The 7-Word Purpose: How to Discover What Makes You Uniquely Remarkable with Ian Chamandy

In this powerful episode, Deepali sits down with Ian Chamandy, the creator of the world-famous 7-Word Purpose framework, to explore what purpose really means — beyond job titles, passion projects, or the social media version of “living your best life.”

For 20 years, Ian has helped over 400 CEOs, organizations, and individuals distill their essence into seven words or less — and today, he breaks down how that same clarity can change your life.

Whether you’re feeling stuck, burnt out, or simply searching for meaning, this conversation will help you uncover the question at the heart of all transformation:

👉 What makes you uniquely remarkable?

⭐ Key Takeaways

✨ Purpose isn’t created — it’s uncovered.
✨ If you can’t express your purpose concisely, you don’t truly know it.
✨ Clarity makes life easier — choices, energy, confidence, everything.
✨ Your purpose has been with you since childhood; you’ve just forgotten.
✨ Purpose makes you more interesting, grounded, and unmistakably YOU.

⭐ Listener Reflection Prompts

Ask yourself tonight:
 • When in my life have I felt most alive?
• What do people always come to me for?
• What feels effortless, even when it’s hard?
• What seven words describe the impact I want to make?

⭐ About Ian Chamandy

Ian is a purpose strategist, speaker, and the creator of the 7-Word Purpose method. His work has transformed organizations, leaders, and individuals looking for meaning, direction, and alignment. He helps people answer life’s most defining question with radical clarity.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianchamandy/

https://www.purposeu.ai/

⭐ About Deepali Nagrani

Come say a hi: https://www.deepalinagrani.com/

Want to be a guest on The Self-Help Podcast with Deepali Nagrani? Send Deepali Nagrani a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/deepalinagrani

Transcript

Defining Real Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everybody, welcome back to the Self Health Podcast. I'm your host, Dipali. I am a mom, a speaker, a writer, and a woman who will never stop believing that the hardest moments of our lives unlock our clearest truth. Today's conversation is of course a special one, but it's also a big one. Because today we are talking about purpose. Not the fluffy Instagram version, but the real raw. Why am I here? And how do I live a life that actually feels like mine kind of a purpose? And joining me today is someone who spent about 20 years cracking the code on purpose for over 400 CEOs, countless organizations, and also now helping individuals around the world. He believes your purpose, your entire essence, can be distilled into seven words or less. And honestly, that idea alone shook me. I was like, hmm, is that even possible? So today we're diving deep with Ian Shamendi, the creator of a simple yet self-evident method that transforms companies, lives, and mindsets through one deceptively simple question. What makes you uniquely remarkable? Ian, welcome to the show, and I'm so delighted that you're here today.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Thank you very much, DePolly. That was uh that was a great introduction, a very, very accurate one.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, you see, I do a lot of homework.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, no, clearly.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah. Great. Thanks. Thanks so much for your time today, Ian. So um, before we jump into the purpose itself, I really want to know your story because I'm very curious on how you've helped about 400 CEOs, many different organizations, you've helped them transform, and now you're on the journey to guide and help individuals, right? People. But where did all of this begin?

