1: Want to live an extra seven years?
According to an eleven-year study led by Robert Butler, one of the pioneers of healthy-aging research, “Those who expressed a clear purpose in life lived about seven years longer and had a higher quality of life than those who did not,” Sahil Bloom writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth.
There’s more.
“A more recent 2019 study in The Journal of the American Medical Association looked at seven thousand Americans and linked a strong sense of purpose with a lower risk of all-cause mortality after age fifty,” Sahil notes.
What exactly is going on here?
The answer?
Purpose provides daily meaning in our lives.
“It creates an identity, an understanding of who we are, what we stand for, and where we’re going,” he observes. “It defines how we connect with the world around us.”
2: Sahil describes his purpose as simple: “To create positive ripples in the world through my writing and content, businesses I start or invest in, and relationships.”
His purpose provides clarity around what he thinks, says, and does.
“When I write, I focus on how the words and theme may create chain reactions in the world,” Sahil writes, “how readers may be sparked into actions that will have a positive impact on their lives.
“When I build or invest, I focus on how the company may create value in the lives of the various stakeholders.
“When I love,” he explains, “I focus on how I can lift others to new heights, give them a new view on the world, and unlock their full potential.”
The bigger point? “The way I engage with my purpose changes from day to day, but it is always unique to me—it is a part of who I am,” Sahil says.
3: Living a purposeful life allows us to connect with something bigger, which then helps clarify our identity as well as our daily actions.
There are two key observations about a personal purpose.
First, it “need not be impressive or grand to anyone else,” Sahil writes. “It is personal; it is ours.”
Second, our purpose is not necessarily about our profession or career (although it could be).
“In fact, among the over one hundred readers I surveyed who self-identified as having strong clarity of purpose, less than 20 percent said that the work they were doing for primary employment was their purpose,” he shares.
Sure, it may be a “company that influences millions of lives,” he notes, but it also could be “to provide for our loved ones, to bring joy to a group that rarely feels it, or to be a useful member of our local community.”
Here are some examples of purpose from Sahil’s book:
- “A mid-forties married male had a passion project mentoring local at-risk youth. The opportunity to be the positive force that he felt was missing from his childhood was a powerful driver.
- “A mid-fifties mother of three grown children said that her close involvement with her local church had breathed new life into her world since her children had left the house.
- “An early-thirties mother identified raising happy, loving children as the purpose of this season of her life. She had been a high-powered creative director in the prior season but felt more intrinsic motivation around this new, non-work purpose than she ever had for anything before.
- “A late-twenties single woman focused on climate and political activism. The chance to inspire others to spark change was exhilarating.
- “An early-forties married woman pointed to her love for her coworkers and the shared vision within the company to improve the quality of storytelling of the brands they work with.
- “An early-seventies retiree said his purpose was to dote on his wife in their golden years after all the sacrifices she had made for their family in the preceding fifty.
- “A fifty-year-old husband and father of four was entirely focused on providing for his children. He called it a “sacred duty” and said it made him feel connected to his job.
- “A late thirties single man identified his defining purpose as building his fledgling start-up to eventually influence a billion lives.”
The bottom line, according to Sahil: “Our purpose is our sword in the fight for distinctiveness, a fight that is won when we extend well beyond the self and manifest that purpose in the world.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: How clearly can I currently articulate my purpose in a single sentence that genuinely energizes me and guides my daily decisions?
Action: Draft one simple, personal purpose statement for this season of my life and identify one concrete way to live it out in the coming week.
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