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Finding Your Purpose - in 7 Words or Less
287 Plays4 days ago
🧭 Episode Summary
In the inaugural guest episode of Season 6, Ian Chamandy of Purpose U explores the power of purpose—and why defining it in seven words or less can transform your retirement journey.
Together, Ian & Jacquie dive into how knowing your unique gift can provide clarity, boost confidence, and serve as a personal decision-making tool—especially during major life transitions, such as retirement.
Whether you feel uncertain about your next chapter or you’re simply looking to make more intentional decisions, this episode will guide you to the core of who you are and what truly matters.
🔑 Key Topics & Takeaways
- What is Purpose (really)?
- Purpose in 7 Words or Less
- Trigger Events and Why Retirement Qualifies
- Beliefs, Wants & Talents: Your Personal DNA
- Real-Life Case Study: “Make It Simpler”
- Why It’s Never Too Late to Define Your Purpose
- How Purpose Can Enhance Relationships with Advisors
💬 Notable Quotes
“Your purpose is your gift—and your job is to share it with the world.”
“Purpose isn’t what you do. It’s the one thing that makes you uniquely remarkable.”
“If everything you do is a means to an end—what’s the end?”
“When you know your purpose, you elevate your confidence… and simplify your decisions.”
📌 Resources Mentioned
- 🌐 Purpose U Course Website
- 🧠 Book Reference: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
- 🔧 Course Tools: Step-by-step videos, AI assistant “Wordsmith,” and open forums to support learners
- 📝 Course Framework:
- Phase 1: Deconstruct past accomplishments to uncover beliefs, wants, and talents
- Phase 2: Build your purpose statement
- Phase 3: Learn how to live aligned with that purpose
👤 Ian Chamandy is the co-founder of Purpose U and the creator of the “7 words or less” purpose-defining method. With a background in strategic consulting and communications, Ian has worked with over 400 organizations and now helps individuals unlock the next phase of life with clarity and confidence.
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Transcript
Exploring Life Post-Retirement
00:00:03
Speaker
Retirement. That's what we're all aiming at, right? But exactly what does that mean? conjures up visions of endless days of golf, drinks with little umbrellas in them on a tropical beach, feet up reading a book.
00:00:16
Speaker
Is that what it's all about? I don't think so. Life would get pretty dull after a while without anything meaningful to do, don't you think? I'm Jackie Doucette, and I'm on a mission to discover exactly what life is like beyond retirement.
00:00:30
Speaker
Join me while I chat with people who've already done it, who've retired to something rather than from something. Let's find out together exactly what's waiting for us when we say goodbye to that nine to five.
Podcast Comeback & Guest Introduction
00:00:51
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to episode 266 of Beyond Retirement. That sounds like a pretty big number, but this is going to be my first guest recording in over two years, so kind of bear with me as I get my feet back under me. I'm sure I'm going to stumble a little bit.
00:01:07
Speaker
Today, I'm really thrilled to be joined by Shamandy. Ian is the co-founder and the chief purpose officer of PurposeU. And i had to look it up. PurposeU is a platform that helps individuals discover and live their unique purpose, especially during major life transitions, kind of like ah retirement.
Purpose and Mental Health in Retirement
00:01:28
Speaker
So Ian, thanks for coming on and joining me today. Oh, thanks for having me, Jackie. So the first thing I want to say is this season I'm talking about or I'm hoping that we are going to talk about mental health, physical health, personal growth, enjoyment and or relationships.
00:01:48
Speaker
And given what I've seen of the goal of Purpose U, I'd say that probably it's easy to see how you can hit on at least four of those themes without any trouble. Absolutely. that you know Once you know your purpose, it tends its tentacles reach out into every area of your life.
00:02:07
Speaker
So you you talk about purpose, and I saw on Purpose U that it the idea is that you can express it in seven words or less. How might someone go about doing that? How do you help people approaching retirement with that kind of idea? Absolutely.
00:02:23
Speaker
Um, well, uh, you know, I've created a course ah that you can take online and it takes about six hours to do. And I walk you through step by step through a part a process of discovering your purpose and then articulating it in, in seven words or less. And I know that that doesn't sound like very many words, but you can usually do it in two or three or four.
00:02:48
Speaker
Um, but, um, you know Once you do that, it's like, I think that you know the the question that you might ask before that is, look what actually is purpose?
00:03:04
Speaker
And I think this is a really important question because you know if you if you pulled 100 people over on the street, I think most of them would say something like, the reason I exist.