Ian’s Blueprint Origins

The Seven-Word Superpower

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Well, it all began, um it began in kind of the opposite way of what I recommend. Because, you know, everything I'm here to talk to you about today is is going to be about living your life not just with intentionality, but with directed intentionality. Intentionality in the direction of your purpose. But that's not that's not how I got you know how I developed this whole thing. So what happened was about 20 years ago, I started a business with a partner. And what we were doing slowly morphed from a, you know, we customize solutions for you to we have a fixed solution for you. If you want clarity about the future of your business, then what you do, and we develop this three-part methodology. And the first part, yeah, the first part is based on the belief that the single most important strategic asset any company has is knowing what makes it uniquely remarkable. And I know that there's a lot of people who are gonna, you know, hear me say that and say, no, your employees are your most important strategic asset. Well, you know, your employees come and go. And even with companies with great retention, employees come and go. But there is one thing, um but uh so that's why I believe that the one that you know that your most important strategic asset is knowing the one thing that makes you uniquely remarkable. And so that became the first step in our process is to define that one thing in seven words or less. And then once you can articulate it in seven words or less, and by the way, to get it down into seven words or less, you have to get it to the point where it is so logical that it is self-evident. So when you say the one thing that makes us uniquely remarkable is X, someone who knows you says, Oh yes, for sure. That's that that nails it, that really captured who you are. And so that's the first step is to define that one thing that makes you uniquely remarkable in seven words or less. Now that you know what your superpower is as an organization, we then use that statement to design everything that you do, how you're going to operate, and then everything that you say, how you're going to market and sell. So that all the activities of the company are all flowing from and a reflection of that one thing that makes you uniquely remarkable. This makes you an incredibly focused organization and authentically relevant because it's based on, you know, the authentic you as an organization. So that's how it all came about. And then during COVID, I got my um coaching certification. So I became an executive coach. And I would work with people, and all of them, you know, I hung out my shingle about six months into COVID. So we're all pretty new to it still, right? And everybody I was talking to was saying the same thing. This this um uh pandemic has got me rethinking my life. I don't like where I'm going, I don't like my career, I want to live a life of meaning and purpose. And I would say to them, Well, what's your purpose? And they all said the same thing. I don't know. I don't know what my purpose is. And what that made me realize is I could take this methodology that I had developed for businesses, and I could adapt it to individuals. And so that you can define what makes you uniquely remarkable as a person in seven words or less. You can know what your superpower is as a human, defined in seven words or less. And then you can use that to guide your life in the same way that what I developed for businesses, they use to guide their strategy.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

That's very powerful, and it's incredible how the smallest of articulation can create the biggest clarity. And while you were just explaining this, I was, you know, constantly wondering and asking myself, okay, what's what's that answer for me? So, did you really stumble upon the seven-word method by accident, or you know, you put in some research and you were intentional about coming up with it? How how was that like?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

No, no, no, this was a methodology that was put together piece by piece through the course of about five years. And like the idea of seven words or less, we didn't come up with. Somebody else, I I can't even remember how it came about, but you know, they can't they they talked about how we came up with these short expressions of who the company is. And someone said, you know, you should pick a number. And we looked at all those short expressions, and the longest one was seven words, and we said, okay, well, seven words or less. And, you know, and then there's a whole bunch of other steps. Like this whole, you know, when you define what it is that makes you uniquely remarkable as an organization, you are uniquely remarkable that way because you have a way of doing it, or what I call a methodology, right? So um you're actually, I can't remember where I was going with this, but the I just the idea that there is underlying substance. I'm sorry, I can't remember your question, but there is underlying substance to the expression of what is it that makes you uniquely remarkable? Because there is a methodology, there is a substance of it underneath it that makes it true.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah. Yeah, like my question was did you stumble upon it um upon the seven-word method by an accident, really, or was it an intentional approach from your end?

From Companies To People

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Right. So the idea of the seven words or less came around first. But a client, then a client, and I this would have been like a couple of years later, so quite a bit of time after we started doing that. And a client said, Here's a conundrum that I have. What are your thoughts? And I said, Well, you know, you need to, I think you need to answer these six questions. And then as I looked at the six questions, I said, Oh, wait a second. That totally applies to the blueprint. We should be answering those six questions inside of the blueprint. And one of those questions is, what is your methodology? So, you know, two years later, those six questions, what they do is they comprise part three of the blueprint process. Part one, design, uh define what makes you uniquely marketable with seven words. Part two, design how you're gonna operate. Part three is to is to guide how you're gonna communicate, and we create what we call there the purpose story, and it's the top-level narrative of the organization. And the way you come up with that is by answering these six questions that I came up with for another client and then only realized, hey, wait, this applies to us as well. And this makes a blueprint more robust. So, no, it was piece by piece until we finally said, Holy cow, look at what we developed by accident and look at, but also look at how powerful.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Well, yeah, the best things in life actually come through Surrendipity. And as you said, you were developing for a client, and and that's how it kind of manifested, and you're like, Wow, what like look what we've built, and it's amazing. So, without wasting any time, what were those six questions? Very curious, and I'm making a note as we go.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Um, so it's um uh what is your oh my god, I should be able to rattle these off the top of my head. Um, what's your purpose in seven words or less?

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Hmm.

