Finding Purpose in Life
We hear a ton these days about finding your purpose, pursuing your passion, and similar phrases. What does it really mean – and is it even possible to get clear on those kinds of things? In this coaching call, Pat outlines why he believes it’s bogus to think that you can discover one solitary purpose for your life and pursue it your entire lifetime. He also gives you a handful of things you can pursue that are far more important than your sense of purpose. Interested yet? In classic Pat Precourt style, you’ll get bowled over by these powerful lessons if you take the time to watch, listen, and learn.
Pain Click To Tweet
Many times it’s the pain we experience in life that makes us question our purpose. We want to know why suffering is happening to us and whether or not it’s leading us in the direction of our life’s purpose. But Pat Precourt says the pain is a required part of life, it’s what grows and develops our capacity and our wisdom. But suffering has to do with how you look at pain, about the conclusions you make about it. Listen as Pat explains how suffering is a manmade construct that you need to jettison for the sake of living a more fulfilling, joy-filled life of purpose.
Anything you chase runs - so don’t chase your purpose Click To Tweet
The biggest part of the problem when it comes to finding your purpose is likely that you’re too intensely focused on finding it. Pat has discovered that anything you chase, runs from you. So you need to stop chasing your purpose. What’s the alternative? Naturally, Pat has an answer for you, and it’s not what you might think. Be sure to join this coaching session to hear what you should do instead of chasing your purpose and how this alternative approach will ultimately give you what you are looking for in the end. It’s intriguing, so don’t miss it.
Forget about finding your purpose, focus on reigniting your spirit Click To Tweet
Do you remember when you were a little kid? You explored, you had adventures, you imagined doing big things. But somewhere along the line, somewhere during your teenage years, something happened to that adventurous spirit… it was stifled, then killed. Our problem is not that we don’t know what our purpose is in life – our problem is that our spirit has been snuffed out. It’s time to reignite your spirit – and listening to this coaching session with Pat Precourt is step one to doing exactly that. This is worth hearing over and over.
Purpose comes when you are always grateful and always wanting more Click To Tweet
It sounds like a contradiction, but it’s true: you’ll find your life purpose when two things are firmly entrenched as part of how you view life. #1 – You are always grateful for the place you are at in life, no matter what it is – good or bad. #2 – You are always wanting more. Gratitude mixed with the ambition to create, to grow, and to become more than you are are what will lead you down the path to your greater purpose. So stop chasing it and get your mind right. You’ll be surprised how quickly you are doing the very thing you were meant to do.
Outline of this great episode
- [1:33] As we get further along in life, we ask “why” we are here more and more
- [4:08] Anything you chase, runs – so don’t chase your purpose
- [6:27] It’s reality that your purpose or calling changes with the seasons of life
- [8:09] 3 ways to go about discovering your “why”
- [10:07] 3 things that interrupt the pursuit of your purpose
- [13:49] Forget about finding your purpose, focus on reigniting your spirit
- [21:37] How to seek out your purpose at the highest level
The Monday Mindset & Wednesday Wisdom calls are group coaching calls included in the REWW Academy. These live calls are hosted bi-weekly by Justin Colby and Pat Precourt and cover a specific topic each session – ending with live Q&A at the end of each call.
These calls are designed to empower students to be effective entrepreneurs, creating business that thrive and make money through real estate investing. Students are encouraged to attend the calls and bring any struggles or questions they have about business or real estate.
The REWW Academy program combines our complete suite of software applications with our personalized coaching and a community of like-minded entrepreneurs to provide you with the most comprehensive real estate investing program available.
Below is the full transcription of the 6 Characteristics of an Exceptional Presenter Monday Mindset call with Pat Precourt.
Pat Precourt:
We’re in business.
All right, awesome. Sorry about that, I was trying to get audio on and it was just saying “Audio issues.” I can you hear you now. Excellent, Trick. Happy Birthday from Joe, thank you sir. I appreciate that. [inaudible 00:00:18]’s like “Yay.” Tell me about it, I hate it when you get on these and you can’t get on these, a bummer, but we’re here. You guys are awesome. I’m awesome, we’re all awesome together so it works out just freaking fine.