00:03:19
Speaker
It's like,
00:03:21
Speaker
That's a big, that's a really big thing. And how the heck would you ever figure out why you exist? You know, yeah you don't have a reason to exist. You were just born.
Defining and Discovering Purpose
00:03:34
Speaker
You're here now. And, you know, based on who you uniquely are, you have a purpose in life. And Picasso, you know, the artist, he,
00:03:48
Speaker
draw draw a few few cool paintings. But he also um came up with a great quote about purpose. He said, the meaning of life is to find your gift.
00:04:00
Speaker
And your purpose is to share it with the world. So I just simplified that. And I said, the meaning of life is to find your gift and share it with the world. So your purpose is your gift.
00:04:17
Speaker
That's an easier question to answer. What's your gift? What is the one thing at your essence that makes you uniquely remarkable?
00:04:29
Speaker
And that's what we do in the course is I help you go through a process. to take who you are the big complexity of who you are, bring it down to a much simpler level so that you can identify, everybody has at their root one thing that makes them uniquely remarkable.
00:04:49
Speaker
And that's what we identify in the course. So in the course, I help you find your gift and then I show you how to share it with the world.
00:05:01
Speaker
It's a big goal for your course, I think. Because I think a lot of people would go into it thinking, I don't have anything. There's nothing uniquely special about me. I'm just me.
00:05:13
Speaker
Yes, and and that is that is why I offer the course. Because if that's how you're thinking, I think that you're thinking exactly like more than half the people in the world are thinking right now.
00:05:27
Speaker
There's nothing special about me. And because there's nothing special about me, I don't deserve anything special. And I can't do anything special. And I'm here to tell you that until you find somebody in the world who is exactly the same as you, more the same as you than an identical twin, because they're different.
00:05:49
Speaker
Until you can find that person, then you have something that makes you uniquely remarkable. And when you realize that, and when you discover what it is, you have two great benefits that accrue to you.
00:06:05
Speaker
One is, just an elevation of confidence. All of a sudden, for the first time in your life, you can identify your superpower. What makes you in it uniquely remarkable? You can, like you know, in all the things that you've done and accomplished in your life, it's been working there and you didn't know it.
00:06:23
Speaker
But now you've brought it to the surface and you can articulate it. And when you know you have a superpower, this superpower you know you've got something special and nobody can take it away from you. So I'll tell you mine.
00:06:40
Speaker
Transforming confusion into clarity. Now, you can say a lot of things about me, but you can never take away that superpower because I know how to do that. I know if a person or a group of people have a really you know complex, intractable problem,
Purpose in Retirement Planning
00:06:59
Speaker
like trying to figure out what your purpose is,
00:07:03
Speaker
I know how to deconstruct that problem into simpler pieces. And when you're looking at at at the simpler level, a simpler solution pops out and you go, oh, well, that's pretty self-evident. And that makes a whole lot of sense.
00:07:19
Speaker
and Nobody will ever be able to take that away from me. So I know that that's my strength and that elevates my confidence. But here's the thing. Here's the second benefit. And this is the one that is so important for retirement.
00:07:33
Speaker
It's like, okay, you've figured out your purpose. You've even figured out it in seven words or less. Why? What does it do? How does it benefit you? Well, it elevates your confidence. That's great. That's nice, fine and dandy.
00:07:48
Speaker
But here's the thing. The second benefit is that it becomes a decision-making tool for you and here's why your purpose in the course what i do is i help you break down your purpose or what makes you uniquely remarkable into its components into its atoms and there are three groups of components to your purpose your beliefs your wants, and your talents.
00:08:19
Speaker
And this is why everybody in the world is unique, because there is an infinite mixing of beliefs, wants, and talents, and whatever your unique mixing is, is what makes you uniquely remarkable.
00:08:33
Speaker
But here's the thing. When you're in retirement, if you're if you're approaching retirement, and you're saying, oh my God, this a huge life transformation, What am I going to do? What am I going to do do in this area of my life? what you know ah what What's the what I call the second half?
00:08:53
Speaker
What's the second half going to be? that's a really big question, right? If the question you ask instead is, what options do I have going forward that align with my purpose?
00:09:09
Speaker
that align with transforming confusion into clarity for me. Now, my question is much narrower, which, you know, you may say, well, that's limiting. No, and no, no, no, no.
00:09:21
Speaker
You're focusing on your purpose. And when you do that, then a whole world of options opens up for you that you didn't see before.
00:09:35
Speaker
But here's the thing about all those options. They're all aligned with your beliefs, wants, and talents. So they're all valid choices. So you're going to face a million questions as you approach retirement and as you're in retirement.