Building The Method, Piece By Piece

The Six Questions Framework

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Second question is what does that mean? And that is a question that um so what we have to do is we have to come up with a three-sentence answer to what does your purpose mean? So I'll give you an example. My purpose is transforming confusion into clarity. And my answer to what does that mean, my three-sentence answer is that when people are confused about a future, they have unanswered questions, it causes those unanswered questions cause anxiety. The second sentence is the antidote to that anxiety is answering those questions. And the third sentence is I have a way of leading a conversation that answers those. So most companies have, or many companies I'll say, have a set of values, and I don't believe in values because they're too lofty. There's like a fit, a list of 15 standard values, and everybody keeps five or uh, you know, adopts five or six of those, you know, standard 15. When a company says, you know, but what about values? Aren't they important? I say to them, well, tell me what one of your values are, and let's say they say accountability or something like that. I say, well, what does accountability mean to you? And their answers will almost always be phrased, something along the lines of, I believe this or we believe that. And those things are the beliefs that underpin the value. Those beliefs are much more tangible, they are much more practical, and they do what values are supposed to do, which is guide behavior. But values are not specific enough. So for instance, if, you know, like let's say you're, you know, you've had values of accountability, responsibility, honesty, right? Well, I if you hire me, don't you think I'm those things already? And don't I think I'm those things already? How does having those values guide my behavior? Right? I'll give you an example of one of Blueprint's values, and that is the business tools of the past that were developed after the Second World War and you know, at Harvard and Yale and Kellogg and at big businesses like General Motors, are no longer enough. They're anachronistic. And so if that's my value, sorry, if that's my belief, and then I come to you and I say, I'm gonna lead you through a process of mission, vision, and values, well, I'm using the tools of the past that I that my belief system says are no longer enough. So, what that forces me to do as a company is to A have a product that is that is more current, that is more relevant to the current and and near future than all those things of the past, and also for me to seek out partners who are more future-looking than those business tools of the past. So you see how it guides behavior more tangibly. So that was, and then the the fifth question is uh is what's your methodology? Right, which I, you know, we have to figure that out. And as an example, so the blueprint methodology, this does not have to be incredibly complex, it just has to be substantive. Blueprint methodology, one, define what makes you uniquely remarkable in seven words or less. Number two, use it to design how you operate. Number three, use it to design how you communicate. That's that's my methodology. But there's substance to it. It makes sense when I tell you what the three parts are and how they help your business. Um, and then the last question is what do I get? And what we do is we we define all of the material stakeholders in your company. And I'll give you, you know, a few obvious ones to start off. Well, your customers are your most obvious one, your employees, your board, um, regulators, uh, strategic partners, investors, lenders, you know, all this. Uh so you've got all these material stakeholders in your business. And we look at your purpose and we say, how does your purpose specifically resonate with this target group? Because how it resonates with your employees is going to be different than how it resonates with your customers. How it resonates with your customers is, oh, here's how it's going to here's how it's going to help me do my job better and you know be a star in the company because we actually make some material progress forward. How it resonates with employees is going to be more along the lines of bragging rates. You know, we're the ones who do this special thing. So we have to answer that question for every material stakeholder so that you only have one purpose, but you shape your story slightly differently to whatever material stakeholder you're talking to because it resonates with them. It resonates with all of them.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

