Notes for An Awesome Life with John Spence

Purpose That Pulls You Out of Bed

• Notes for An Awesome Life with John Spence • Episode 4

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What is your mission, your reason for bounding out of the bed in the morning? John and Josh look at the importance of setting a direction for your life that aligns with you values and abilities.  We explore purpose as a living, practical force, something you can define, test, and build into your day.

  • Email us: awesomelifenotes@gmail.com
  • Learn more about John: JohnSpence.com
  • Familiar Wilsons Media: FamiliarWilsonsMedia.com

About John Spence: John is a globally recognized business thought leader, former owner/CEO of five companies, and advisor/coach to organizations from startups to the Fortune 10. He’s lectured at more than 90 universities and was named by the American Management Association as one of “America’s Top 50 Leaders to Watch.”

About the show: Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence focuses on personal growth, happiness, clarity, and the everyday habits that compound into an AWESOME life.

Credits: Hosts John Spence and Josh Wilson • Produced by Josh Wilson for Familiar Wilsons Media • Special thanks: Amanda Wilson (writing and production), and Domingo Jimenez (writing and marketing).

SPEAKER_01:

This is a familiar Wilsons Media Production. John Spence is recognized as one of the foremost business thought leaders in the world. A global top 100 business thinker and advisor to companies from startups to the Fortune 10. But it didn't start that way. In college, John hit rock bottom, kicked out of one university and rejected by another. That's when he made a decision to change his attitude and take a systematic approach to building the life he wanted. Through hard work and relentless learning, he went on to create a life full of meaning, joy, and connection. I'm Josh Wilson, and this is Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. We invite you to join us in conversation as John shares with us the lessons, habits, and tools that he used and that you can use to build an awesome life. And I'm John Spence. And John, today we're going to talk about that question that drives some people to stay up late at night, drives other people to science, drives some people to religion, drives some to philosophy, and drives a lot of people to drink. And that is why are we here?

SPEAKER_00:

What's our purpose? Um, it's a big question. And uh, you know, it's interesting. You ask purpose and why are we here? And it's they they don't run parallel exactly. Uh I sometimes ask people what their mission is in life. Uh, why are you here? And uh I I think I've mentioned before that it's the same answer worldwide. Every place is to be of service to others, to help others. From a purpose standpoint, that's sort of like to me a an internal North Star of this is what I want to accomplish. It may along the way, I want to help people. I want to be of service, but here's a cause or something that is meaningful to me.

SPEAKER_01:

Ah, that's the word right there, meaningful. And I gotta tell you that 25-year-old me could have really benefited from hearing what we're talking about right now. But you're talking about a reason to get up out of bed in the morning.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it you know, it's interesting you said it's a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And from the business side of what I do, uh, I say that people will get out of bed in the morning for a paycheck, but they will jump out of bed, run to the office, and do the best work they humanly can for a purpose.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh and I I was teaching a webinar on this, a global webinar last week, talking about the fact that the number one foundation of running a world-class organization, whether it's a nonprofit or a for-profit, whatever it might be, is purpose-driven leadership. Is what are we doing beyond just making money? And I use two examples to teach that. I've I've got a friend who um builds uh blades for helicopters, rotors.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And uh he uh builds them for military helicopters. And at the beginning, uh he had just bought the company and he brought in one of their clients, which happened to be a general from the army, who stood up in front. I'm not going through the whole story here, but stood up in front of all the employees, said, Both of my boys fly helicopters in Iraq. Don't kill my boys, and turned around and walked off the stage. Yeah. And they realized we don't build parts for helicopters, we bring young service people home to their families. Yeah. Uh, I have another friend who owns a company that makes uh prosthetic legs. And when they fit someone with a new leg, they don't allow them to just walk out the front door, they walk them through the entire office so someone in shipping can look at that and say, that person is walking because of what I do. Sh packing boxes or unpacking boxes all day long isn't the most exciting job in the world. But knowing that by doing that, you're helping someone walk is what I call a noble purpose. So I wanted to pull a little stake in the ground there that I think the thing that drives a world-class organization is the fact that there is a noble purpose where everyone knows what I do every day is making life different for someone else. That's uh I have companies challenge me that that's hard to figure out because you know, some of them are life and death, and some of them are we make envelopes uh or ball bearings. But if you go, if you dig deep enough, there is usually, or no, there isn't, there's always some way that they impact society and families. From an individual standpoint, then I'm gonna ask for your input on this. I've found that most people that uh really have a strong purpose, it's usually tied to something challenging in their life. Uh, I did a board of directors meeting yesterday for a nonprofit uh Tyler's Hope, that is run by the Staub family here in Gainesville, and they have two children with dystonia. Uh, and their the goal uh of that foundation and the goal is to find a cure for dystonia. That is a driving purpose of their life that basically regulates everything else they do. But it was only because, not only, but it was because they have two children with dystonia that made it such a passionate thing. Sure. What do you think about this?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, absolutely. I've seen over and over again people anchoring their purpose to pain that they've either witnessed or that they've lived through. And I'll give you a personal example. My own stated purpose as I've done this work is to help people feel safe, seen, and understood. Now, why is that? Well, that comes from not feeling those things as a kid. And that really difficult childhood shaped what it was that I wanted to give to the world and prevent from happening to other people.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, and I I've not thought about this super deeply, but as I'm trying to think through it, I I I can't really, and maybe someone of the one of our listeners or viewers is going to come back and tell us this. I can't think of anybody that's that doesn't have a purpose that isn't somehow connected to a pain they have or a leaving pain or a leaving something they think is unfair, uh, and that the world needs to be changed to make it better at some level. You know, you look at people who care about the environment or free speech or whatever it might be, um, you know, an illness, cancer, dystonia. Um, I think it has to be something where deep down in your heart you say, I have to be involved in making this better and fixing this and doing something important that will, as you said, leave a legacy.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, sure. So let's turn this mirror on you. What is your purpose and how did you get there?

