me up. They're broad categories, but it always comes back to I didn't have the courage to explore that purpose, anchor and build some real purpose around it. Almost never about money, almost never about career achievements, very rarely. And if it is about those things, it's usually I wish I had more money so I could have been in service to other people in a better, more fulfilling way. My father in law just literally passed away a few days ago and we eulogized him two days ago. And all of his family members got up and all of their eulogies were filled with all the things that were little p purpose. He loved politics, he loved arguing, he loved these deep conversations, he loved remodeling houses. All we talked about was little p purpose. You know, it was a huge stressor in his life, money, but that's not what we remember of him. Money was a huge stressor in his life, but what lit him up, what he was excited about, what he did or didn't regret at the end was never money. What we eulogized him about was not money and how much money he made. And he happened to end up being a very successful real estate investor and turned it around, came from Iran, had almost nothing, and eventually died with lots and lots in the bank. But it was the little p purpose that we all wanted to talk about. It's the little p purpose that we carry with us. And let's get into impact and legacy. It was the little p purpose that when his kids got up, they said, I became a better person because when I was little I had these conversations with my dad and we talked about religion and we talked about ethics and he made me help work around the house and I learned how to do all these things that I now are important to me. In a sense, what we remember about him is not his real estate deals and it's not how much money he had in the bank. It was those fantastic conversations that his children will then carry on with their children. That's where his impact and legacy lie. That's when 50, 60 years down the road when people don't speak his name. So often anymore. But there'll be a glint in the eye of some great grandchild when he talks about politics. And it will be the genetic inheritance, the generational inheritance of their great great grandfather, his joy which is passed down through the generations through this modeling of little P purpose.
- [69:49]
A
And that actually leads perfectly to what I was going to ask about next, which is impact and legacy. You know, we've talked so much in this last hour about purpose, about meaning. But how does impact and legacy play a role in all of this?
- [70:06]
B
And I get this all the time. People are like, okay, I get it. Big P purpose, big audacious little P purpose, process oriented. But you know what? If I want to change the world, I'm going to do it with big P purpose. And little P purpose sounds a little selfish, kind of hedonistic even. And here's my answer. Whenever anyone ever asks me this, I talk about my maternal grandfather. So my maternal grandfather died in the 1960s. I was born in the 1970s. So I never met the man. He loved math. He loved it so much he became a CPA. So in the 1950s, when my mom was a little girl, maybe in the 1940s, actually, she would sit on his lap and he'd put out his spreadsheets. Remember, there were computers and QuickBooks and those kind of things then. So he would have this large piece of paper with all these boxes and he'd put all sorts of numbers. And so he would show to her what he was doing. And he loved this. So it lit him up. This was his little P purpose wasn't changing the world. Right? He was an account, like, help some people here and there, but wasn't changing the world. But my mom, as little kids do, decided to try on that identity. She was like, this lights my dad up, probably subconsciously. So I'm going to try that identity on. And she's like, oh, I love math too. Fast forward, years later, she becomes a cpa. When I'm a little kid, I have a learning disability. I can't read. Like, all the kids in my class are reading. I'm coloring and coloring books. I'm severely behind. I would have thought that I was defective and lost, but for one thing, you see, I also loved math because I had seen my mom demonstrate that behavior, and I was pretty darn good at it. And so while I was at the bottom of the class when it came to reading, I was at the top of the class when it came to math. And it was probably the only thing that gave me the courage to Say, okay, I can do this. I'll figure out reading. Years and years later, I become a doctor, a highly mathematical field, And I am in the hospital seeing a patient who keeps on getting admitted on death's doorstep for dehydration. And I'm looking at his labs and I see this mathematical connection between two of his labs. And I realize I know what this is. This is a rare disease. I've never seen it before, but I can tell by the numbers. And we actually diagnose him, get him on the right medicine, he stops being dehydrated, stops coming in. He was a rabbi at a local synagogue and he took in homeless kids, gave them social services if they were old enough, got them a job, gave them food, et cetera. So let's think about this 60 years ago here in New York, because that's where my maternal grandfather lived. A man lived a life of little P purpose. And now, 60 years later, hundreds of miles away, his actions are still affecting people. Some kid in Waukegan, Illinois, hundreds of miles away, is getting services he so desperately needs. Because my maternal grandfather existed like a pebble dropped in the ocean. It displaced just a little bit of water and that formed a wave. And that wave joined with other waves, becoming bigger at times and then dissipated at other times, became just a tiny little displacement. And 60 years later, it's still washing up on sandy shores hundreds of miles away in different places and affecting people. It's been 60 years. No one mentions my maternal grandfather's name. He is not in any of the record books or history books. But he changed the world. And I hope I can convince everyone listening to pursue little P purpose because I want you all to do the same thing. Like I want the bits of you that light you up to last long after you've left this world. And if I can get you to start thinking about that, then I fulfilled my little P purpose.