All of them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

But in a slightly different way.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah, and I love how you said that because uh especially the idea that purpose isn't something that we create, it's it's a lot of what we uncover, right? Now, thanks for running through those questions. Tell us about why is purpose not about passion or goals or your job title? I know you covered about values because you know they're big, big, lofty goals, and we can have the same set of values and yet operate, behave, interact differently. So, why is it not about passion, right? Because I, like up until now, I am associating the two very closely purpose and passion, but it can be different slightly. So, so tell us, tell our listening audience about why is purpose different from passion and your goals that you set out to pursue. Ian.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Okay, well, there's two different things there. There's your passion, and then there's the goals that you set out to pursue. So, how is purpose different from passion? Well, they're kind of not, because when I say to you, so I I've got, you know, as you can probably oh, you can't see on my screen, but um, I have a company called Purpose U, Purpose University. And we offer a course that allows or enables people to define their purpose, what makes them uniquely remarkable in seven words or less. So when you think about what is, what does it mean to know what makes you uniquely remarkable, it means that you know your superpower as a human. And I have a belief that there's, you know, of the 8 billion people on the planet, probably half of them are walking around saying, There's nothing special about me. Therefore, I can't achieve anything special, and I don't deserve anything special. And, you know, if you take my course, what you actually discover is you have a superpower. You have something that makes you uniquely remarkable, and you've been doing it already all of your life. And when you've had the most fun in your life, it's when you've been doing your superpower demons. And so what that means is but also up to now, you've been doing your superpower subconsciously. When you can articulate it in seven words or less, you can do it intentionally, and you be that's you become passionate about that. That would not be your purpose. When you get to that seven words or less, that would not be your purpose unless that resonated with you on a deep emotional level. It's one of the two characteristics or criteria, pardon me, of a purpose statement is it has to be so logical that it's self-evident. And secondly, it has to resonate with you and others on a deep emotional level. So that resonating on a deep emotional level is what you're talking about passion. So when I talk about my purpose, transforming confusion into clarity, I love doing that. I can do that all day and all night, right? Helping people discover their purpose, helping companies discover their purpose. I love doing that. The process, there are times when the hair is standing up on my arm. So that's the passion, right? And then the other thing is your goals are in. Expression of your purpose. I heard a great metaphor when I was in university. And it was based on a book called Girdle, Escher, and Bach. Goethel was a mathematician who came up with a theorem that didn't just rock the world of math, it rocked the world, period. Escher is, you know, that artist that does the optical illusion art that, you know, we all had hanging in our dorm rooms when we were in university. And Bach is a guy who, you know, had a few popular tunes back in his day. And the author of the book said they are three different shadows cast from the same stone. And the book attempted to describe the stone. So I borrowed that metaphor. Your purpose is your stone, and everything that you do and say is a shadow cast from that stone. Goals in life are shadows cast from that stone.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Wow, that's a very beautiful way to look at it, right? Like I have thought about it. Thanks for that respect.

Purpose vs Passion And Goals

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Now, can I can I just describe one more important piece in that idea that shadows are your the shadows are cast from the stone. Is that, well, how do you figure out if your goals are consistent with your purpose or aligned with your purpose? And here, this is like probably the most important thing, aside from the definition of purpose, which is the one thing that makes you uniquely remarkable, right? All purpose is saying is figure out who the best possible you is and be the best possible you. Um but here is how it does it, right? When people talk about purpose, it's all woo-woo and big promises and stuff like that. But no one tells you how it works. How does it actually help you in your life? And here's the simple answer purpose is a decision-making tool. So let's say, let's say you've got a big decision in your life, right? Let's say you've reached the end of what you can do with this company and you've decided you want to change careers. Well, first of all, what's gonna happen is you're gonna you're gonna feel a lot of anxiety. I realize you're making the decision to make to change careers, you're not being fired or laid off, but still, when you make that decision, all of a sudden you have a whole bunch of unanswered questions. Where am I gonna go? Am I gonna get paid enough? Are people going to accept me? Are my skills still relevant? All these things, all these, you know, all these questions go through your head and they can't be answered, and because of that, you're feeling anxiety. Yeah, so the so what you would normally do in that situation is you would say, What do I do? You know, now the problem with asking the question with what do I do here? How do I handle this situation? is it's too broad. Anything is on the table as an option. And there are no parameters, there are no guidelines, there are no restrictions built into the question. If your question is instead, what options do I have available to me that are aligned with my purpose? All of a sudden your list of options narrows way down, that's a good thing. You don't want a million options, you only want a small group of relevant options in front of you. And then, you know, because you're able to narrow so quickly, because there's only a small set of options that are aligned with your purpose, but holy cow, because they're aligned with your purpose, they are cool options. And now what you've done is you've used your purpose to help you make a better decision about how you're gonna go forward.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah, and it is what really guides you and your decision making in in I suppose each and every aspect of your life could be everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. It could be like a professional decision that you need to make or something personal, something creative, all of that, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Um You want to give me to give you a great example?

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Yeah, go for it.