SPEAKER_00:

So it this is interesting because my purpose in life and the mission of our company is the same. That's why I started my company, uh, is to help businesses and people be more successful.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's not because I want comp, you know, I want companies to be massively profitable. Not so the owner can get a new Corvette or a jet, but so they can take care of their employees, and their employees can take care of their families and they can have strong communities. Um, this was all based on watching small to medium-sized businesses go out of business and looking at it and saying, these people invested their whole lives in starting this company. Um, or I've got a medium-sized business and I run it in the ground and three or four hundred or five hundred people lose their jobs. Uh, and I I personally looked at and said, that's not happening on my watch. If I can make sure that a company stays profitable, I can make sure that they can take care of their employees. And that's the number one thing. I want healthy, as much as possible, happy families and people.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. And so that's also your personal mission.

SPEAKER_00:

My personal mission happens to align with basically what I started my company for. What I've dedicated, I've dedicated my life to it. So through that, my company's built around allowing me to fulfill the purpose that I've chosen in life.

SPEAKER_01:

Which I feel like is very rare and powerful. Many people never get their work to reinforce their purpose that directly.

SPEAKER_00:

No, a lot of people don't. Um, and I'm I'm lucky too that I remind our my team that this constantly, when we get a nice note, or someone says thank you, or I learned this, or I changed the direction of my life, or whatever because class, I show it to our team and say, This is what we're doing together, guys. Gals, this is this is the difference we're making in the world. This is a difference you're making in the world. So I try to also, you know, like my friend with the prosthetics company, yeah, let them see a clear line between what they do every day and a difference they make in people's lives. And I think that's important on a personal level, is to know that I get up every day and I do something that contributes to uh working towards my purpose of making the world a better place. It's in some way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so let's talk about a person's purpose changing as their life changes.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I will, you know, I'm just gonna use Tyler's Hope and Rick Staub, who's a very close friend. And like I said, I just did their strategy meeting yesterday. His purpose was in his life was not to cure dystonia until one of his children was born with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, you know, people get involved in Down syndrome or in cancer or in uh safety, you know, uh making sure that when something bad happens in their life, or there's some event that makes them say, I'm going to dedicate my life to doing this. And that event may have happened young, it may happen, you know, or it might change. It might be something really bad happened, then all of a sudden you've made a step, and now we're gonna go in a different. So I believe your purpose can change, just like your values can change.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Values and purpose, how do they talk to each other? How do they relate to each other in this case?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. I I believe that your values, your mission, values, and purpose all need to align. This is what I'm here for. This is the change I want to make in the world, and this is the way I plan to act and behave on the way to making that happen.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so here's a question. Do we discover our purpose or do we decide our purpose?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great question. I think you discover something that is upsetting or exciting or enthralling or draws you to it, uh, and then then you decide to pursue it. So I think the situation uh uh presents itself and you decide whether or not whether to make it the focus of your life.