00:09:47
Speaker
And if you have a decision-making tool that makes all those decisions easier for you and that guarantees that the decisions that you make that are aligned with your purpose are also aligned with your beliefs, wants, and talents, which is why they feel so right and make such logical sense, then it's going to be way easier for you to make decisions for yourself about what you're going to do.
00:10:14
Speaker
Sorry, that was a bit of a long monologue. No, that that was great. that was That was excellent. And you answered a whole bunch of questions. Okay.
Purpose Through Life Transitions
00:10:22
Speaker
So for... you know Joe Smith on the street who is approaching retirement, he's been doing his job thinking, this is what I do, this is what I'm good at, this is kind of my purpose in life is whatever my profession happens to be.
00:10:38
Speaker
Now he's retiring and he kind of says, what do you mean I have to find something new now? I have to start all over again? How do you take someone who has an idea of what they are and help them figure out what's really important now and without giving away your whole course, how do you help them find that? Yeah. yeah Yeah. Um, so I want to give you, um a case study. Um, so, and I often lose my thread cause, cause I tend to talk a lot.
00:11:10
Speaker
So I want to come back to the case study. Um, But, you know, you said i have to start something new. You're not actually starting something new because here's the thing.
00:11:22
Speaker
One of the best metaphors that I've ever heard for purpose, or I actually borrowed the metaphor from prof at Northwestern University. I think it's in Illinois. And he wrote a book called Gödel, Escher and Bach. Gödel is a mathematician whose law rocked the world, not just not just the math world, but the world period.
00:11:45
Speaker
Escher is the artist that a lot of us had in our you know in our university and college dorms with the you know the three de dimension or it's sorry the the optical illusion art. And Bach is the guy, you know, he wrote a few pop tunes back in the day.
00:11:58
Speaker
And so this author described them as three shadows cast from the same stone. And the book attempted to describe the stone.
00:12:10
Speaker
And that's the way I look at purpose. Your purpose is the stone. It is the central core of who you are. And everything that you do is a shadow cast from the stone.
00:12:22
Speaker
Now, when you don't know what your purpose is, you're not doing it that you're not doing it intentionally you're sort of doing your purpose is in there doing its best to keep you on course but when you know it then you can stick to your purpose with intention so you asked me about somebody who you know benefited from this right so there was this guy And he was the chief communications officer at a university.
00:12:52
Speaker
And you know, when you're at the C level, um you're working 12, 14 hours a day, six days a week. You're you're on the treadmill. And as as a mentor of mine once said to me, what role the do people play in the rat race?
00:13:10
Speaker
And I said, I don't know what. And he said, the rat. And it was like, uh. So this guy he's five years from retirement. And he's got to you know he's got a ah a retirement fund, but he doesn't think it's quite there yet.
00:13:25
Speaker
It needs more money. and But he can't imagine running the treadmill for five more years.
00:13:37
Speaker
So he figured out his purpose. And not surprisingly for somebody who spent his life creating clear communication, that his purpose was make it simpler.
00:13:54
Speaker
And when he realized that, he looked at his life and he said, just a mass of complexity. And so he realized he had to simplify.
00:14:07
Speaker
But what simplifying means... To him, if he wants to work for the next five years and top off, he's he's if he wants a simpler job, that means lesser title, lesser salary, lesser status.
00:14:24
Speaker
Who takes a step back willingly? This guy did. He said, why am i why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? How much do I need?
00:14:34
Speaker
What kind of salary do I need? Hey, if ah that's all the salary I need for five more years, what kind of job can I get out there that's a make it simpler job?
00:14:46
Speaker
And being the staff writer for for a technology not-for-profit, is what he ended up doing for five years. He comes in the morning, nine o'clock, clocks in.
00:14:59
Speaker
He writes, he writes, he writes, press releases, communications pieces, blah, blah, blah. He's not in charge. he's not He's not in charge of marketing. He's not in charge of communications. He's just a writer.
00:15:12
Speaker
And he clocks out at five o'clock and he doesn't think about his job again until nine o'clock the next morning. And he did that for five years. And then he retired.
00:15:22
Speaker
He and his wife moved to Vancouver Island. They bought a cabin there. And then he wrote and published his first novel. And now he's writing his second novel.
00:15:34
Speaker
And this guy, like his cortisol levels for five years went way down. But how do you give yourself permission to take that big step back?
00:15:47
Speaker
to get what you really wanted. And what he really wanted those last five years was a low stress writing job. But it wasn't until he revealed that his purpose was make it simpler, that that he knew that and that it give he could give himself the permission to take a step back.
