BUILT for Impact Ep. 15: How to Find Your Purpose

I think one of the most exhausting ideas we've been sold is that your purpose is something you have to go find. You have to chase it like it's hidden somewhere out there, and if you search hard enough or think long enough or finally get clear enough, it's just going to show up. But most people already know what it is. You know what it is deep down. You just need to trust what you already know, okay? Your purpose usually isn't loud. It's not dramatic. It's often the thing that's felt obvious your whole life —so obvious you even learn to overlook it. Today I want to talk about dharma, not as a spiritual concept you have to believe in, but as a grounded way of understanding your life's purpose. Because this isn't about discovering something new, it's about remembering something familiar. Welcome back to Built for Impact. I'm Jake Burhans, and this is the podcast where inner peace meets high performance and where building your dream life starts from the inside out. At the heart of the BILT framework is this idea: when your internal world is aligned, your external life stops feeling like a fight. Okay, when you can reprogram your inner world to a baseline of peace, you're able to build from peace instead of pressure. That's the whole goal of Built for Impact. Reprogram your inner world so you can build a life, a business, whatever, from peace instead of pressure. Today we're going to talk about dharma, often translated as purpose. This is a Sanskrit word, you can look it up, but not in a, you know, figure your whole life out kind of way. I just want to help you uncover some things you probably already know and give you a few core insights here. So dharma isn't a job, it's not a title, it's basically your life's purpose. Like I said, it comes from Sanskrit and points to your natural way of being, basically your reason for being here. Most people are waiting for the purpose to show up as a job title or something externally, but it's really how you act. So dharma is the intersection of 3 things: what you're naturally gifted at, what gives you energy and aliveness, and what other people find genuinely valuable. Now you can look at, you know, what you're naturally gifted at and what gives you energy as one side of the equation. Plus— not one side of the equation, one component kind of combined— what you're naturally gifted at, what gives you energy, plus what people find valuable equals your dharma. Now if you are naturally gifted at something and you're really good at, you know, playing darts and that makes you feel alive and you're naturally gifted at it, but other people don't find value in that, that's not necessarily your dharma. So it has to be the intersection of what you're naturally gifted at and what brings you energy and what other people find valuable. Frederick Buechner has a really good quote that my uncle told me about, and I quote it all the time, but he says that your purpose— he says, the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness in the world's deep hunger meet. Now you don't have to bring God into it, but you can, you can translate this into your purpose or your vocation, whatever that is. Vocation is basically a deep feeling of suitability for a certain career path versus just a career. So vocation's a little bit deeper, but it's where your deep gladness, what lights you up and what are you naturally gifted at, meets the world's deep hunger. Because the world needs something from you, right? We're here to contribute to the world. We're not here to take. We're not here to go, you know, get money because we feel we don't feel whole on the inside. That's operating from a state of lack. We're here to operate from a state of overflow, right? So naturally, what you're good at and what gives you energy, you want to go do that just for fun because you love doing it and you love giving it away. And the beautiful thing about this is if you're naturally good at it and it brings you energy, you're going to be better at doing that thing than other people. Say that you love to talk to people and motivate and preach and teach and do all these things. Let's, let's use the teacher example. You love to teach. Well, if you're naturally good at it, you have a, you have a higher baseline starting point for becoming a good teacher from a skills perspective. So you're already ahead of everyone else. Secondarily, if you, if it brings you energy, you're going to be alive. You're going to be like a really good teacher, an excellent teacher. And then if you commit to developing those skills, you're going to be leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else who teaching does not come naturally to, or communication does not come naturally to. So you're meant to do that thing because you are going to provide so much more value to the world when you focus on what you're naturally gifted at and what gives you energy. So naturally, when you focus on those things, the world's going to find it extremely valuable. And you were given those gifts because you're meant to use them so you can, you can provide value to the world. Right, when you focus on your dharma, you absolutely can get paid for your dharma because what is money? Money is an exchange of value. So if you're really good at something, you're bringing a lot of energy and you're executing well and you're leaps and bounds better than other people at this thing, then you're, you're going to be providing a disproportionate amount of value to other people in that area in teaching. So likewise, a lot of values can equal a lot of money. So you absolutely can get paid for your dharma, but that's not the point. The point is figuring out what that is for you. Okay, so again, where your deep gladness meets a deep hunger— or sorry, where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. Now, we— now reflecting back, I want you to reflect back on what you're naturally gifted at, because what's natural to you often feels normal, so we tend to discount it because, oh, and here's the thing, like, people's genius Liz Wiseman talks about this in Multipliers, but your people who are naturally good at something, they don't realize that they're that good at it because it's just natural to them. It seems easy. So they're like, oh, everyone's this good at this thing, but they're not. Like, oh, everyone's this good at communicating ideas or at teaching or at sales or at understanding people, like empathy. Everyone's just— no, not everyone's this good. You're just super good at it, so it feels really easy. So we tend to discount these things. So, you know, we're really conditioned to value struggle over ease, right? If it's not hard, it's not worth anything, which is a past conditioning. So that's something to keep in mind. You're least impressed by your own gifts, right? Ease gets mistaken for insignificance. And like I said, if it doesn't feel hard, we assume it doesn't count, which is all false. So it's really— remember, you're not inventing purpose. You really are noticing it. I'm sure you can look back across your life, like, what have people constantly come to