How to Find Your Freelance Purpose Without Burning It All Down
For many freelancers, work can gradually become more than a way to make money. It can become part of who they are—and that can make it surprisingly difficult to know what to do when the work no longer feels right.
In this episode of The Freelance Insider Show, Al Calder talks with Suneet about work, identity, happiness, purpose, decision-making, burnout, and the challenge of figuring out what you actually want next.
Suneet also explains his Happy, Proud, Not Yet Satisfied exercise and why finding your purpose starts with understanding yourself—not simply choosing a new direction.
Watch the Episode
Listen to the Episode
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Why work can become too closely tied to your identity
- How work identity can affect freelance decisions about clients, money, and opportunities
- The difference between knowing what you need to change and actually doing it
- How to recognize when work has become your entire identity
- Why happiness does not have to depend on success
- Why understanding yourself comes before finding your purpose
- How the Happy, Proud, Not Yet Satisfied exercise works
- How values, strengths, dreams, motivations, and limitations can reveal patterns
- How freelancers can reframe burnout without immediately throwing everything away
- Why values are a useful place to start when deciding what comes next
Episode Transcript
I yeah and it’s uh it’s good to be here So I I appreciate you making space for me and looking forward to the conversation I think this is gonna be a good conversation for freelancers a little something a little bit different but my approach has always been to try and give the audience a little more of a a realistic approach to freelance You know there’s a lot of gurus out there spouting a lot of different things and I try to as much as possible keep it real So I I think your your your your your your your your your your your approach to business in that it’ll be really enlightening So if you’re ready we’ll We’ll jump right in here
Why Can a Successful Career Still Leave You Unfulfilled?
You spent twenty five years building organizations raising more than forty million and helping grow one organization from two hundred to twelve hundred people I believe On paper That sounds like a pretty successful career So when did you first realize something wasn’t quite right I realized it early and often I just didn’t do anything And so You know I start the story by saying in the beginning I I knew two things in high school And I knew one I wanted to be a teacher I wanted to be in the front of the classroom So I knew that And the second thing is that I wanted to work in the Peace Corps but really I just wanted to do a more service oriented job But I had immigrant parents who moved to America and were like No like those are not things we moved here so that you could thrive Uh but to them thriving meant financial stability right Taking care of your family They didn’t realize that they’d done such a good job providing for my sister and for me that I had actually They created the space for me to think about something bigger Nevertheless I didn’t do it and I jumped into sort of traditional work and you know professional work white collar work And uh what’s fascinating is you know in the beginning I would be at a job for four
Why Do People Keep Changing Jobs When the Real Problem Is the Work?
years and at some point I would say Ah you know what like it’s I’m not happy here I don’t like the work Uh let me go find something else and then I would do it and keep jumping And over the course of those 25 years the space between jobs grew shorter and shorter and so to the point where when I left my last exited my last business my wife looked at me and said Hey man like this isn’t this isn’t working Uh your stints at these jobs are getting shorter and shorter And your breakups with these jobs are getting more and more acrimonious Y something’s not working You need to figure this out And it was the perfect level headed supportive slap in the face that I needed to realize that I Had to fix something And and the ultimate takeaway was I kept telling myself every year two years three years four years that that I didn’t like the work but uh that I didn’t like the job But the truth is I just never liked the work And so I was never gonna be happy No matter what company I went to doesn’t matter It would be exciting for a little while and then it would wear off and then the truth would settle in and I wouldn’t like it And so it was never about the job it was always about the work But it wasn’t until my wife held up a mirror and gave me some tough love that I realized I had to do something differently Yeah you mentioned it was like every eighteen to twenty four months it was almost like a study cycle huh It was I’d say the last ten years was probably a pretty was probably a pretty tight cycle of eighteen to twenty four months Yeah I think a lot of people can appreciate that I mean we all go I think through those cycles I think these days you know that’s probably a lot of the reasons a lot of people get into freelance in the first place is that they’re tr trying to get out of the cycle that they don’t appreciate They’re looking for something better or sense of purpose to speak to what what what what what what what what what what what your your your your your your your your your your your uh expertise is
What Does It Mean to Be Good at the Work but Bad at Being Yourself?
You said something in your email that really caught my attention though I was good at the work and bad at the job of being myself What is I what do you mean by that I mean look I will say and I think my numbers show it I think the performance of the organizations I was in and the teams I was in show it We we we we we we we we we we we do really good work and sometimes against extraordinary circumstances So like I put my results up against just about anybody I put my knowledge of how to replicate those results against just about anybody but in doing that work I would lose like my authentic self So what does that mean Right When I look at my strengths and my values and the things that give me energy uh it is believing in people believing in the best of people it is elevating people uh it is creating space for people to thrive It is believing that there is always if not a solution at least a way forward uh is very positive optimistic optimistic inclusive and sort of people oriented Um when I was in my last gig and there’s a long sort ofyou know uh winding story but at the end of the day um you know I was
How Can a Strength Become a Problem When You Rely on It Too Much?