- [73:33]
A
That's beautiful. We will wrap it there. Thank you for fulfilling your little p purpose on this show. I'm glad to hear you don't regret it. Where can people find you if they would like to hear more?
- [73:45]
B
So if you want to know more, you can go to jordangrumit.com that's J-O-R-A-N G-R-U-M E T.com there you can find links to both my books Taking Stock and the Purpose code, as well as all the places I create content now, including the Earn and Invest podcast. And there's some links to my old medical blog as well. As personal finance blog. So check it out. Jordan Grummet.com thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
- [74:09]
A
Thank you. Dr. Grummet, what are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one. Purpose doesn't have to be world changing. Small, enjoyable activities that light you up are just as valuable as grand ambitions. Dr. Grummet refers to this as little P purpose. And it focuses on the process rather than the outcome. And by doing so counterintuitively, this actually often leads to greater impact than pursuing those big P purpose goals.
- [74:42]
B
Little P purpose just connects you to other people and it brings you those connections. And I think that's the real way we get to happiness. And we know it because here's the thing, like I said, all these great things associated with purpose. But there are other studies that show that up to 91% of people at some point in their life have what's called purpose anxiety.
- [74:58]
A
That is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two. Start with small changes by using the tools at your disposal. You don't necessarily need money in order to start building a more purposeful life. Tools like your youth, your energy, your relationships and your skills can be just as valuable as financial resources when it comes to making changes.
- [75:23]
B
At 22, you have some tools that I, at 51, don't have. So you have your youth and your energy. And Most likely at 22, you might not have a mortgage yet, you might not be married, you might not have kids anymore. So you have this tool of some unencumbered time and some energy to do something with it. So even if you're working 50, 60 hours a week, maybe on Sunday you can start doing something for three hours you really love and enjoy.
- [75:45]
A
So use what you've got. That's the second key takeaway. Finally, key takeaway number three. Side hustles can create gradual freedom. Use the joy of addition to start something new while you're maintaining your current job. Because this can eventually lead to more flexibility, autonomy and control over your time.
- [76:06]
B
After six months, if he made enough money, maybe that gave him some margin and he could start working four days a week instead of five. And so here's the funny thing. What has he done? He's used these tools. We talked about his energy, his free time, his passion to then pull some of those levers, right? The joy of addition. He added in three hours of fun stuff every week, even if he didn't change anything else. But since he started making some money, he could also then start using the art of subtraction and subtract out something he didn't like, which was his 60 hour work week.
- [76:35]
A
Those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Jordan Grummet. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share this with the people in your life. Your friends, your colleagues, your neighbors. Tell your barista about it. Tell your siblings. Tell your friends. Tell your siblings friends. That is the single most important thing that you can do to spread the message of great financial health. Also, open up the app that you're using to listen to this show and make sure that you hit the follow button so you don't miss any amazing upcoming episodes. And Question Are you making tiny financial tweaks in your life that add up over time to big changes? Are you embracing the aggregation of marginal gains? Well, if you are not yet, it's not too late. We have a free guide called One Tweak a Week with 52 tweaks that you can make throughout the year. One tweak per week across 2025 so that you can have a stronger, healthier, more vibrant financial life. Each one of these tweaks in isolation seems like nothing. It requires almost no time, no effort. Some of these tweaks are as small as changing your thermostat or adding some weather stripping around your windows. But by having a cue, a reminder to do these things in a busy life, piece by piece, tiny move by tiny move, you can make little micro optimizations. And the aggregation of these across 52 weeks can add up to significant savings. And that's money you can invest. Which means compounded savings turn into compounded investments. So download our free guide, One Tweak a Week at affordanything.com Financial Goals. That's affordanything.com Financial Goals. And join us, join our community as we make these tiny tweaks to our life life every week over the span of 2025. Again, affordanything.com financial goals. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is the Afford Anything podcast. My name is Paula Pant and I'll meet you in the next episode.