SPEAKER_01:

And as you're teaching these ideas to these executives, do you see light bulb moments where they're all of a sudden rethinking their purpose?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. Happens, I won't say it happens all the time, but yeah, I uh in almost every class I teach, unless you know, most of them have a hundred people or so, there's gonna be a couple of people, a handful of people that back up and go, I've been pursuing the purpose of becoming a senior, a C level person in this company. That's all I've been pursuing. Everything's built around doing everything I can, every waking moment to climb the ladder and get to quote unquote the pinnacle of this organization. And I'm not doing anything outside of that. It's it's I mean, I think what I just said is what's important is I'm not doing anything but trying to move my career forward. Yeah. Uh, not interacting with my family, not involved in the community, not pursuing a noble purpose. Uh, or if I am doing that sort of stuff, you know, commute uh voluntary or something. It's at a very surface level. Right. It's just something to put on my resume or because my company wants me to do it, because it's good as an executive to be involved in the community.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yes, yes. It's good optics, as the uh PR directors all like to say. Right. So shout out to all my PR directors out there. We love you. We talked, we talked about at the onset of this that our discussion would be do you have a purpose? Well, I think that we've established that we all have a purpose, even if it's to get out of bed in the morning to earn a paycheck. But is your purpose awesome? That's really what we want to do here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, that word I use is noble. Is it something worth dedicating your life to? Uh to something you're going to sp you're going to spend time, energy, effort, focus, mu potentially money on that you're willing to give up, you know, the most valuable thing you have in the world is time. Period. Uh are you willing to spend a lot of your time on something that is meaningful to you?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And are you willing to spend time in figuring out what really is meaningful to you? And that's what we're talking about. I've seen it over and over again where we have people who they have what they think is a meaningful purpose, and then they achieve that purpose. They get the promotion that they want, or whatever it may be, their team wins the Super Bowl, and then they're left empty. And then they're left with a definite, oh well, what now feeling.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's one of two things, and not one of two, but there's an interesting thing you mentioned about winning the Super Bowl. Uh, I I was attending a conference of athletic directors and head coaches a couple of years ago, and there was a coach that said, my entire career, I and I think it was hockey, I'm not sure the sport, let's just say hockey, but I wanted to be uh the my team to be the you know national championships, you know, one win everything, our best college in the in the in the country. And he said, and my dean just kept pushing me, or the president of the university, boom, boom, boom, you got to do this. He said, We finally won it, and for four or five minutes we celebrated, and then the president called me over and said, You better do it again next year. And he he's like, Oh, there was no happiness. I was put under double pressure, and they did it again. And what happened five minutes after that? You better get a three, Pete, or you're out of here. And he looked at me and said, My entire life, this is what I wanted to achieve. I achieved it and became more painful because now everything was tied up to doing it again and again and again, and there was no time to enjoy what I'd been pursuing my entire career.

SPEAKER_01:

It's so interesting that you mentioned Pat Riley, who coined the phrase three Pete. He the Lakers had won two championships in a row, and at the celebration for that second championship, he gets up on stage, people are cheering, and he said, and you know what? We're gonna win it again next year. And let me tell you something, the players were so pissed. They're like, Pat, what are you doing? Let us enjoy it for just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

We'll use a business analogy in sales. You can close a multi-million dollar deal. I mean, just crush it, and your sales manager the next day is gonna say, So what have you done for me yet? You know, today? Yeah, you close the deal. Okay, biggest deal of our company, biggest deal of your life, big deal. What have you done for, you know, what have you done today? And I think a lot of people, you know, chase what they think is their purpose, and they get there and it's not fulfilling. Uh, and it actually can create more pressure to to stay on top. You know, I don't get to rest, I don't get to relax, I don't get to enjoy. I got to get up tomorrow, work even harder now to stay here. I don't want anyone to take me from the top.

SPEAKER_01:

Which, by the way, the top sounds like a miserable place. I've never been to the top, but it just sounds like it's filled with a bunch of annoyed, impatient, angry people trying to push each other off the top. So let's let's go back to talking about values that have to do with connection. So my values have everything to do with connecting with my family and my friends and the people around me, and through that, making the world a better place.