forced into a role where I had to really be sort of the most senior person there I was also the oldest the most experienced but you know we were going through COVID it was tough times and so I activated a part of my you know one of my strengths and values where I really stepped into kind of this commanding role right I was really clear I was really directive we were in a moment of crisis and I did thatThat But that isn’t all of me that is just part of me And what happened is as soon as we managed our way through COVID and actually the business took off That’s where we grew from two hundred to twelve hundred people in twenty months one location to five around the world like extraordinarily extraordinary success And of those twelve hundred people when I left eleven hundred of those people were on my team right So like I was pretty active uh in that journey But I never turned off that command style I never went back to my coach my inspire all the things that made me and like rounded me out And so I lost myself in one part of a role I thought I was supposed to play as opposed to stepping back and remembering a pretty complex human being We are the most complex beings that have ever walked the planet And there’s more to me than just this one muscle I keep exercising And that That took me a while to unravel and realize that I did it ’cause it felt right It was driving results and I’d gotten into a habit But the company didn’t need that anymore And a lot of the people didn’t want it anymore because they didn’t feel that pressure They saw the growth They wanted me to change and adapt and I never did
Why Do We Sometimes Play the Role Other People Expect From Us?
You mentioned the in there that you felt like you were playing a role at times I think that probably speaks to a lot of people We’re we’re playing the role that we think people expect us to to to be in a lot of times right So now you mentioned your wife being the catalyst to kinda push you forward which is a good thing to have but was there a particular moment from your own perspective before that when you you you realized that you were the common denominator in this kind of recurring pattern Did you have an epiphany before that Internally yeah I probably knew it in I probably knew it in twenty ten twenty twelve
How Can Self-Awareness Close the Knowing-Doing Gap?
I f sensed it Um I would say2014 when I left probably the best job I ever had at a company called Live Intent where I really vibed with the CEO I really vibed with my team I really vibe with the company we raised a bunch of money we were innovating in the space we were telling big stories Like that was the most fun I ever had at work and probably one of the best bosses I ever had Um and when I left that um that’s when something felt unsettled And I never found my footing after that job Um but I never so there’s a difference between knowing and doing right So one of the greatest faults you know is the intention action gap is the knowing doing gap right It is the what we know we need to do versus what we actually activate Um and how do you build a bridge across those things And part of it is self awareness and admitting it to yourself so I knew it But I never admitted it to myself until my wife held up a mirror and then gave me the space to do it Like that’s really important which is she could have just been critical and said Get like you need to fix this and then get back to work But instead she said You’ve done enough Like you’ve done a lot you’ve done a lot for a family you’ve done enough we’re gonna be okay Like go figure this out and have some time And that was pretty and that was pretty powerful Just the critique without the space and grace I don’t think would have been successful I don’t think it works for anybody It’s just pressure It’s y it’s nice to have that little nudge and it’s but doing it the right way because otherwise I don’t think a lot of times people get defensive like no that’s not me I’m not like that Right So they have to make that realization themselves But having that support is a is a great thing for sure
Why Does Feedback Sometimes Make People More Defensive?
So Al there’s a neat there’s a neat like there’s a lot of neat research on feedback and I do a lot of work on feedback and here’s what you know we know that a lot of feedback fails It doesn’t successfully work And we actually know that a good portion of feedback not a majority some posit4030 you know but that’s a significant amount of feedback actually is counterproductive where people get the feedback and they dig in right So you can imagine that a lot of feedback doesn’t land and a portion of feedback not insignificant portion of feedback actually is counterproductive And so digging into that what we learn about feedback and about Helping people is You know in order for people to receive feedback they have to believe a few things First They have to believe that you understand what they’re doing what they’re going through So they they have to feel like you know them That’s the first thing The second thing is they have to feel like you have their back So it’s to feel like you have their best interests at heart And third they have to feel like they’re s Something they can do about it And so if you’re going in to give somebody feedback and those three boxes aren’t checked before you give them feedback find out how you can check those three boxes Cause if you don’t either it’s gonna land on deaf ears or it’s gonna be counterproductive And so to your point people get defensive I think it’s human nature Like if somebody’s giving you feedback and they don’t you don’t feel like they know what you’re going through Or they’re just you know arbitrarily speaking You don’t feel like they have your back And you don’t feel like they’re giving you anything constructive that you can do about it either the space to do it or the instructions to do it or both Right T then why would you listen you you’re not gonna listen to it Right And so I think that’s That’s why I say like the way my wife did it for me She I know she knows what I’m going through better than anybody else Uh I know she has my back more than anybody else But the important thing she did at the end was she gave me the space to do something about it She made me feel like I could I actually had the space to do something about it and fix it And that’s what made her feedback a model for like how to do that Right for anyone Yeah that’s huge We talk a lot on this show about uh freelancers
What Is the Freelancer’s Other Single Point of Failure?
protecting themselves from having one client before you know become a single point of failure You know that one of my episodes I talked about losing a two thousand a week client and the devastation we feel in that moment Um but you make the argument that there’s another kind of single point of failure The freelancers sort of sense of self What what does that look like I believe that uh For all of us uh and this is what I loved about when I when I listened to that the2K episode Um and like the single point of failure is we put all of our eggs in one basket and we are all about one thing So all of our happiness all of our fulfillment uh all of our pride all of our accomplishment all of our energy we tie it up in one thing And the truth is we are not We are complex algorithms And so what we want to do is try and really understand all the different levers that we can pull that bring us happiness bring us fulfillment bring us energy bring us confidence move us towards our dreams Like we want to break those down into multiple variables That way if because life is inherently not linear up and down
How Can Freelancers Keep Work From Becoming Their Entire Identity?
