At The Money: Living a Life of Purpose

Worried about purpose, legacy, and what all this wealth might be good for? You are not alone. Dr. Jordan Grumet is a physician who works at the intersection of money, mortality, purpose, and regret. His work focuses on internal medicine and hospice care. His recent book is “Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life.” Each week, “At the Money” discusses an important topic in money management. From portfolio construction to taxes and cutting down on fees, join Barry Ritholtz to learn the best ways to put your money to work. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:45Speaker 03

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• 1:52Barry Ritholtz?

  What is your financial purpose? What is the value of money? What does it mean for your life, satisfaction, and legacy? To help us unpack all of this, let's bring in Dr. Jordan Grumet. He's a physician whose niche is the intersection of money, mortality, purpose, and regret.

• 2:36Barry Ritholtz?

  He's worked in internal medicine and hospice care. His book, The Purpose Code, helps people understand their purpose, connection, and legacy. So let's, let's begin very basically. What do people get wrong when they say they're searching for purpose?

• 2:54Speaker 05

  Oh my God, so much. So first and foremost, most people think of purpose as their why. And I actually think this is very dangerous, because when you think of your purpose as your why, it becomes this big, audacious thing, like a needle in the haystack, and there are high stakes in getting it right. I actually define purpose as something completely different. I think purpose are the things we do that light us up in the present and future. That is it. Very easy, very easy to control, not a needle in the haystack. They really confuse what I call purpose and meaning. A lot of people think they're the same thing, but meaning gets more to our why, it's more about our past. But purpose is really straightforward, and when you look at it as straightforward, it becomes just much easier.

• 3:39Speaker 05

  What can I do today that lights me up and is exciting?

• 3:43Barry Ritholtz?

  And you distinguish between purpose that creates anxiety and the kinds of purpose that creates meaning. Explain the difference.

• 3:54Speaker 05

  So when I wrote my first book, Taking Stock, I made the point that we should be putting purpose, identity, and connections before wealth building. Not that we should put wealth building aside, but we need to think about those things so we can then build a framework of wealth around them. And I went to talk about this book at conferences, and people would look at me, and I'd always get one in the crowd would come up to me afterwards, and they'd be angry. They'd be sweaty, and they'd say, will you stop telling me to find my purpose? I've been searching forever. I don't know what it is. I'm totally frustrated and anxious. I don't even think there is a purpose. Please stop people, telling people to find their purpose. So me being a physician, I'm like, I need to do some research on this. And what I found was a paradox.

• 4:39Speaker 05

  When I did the research, there are so many studies out there that say that having a sense of purpose increases our happiness, our health, and our longevity. There are tons and tons of papers. But then I saw other research, especially by this lady named Larissa Rainey, who found that up to 91% of people at some point in their life feel purpose anxiety. This idea that finding their purpose causes them to be depressed and anxious and feel like they can't actually connect to what the role in the world is. And so in my mind, I kind of said, well, how does this paradox work? How can purpose be both the most important and also so anxiety provoking? And this is how I kind of realized, we kind of get purpose wrong. We think it's one thing, but it's probably two, what I call big P purpose and little

• 5:24Speaker 05

  P purpose. The big P purpose is that kind of big, audacious why, like, how am I going to make a legacy and define myself? And I think that makes people anxious. What I define purpose as little P purpose is more those process-oriented things you do that light you up.

• 5:38Barry Ritholtz?

  Really, really interesting. So when we're talking about whether it's big P or little P purpose, is it something that we happen onto and discover? Is it something we build? Or is it something that we practice or some combination of the three?

• 5:57Speaker 05

  People always ask me, they say, how do I find my purpose? And the first thing I kind of say is, well, you don't find your purpose, you build or create it. It's a very active process. But it is true, you have to have some idea of what lights you up. I call these purpose anchors. This idea of, well, what kind of excites me, what lights me up? In the book, I talk about all sorts of ways and exercises we can do that are very, very simple, that help us figure out what our purpose anchors are. But the easy thing is finding what lights you up. Then the hard thing is you have to build a life of purpose around those anchors, which means you have to take action and do something. I'll give you a perfect example. One of the ways you can find a purpose anchor is to ask yourself, if I found out I was dying tomorrow, what would I regret that I never had the energy, courage, or time to

• 6:42Speaker 05

  do? And I asked myself this 10 years ago, and the answer was so utterly clear. I'd regret never traditionally publishing a book. That was my purpose anchor, and that was really easy. I wanted to write a book, and I wanted a traditional publisher. The hard part was then I had to build a life of purpose around that. I had to go figure out what I wanted to write about. I had to build the platform. I had to find an agent. I had to eventually write a book proposal. All very hard work, but very purposeful, exciting work. And so the idea is, figure out what lights you up. Can be big, can be small, can be one thing, can be 100 different things, can last a week, or can last a lifetime. None of that matters. But then start building a life of purpose around it.