Purpose As A Decision Tool

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Alright, sorry, I know you were going to ask a question. I I interrupted you. I'm gonna wait. Okay. So, um there was a guy, he was the chief communications officer at a university, obviously a very senior position. And we all know what senior positions like that mean. You're working 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, and then five hours, you know, on Sunday. And um, it really takes its toll on your marriage, on your family, and just you know, on your on your just general well-being. He was five years away from retiring. And he said, I can't retire yet. I need just a little bit more money to top up, you know, to reach my retirement goals, my financial goals, and then I can retire. And he said, But I can't imagine five more years on this treadmill, you know, working these hours, having this stress. Uh my marriage is not going to survive if I keep doing that. And so he decided to go on the journey to find his purpose in seven words or less. And um so what a shock when we revealed it that a guy who spent I mean by yeah, so um I knew this guy who was a chief communications officer at a university. And you know, when you're in the C-suite, you know what that means. You're working 14-hour days, six days a week, and five hours on Sunday. And he was five years away from retirement. And as he explained to me, he had almost achieved his financial goals for retirement, but not quite, so he needed to work more, but he could not imagine working five more years on this senior executive, high stress, high anxiety treadmill. He said, My marriage won't survive it, I won't survive it. And he said, But I don't know what to do. And I s and you know, so we went on on this process to discover his purpose, to uncover it. And what a shock that a guy who spent his entire life telling stories, that his purpose statement was make it simpler. Because that's what he did all his life. He took complex ideas, he made them simple, and he figured out how to communicate the simplicity to other people. And so, you know, when we discovered that, and he his reaction was, oh yeah, yeah, that's me, that's me. And then he looked at his life and he said, I have made my career so complicated. And he did something that was uh unthinkable. He took a giant step back. And for he he retired from the university, and he got a job as a staff writer at a technology industry not-for-profit. Not the head of marketing for this not-for-profit, or the head of communications, he was a staff writer, and he would come in at nine o'clock in the morning, and he would write communications all day, and then he would leave at five o'clock at night, and he wouldn't think about his job again until nine o'clock the next morning. And he did that for five years. He topped up his um, he topped up his uh his retirement. And by the way, he's he's your neighbor, he's on Vancouver Island. He and his wife have a place there, and he wrote and published his first novel, he's writing his second novel. But who takes a giant step backwards in their career? But realizing that his purpose was to make it simpler, gave him the permission to make his life simpler and take a giant step, you know, I'll say in quotes, back. And he was much happier doing that. That was a big, big decision in his life, and it was guided by his purpose, make it simpler.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

So, no, that's uh also from the outside, it would look like who would do that, right? Like if you really think about it, it wouldn't appear to be the most, how do I say, best, next logical step, but that was for him, right? Like his purpose was guiding his decision. Now, thank you for sharing that. That's a very beautiful reframe on this entire perspective of what follows after you figure out and find your purpose and become intentional about it, is really going to change how you perceive, look at things, and then do things differently, and that's expected. Um, I know you earlier mentioned, you know, a few minutes ago about the pandemic, and you said the pandemic, when you were sharing your own story of how it actually really started for you, you said the pandemic was like a global trigger event for everybody. People stopped, they paused, they looked at their lives and realized that something feels wrong. And I am not happy, and I this is not what I'm supposed to be doing. And the same was with me, right? Like, we got so much of time at home. Um, you know, despite the fact that we were all working from home, but there was still a lot of time we were saving from commuting and and all the social events that we were uh we would have otherwise been doing. That it gave us some time to think about where I'm heading, what our purpose is, and what what brings joy and meaning to me. At least that was for me. I can speak for myself, but mostly it's the general consensus, too. So let's talk about why, like we learned about why having that purpose is important and what follows after we know it and we become intentional about it. But you know, it definitely makes your life better. But what does purpose do for our mental health and you know, fulfillment and identity? I don't want to oversimplify and say, you know, it gives us a lot of joy and fulfillment and meaning in what we do and how we want to do it.