All right, so I’m going to share something with you guys and it comes up all of the time. I’ll you something I’ve learned. This comes up a little as you cross 30 years old, more when you cross 40, more anywhere north of 50, okay. Tricks, oh yeah, it’s your birthday, 50. Bam, 50 years old! It doesn’t bother me for a second. I was trying to explain that somebody this past weekend. They’re like “No, you’re so full of it.” I’m like “No, it doesn’t bother me.” I’m like a good wine, just get better with time. It’s all good, man, seasoning! The lady at the Texas Swing is checking in. Betty how are you doing? Good to see you here.
Finding purpose and I want to share something with you. [inaudible 00:01:38], this is not written in stone. This is one man’s opinion seeking out purpose, finding purpose in life, my real why because what I was saying is we get further along, we ask that question deeper and deeper or at least we feel the desire to know that answer at a deeper level. What’s my real why? What’s my real purpose? Why am I here? What’s my calling? Whatever you want to call it, I just want to share some insight with you on that because I see a lot of people suffer over this. Why do they suffer?
Well, pain is a required part of like, suffering is optional. Suffering is a man made construct, something we do on ourselves. Suffering kicks in when we feel that our life’s circumstances are in such a place now where we are no longer in control of our outcomes, that’s when we feel that internal struggle, suffering, when we no longer feel we’re in control of our outcomes. This often comes up way back when, we had an image, a model of what life would look like at 30, at 40, at 50, at 70, whatever. Then, we reach that 50 years old or 40 years old or 30 years old and our current life is not equal to that model that we envisioned. That’s okay, ain’t nothing wrong with that. A little pain created there and that’s okay too, pain is good. Pain gets us to the truth. Pain gives us direction, but when we start believing falsely that there’s nothing that we can do about it, that’s where we screw ourselves, that’s when suffering kicks in, what I was just saying about suffering. Just know that suffering is a man made construct.
Yes, pain gets us moving, Cheryl. It can also can be a result of inaction to resolve the issue at hand. Yes, it can be Trick. What I’ll share with you though is the dilemma we box ourselves into in not knowing our purpose, not knowing our why and as a result of that being inable and here’s really the consequence to enjoy life at its fullest in the here and now, that’s the downside to getting stuck in this freaking endless circle of chasing our why. [inaudible 00:04:07] says before anything you chase, runs. The more you chase it, the more it runs. You can’t chase your purpose.
Let’s start out with a quick story. A buddy of mine I went to college with, before he went to college, he did four years in the marines. Then he came to college and did four years in college with me. Then he went to OCF and then he went into the Navy Seals as an officer, did 26 years as a Navy Seal officer. Made it up to one rank below admiral and the only thing stopping him from ever getting the rank of admiral was the fact that he went to a state college and didn’t go to one of the academies, West Point or Annapolis, it is what it is. It’s just how this stuff floats, right? He’s a good buddy of mine. You would think that him being four years plus four years plus one year plus 26 years, that’s 35 years, would have been crystal clear on his calling, his purpose, his why, when in fact it’s not what you think it was. His purpose, his why, was not to be high ranking Navy Seal officer, that was nothing more than training for his bigger calling and he didn’t realize this until afterwards.
He and I had some deep discussions about this, but his real calling was to impact children. All of that leading up to was for one reason: practice, prepare him for what his bigger calling was. That was his way to go about practicing, that’s it. That’s why he did that, nothing more. That may be a lot of practice for teaching kids, no he’s not teaching kids. He’s impacting kids, human beings for life. He started these junior Navy Seal camps and my son started going to them when he was in high school, went through all four years of them. Since Neil’s retired the Navy Seal Program, he’s got more time and he has three of these camps impacting kids. You get what I’m saying?