00:16:10
Speaker
Well, it's really interesting. I don't know anyone who would at the end of their career step back like that. You know, I love to feel confident. Yes, yes. I love this expression.
00:16:23
Speaker
Give yourself permission to because, you know, if for most people when they're at that EVP or C level or whatever, if you say to them, would you be happier in a less stressful job? they say Yeah, less stress. Thanks.
00:16:41
Speaker
And would you be happy with, you know, less responsibility? My brother ran a big company. And he said, you know, I never got to do any of the work I love to do. It was always dealing with people issues.
00:16:55
Speaker
And I hated doing that. And I and i totally understand that. And so, but, you know, you can't you can't make the decision to step backwards without something, without a jolt of some sort.
00:17:14
Speaker
And maybe you do that yourself, and that's great. But what jolted this guy was discovering his purpose. And so that took him from the idea of taking a step back, not being even being on his radar, because his ego can't give him the permission to do that.
00:17:34
Speaker
This is what he's worked for all his life, to be a senior guy. But finding his purpose, all of a sudden, changed and he was able to give himself the permission to take the step back and oh my god he was so much happier once he did
00:17:53
Speaker
So do you have people going through your course who really struggle with finding their purpose? They they they have roadblocks in the way, things that that don't or that set them backwards kind of in in trying to find their purpose? Or do people find what it is their purpose is relatively easily?
00:18:15
Speaker
Well, that's that's why they're taking the course, because they can't find it. And the reason they can't find it is, um you know, the old cliche, you can't do therapy on yourself, right? And and you can't, you you need to be separate from yourself in a sense, right?
00:18:36
Speaker
and And look at your life objectively and look at, so what I get you to do is I get you to identify two accomplishments in your life, one from work, one from not work.
00:18:51
Speaker
And the reason I get you to identify two accomplishments and and and the the one of the criteria is it's got you know and it's it's an accomplishment. You've got to be proud of it.
00:19:03
Speaker
And if you were proud of it, you were probably loving working on it. You were in that flow state, you know, where you um where you just you wake up every morning and you you want to contribute more and you can't wait to see the outcome. And once you do, you're really proud.
00:19:17
Speaker
You could have done it all yourself. You could have been one of a cast of thousands, but you're just really proud of it. And it really brought out the best in you. Brought out the best in you? Oh, it brought out your purpose. And so because your purpose is so present when you are doing an accomplishment that you, um you know, that you're proud of, i get you to break it down.
00:19:42
Speaker
I take you through step by step a way to deconstruct it. Remember I said that was my process is deconstructing into simpler elements. And then the the answer pops out and it's simple and self-evident.
00:19:55
Speaker
So that's what I get you to do. It's a seven. The first phase is a seven step process to deconstruct your accomplishments. And at the end, you're left with three buckets I told you about before.
00:20:06
Speaker
What you reveal are your beliefs, wants and talents. Now you have the building blocks. of your personality. And we use those building blocks of your personality in the next phase of of the course to actually reveal your purpose statement.
00:20:24
Speaker
And you do that with, I'm on sitting at one side of you holding your hand because there's like 27 videos there. Don't be intimidated by that. They're like too many two minutes, five minutes at the most.
00:20:38
Speaker
But there's 27 videos of me giving you very detailed instructions on what to do. And then on the other side of you is sitting Wordsmith, which is our AI assistant.
00:20:53
Speaker
And words you're going to use wordsmith as you go through the exercises to do two things. One is to help you find the words, right? So when you're when you're answering a question in an exercise, you may come up with words that kind of capture it. you you know It's like, i I'm sort of in the neighborhood, but i i need to make it sharper.
00:21:14
Speaker
And you can't, because that's a challenge that most people have. Most people. Right. So you can go to Wordsmith and you can say, make this clearer, make it happier, make it more businesslike, make it this, make it that. You can try it in all sorts of different ways.
00:21:30
Speaker
And Wordsmith can help you find the words. And then the other thing it can do is Wordsmith can help you see what you can't see yourself. So there can be a whole bunch of like raw data, for instance.
00:21:42
Speaker
And we in the course have Wordsmith say, what do you see here that I don't see? And then. Stuff pops out and you go, whoa, that's me. That's me. Yeah, I got.
00:21:53
Speaker
And it sort of you know, you have two reactions. Whoa, that's cool. I didn't know that about me. And then you say, well, I kind of did know that about me because, yeah, that's who I've always been. So that's that's how you run through the course with me on one side and wordsmith on the other side.