• 7:23Barry Ritholtz?

  And one of the things you've written about is achievement pressure. What is the, you know, ways that people can have less purpose anxiety and live a more purposeful, stress-free life?

• 7:37Speaker 05

  So here's the thing. I often talk about the difference between meaning and purpose, and a lot of people think they're the same thing. But in my mind, they're very different. Let me explain. Meaning is about the past, and it's all about your thoughts. So meaning is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and about our past. Now, happy people tend to see their past, see difficulty, see trauma, realize that they were enough, and because they were enough, they got over all their difficulties to be where they are today. So it's a, it's a heroic story. And that sense of meaning is, you come through that, and you say, I am enough. Now unhappy people have more of a trauma story.

• 8:21Speaker 05

  They go back, they look at their traumas and their problems, they feel like they were thwarted, like they were never enough, and that's why they're where they are today. People who have meaning problems often feel like, instead of going back and dealing with their past and learning better stories to tell about themselves, instead, they think they can jump to the present and future, find a sense of purpose, and that's going to quench their meaning problem. They think they can purpose their way to feeling enough inside. And so what you'll find is people who feel bad about things that happened in the past, and instead of dealing with those, they achieve more and more and more. But the problem is, they achieve the first thing, and they think it's going to make them happy, but it doesn't fill that hole from their past. So they then double down and try to achieve more and more. I call it the achievement treadmill.

• 9:04Speaker 05

  We have so many great examples of that in pop culture. Elon Musk is a perfect one. Do you know about Elon Musk? His childhood was hard. He was kind of abused by his father. He was beat up by, by all the other school kids. I believe, from the outside, Elon Musk probably doesn't have the greatest sense of meaning. He sees trauma in his past, and instead of dealing with that, he figures, if I just make a trillion dollars, or if I just travel to Mars, if I just do these things, I'm going to be happy. But anyone looking at the outside, looks at Elon Musk and says, boy, that guy doesn't look happy. Like, most of the people who work with him end up not liking him. He feels like someone's always screwing him. He feels like, you know, you start looking at this guy who has everything and all the sense of purpose a guy could want in the world, and he looks unhappy. It's the difference between meaning and purpose.

• 9:49Speaker 05

  If you want to get off that achievement treadmill, you have to have a better sense of meaning. It's about dealing with your past.

• 9:53Barry Ritholtz?

  So you bring up some really interesting issues, whether it's related to someone like Musk or not.

• 10:03Barry Ritholtz?

  How often are people confusing purpose with things like status, public recognition, productivity, career? Elon sounds like he's the case study for what you just argued.

• 10:19Speaker 05

  So here's the big question. All of those things can be good or bad. And so the question is, are they fulfilling a sense of little P purpose or fulfilling a sense of big P purpose? And let me tell you, I always feel big P purpose is bad. It's always negative. So let me explain why. So big P purpose is goal oriented. And because we live in America, you know, if you can dream it, you can build it. It's often big, audacious goals that are very difficult to achieve. And they're usually all or nothing. Like, I want to travel to Mars, or I want to be a trillionaire is all or nothing. And it's really hard to achieve. And every million people who go for those goals, very few are ever going to achieve it. So you're setting yourself up for purpose anxiety. So if your career, or your status,

• 11:04Speaker 05

  or the things you're doing every day is about big P purpose, and it's very goal oriented, you're generally going to find yourself unhappy because you're either going to fail, which is going to feel bad, or you're going to reach that goal. But the minute you reach it, because you're not feeling enough inside, you're either going to double down and reach for a higher goal, or you're going to be completely afraid you're going to lose it. Loss aversion, right? Loss aversion, where doubly as afraid of losing what we've gained than not gaining it in the first place. So you're setting yourself up for unhappiness. Let's change that around and say that you're more of a little P purpose, and you enjoy the process, not the goal, but the process of your career, or the process of having status. You like going in every day to the office. You love seeing the people you love.