My point is your purpose, your why, your calling is not finite, it’s not one thing. It changes in time with us. Occasionally, someone will be dialed in at the very beginning. Okay, they got it, carry it right to the end, but that’s rare. It’s not normal, it’s abnormal. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s not where most of us sit. We go through three days they say “Well, Pat, if that’s the case, then what’s the gig?” The gig is very simple. You’ve heard it 1,000 times, maybe you’ve just never stopped and listened to it. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey to the destination, the challenges us Americans, the way we were brought up, the way we’re programmed, all of the BS beliefs that are piled into our head. They tell us “No, it ain’t about the journey. It’s about retirement. It’s about the destination, it’s about later. Now, you suffer. Later, you enjoy life,” and that’s such a lie!
People should go to jail for spewing that kind of crap. The magic is being able to enjoy life at its fullest right here, right now, in the present along the journey. In doing so, you will attract your purpose. You’ll no longer be chasing you purpose. Two things have to happen though in order for that the happen. First, you have to refocus on it meaning get your head out of “I’ve got to know my why.” That’s BS, that’s a lie. You’ve got to know how to pursue your why. You’ve got to be in the process of learning about your why. I can give you three very simple qualifiers of how to go about that. Now, we’re not all at liberty to do exactly what we want, I fully get that, but we work towards this. The more we can come in congruent with these three things. The more likely it is to steer us towards our purpose, our why. I’m going to tell you why your why is not achievable.
The three things are simple, you’ve heard them before. Start choosing to do things that you really genuinely love to do. Don’t worry about your why, your purpose, just what do you love to do here and now? Number one, number two, do things that you’re very good at. These are two filters so far, things that you love to do, things that you’re very good at. The third one, this is the one that brings it out bigger than us, do things that bring tremendous impactful value to the greater of the universe at large. Now if we can start participating in activities that we love to do that we’re really good at and brings a tremendous amount of value to the universe, the universe will reciprocate a massive reward. Quite honestly, that’s how we’re rewarded by the universe. We attract money into our lives based upon the amount of value we bring to the universe. No value, no dollars, tremendous value, tremendous dollars. Third, there’s some scenarios where that formula’s breached, no doubt. Hollywood actors are a prime example of them, as an example. The value they bring versus the return and reward is disproportionate and there’s many others as well. If we’re not worried about anybody else, we’re worried about us anyways. Who gives a crap about them? Kind of makes sense? Okay.
Let me share with you now, you may not like what I’m going to say. Let me share with you three things that interrupt this whole process. You go back when you’re eight years old, you woke up in the morning, you didn’t wake up and … You woke up and there was already a drive, a spirit, a passion, a purpose. Whatever you wanted to focus on that day, your end, you went for it. You didn’t think twice about your means to get there. Today’s a [inaudible 00:10:22]. We think just the opposite. I love that, this, but all of these things you’re going to land. I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not bad ass enough, I don’t have enough money. I’m too old, I’m too young, whatever. We figure out means that aren’t enough to get our end out. We can’t go after that. We talk ourselves right out of it.
I’m going to share something with you. Some of you have seen this before, very simple. Get you on screen here. Cheryl, you know this. This right here is called our capacity, our ability to achieve, our ability to do. This is us. It’s also known as our comfort zone. Out beyond, way beyond, here off the screen is our spirit. Our spirit is our passion, our drive. That thing on the inside of us that we’re seeking now as adults that we had as a child. We had it as a child. What happens over time? Our spirit constantly tugging at us to pull outside of our comfort zone. As a child we’re like “I’m in.” We move it out here. “I’m in,” I move it out here. We had this new capacity. That’s how we learn, grow expand, that’s why our learning curve is so big as children because we don’t say no, we just keep doing. What happens is as adults, we start thinking too much. We start figuring out why we shouldn’t. Fear’s coming, we start fearing things like “Oh, what might she say?” “What if I fail? What if I lose? What’s a [inaudible 00:12:15] thing?” We get scared.
We let that fear overpower our spirit, but there becomes a great resistance then, it sucks. It doesn’t feel good. You know what we do? We cower to our fear. We crawl back into our little zone here, our comfort zone and we [inaudible 00:12:37] our spirit, we put it out. It’s like taking a fire extinguisher to a fire. How do we do that? We distract over it. There’s a million different ways to distract. Sometimes it’s picking up activities that are just normal and outside of our character. It can be stupid little things, anything to distract from having to deal with that. Once we make it go away and we don’t feel it anymore, no more resistance. We can just sit like cowards inside our capacity, inside our comfort zone.