The “Make It Simpler” Career Pivot

SPEAKER_01 30:34

So here's the thing yeah, yeah, yeah, you will be happy, right? Because you're making better decisions. So, yeah, it's not about oh, you know, purpose, bring joy to your life, bring, you know, have an open heart and and and not to poo-poo all of that, I just really want to get across that the way purpose works is, you know, way simpler and way more tangible than that. If you start making all the important decisions, not just the important decisions, any decisions, you start making them more aligned with your purpose, you're gonna be happier, right? They're they're going to the those decisions are going to seem more logical to you, and they are going to feel right. So you get it, you get it on both sides, right? You get you get the intellectual response and you get the emotional response. And because you're making a greater proportion of your decisions in alignment with your purpose, that's why you're happier. Not this, you know, general notion of oh, just purpose automatically brings you joy. No, you're making better decisions, therefore, you feel better and possibly even happy, you know? So happy that you're joyful. Won't always be about joy though. You know, if you're, let's say I gave you the example of of you choosing to change your career. What if it's not your choice? What if you get fired? I got fired once. I know how traumatic that is. Um, nobody likes to think of themselves as a failure. And um, but it will help you pick yourself up. And that is not a pleasant process, you know, when you've been devastated like that. But picking yourself up with your purpose, helping you make better decisions, is better than picking yourself up without it.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Yes, than living a life that that doesn't belong to you, that isn't yours. And and that reminded me of a very beautiful quote I read many, many years ago, which was in um rejection is sometimes a redirection.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah, if you're not into what you think you're supposed to be in, you're uh actually moving forward to what's even better and what's meant for you, right? So finding that out and being in tune with that is so important. And I know when you mentioned about the career change, uh a little bit about me. I work in technology and consulting. I love what I do, but early on in in the years, I wasn't happy doing what I was doing, and I didn't enjoy it. And I thought, okay, no matter what amount of money I get, no matter what reputation or prestige I enjoy doing this work, I'm not going to be happy about it. So I changed. Like I did not like fundamentally change my career, but I changed the stream that I was in. I do not enjoy coding, that's not something that I wanna do any day of my life, no matter the money that follows with it, right? So I just changed and I started doing something that I really love and enjoy doing, and there has been no looking back. And I feel like when we're in tune with our purpose and you know what brings us joy and meaning, and and and they could be radically different things for different people. My husband loves to code, and like I have seen him coding at 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. And that is what gives him a lot of joy and meaning. But me, I'm the exact opposite, I don't want to do it for one second of my life, and what I do, he doesn't want to do that. So it is so important to figure out what brings you joy and what is your purpose really to find your path, and then let your purpose fuel that and add fuel to your fire. And while you were kind of verbalizing all of that, I was thinking to myself, hmm, this is what I've been doing, but maybe I should be doing it with more intention so that I'm I'm like more driven and more fierce about where I'm heading and how I need to go there. That's the most important part. Now, now as I said, I feel that deeply because as someone, as I was telling you about the career change, you know, pivoting, and I've rebuilt my entire career around it, and then there's a lot of identity change that happens after motherhood. I'm an immigrant also, and uh few with every few years I've reinvented my life upside down, so then purpose becomes your oxygen, and you need to run with that. Now, the part that fascinates me the most about all of this is the seven-word route. You know, I see that's uh like not really a constraint, but like the limit of seven words. So you say if you cannot express your purpose in seven words or less, you you don't really truly know it. Now, what is the psychology behind seven words for our listening audience? And how do you distill something as infinite as your life's purpose or your you know purpose into one concise single sentence of seven words or less? That to me is a is a tricky part here, and I mean, you know, need some careful tip doing around. So, how do you help someone distill that? Sorry, that was a very loaded question, Ian.

Pandemic As Trigger For Meaning

SPEAKER_01 36:04

No, no, no problem at all. No, um, so here's the thing about it that the limitation is seven words or less. But it's usually two or three or four words. You know, I told you my purpose was transforming confusion into clarity, that's four. I gave you the example of the chief communications officer, make it simpler, that's three. My my business partner, um, who sadly died during COVID, but his was causing wow. That's that's only two. And everybody who knew him, when I said, you know, his purpose statement is causing wow, they all said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's county, that's causing wow. Yep, yep, that nailed the so um, and the discipline of getting it down to seven words or less is what ensures that it's two um criteria materialize, which is one, it's gotta be so self-evident that sorry, it's gotta be so logical that it's self-evident, right? Think of that. That's like so logical that it's self-evident. When I say transforming confusion into clarity, you get the general gist of what I'm saying. And by the way, if you're in a confused state, you know, because you have an issue that that is unresolved in your life, and hearing transforming confusion into clarity will really resonate with you. Um, but the other thing, yeah, and that's the other thing. Sorry. You get that, and and then it applies to you. And then it resonates with you because it's like, oh, I may have a solution, or this guy might have a solution to my problem. Uh where was I going with that? I forgot your question again.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