00:22:10
Speaker
So as you were doing that, I was thinking i was back stuck on the give me two accomplishments. What happens when you can't, your life has just been kind of ho-hum and you can't come up with things that you're really proud of that you've done in your life?
00:22:26
Speaker
Well, I just don't believe that for one thing. um I think people can have problems recollecting that. But, I mean, come on. I mean, I'm 66 years old. you telling me i have gone through my whole life without having a single business accomplishment and a single accomplishment in my personal life?
00:22:48
Speaker
Now, I give you criteria for what a an accomplishment needs to be. And people do, you know, have a challenge. Now, what I do is every other week, every other Thursday at lunchtime, I have an open forum.
00:23:02
Speaker
And any ah people taking the course can join me. And I answer questions. So if you do have a challenge figuring out your accomplishments, come join me.
00:23:14
Speaker
And I'll lead you through a process. you know I'll talk you through a process where you where you figure out two accomplishments. But it's also there's other people there. So they're benefiting.
00:23:25
Speaker
The fact that you brought this forward. They're learning from you and you're learning from them. so So this is just a something that I offer.
00:23:36
Speaker
There's also, excuse me, a community space. So if you don't want to wait for my you know for my Thursday open forum, you can post a question to the community. I monitor that myself, but also other community members do.
00:23:51
Speaker
And they may you know they may be able to help you out. so So there's lots of resources, lots of resources for for for getting through
Trigger Events and Purpose Discovery
00:24:01
Speaker
this course. And, and you know, coming up your with your purpose is not an easy thing.
00:24:06
Speaker
And that's why I've built in so much like technology assistance and step-by-step and detailed videos and worksheets. And there's, you know, there's so much there to help you move along.
00:24:23
Speaker
So I know this is being kind of generic, but in your in your program, do you have mostly people who are um moving or trying to move or thinking of moving from one position to another or people who are retiring?
00:24:40
Speaker
ah what What stage of life are they at? Okay, so um they can be at any stage of life. By the way, going back to the accomplishments, is beyond retirement not an accomplishment of yours?
00:24:54
Speaker
A business accomplishment? Of course it is. I'm going answer it for you. Of course it is. And it makes you, you're proud doing this. You don't get through 250 plus episodes without be proud being proud of what you're bringing to your audience.
00:25:09
Speaker
so um So there you go. There, you've got one. Now you just need one from your personal life. Okay, so I've forgotten your question now. What stage of life are most of the people at? Oh, right, right.
00:25:21
Speaker
So um I don't characterize it as as stage of life. What we do is we talk about trigger events. And a trigger or event is something significant that happens in your life.
00:25:34
Speaker
And there is there is a process to trigger events. So let's let's take retirement. But I'll also, you can apply this to, you know, on the other end of the spectrum, you can apply it to graduation from university.
00:25:49
Speaker
You can apply it to career change. And that can happen in one of three ways. It's either your choice, it's a layoff, or it's a firing. All three of those are trigger events and in their own way.
00:26:02
Speaker
And retirement is a trigger event because for most people, and I think you said this up front, they get their feeling of purpose from their careers and their family, right?
00:26:12
Speaker
Those aren't your purpose. Those are expressions. Those are shadows cast from your purpose stone. So um um as you approach retirement,
00:26:27
Speaker
That's a trigger event. And what a trigger event does is it creates, this is step two, it creates a whole bunch of unanswered questions. And this is step three. When you have unanswered questions about something that is material to you, it creates anxiety.
00:26:49
Speaker
and um And that anxiety compromises your decision-making. So at a time when you're facing really important decisions, your decision-making ability is compromising compromised by the anxiety of unanswered questions.
00:27:09
Speaker
if you like If you go back to the other end of the spectrum, graduation. Okay, this is, you know, you graduate from university. It's really your graduation from childhood to adulthood. Now you're expected to be an adult. You're expected to go out there and get a job and, um you know, and and work for your money and pay your rent. And you got to learn all about adulting.
00:27:31
Speaker
um and But you've never done it before. So it's all a mystery to you, all unanswered questions. And you know you have anxiety as you go as you graduate and go out into the workforce. So back to back to retirement.
00:27:45
Speaker
How? So this process of trigger event, unanswered questions, anxiety, compromised decision-making, what's the what's the antidote for that? Well, it's having and a decision-making tool That if you align your decisions with your decision-making tool, you know they're aligned with you. You know they're aligned with your beliefs, wants, and talents.
00:28:11
Speaker
So every time you align a decision with your purpose, you know it's aligned with your beliefs, wants, and talents. So the antidote to trigger events is knowing your purpose.