SPEAKER_00:

So, why don't we I I want to make a comment on something you just said. I've said it a couple times too. So uh, is make the world a better place. We're like, that's a pretty damn big purpose. It depends on how you define your world. Your world could be your community, your word could be your family. You know, you are contributing to making the world, the globe, a better place by making your family a better family, by you know, being involved in your community. You don't have to impact eight, you know, eight billion people. You can impact eight or ten or eighty or a hundred and make them better, and then they contribute to helping other people. So, you know, people, I want to make the world a better place. You know, no, you're not. Well, I can make my little world a much better place. So the people around me.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I sure, and that's a super helpful reframing because this this phone that's sitting on here next to me on my desk, this phone makes us feel like our scope should be global when in reality our sphere of influence for most of us is relatively small, just the people right in front of us, as you say.

SPEAKER_00:

I would agree. You can and you know, you can look at problems around the world and stuff and and you know, get involved in those for sure. But there's also problems right in your community or on your on your block or in your house that are worth pursuing and fixing uh in pursuit of helping, you know. But you like we just said, there's some big global problems that a lot of people have found the purpose of their life is trying to address those.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. And ideally, the people with larger platforms use them well. You have a broader reach than most, and I know that you're intentional with it. And for many of us, though, purpose does look like showing up for the few in our care and then doing that faithfully without distraction.

SPEAKER_00:

I luckily, because of my position, I do have a fairly large uh following uh and I do get connected to people all over the world. I am going to tell you a fun story about this, and I think we talked about it before. One of the major things in me trying to help businesses and people be better is to make sure that they understand that love should be part of all that. I should love my employees, love my community, love my family. Uh, and there's a thing called the Thinkers 50, which is basically the Academy Awards or the I don't know, what are the Golden Globes? I don't know. There's one coming today that's on, I don't know. But it's the highest award you can get in the world in my field. And uh several years I was on the short list, uh, number eight in the world for one of the awards. And a group of us decided to create sort of a um a subgroup of the thinkers 50, all of us leadership experts and things like that. And we get on the phone about once every two months or three months. And the last time we were on the phone, I and I'm I'm evil, I said, you know, we're 30 of the top 50 in the world. People listen to us. Why don't we just start talking about love and our articles and our books and our podcasts? And we can we together, all of us, have a tremendous amount of reach. We might be able to actually turn the ship a few degrees and have some. And I'm very honored to say that our group is starting to make, I believe, a dent because it's starting to show up in the press more and other things and in articles and on and on and on. But that isn't because I have the it's because I'm connected to 30 people that happen to be fairly well connected. Um, I think any one of us could do that. If you had the right group of people around you, and again, it might not be the world, but you could make some major changes in your community or in a cause that you cared about with just a small group of people.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. And there's that quote that's attributed to Margaret Mead that says, Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Yep. Um, it's the only thing that ever has.

unknown:

Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

So hopefully, folks, we've convinced you that finding a noble, awesome purpose is important. John, what is their homework for the week?

SPEAKER_00:

I would ask them to look at something and examine, hey, what do you what do you think your purpose is now? Um, and for some people, they're going to discover, like they do in my class, that it's earn so much money or get such such and such a promotion or get this title or you know, do that thing, and back up and say, is that really worth dedicating your life to? Uh is it something that well, like we started this podcast off, that you're going to jump out of bed and be excited about doing, or is it just uh a title you're chasing, uh a fleeting title and feeling? And then backing up and saying, you know, I I I think one of the ways people do this is it's something they think is not fair, or something that that should that's wrong or is happening. You know, you know, something that they say, I need to be a part in fixing this. Something that they're that they're willing to they're take a stand on. They're willing to go out and put a flag in the ground and say, I'm gonna do something about that. And it might take a while to figure that out, but when you do, it's something you'll be extremely emotionally connected to.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, so that's your homework for the week. If you want extra credit, then tell us how you're doing on the journey by emailing awesomelife notes at gmail.com. That's awesomelifenotes at gmail.com. To find out more about John Spence, you can go to johnspence.com. That's very handy. This has been a Familiar Wilsons Media production. You can find out more about the other podcasts we offer at familiarwilsonsmedia.com. Or if you want to start a podcast, let me know. I'd be happy to help. Special thanks, of course, go to Amanda Wilson and Domingo Jimenez, and all of you out there listening. I hope that you all really take some time to ponder meaning and purpose this week and let us know about it. Until next week, I'm Josh Wilson. And I'm John Spence. Y'all go out there and live an awesome life.