No, really, like what when we talk about the seven-word method, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, how do we distill like our entire light's purpose, something that's also inverting to us into just seven words or even lesser? I know you talked about your partner who just had two words, you have four, um, the communications um uh manager that you spoke about who lives on the Vancouver Island has, I think, three. So so what really helps you distill into two or three words and yet convey the most important messaging of your life?

Why Seven Words Work

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Well, um, I lead you. If you take my my course on purpose you, I lead you through a process. And that process, what you have to do is identify two things that you've been involved in that you were really proud of. Right? So, uh, and and ideally you take one from your career and one from your personal career. So I, you know, one was my career, one was a communications program that I was involved in that reduced the teenage exposure to secondhand smoke. You know, when when kids are out in the schoolyard in high school and they're standing in a group talking, and I don't know how much this happens anymore, because I don't know how much kids smoke. Back in my day, it was probably 30 or 40 percent of us smoked. And, you know, we are standing in a group and we just lit up a cigarette and we're blowing it in the face of our friends and stuff like that. Actually, I didn't smoke, but I was I had smoke blown in my face, and but that was normal. That was not questioned back then. Yeah, when they're standing there, they're thinking it's disgusting with their clothes. You know, these smokers are causing my clothes to stink. Um so I I I devised the creative strategy for the campaign that reduced that. And then um uh and then in my personal life it was just something that had to do with coaching my son's hockeys. Now, because you've identified these two things as things that make you very proud. That means that your purpose was raging when you were doing this. You know, you get into that, you you love the work you're doing, you get into that flow state, you do a whole bunch of work, and you look up, and it's like, holy cow, it's three hours later, that felt like 10 minutes. So that's where your purpose is really engaged. And so what I do is I lead you through a process to break that down. It's a seven-step process to break it down. And in the seventh step, what you do is you reveal three buckets your beliefs, your wants, and your talents, right? So your beliefs are all the things that guide how you how you perceive and interact with the world. Your wants are all the things that you want from this life, you know, whether you believe this is your one shot or it's you know your just just your most current stepping stone and your in your universal journey. Doesn't matter. There's things that you want while you're here. And then there's your talents, and you can be born with those talents, a beautiful voice, like Celine Dion. Or they can be, you know, they can be talents that you develop along the way, like you know, our medical doctors do.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Yeah, our doctors and surgeons, yeah. Thanks for sharing that because um it's wild how clarity will multiply when once the noise is silenced away. The seven-vote constraint becomes freedom instead of feeling like, okay, my my god, how do I go about putting all of this into just seven votes?

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Right. Well, I just at the end of those seven steps, you're left with those three buckets your beliefs, your wants, and your talents. And it's the unique combination of those three things that make you who you are. And it is those are also the components of your purpose. So when you make a decision that is aligned with your purpose, what you're really doing is you're saying, I'm making a decision that's aligned with my beliefs, wants, and talents. And that's why it fits so well for you. That's why it makes so much logical sense, and that's why it just feels right. It's because you're embedding that decision in your beliefs, wants, and talents. And then that that becomes the they become the raw material for discovering your purpose.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

It really truly multiplies when you know all the noise is silent, and then the word constraint really doesn't feel like a limiting factor or like a constraint, really, but becomes frequently, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:32