Then, one day we wake up and we miss it. We miss that passion, that purpose, that knowing why you exist past our 30s, past our 40s, past our 50s and we feel it. It’s starting to come alive again, not the spirit because we can’t find iot, but the void it left behind, that’s the challenge to a path, good, get it.
What I’m going to get you to refocus on is now a finding a purpose, it’s about reuniting your spirit because you do that, the rest falls into place because now you go on a life long journey seeking your purpose by participating in things that are incompliant with your spirit because your spirit tells you what to do next, just as it did as a child until we cut it off. When we start doing things that we want to do, love to do, really good at and bring great, tremendous value to the universe, instead of doing stuff that we just think we should be doing, what happens along the way? I can’t get too deep into this, some of you may object too in anyways, that’s cool. Okay.
I will tell you there’s three life events that in some way we experience. One is when we’re young, we need a profession. When we seek our profession, rarely is it sought by qualifying it the way that I did. What do I love to do? What am I really good at? What will bring a great tremendous value to the universe? We do it the other way around. What is safe and secure through dollars and security? Already, we’re off base. Already, we’re offline. Already, we’re creating resistance between who we are meant to be and how we are living our lives. Second one, and I know not everyone’s married, this relationship affect us in some way shape or form and I’ll just call it marriage because marriage is taught the wrong way. Marriage is taught to compromise. Listen, you have two people that are unique human beings. You will be different, you will not always agree. When that doesn’t happen or when that happens when you don’t agree, compromise. Shrink yourself to the lowest common denominator. Whoever thought that was a good idea? Are you kidding me? Versus every time you don’t disagree, embrace the difference, encourage each other to grow into the human beings you are meant to be and grow together. You can grow together and be different at the same damn time!
Instead, we’re taught to compromise and conform and shrink and that steals a part of who we’re meant to be. It’s not your spouse’s fault or your fault, it’s how we’re taught about marriage. Then third, it’s just father time. This takes a big part of our spirit and this one just kicks us square in the ass. Some point we just wake up and we thought “Man, I thought my life was going to be different at this stage, but it’s not. Now I got to focus on,” let’s say you built a business. I know a lot of people who built businesses, their 40, 50, 60 years old, business is making a ton of money, but guess what? Their life sucks. It takes every waking moment of their time. Their life sucks. What do they think they have to do? They think they have to do more to fix it. They continue to suck and that’s steals what’s left of their spirit or, they got to a place in life and they’re not in a financial place they thought they were supposed to be 45 years old. They think now, they just have to throw everything aside and go after more money, chase more money. Forget about what I like to do, what I love doing, what brings great value to the universe, chase more money and that just puts a freaking [inaudible 00:17:37] spirit through their heart.
Get it? Get how this gets away from us? The challenge and the further we get from our calling, the quicker all that we want runs from us, that’s a sketchy part. I know not all of people get [inaudible 00:17:56] that, but in some way shape or form, those three things shape us to who we are today. It’s the American way. Why do you think there’s such high levels of obesity in our lives and drinking issues and cancer in the United States unlike any other developed country in the world? See what’s going on here as a function of all of that?
I was driving out to [inaudible 00:18:30] two years ago with my son and a question he asked me along the way, it was a really awkward ride because it was just really sad, he’s leaving home and he’s going big here, 32 hour drive away and he asked me a question: When is enough, enough? We’re having this little dissertation on this. I slowed down so I could look him square in the eye. I said “[Thatcher 00:19:03], I’m going to say something to you, it may not make sense at first, but let me explain. Enough is never enough.” Some of you may be saying right now to yourself “That’s greedy.” No, let me explain. We have god given tools and talents unlike anyone else, all unique to each individual. We have a ruthless desire to grow, to become more always without exception to the day we die and between those two, we have an obligation, a responsibility to constantly grow, expand, create. We have to understand why and how you become more so that you can do more and doing more you can have more. The only reason you’re going to have more, once our stuff is taken care, is so we can give more and make a bigger impact while we’re here on this Earth. Anyone who steps down from that is doing injustice disrespecting all that’s been given to them along the way.