Of course That way if something doesn’t go straight You don’t feel like it’s all or nothing and everything doesn’t crumble down You have other places to hang your hat Here’s like a practical example Um I was just on the phone uh with a coaching client And she’s had a tough job She’s struggling with the job And her problem was everything was about this job Everything was tied up in this job And over the course of our coaching she decoupled her life into a bunch of different variables like friends and community and reading and writing like all these other things And she took work and this job from having to be everything to just being a component of her life And as a result of that she was able to put it in a box and say you know what my job is important to me because it serves a function
What Happens When Work Becomes Everything in Your Life?
It gives me money It keeps me busy gives me healthcare gives me money and gives me like fulfills some of my personal objectives But I’m actually I’m not gonna make it my all my everything and my all I’m gonna acknowledge its place in my life so that I can now have more space for Joyce She’s been traveling she’s joining like a specific community and a club to to product her creative pursuits but when work was everything It takes up all of it It takes up everything When work is just something It takes up some percent of your time and your mental capacity and your cognitive burden And so that’s an example of try to step back from single point of failure She has the same job she lives in the same place she’s the same everything is the same She just recontextualized it as a component of her overall algorithm for Fulfillment for happiness For her it’s just fulfillment right Um and that was a beautiful that’s a beautiful thing So it’s similar to your uh your your your your your your your your your your two thousand uh we’ve been there I’ve been there right Uh where you have a client diversify And that way also if that thing goes away which is important um you have other areas to channel your energy Uh but if you need if to let that thing go You’re not afraid to because you have other areas to focus your time and attention You don’t feel lost So as a result you’re not trapped by it either which I think is really important Yeah and I think obviously speaking speaking from personal experience but I think a lot of freelancers fall into that trap They just they get in that comfort factor oh this is the client I’ve been waiting for this is perfect Well you’ve got to keep you know you’ve got to keep moving you gotta keep your eggs in in in more than one basket otherwise you end up in thethat trap and before you know it you don’t know
Why Is It So Hard to Leave Work That No Longer Fits?
how to get out of it And a lot of times too I mean I’ve had the opposite sure I’ve had a multiple clients but ones where you’re just you’re not comfortable with them But you stay there because you’re you’re concerned about the same thing but it from a different angle Like I’m gonna lose that client you know Yeah like I We keep learning these lessons the hard way Like I just learned it you know six months ago where I had a client who was abusive to her team uh disrespectful to my time uh exploitative of like my work And like because I didn’t pull the trigger ultimately we hit a threshold and a limit where like Yeah but we we had to part ways but instead of me walking away it was a it was a tumultuous departure Right And I think that was me playing with scarcity as opposed to abundance And I think that’s an important it’s hard Right But it’s important And sometimes you have to take work you don’t love The best thing you can do with that work is be really honest about the role it’s playing in your life I’m doing this work because I need to check
How Can Freelancers Make Better Decisions About Clients and Opportunities?
I’m doing this work because I need to check It’s not gonna make me happy it’s not gonna fulfill me it’s not gonna spark me creatively it’s not gonna inspire me it’s not people I’m gonna work with And the benefit to doing that is you start looking other places for all those things intentionally So you find the spark elsewhere you manage your time you do that work from ten to twelve or ten to two you do your best client before it you do your best friend after it like you start managing your day around that energy ’cause you’re just aware of it and I should have Maybe you’re working to to move on from that client but not necessarily right away You don’t want to obviously hurt your income You’ve got to look at it from that perspective too So Especially if you’re a freelancer right I mean you it’s You eat what you kill like if you’re not working the work isn’t getting done It’s an extraordinary there’s a lot of flexibility But you also feel a lot of pressure And so I think that’s a unique place to be You can have a freelancer that has five clients three income streams multiple skills but they and still have an incredibly narrow definition of who they are Um What are some of the warning signs that someone’s identity has become too closely tied to their work do you think I think the in the conversations with them I think a few things One uh when you ask them about Like how things are going and if everybody instantly gravitates to client work then that’s unhealthy right You should be able to speak to a variety of things And there are times where the work is the best thing in your life It’s the most exciting that’s great But when it’s all the time that’s problematic right That’s problematic for most For some people that might be what motivates them right I mean I definitely have friends who are workaholics like that I get it but it’s really the outlier We are social creatures there’s other things to us Um I think if the mood if their mood is dependent on their work day that’s pretty tough right Like um if all you if it’s all you think about and all you talk about if it’s all that’s on your calendar and all
What Are the Warning Signs That Work Has Become Too Much of Your Identity?