00:28:23
Speaker
And that can happen at any trigger event, divorce, empty nest, midlife crisis, ah health event. um You know, there's lots of them.
00:28:37
Speaker
And your purpose is going to be the same, regardless of what trigger event sat you know sets it ah or sets off your search for it? Is that true?
00:28:49
Speaker
So the student the student right out of university would, will have the same trigger or the same purpose at that point as they would have as they reach retirement or will they change?
00:28:59
Speaker
In university, um I was ah spectacularly unspectacular student. ah I went to, I but i spent my two years, first two years and in university failing half of my courses.
00:29:14
Speaker
And the other half, D plus, C minus average. So, you know, my future looked a little bleak. I took a year off and then I came back to school and I said, okay, I'm gonna get a i going to get a major.
00:29:31
Speaker
So i I got a psych major. um And I'm only going to take courses that I like. None of this taking boring courses anymore. And the third thing is I'm going to take paper ah courses where the primary mark is based on papers and not exams. I can't study for exams. I can go into a library and I can research a topic to death and then I can write about it.
00:29:56
Speaker
So i told you about this book, Gödel, Escher and Bach, which is about this thick. And it's very intellectually dense. And I knew that I was not going to be able to read it.
00:30:08
Speaker
So ah there there was a philosophy prof who offered a course on it. not Not this was the textbook for the course. The course was about the book. Studying. yeah And I had to, for that course, keep in mind this is 1980 81.
00:30:26
Speaker
nineteen eighty or eighty one I had to write it a paper that was essentially DNA for dummies. But this was at the beginning, really, of the DNA revolution.
00:30:38
Speaker
And I was fortunate enough to have a close friend who was in the first wave of genetic biologists. He became a PhD in genetic biology. And so I grilled him about DNA because I knew nothing about it.
00:30:51
Speaker
And then what I did is I took all of his... What do you mean by that? brit what Bruce, wait you what the heck are you... and And I had to synthesize it.
00:31:02
Speaker
And then I wrote DNA for Dummies. It wasn't titled that. But what I did is I used like a regional geographic metaphor.
00:31:14
Speaker
There's the big city. There are the smaller cities around it. The head office is in the big city. That's where the instructions are, the DNA. But the manufacturing plants are in the cities around the provinces. That's where the proteins are made.
00:31:29
Speaker
And how did the manufacturing instructions get from head office out to the branch plants? Well, there's a type of DNA called messenger DNA that carries the the the instruction.
00:31:42
Speaker
and and so And then there's another type of DNA called transfer DNA. And those are the trucks. Right. that drive the messenger DNA from head office out to the plants and deliver the message, deliver the instructions for the plants to produce proteins that, you know, produce fingers and eyes and, you know, stuff like that.
00:32:01
Speaker
I was doing transforming transforming confusion into clarity in university. Transforming confusion. When I went back and I became an A student because I was only writing papers,
00:32:15
Speaker
But all those papers were about transforming confusion into clarity, transforming confusion into clarity, which is is what salvaged my university career and allowed me to get out of there with a degree.
00:32:30
Speaker
So and here I am doing the same thing.
Applying Purpose to Life Accomplishments
00:32:34
Speaker
Forty, 40 years later, continuing to transform confusion into clarity.
00:32:40
Speaker
So just quickly, since you said to me that one of my accomplishments would be beyond retirement, what would you do with me next to to help me figure out what my purpose is from that?
00:32:54
Speaker
Well, in the course, I take you through, so this is the first phase of the course. There's three phases of the course. First phase is create the raw material. Second phase figure out your purpose statement. Third phase figure out how to live how to tell the story of your purpose, and how to live according to your purpose.
00:33:13
Speaker
So in the in the first stage, we would take beyond retirement, and I lead you through a process of increasingly more difficult questions. But because of the questions before... You know the answer.
00:33:32
Speaker
Yeah. So for instance, step five, if you started there, That would be a really difficult question. But if you do steps one, two, three, and four first, then step five becomes kind of self-evident and easy to do.
00:33:47
Speaker
So I lead you through that process of just deconstructing it to see, you know, you know what Beyond Retirement is all about. You know the people you've interviewed. You know the topics you've covered.
00:33:59
Speaker
But there's a whole world of Beyond Retirement that you don't know, even though it's your thing. And what we do is we lift up the rug you know or Or in the Wizard of Oz metaphor, we pull back the curtain and then there's a whole bunch of stuff that that's going on below the surface that you don't realize is going on inside your head about beyond retirement.