No.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Now, um, I know everyone listening to this right now is okay, but how do I go about finding mine? So I know you mentioned about working with you, and then you can guide people on how to do that. Um, I'll just put all the details in your website at the show notes down below for our listening audience if they want to come find you and if they ever want to work with you to just uncover and find their own purpose and help it articulate. Um, and I love how accessible and actionable you make this. So, purpose isn't a mystical treasure, it's a something that we don't know about it. Tomorrow, when we work with you, we'll find it. It's not, but it's really something which is deeply embedded inside of you, inside of you, what makes you who you are, and it's a pattern, it's a thread that we've all carried since we were kids. I mean, of course, sure, there are some parts of it which were uh developed and built, uh, life skills that we gained as we grew older, but a lot of a lot of it is really within us. Uh, and while you were speaking about it, and I was thinking about my own life and you know what really drives me and what brings me joy and what gives me meaning, sure, some of it has changed over the years. Some choices have really completely flipped. Uh, Dipali 10 years ago is very different from Dipali now. But the purpose, the core of who I am, like the meaty part, even is still the same and it completely. Yeah, it's just fundamentally the same. Like someone who enjoys speaking, talking. Like I was that irritating kid in the class who wanted to speak and host and be in the spelling bees and be part of the debates and eloquence, and and I still want to do that all my life, right? Even if money wouldn't go factor. So I wish we could all live in that world though. But uh no, but thanks so much for making it so easy for you know someone to understand, and I'm sure all our listeners will benefit tremendously out of it. Um, and your clearly your your experience shows up when you were speaking and just articulating, giving examples of how you can help people find their own purpose, and you've spent about two decades helping different leaders and organizations find their unique path and their own purpose. So, um, thank you for sharing all of that. Now my pleasure. Yeah, um, just we have like taking the liberty of two more minutes that we have. I just wanted to make it a little more fun. Uh, so is it okay if we close with a quick rapid fire round with you? So answers are hopefully filled with a lot of fire. So what's the what's the biggest myth about purpose and that people have?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Biggest myth about is um I I I would have to say that it its definition is why I exist. Because you don't exist for any reason, you just exist.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

Yeah, and we keep like we spend a lot of time trying to find the meaning and like looking for why we are here and what we're doing, right? That's it.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Yeah, there's no meaning. It's just you know, figure out the best who the best possible you is and be that in the best possible way.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Got it. Uh, what's one simplest daily habit that you'd recommend listeners that help them connect uh better with their purpose? Like one simple daily habit that they could do.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

It helps them connect better with their purpose. Hmm. I thought you were gonna ask me for one daily habit that I that I recommend. And what I would have said, and I got this from um, you know, watching a video clip during COVID, of there was this American military commander, and I think he was speaking to a bunch of graduating cadets. And he said, if you only do one thing in a day, make your bed. Make your bed the moment you get up. Because that means that in the first 30 seconds of waking up, you've accomplished something. And every time you walk by your bed, it looks neat and tidy, and you say, Oh, I accomplished something. It's a little small thing, but it it makes a difference. And I started doing it, and it's like, yeah, yeah.

Beliefs, Wants, Talents Triad

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Wow, it works. Yeah, and and he was uh Navy CEA William McRabin. Oh, if you wouldn't the world start by making your bed. I've listened to that video I don't know how many times, yeah. And it's surprising how it makes you feel, right? Like it already makes you feel so accomplished and that you know you're setting out your foot in the right direction. And now even I do it. I mean, I've been doing it before that, but now even more intentionally and more religiously. Thank you so much for uh those interesting um answers and and all your questions in the beginning, like the questions that help us uncover our focus. Um, thank you. This conversation felt like the kind that you don't realize that you've you've been holding on until someone finally gives you the language for what you've been sensing inside. So you did that for me. Thank you so much. And what I'm taking away from this is purpose isn't like a destination, it's a journey, it's not a job title, it's not some massive life-changing revelation, it's the quite clarity beneath all the noise, beneath what's inside you. Um, that already has been running through your life, you just haven't named it yet. Like it's within you. Thank you so much for your time today. And uh, when you start thinking about purpose, things shift, decisions simplify, relationships. I'm sure would feel lighter, easier, work becomes easier and hopefully full of joy. So, for our listening audience, if today made you think about it, if you are leaning into finding your purpose and thinking to yourself, okay, this is what I've been missing so far. Listen to this complete episode, and I'm sure you'll learn a lot more from Ian. Um, Ian's Purpose U course is in the show notes. I'll put the link to the course and the website down below. And if this episode helped you move one step closer to living a life that is meaningful, intentional, and uniquely yours, in tune with your purpose. Thank you for staying here. Thank you for choosing these conversations that make you bring up. And until next time, keep asking the deeper questions because that's where the real answers hide. Thank you so much once again. Thanks soon, and we'll talk soon. Bye.