that’s in your you know uh all that’s forward looking on your calendar It’s the the only stuff you have planned Uh if you’re if it dictates your mood So if the work goes high you go high If the work goes low you go low I think that uh That is pretty those are some serious warning signs where you have made your work about your identity And the other side of it is you know for freelancers for many people when they say Well I want to do something else but I don’t know what that is and like what do I what am I going to do if I leave this job What am I gonna do And really they’re saying who am I gonna be Right Like when I leave this job And I think that’s important Those are some signs Yeah just now adding to that how does tying your identity too closely to your work affect the decisions that you make about clients about money about pricing about opportunities
Why Should Freelancers Create a Decision-Making Framework Before They Need It?
I think you when you make it the sole variable and you make it about everything you’re gonna make bad decisions because you’re trapped you’re desperate you need it uh there are no alternatives and you’re you’re not seeing the big picture You’re not seeing the forest for the trees And so as a result of that I think you’re gonna make rash decisions unhealthy decisions you’re gonna make decisions that are about closing the deal and getting the client as opposed to thinking about the right portfolio in the right mix And I think there are times where that makes sense Like there are times where we just need to close deals Like we just need revenue We just need income That makes sense But a a lot of times like stepping back and being thoughtful is important And and What I coach people on is you’ve gotta decide how you’re gonna decide before it’s time to decide So like if you’re trying to assess a customer because the proposal came in It’s already too late The money’s too tempting the the the win loss ratio is too favorable right for closing the deal and the loss is too unfavorable because you feel it you need to have your decision making framework before the proposals start coming to you Uh so that you can actually filter objectively in an unbiased way. And I think that’s the important thing If you’re if you’re making the decision like in the moment I think you the the deck is stacked against you So you almost need like a mental checklist that you go through with each client Yeah And you need that for every decision Like it everything like what you’re gonna order for dinner to like where you’re gonna go on vacation y you wanna decide how you’re gonna decide before it’s time to decide And the benefit then is you actually can be really thoughtful about what makes you what matters to you you can build the appropriate decision making framework and then you run everything through it And it’s not always gonna be right but you can go back and tweak the framework Right And continue to get better at your decision making And good decision making requires extraordinary selfawareness and most of us just don’t have it We still have it What about when you’re a freelancer who’s doing really good There people are hiring them they’re they’re They’re killing it out there And but it’s not necessarily the thing that makes them happy or fulfilled
What Should You Do If You’re Successful but Not Happy?
What do you say to them I see that I see that all the time Uh and I think you have to you have it’s hard because it’s really it could be a few things I’ve worked with people who have been in that situation now and it turns out the work was actually the thing that made them happy They had never they just hadn’t acknowledged it It was negativity bias like clouding their mind and they didn’t realize that they were actually doing the exact work they wanted to do That happens a lot Like2025 of the time people just forget that they’re actually doing exactly what they want to do On the other hand you can look at it and say okay well then why are you in this job Why are you doing this work And they’re like well it’s something I’m extraordinarily good at I just don’t love it You’re like okay what do you love How do you start connecting the dots between what you’re good at and what you love How does what you’re good at become a feeder for what you love right And the intersection of both right Which could be great And the other side of it is I don’t know Like I’m doing this because I don’t know what else to do And that’s a very different conversation as well One is a reframe which is hey it’s like the story I told you about the woman who now looks at that job as serving all of the things she wants to do She’s starting to see her job very differently And the energy in our text last night was like Total reframe Like I feel really good about where I’m at I’ve reframed how I see my life and I’m coming back with like renewed energy That’s like one angle right
How Can You Tell Whether You Need a New Strategy or a Deeper Change?
The other is I’m doing this because I’m good at it but I know it’s a how Like I need to get from here to here I know where I want to go How do I build that bridge That’s an operations question That’s like a momentum and that’s a momentum question right That’s execution And the other one is I’m doing this because I don’t know what else to do and that’s an excavation question That’s like we’ve got to get to the bottom of this and start helping you figure out and then it’s experimentation it’s iteration finding the thing you want so that it becomes a how discussion right And I think that’s that’s how I see it That’s how I experience it with the folks I work with A lot of people that are yeah they’re just they’re doing it b may maybe because it’s what they’ve always done right And and Yeah also true And success right It’s hard to walk Yep and we know that happiness is the precursor to success It is hard to feel s it’s not hard to be successful It’s hard to feel successful if you
Why Is Happiness a Precursor to Success?