• 11:46Speaker 05

  You're working on complex, intricate problems. You get so excited by them, you forget the time of day and miss lunch. That's flow. That's little P purpose. That's enjoying the process. Most of these people, you know, if they don't end up getting that promotion, if they don't end up being successful, they'll still tell you it was really exciting along the way. So any of those things can be good or bad. It really depends on if they're a version of little P purpose for you, or a version of big P purpose.

• 12:13Barry Ritholtz?

  So you're hinting at something that I'm fascinated by, which is the concept of legacy. Big P purpose, so to speak. Is this overrated? Do people misunderstand compliments, or reputation, or influence? Like, what is the role of legacy in seeking a purpose?

• 12:34Speaker 05

  So here's the thing. If you're interested in big P purpose, often your goal is to do something big, audacious, and leave a legacy. And as we've kind of outlined, usually those things are incredibly hard to achieve, and you're probably going to be anxious. You might not enjoy the process getting there. So you might burn out, you might quit. And if you're lucky and happen to get there, you may want to push past it and have even more. Again, I think a lot of that is a recipe for failure. And we see this in lots of hyper achievers. But let's turn that around. Let's say you're interested in little P purpose, and you just do things you love. I actually argue that will leave a bigger legacy and change the world more. And it has something to do with generational trauma. We all know

• 13:19Speaker 05

  what generational trauma is, right? Our parents and their parents struggle with traumas. They might not do the best job of it, and they hand that trauma down to us. And we face similar traumas. My grandmother was an orphan during the depression. She had issues with money and food. She passed that on to my mom, who even though was in a high paying job, had stressors about money, and was always afraid to spend. And then my dad died prematurely, and she was afraid on spending on anything. She was dreaming that when we went to college, her three kids, she was going to sell the house and live in apartment. It was very traumatic. She passed that down to me. I have trouble spending to this day because of the trauma that's been passed down. That's generational trauma. What we

• 14:00Speaker 05

  often don't talk about is generational growth. Generational growth is the exact opposite. It's the purposeful things we hand down that end up being our legacy. I love to talk about my maternal grandfather, who was an accountant and loved math. Because he loved math, my mom learned that from him. It was generational growth. She decided she loved math. She became an accountant. When I was a little kid, I had a learning disability. Because my mom loved math, and she modeled that behavior, I ended up loving math, and I was really good at math. So even though I was bad at reading, I was good at math. It gave me the confidence to move forward. I eventually became a doctor, used those mathematical skills, and I was able to help hundreds and thousands of people with my medical skills. That's generational growth. That is my maternal great grandfather, who

• 14:44Speaker 05

  I never met, because he died before I was born. His sense of little P purpose and his love of math was passed through the generations to me. And every time I walk in the room and helped someone in the hospital or in the office, his legacy was being felt 50, 75 years later, and hundreds of miles away. Little P purpose actually leads to tons of legacy. And it's a lot more attainable than, let's say, traveling to Mars, or making it to be a trillionaire.

• 15:12Barry Ritholtz?

  So someone who's achieved professional or financial success, how should they think about purpose after they've hit those goals?

• 15:22Speaker 05

  Well, again, we always talk about this idea that money is a tool, not a goal. You now have tons of this tool. Let's use it to live a life of purpose. What do you dig? What excites you? How can you use money to do more of that, to be more involved in that, or to offload things you don't want to do, so you have more time to do the things you do want to do? Now, I want to tell people, just because you're not wealthy, doesn't mean you can't use other tools to live a life of purpose. Money is one really good tool that helps you live a life of purpose, by freeing up your time, and giving you some fuel to pay for things that help you live that life of purpose. But there are tons of ways to live a life of purpose without having tons of money, too. So you need to keep in perspective. But if you are wealthy, if you're retired, you're like, I've won

• 16:06Speaker 05

  the lottery, I got the jackpot. Let's use that money to do things that are deeply important to you.

• 16:12Barry Ritholtz?

  Really, really interesting. So we're down to our last question or two. I want to address your work as a medical doctor in hospice. You've spent a lot of time and spoke with a lot of people near the end of their lives. How do their ideas of purpose differ from younger, ambitious people, how they think about it? And what sort of regrets do people have at the end of their life that might inform us how we should think about meaning and purpose?