00:34:22
Speaker
And that's you know that's the stuff that we pull out. So I've already got seven words or less because I say retire to something, not from something. But that's not my purpose. That's just kind of a tagline for what I've built.
00:34:37
Speaker
So what a tagline is, right? So you're to have a purpose statement in seven words or less. When you have that purpose statement, this is what I say to companies, right? Because I do this for companies. That's that's a completely separate company called Blueprint, where I help them define their purpose in seven words or less.
00:34:58
Speaker
And that guides all of their operations and all of their communications. And then, you know, you and I are talking about doing it. For a person. Doing it for for individuals.
00:35:09
Speaker
So for a company, for instance, they may have a purpose statement that is bang on accurate. Logically, it makes sense. It resonates emotionally with them.
00:35:21
Speaker
But they may need something else that is outward facing. They may need a tagline that is an expression, right, of the purpose.
00:35:32
Speaker
Okay. but in different words, because those words in a marketing setting will resonate more. But, you know, if you and I were and we're sitting here And I said, oh, that company, its purpose statement is x and its tagline is Y. You would say, oh, well, its tagline is just an expression of its purpose statement.
00:35:58
Speaker
just a different way of saying the same thing. Right. That's exactly what a tagline is. And if you have a tagline that's different from your purpose statement, it means that those words in the tagline work better in a marketing and sales context than your purpose does.
00:36:14
Speaker
But your purpose is still the chief decision maker in your organization or in your life.
Purpose's Role in Life Satisfaction
00:36:22
Speaker
So i have one final question then for someone, um an individual who is searching still for his or her purpose at the end of their work life.
00:36:36
Speaker
What would you say to them if they're if they come to you and they say, what's the point in finding a purpose now? i mean, I know what I would say, but at this point in my life, why what's it going to do for me?
00:36:51
Speaker
What are you going to do with the rest of your life is what I would reply. And if you're a man, i would say, what are you going to do stay out of your wife's hair that she doesn't leave you?
00:37:06
Speaker
But there's another aspect of this, too, because, you know, as you as you approach retirement or when you're early in retirement, um you've got to make a lot of important financial decisions.
00:37:17
Speaker
And if you have an investment advisor, your investment advisor, you know, what what's what are the what's the acronym? ah Know your client KYC. Right. That's all. Those are all that, you know, everybody in in in the investment advisor business, know your client, know your client. And they've all got a process for knowing their client.
00:37:38
Speaker
When you can tell. Your investment advisor, what your purpose is, what you're using to make decisions going forward. Now, the two of you have become teammates in your purpose. You have invited.
00:37:56
Speaker
your investment advisor into your purpose, into the big tent of your purpose, right? Notice that my purpose does not say I transform confusion into clarity.
00:38:07
Speaker
I don't own transforming confusion into clarity. It's just what I have a skill for and what I'm committed to. But you can be a part of it too, right? So as an investment advisor, I want you to know my purpose and be a part of my purpose because one of the things you can do is you can figure out stuff.
00:38:26
Speaker
just knowing my purpose. Or you can call me on decisions that I'm making. You can say, hey, Ian, that's not aligned with your purpose. Here is a trick. When I'm talking to an investment advisor and I say, if you know your client's purpose, here's what you do.
00:38:45
Speaker
put it in chat GPT. You say, i am an investment advisor. This is my client's purpose. I need to know as much about my client as possible.
00:38:57
Speaker
Give me 20 questions to ask my client about their relate their life that are based on their purpose.
00:39:09
Speaker
And you are going to open up a whole new world of knowledge about your client because those questions are likely not going to be the same questions that you're asking already. But they're more. It's not not that the questions that you're asking now are not important.
00:39:25
Speaker
But they're kind of generic questions that you ask everybody, as opposed to having a very specific direction about this person, because you know who they are at their essence.
00:39:38
Speaker
You know that I am about transforming confusion into clarity. What are 20 questions I can ask Ian about transforming, and ah um about his future and his financial needs that are all aligned with transforming confusion into clarity?
00:39:56
Speaker
That's a great way to get to know me. It raises know your client up to a you know whole different level. 2.0. two point ah So, again, I know what the answer is going to be to this question, but what would you say to someone who's struggling with how to move forward in their retirement right now?
00:40:17
Speaker
um Just to give them the logical first step, what would you tell them?
00:40:23
Speaker
ah Well, my answer is going to be very self-serving, right? Of course. Because it's going to be figure out your purpose and, and you know, go to purposeu.ai. So that's Purpose University, but it's sort of purposeu, letter U, dot AI, and and sign up for the course and take it.