don’t feel happy And it is eas it is much easier to feel happy Independent of success Just think of moments in your life that make you smile right I look at my kid you know watching tennis and loving the U S open There’s no success there Maybe I I mean I love tennis so maybe the success is I got my kids to love tennis but there’s no like the success is there’s no success there There’s just happiness Like I love his joy That’s amazing And so happiness is the precursor to success and happiness can uh exist independent of success Success is really hard again not to be but to feel successful if you’re not Yeah I I share your love of tennis I uh when I in my teen years I w every summer we’ve just played tennis all summer long So I got back into it during Covid Yeah Which is like the best Tennis court is like three blocks down the street It’s I’ve kinda been thinking of the pickleball thing I haven’t got there yet Ah we got into we gotta do that too it’s fine Yeah It’s fine It’s different but it’s fine It’s fine So there’s this popular idea that we should simply find our purpose You’ve taken a somewhat different approach Why do you believe purpose is something we need to make sense of rather than simply discover I think
Why Do You Need to Understand Yourself Before You Can Find Your Purpose?
We well it starts with one It starts with one data point that really you know sh sho sho sho sho sho sho shook me and there’s this woman Tasha Urich who does research and says that um Yeah about ninety five percent of us think we are self aware but only ten to fifteen percent of us actually are And so there’s this massive gap in the data you know data and so these sort of social psychology experiments is you know you don’t want to take the hard numbers but the premise is still accurate which is most of us think we know ourselves Right But really most of us don’t And It’s hard to find what makes you like it’s hard to find your purpose if you don’t know what makes you a matters to you So what I say is before you can make sense of your purpose you have to make sense of yourself Okay Um and that’s really important because if you look at sort of meta definitions of purpose purpose requires three things First Purpose has to be Personal So it has to be yours So we come from the inside out Second Purpose has to be forward looking so it has to be about what’s next Um and third purpose has to be in service of something beyond yourself It has to apply to something greater than you And so like The first one is it has to come from the inside out And if you just start chasing purpose without actually doing the work to have it germinate and come from the inside out then you’re just chasing the wrong thing I say people right now people searching for purpose meaning happiness fulfillment all those things Basically it’s like going grocery shopping while hungry Right They go show up to the grocery store and they like they take the thing that satisfies their craving in the moment but it does not nourish them over time and it is not healthy And so it doesn’t satisfy them It satiates the it curbs the the craving But they’re hungry again and then they reach for the next thing And that’s the problem And the antidote for that is to actually start by really knowing yourself extraordinarily well
What Makes a Purpose Meaningful and Sustainable?
So that you can start connecting yourself to what you are uniquely here to do Um and I think that’s the part that people get wrong There look there’s tons of amazing content out there on purpose and meaning and your life’s like your unique life’s purpose and design your life and Nicky Guy and there’s all these amazing things out there But they all skip a really important step And that important step is they all assume that you’re showing up to their framework or to their work with a clear confident understanding of who you are And the truth is most of us just aren’t And it’s not our fault It’s just we haven’t had the time the space the grace the structure to like do that work Now speaking of that you mentioned you mentioned time and I think that’s probably a few listeners might be thinking that where do I find the time to actually examine myself properly and find that purpose right Yeah I mean time it’s not it doesn’t take a long time Uh like if you work through the book at the end of the book there’s a uh there’s actually a map that tells you exactly how much time each gonna take you And I think it’s like you know nine hours of like a book which is what a work day Like it’s you know thirty minutes for a couple of weeks thirty minutes a day like it’s not a lot of time to get this extraordinary amount like running start at selfawareness And the problem is not that people don’t have time The problem is once they make the time they don’t know what to do Right You know I’ll take ten hours tomorrow and go find you you know start making sense of your purpose You’ll be like okay I you blocked the day you’ll be like what the hell do I do So you’ve got to give people the space and the grace to do it but then some structure so they can spend their time on the work right Like I had to do that journey for myself I laid it out and I want to make it so easy for them to just follow the guide and the prompts and
Why Is Finding Your Purpose Like Grocery Shopping While Hungry?
just so they can focus on the work as opposed to thinking about what work do I need to do next Just follow the guide So talking on the book there did you wanna tell us where they could find it and just in case someone’s you know looking to to read it and get involved Yeah uh I am super proud You know I am Look in the grand scheme of things I don’t have a million followers Like I don’t have you know I’m I don’t have a massive audience Um I’ve been teaching this for four years at Rutgers coaching lots of people I’ve done tens ten thousand fifteen thousand hours on this work with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people but And I say that because in the grand scheme of things Things I I was surprised when I found out a week and a half ago that uh this made the USA Today bestseller list right So it hit the list That was a massive moment And so as a result of that the book is now available like anywhere you buy books online Okay Uh we’re working on instore distribution but you know Barnes Noble’s your bag go to Barnes Noble If Books A Million or Bookshoporg is like support the independent bookseller go there If Amazon and the Kindle version is what’s gonna help you consume it like Go there but it is available at all the places you buy books online And we’ll include links uh in the show notes as well so How do you distinguish between what you’re good
What Does It Mean to Look at Your Life Through Multiple Lenses?