• 16:46Speaker 05

  So everyone's regrets are slightly different, but there are always some version of this. And before I even give you the line that I hear so often, let me remind you that almost no one has ever told me on their deathbed, they wish their net worth made it to 2 million, and it only made it to 1 million. No one says that. I've never heard someone say, I wish I worked more nights and weekends. You just never hear that. So what you tend to hear people say is, I really regret that I never had the energy, courage, or time to, and then fill in the blank. And the reason it's fill in the blank is because for every person, that's different. You know, when I asked myself that question, it was that I didn't traditionally publish a book. Another person may say that they never traveled to Africa. Another person may say, you know what, when I was young, I wanted to be an

• 17:31Speaker 05

  NBA basketball player, and I never made it there. I wasn't good enough. But I could have worked as a coach on the team. I could have been part of a fan club. I could have done so many other things to bring this goodness into my life, and I didn't. And so who are the people you didn't connect to because you were too afraid? What are the things you didn't try? Because you always thought there was more time, or that you didn't have enough money? There was some excuse that you didn't do this thing you really wanted to do? The young people can learn from this. We can take that regret of the dying, and we could turn that into a purpose anchor. If I can think about what it would be like to be on my deathbed, and figure, well, what would I have regrets about? I can then turn

• 18:13Speaker 05

  that into a purpose anchor and say, well, I'm not dying. Why don't I start building a life of purpose around that? And that's kind of the key. And that's what I think the dying can really teach to all of us younger people. And that's why, for me, to connect these disparate parts of my life, this being a hospice doctor, with being someone who talks about personal finance, this is where I saw them intersect.

• 18:34Barry Ritholtz?

  Last question, and apologies if my pattern recognition machine is kicking into action. I'm hearing all of these regrets are not things that people did, but things that people did not do. Is that, do we regret the things? Like, I've never heard anyone say, gee, I never should have bought that sports car. I never should have bought that convertible. Or, I never should have taken the family back to Italy, to the old country. It's never the things you do. It sounds like it's the things that you didn't do.

• 19:13Speaker 05

  So what you're talking about is the difference between the two different types of regrets. There are action regrets, and inaction regrets. Action regrets are, man, you know, I really wish I got better sleep last night, because then I wouldn't have gotten to that accident today and hurt that person. Right? That is an action regret. An inaction regret is, wow, I'm now sitting on my deathbed, and I really had this dream that I never pursued. But here's the thing. Action regrets are often inaction regrets in hiding. So an action regret, I wish I really slept better, and didn't get into that car accident and hurt that person. But what you're really saying is, well, I can't change the past, but I really wish I did something about that. I really wish I educated

• 19:56Speaker 05

  other people to what I did wrong. I really wish I went and talked to that family, and apologized to them, and helped them out in some way to make up for what I did. Like, a lot of times, action regret actually is inaction regret in hiding. So yes, it's that we didn't have the courage to take action, to do those things that were deeply important to us. But let me add one more caveat. I had a patient who was dying in his late 40s of leukemia. And when he was in his 20s, he did something amazing. He was rising the corporate ladder in his early 20s, and he decided to take a year off and try to climb Mount Everest. And everyone thought he was crazy. And they're like, you're in your, like,

• 20:39Speaker 05

  prime money making years. Why are you taking a year off? You're going to set yourself back. He did it anyway. He trained for six months, and then he went and started climbing Mount Everest. The weather changed. He never made it much past base camp. And then he went back to work. And then I met him in his 40s when he was dying. And all he wanted to talk about was that trip to Everest, and what it felt like to be on the mountain. Here's the magic. You don't even need to succeed. All you have to do is have the courage to try. That's what people don't get. You will regret, not whether you succeeded or failed, you will regret that you didn't give it your best.

• 21:15Barry Ritholtz?

  Really fascinating stuff, Jordan. So to sum up, people who want to live a more satisfying, productive, meaningful life, should worry less about big, hairy, audacious goals, and be focused more on the little things that bring you joy, the processes and daily activities you can do that build meaning, build purpose, and ultimately lead to using your money in a more satisfying way. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Bloomberg's At the Money.

• 21:56Speaker 06

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