00:40:45
Speaker
And that will change your life. You will feel like, so I i had a guy who did it did the course in August and he wrote me and he said, when my purpose statement popped out, all of a sudden my whole life just came into, kind ah came into context.
00:41:05
Speaker
I understood what I had done in the past to get here and why i had done it. And I understand where I'm going. And now I feel like I have clarity.
00:41:17
Speaker
It's like the veil lifted and the fog cleared. And I have clarity about who I am and where I'm going. And the things that I don't know yet, I know I'm going to be able to figure out because I just have to ask the question, how you know what option best aligns with my purpose?
Purpose vs. Why
00:41:37
Speaker
Perfect. Thank you very much, Ian. I've really enjoyed this. I think it's been fantastic learning experience because I tell people all the time, figure out what your why is, what your purpose is, why are you doing that today? And you take it to the very core.
00:41:55
Speaker
Can I explain to you the difference between your why why and your purpose? Yep. Yeah. So for those who don't know, your why is a creation of Simon Sinek. I think he's a prophet.
00:42:07
Speaker
He might be at Harvard or at, but it's a brilliant concept. And his thesis, and it's it's to companies mostly, his thesis is,
00:42:19
Speaker
People don't buy what you do or how you do it. They buy why you do it. And so you need to know why you do what you do. And almost no company knows that.
00:42:33
Speaker
But here's the, you know, one of the best examples he gives is Apple. Right. So Apple's purpose statement or Apple's why is changing the game.
00:42:44
Speaker
Apple has never invented anything. It's just taken something that existed, like a BlackBerry, and it made it 100 times better.
00:42:57
Speaker
Did it with pads, did it with computers, did it with CarPlay. So they're all all about changing the game. And... um um
00:43:11
Speaker
Forgot the question again, Jackie. It was the the why or the purpose. i was just Oh, right. so So your why is why you do what you do. And his thesis is that the primary people, primary reason people buy Apple is because they buy into changing the game.
00:43:32
Speaker
They want the most um the most contemporary technology. But also... When I use my iPhone, I wear changing the game, you know, like a badge on my chest.
00:43:47
Speaker
I got an iPhone. Look at me changing the game, right? I know it's silly, but it's human psychology. um So the difference between your why and your purpose is nothing.
00:44:00
Speaker
Nothing. They're the same thing. It's Simon Sinek and I talking about the same issue, just using different words. It's the same concept. and So if you want to know your why, you want to know your why,
00:44:12
Speaker
Come to purposeu.ai and I'll lead you through a process. And I think we have a sale on now. it's um It's October 27th when we're recording this. um But um we have a sale on now. So it's it's it's a very reduced price and it's a limited time offer. So please go to purposeu.ai and take advantage that, please.
00:44:36
Speaker
and take advantage that of that please Awesome. um Thanks again, Ian. Thank you very much for joining me today and for explaining all about how someone can find their purpose and live a life that's aligned with it.
Final Thoughts and Exercises
00:44:50
Speaker
Is there anything else you'd like to say before we close up? I often get asked by people even more so by companies, what do we do to prepare? And I say, just a thought exercise.
00:45:06
Speaker
If everything you do is a means to an end, what's the end purpose? And so if you're a company, you've got all these activities you do. Imagine being a bank, right?
00:45:19
Speaker
A bank is like a hundred separate businesses all under one roof. But guess what? That bank has one thing that makes it uniquely remarkable.
00:45:31
Speaker
Um, So and the same with an individual, all the things you do. Remember, we said you you think your purpose is your work and and your family until you retire. And then it's like, well, what is it now?
00:45:44
Speaker
um So the question is, if everything you do is a means to an end. What is the end purpose? And it recognizes that none of the activities that you do as an individual or a company are your purpose.
00:46:00
Speaker
They are all expressions of your purpose. So the question forces you to say, oh, these things that I thought were my purpose aren't. I have to look one level above that. and see the common thread tying them all together.
00:46:13
Speaker
If you can figure it out yourself, all the more power to you. But again, you can't do you can't do therapy on yourself. So it that'll give you a head start, but it likely won't give you the answer.
00:46:24
Speaker
Perfect. Thanks very much. My pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity, Jackie.
00:46:31
Speaker
And that's it for this episode of Beyond Retirement. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. I hope you enjoyed it. Are you ready to start rocking your retirement? Head on over to www.beyondretirement.ca forward slash rocking it and sign up to plan out your own roadmap for retirement.
00:46:50
Speaker
Don't wait till it's too late.