at what you enjoy what you’re paid for and what actually matters to you Okay uh that’s that strikes me as very sort of inky guy esque but let me tell you like uh I I’m not gonna answer the question directly but let me tell you how I frame it in the book Uh the way I talk about it in the book and in my courses is that there’s no single lens that fully captures the complexity that is you You are we are the I said this earlier we’re the most complex beings that ever walked the planet So there’s no single way you can look at me that will fully capture who I am You have to look at yourself as many different ways as possible and then you want to look at for what sh the overlaps what keeps showing up And so uh I say I want you to You start with what makes you smile Like just what makes you happy decoupled from accomplishment Then I want you to think about okay what are the things that give you confidence What are the things that make you proud of yourself Then I want you to look at what are the things that you feel you can do better Then I want you to look at what gives you energy which is strengths I want you to look at what makes you who you are at your core like your values Then I want you to look at your dreams What do you aspire to Then I want you to look at your behaviors versus your motivations Where’s their alignment Where’s there a disconnect Then I want you to acknowledge your truth What are your limitations The example I use is My eyes are Like I’ve had ten eye surgeries I have corneal transplant I’ve had like experimental laser surgery I’m basically end of life on my glasses But I don’t wake up every day and complain about my vision I put on my glasses and I go about my day So what’s the truth and the limitations of your day that you have to cope with What burdens are you carrying And so the first you know Th4050 of the book is nothing but helping you see yourself through all of these different lenses at depth And then you step back And say Where are things repeating themselves Where do themes keep showing up And when you do that you start to get an
Why Isn’t a Simple Purpose Framework Always Enough?
integrated view of This is what I’m good at this is what matters to me uh this is what I can commercially do this is what the world needs from me like all that stuff comes together And that’s the challenge right People say do Icky guy and I’m like I love Icky Guy it’s freaking beautiful And elegant It’s so like it’s so stunning And its simplicity and its elegance But when I ask you to f fill it out If I ask ten people to fill it out ten people will fill it out a different way And as a result of that you’re gonna get a different like you’re getting a different framework So what we’re trying to do is create a methodology that equips you to fill that out in a research evidence backed way I say that because my book Has two hundred citations in it There’s two hundred references in my book So purpose is not Fluffy and feelings Purpose is real and evidence based and research backed And so your question was what differentiates these things Right And actually what I say is what’s the same across all those things Okay Excavate ’em Find the things that overlap And when and this goes back to your question about single point of failure If it if this thing gives me energy if this thing makes me smile if this thing maps to my values if this thing connects to my dreams then I’m tethered to this thing like six or seven di diff diff diff different ways If my dream doesn’t happen immediately and that cord snaps I’m still connected to it like six different ways right I’m still gonna keep moving in that direction And so it’s especially in the beginning it’s less about the differences and distinctions and more about the commonalities the themes and the overlaps So with your your your your your your your your your your your clients you’ve talked about um Have you when you’ve gone through this process with them have have you find a lot of people are surprised with the outcome I mean Like This stuff just works Uh it’s amazing Uh Like I I’m so in the middle of a course right now right with like nine different uh eight different women Age forty to fifty Going on its journey And what’s fascinating is Each one of them came in likely skeptical a little bit about this They’re like ah is this really gonna work for me I’m kinda different Like I’ve done this work before et cetera Everyone who has put in the work is seeing themselves m differently and more clearly now than they did before they started And that to me is beautiful So like And all they needed was the space and grace to do this work So like what’s really important is I am not a guru Like you’re not gonna see me telling you I have the answers I was the person just like you who made these mistakes who had an amazing partner who said figure this out and then who had the idea to like write it down in a way that other people could benefit from And so
Why Is the Book Designed as a Gift Rather Than a Guru’s Prescription?
Even the book is not by Sunni Ba It’s from Sunni It’s from me It’s a gift to you But it’s not by me It’s not about me It’s from me It’s to you It’s for you to do like on your own And everybody has a different experience with it Uh but Yeah I see it I see it Every single If you put the time If you put the time and energy into this book Um and into this work I guarantee It will meaningfully change your life for the better I just Guarantee it
What Is the Happy, Proud, Not Yet Satisfied Exercise?
So going into some of the concepts specifically you’ve developed an exercise um called Happy Proud Not Yet Satisfied Yeah What are those three questions asking us to look at and why do they work together Yeah so uh The way they work the reason they work together is Uh the pr it started with this idea of okay what am I gonna do next What am I gonna do next And if you just start with what you’re gonna do next We are hardwired for negativity Negativity bias is real Some studies say that equal positive and negative stimuli you will feel the negative stimuli two to five times stronger then you feel the negative one Which means I’m negative the negative one two to five times stronger than you feel the positive one Positive one yeah Which means for every negative stimuli you need two to five positive ones just to be even Just to feel an equilibrium If that’s what’s top of mind as you’re building a todo list you’re not building it based on the stuff that makes you and matters to you You’re building it based on urgency of like scarcity fear anxiety like that’s what’s doing it So it’s like well how do you know when I’m working with my team I was like how do I when my team is gonna set their goals for next year How do I have them do it in a healthier way And I was like I don’t want to talk about what’s next Let’s start with happy
How Does Happy, Proud, Not Yet Satisfied Help With Negativity Bias?