This whole concept of I’m going to retire, retire for what? So you can do what? Come on! Life’s bigger than that. I know for a fact, we were just down [marina 00:20:32] this weekend, I’ll give you two little [marina 00:20:36] stories. This weekend, the boaters next to me, the gentleman’s 77 year old running a 55 foot boat with his wife on his own going out to Newport for the entire week. Why? Because he can. Why? Because he ain’t dying. Why? Because he still has a business and he doesn’t mind working it because he knows the second he stops, he’ll stop. We’re out in [inaudible 00:20:57] last weekend and we’re at a small marina that we frequent regularly. It’s a couple that runs the marina and they do it all. When you pull in, man, they’re there taking your dock lines. He is 88 years old. You’d never guess it. More life than a lot of people I know at 50 years old because he realizes if he stops, he’ll stop. His job is to keep creating, as is our job. Enough is never enough. It’s our job to always create, to grow, to expand, to be, to do, to have, to give, that’s how this system works.
Last piece here. In order to seek out your purpose at the highest level, in order to get fully engaged in the journey, two things have to happen. One, this carries on the thought enough is never enough, but it only ever works when you’re absolutely, positively, genuinely grateful for where you are right now and always wanting more. Grateful for more that you have and don’t have and always wanting to create, absolutely genuinely grateful because if you can’t be grateful now for what you have, you can’t be grateful for what you think you want, it doesn’t work that way. The second part is this: opening up your mind to the fact that we don’t know what we don’t know. When we were young, we knew that we didn’t know what we didn’t know, we just kept learning ruthlessly, but somewhere in our teens and twenties we were like “Oh, I know it all!” We stopped learning. In your thirties, like “Oh, I’m smart now, I’m 30 years old. I know what I know and I know what I don’t know.” No, you’re still a dumb ass!
It’s not until we get in our 40s, sometimes in our 50s or later we finally realize “Man, I’m back at ground zero. I don’t know what I don’t know.” The second you go there, you open yourself up to ruthless learning. You challenge your beliefs. All a belief is is a little piece of software embedded in our brain put in way back when often times without our permission as we were children through adult figures, teachers, parents, whatever they were and they’re wrong! We have software running in the background that’s wrong! Challenge it, challenge it all. You may find that “No, this one’s perfectly good,” keep it. This one sucked and I want to punch whoever gave it to me, boot it, instill a new belief, but don’t sit there thinking that you got all of the answers because that keeps you in a tiny little … You can call it your comfort zone, you can call it your capacity zone. I’ll call it your coward zone, call what it is. It’s [inaudible 00:24:00], keep going to the next thing no matter how big or small, even the items we may think are small could be very big for those that we impact or touch on our journey. The moment we stop growing is the day we begin to expire, that’s absolutely positively true.
I love these [inaudible 00:24:15] from Mr. Joe [inaudible 00:24:15] participating in these weekly meetings in combination with the [inaudible 00:24:17] Podcast, posts “Training [inaudible 00:24:21] provides has extremely helped in all areas of my integrity, will and life. Good info man, keep up the great work, thanks man.” You get the credit Joe, I’m just a messenger. All I do is message. Mr. Drake “I teach to others the difference to enrich their lives. I teach multiple income streams at a couple of the local junior colleges,” awesome, “You give me an entrepreneur like you stated what you love, a hobby and your dream.” Absolutely. I think that’s it, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all I got for you today. I encourage you man, run with this. If you got to hear this video again, go back and listen to it. Don’t get hung up worrying about what your purpose is, focus on getting in the proper zone of learning, expanding, the journey, and embrace the journey, the highs and lows and everything in between. [With that 00:25:20], I’m starting my next eight week health class, but I’m feeling a little impatient to get more people. Keep pushing Joe, put it out there, speak loud and clear. Don’t worry about impatience. Ms. [inaudible 00:25:32], “Thanks for the encouragement.” You’re very welcome. Andrew, you’re very welcome too and Sherry have a great day.
You guys are awesome, man. Peace and sorry about the slow start there, peace.