you for? For all the time? What energizes you even when it's challenging? What feels meaningful without external validation? That's a big one. What feels meaningful, like you just want to do it, you don't care what people think about you, you want to show up and you want to do the thing? I'll give an example. My dharma is teaching. I love to teach. I love to learn. I'm a voracious reader. I'm listening to audiobooks all day long. I just love to teach. I love to get up, talk about these concepts, explain them to people, and I love to see people get better. I love to see people take what I'm talking about and say, hey, this was helpful. I used it to improve in this way. Nothing means anything more to me than that right there, seeing people get better. And I always knew this. And here's been the path of finding my dharma, because ultimately Built For Impact is my dharma. This whole thing, right? Understanding the framework, teaching it, building the community. This is all my dharma. But I always knew I wanted to help people become the best version of themselves. That's it. It started back in high school. I thought I wanted to be maybe like a personal trainer, like fitness-wise, because I was always really into fitness and I love getting better and I was always super intense and motivated. And, uh, you know, I brought some intensity, so I felt like, hey, I could definitely help other people out with their personal training. So that was kind of the inkling, but that wasn't the right path for it. It's helping people, but it wasn't the right vehicle, basically. And then I was like And I just, I remember like over the past few years, I just kept thinking to myself like, what do I love to do? I just love to teach. I love to teach. And as we're building the wholesale business, I'm doing sales and this and that. But what did I really love? I love just getting in the meetings, talking about sales concepts, teaching them, helping people with mindset. I loved all that stuff. I just didn't know the vehicle to deliver it yet. But I just kept thinking like, what do I like to do? And Isaiah and I would kind of go back and forth on our responsibilities as partners. And I was always putting down like, teaching, motivating, inspiring, social media, like getting out there, speaking the word, you know. And I, yeah, so I always knew it was along those lines, but I could never put it into the right vehicle. And it wasn't, you know, until I started doing this Built for Impact stuff that I realized that Wasn't until I started doing the Built for Impact stuff that I realized, hey, this is the vehicle for helping people get better. Like, I'll become like a personal— whether you want to call it a personal development coach or whatever it is, this is the vehicle. Um, so that's what allowed me to take that dharma. And I eventually found out the pathway for myself. So in the beginning, you know, the wholesale business— and here's the thing too, it's like, what feels draining? Because that's probably what you shouldn't be doing. Like, in the beginning, the wholesale business was very draining for me. I mean, for one, that was because I was operating from a place of, you know, lack and fear and anxiety and all that stuff. But I wasn't going about it in the right way.. And sales isn't like my thing. Like, I could talk to sellers and stuff, but I'm not like super excited to get on the phone, just talk to sellers all day. I love sales. I love talking to sellers. No, that's not my thing. My thing is teaching. I love getting on stage and talking to people and teaching concepts and inspiring people to be the best version of themselves. That's really what I want to be doing. So that's, you know, how I came to my purpose. I realized what wasn't it, which was sales and like doing sales in the wholesale business and talking to sellers. That really wasn't it. But I recognized components of things I was doing in the wholesale business that I did like, and I just kept thinking about those and refining and doubling down on those things. And I finally kind of figured out what my vehicle was. So dharma is like, it regulates the nervous system, meaning that it removes internal friction. So when you're doing your dharma, it's effortless to you. It's effortless. It comes, it's so easy and it just comes out of you natural. It's like you're, it's like your genius zone. Again, it's effortless. You're naturally good at it. Gives you energy. You can do it very, very well with really little effort. And peace is a good signal that you're pointing in the right direction, right? It feels like you're struggling and you're straining to do something. It's probably not your dharma because it's not coming naturally to you. You're forcing it. Okay, so a few things to think about there in relation to your dharma. The biggest thing I want you to, to think about this week in your integration is what, what could be your dharma? What have people come to you for over and over and over again, you know, in your lifetime? What do you love doing? What do you feel like you're naturally gifted at? What have people told you you're naturally gifted at? That's a big one. What do people tell you, oh, you're just really good at this? And what are people finding value in when you do certain things that give you energy and you like doing them and people also find value in it? That's where your dharma lies, and that's what you need to be doing. Now, if you're in a career and you're in a job, and, and, uh, it doesn't mean you just drop everything and pursue your dharma, but it means that you can start to walk this path. And it starts with just a little thing. Maybe you just start having conversations to help people, and you do it on the side and you build it up. It doesn't have to be your career, it doesn't have to be your career, but it's just something that you do for the rest of your life, right? It's, it's, it's how you help out. And maybe you bring your dharma into your job, like maybe you already, you're working a job or whatever you're doing in your business. If, if you're, if your dharma is to, you know, teach people. You could be a manager in a bit— in a corporation or whatever— and just take that skill and be aware of it and start using it with other employees, with other team members on your team, right? You can start being a teacher, you can start motivating people, start inspiring people in the workplace. So understanding what it is and bringing that gift to every area of your life, bring it to your personal relationships, right, your professional relationships, health, everything. So that is your dharma. Again, your purpose isn't something you're behind on, right? Something you've been living around for a long time. And dharma isn't about pressure or forcing or performance. It's really about aligning with that version of yourself. And alignment feels peaceful. You don't need to search harder. You just need to remember what it is. If this resonated, uh, with you, share with someone who's looking to lean more into their natural gifts. Hit the bell icon so you are reminded of upcoming episodes. Till next time, all the peace, all the power.