Just Give you three prompts and make you write for five minutes about all the stuff that just like made you smile and that you could do forever Without running out of energy Just write about that stuff for five Right And then I say okay Now Just write about the stuff where you felt your confidence and your abilities grow Where did you feel like you learned something Add it to a resume There’s different prompts for this different ways of getting at it Three different prompts but like Wh where you confidence Show me like where you’re proud of yourself and where you believe in yourself Now you’ve done those two things you’ve offset your negativity bias so you’re now in an even playing field Two Right You’ve offset the two Pa happy and proud Now Tell me what you want to focus on next But do it by looking through what makes you happy and proud Okay And then people make a very different list Make a very different list And they feel differently about the list It’s their list They own it and they know that it connects to stuff that gives them energy makes them spile Like it’s present They see it present in the todo list And so it’s like It’s a running start at what’s next Positive momentum Like when did your sales now set your to do list and like It is a super powerful Reframe and you already heard me talk about happiness right Like happiness is the precursor to success I think the thing we get wrong with happiness is we make it a prediction but we should make happiness a reflection Happiness is best suited until you really get comfortable with it as a reflection What did make you happy So that way when you see it again you can repeat it Um but it starts with a point that I think is an important backdrop for all of us that we ignore and avoid So if I asked a freelancer listening to this to
How Should You Use the Happy, Proud, Not Yet Satisfied Exercise?
Do the the exercise tonight To go home when you’re done listening and do the exercise What would you want them to pay attention to in their answers I would want them to just lose themselves in the moment unhappy write it depth Don’t write like a word or two words Don’t write playing tennis Write about playing tennis Cause as you write two to three sentences about it you get past it and about what it means Why right So I would want them to like really write about those things And then I don’t want them to judge it I just want them to look at it and see what shows up And most of the time it’s gonna be about time spent Quality time spec And I want them to be aware of it And I just like no judging don’t judge anything just be aware of it And the beauty of that exercise is it’s now documented It’s written down And so You can’t change your schedule Like you can’t all of a sudden do Happy Proud Night and Satisfied and say I love playing tennis I’m gonna now play tennis60 hours a week Like that’s impractical Right But here’s what’s gonna happen out When you go play tennis next time you’re gonna remember that it was one of the things you wrote down that puts a smile on your face And so when you’re doing it you’re gonna be more present and happier while doing it And so the time you spend doing it is just gonna be so much more meaningful And you’re gonna remember that it made you happy And then you’re gonna afterwards you’re gonna remember you did the thing That made you happy And you can carry that smile and that energy forward throughout Like happiness is there for so many of us I get it N not for everyone and not all the time But we have moments of joy and happiness We’re just hardwired to forget them and we’re not intentional about remembering them And so we lose them And like this exercise helps you move at top of mind Yes So obviously you’ve done this exercise many many times What happens when someone discovers that the thing
Why Don’t Happiness and Pride Have to Come From the Same Things?
they’re proud of is not necessarily the same thing as what makes them happy Happens all the time Uh and that’s okay Like it’s it’s okay You should be able to be happy without being proud of something you should be able to be proud of something without forcing yourself to be happy about it could be painful exercise whatever it is The important thing is you’re starting to surface these things and then you can reckon with them but remember those are just two individual lenses on you Like I then want you to do your strengths exercise Does the thing that make you proud connect to what gives you energy strengths Does it connect to your values Does it connect to your dreams Does it connect your energy Your behaviors or motivations Is it in response to a limitation you have Like I that’s why I don’t want you to judge it I just want you to see what happens and observe it Because those are only two lenses of the10 plus that I want you to look at yourself through before you start judging and identifying patterns Um that’s that’s the thing that I would say but it’s okay Like that’s great Um and then the realization is how do you think that’s a good idea Do I bring those together How do I do more of this and more of this Like they you start solving that You start solving for that The real challenge is when the not yet satisfied list you make has nothing to do with what makes you happy or proud That’s when you’re like all right what’s going on Like you got something wrong here Do it again right Or just pay attention
How Can You Find the Through Lines in Your Life?
That’s where it gets fascinating And that that that that that that that that that that that has happened That has happened So the ultimate goal I mean not goal I mean we we’re living our life it it’s always ongoing but is to eventually try to converge those things as much as possible do you think or I think it’s to actually find through lines Yeah So keep happy I want you to be able to be happy without accomplishing anything Okay I want you to be able to feel proud similarly without accomplishing anything just for your effort Right And then I want you to find the through lines And I want you to acknowledge the complexity that is your life and I want you to find space for all these things as many of these things in your life as possible But on its own it’s a start it’s a starting exercise right There’s so many others that you can integrate with it but as a standalone it’s probably the most powerful which is you leave and people are reminded of what makes them happy They’ve taken stock of their accomplishments and they’re intentional about what they’re going to do next If we can do that for people that’s pretty magical Nice Just a couple more questions ’cause I I know you’ve you’ve got a thing you’ve got to attend Um let’s say there’s a freelancer listening who is making decent money has several clients and technically has a successful business but they’re unhappy they’re burned out or wondering if this is really what they want anymore Wh where would you have them start Look burnout is real Uh the first thing I wanna say is to me burnout
What Can Burnout Reveal About Your Strengths?
is actually a sign of extraordinary strength uh not weakness Uh if you can do work at such an extraordinary level extraordinary level Um and not be satisfied by it but still do it uh and burn out as a result of it It shows me how strong tough resilient you are as a human being What I want you to do is try and understand why you’re doing that work Right The first step is have you lost the reason why you’re doing this work And that’s the reframe exercise we talked about which is you know what Like I’m happy etcetera Like where is that work And the most the most powerful thing that happens usually is when people are burned out is they put work in the context of everything it enables And then they’re like You know what Like I I’ve just been talking about the work but I forget this is work that makes everything possible There’s a there’s a story in my book of a of a gentleman and I He’s not a client of mine I just had like a he was a friend of a friend and we had a conversation
How Can You Reframe Work Without Immediately Quitting?
He had had a kid he uh there’s on paternity leave he was getting ready to go back to work My friends like Hey Sneaky talk to this buddy of mine it’s Sunday night he’s going to work tomorrow and he’s kinda feeling like uncertain about going back into work tomorrow And so I talked to him and He’s like I wanna quit I don’t like my job I don’t like this new manager I have blah blah like all these things And So we’ve got him talk for a bit and then I was like Hey man let’s stop talking about that Let’s go back to like why are you in this job Like what does it enable for you What is it doing for you What’s the good and within the course of an hour He’d gone from like I hate my job I wanna quit true story to Oh wow This job is helping me take care of my family buy a new house for us uh take all the vacations etcetera There’s some tweaks I need to make to my job But I’m not I’m not burning the whole thing down This was like three years ago He’s still there he keeps getting promoted and he’s thriving in this job ‘Cause he re put it in context So I think it’s a hard thing to like sort of it’s a very individualized conversation in a sense but what I want them to start with is why are you doing this What do you love about it What is it enabling for you How do you demote it from everything to a portion of your engine And when you do that it becomes more manageable And what’s fascinating is that a woman who I was coaching and sh it went from like this job being everything She then quit took another job but made that job smaller and as of now she’s becoming an entrepreneur and starting her own thing all over the course of eighteen months None of that was possible when the work was everything When she took the work and made it a smaller component of her overall life it was then easier to address and tackle because it didn’t feel like she was burning everything down It just felt like a component And I think that’s like abstractly without talking to an individual that’s the conversation I would want them to have with themselves is how do we put it in the right place How do you remind yourself of all the things you love about it and why you’re doing it And what is what is it enabling for you
What Questions Should Freelancers Ask Before They Decide to Walk Away?
What are the things it’s enabling for you And does that just buy you some space to breathe So you can tackle like what’s next Nice Um so one last question If someone listening to this realizes they’ve spent years building their freelance business But they’ve never really stopped to ask does this actually fit who I am What’s the first question you’d want to ask want them to ask themselves Start with how I would start with your values I think everything starts with your values It doesn’t start with what you’re necessarily what you’re good at or it doesn’t start with like what we see I think the most important thing is like your values as a human being And or as a company or as an entity or business entity What do you value right What matters to you at your core What do you want to be known for How do you want to be seen How do you want to be understood How do you want to be remembered Like values are really important So I’m an EOS implementer It’s the entrepreneurial operating system I work with a bunch of small medium businesses
Why Should Freelancers Start With Their Values?
high growth companies to help them like build their like get aligned And the thing we start with is values Cause if you can get everybody aligned on values then everything else happens What your clients are who you work with what type of jobs you take like everything connects back to your values And so if they’re unclear I would say man start start with values Start with values Uh and I will tell you that that is important not just for work it’s important for your personal relationships Like doing your and your significant other share values like it’s important for everything Your values are the place to start It’s the place to start Nice Well it’s been a great conversation I really appreciate you coming on today Um What it do you want to just let everyone know what the name of the book is again just so that if they’re looking for it Sure Thanks bud Uh the name of the book is Making Sense of Purpose Okay Uh Gain Clarity
How Can You Learn More About Making Sense of Purpose?
Build momentum and find your Kirin Kirin is a Sanskrit word for Ray of White Okay It’s also my dad’s name who passed away eight years ago so this book is kind of a tribute to my dad Uh so Making Sense of Purpose uh if you want to go to MakingSenseofPurpose.com you can go there and find how to order the book. There’s also workbooks and assessments and like there’s a lot of stuff there to help you truly make sense of purpose. So that’s something it’s a good place you can go.
Thanks Suneet. Thanks for coming today.
Dude thanks for having me. It was great I loved it. Thank you so much.