Are you living with purpose on purpose?

Happy Sacred Sunday!

First and foremost, thank you for all the emails and well wishes you sent me this week about my sister and the very scary surgery she was facing. I’m thrilled to report that we’re on the other side of things, and she is recovering flawlessly. Other than the expected pain and discomfort of a procedure of that magnitude, she has had no complications, which we are extremely thankful for.

A friend of mine sent me a message earlier that said, “I hope you feel supported, Caro. Because as caregivers, we need to receive a lot in order to give a lot.”

I just want you to know, that I do feel so supported by this incredible community we have created together. Your messages, well wishes, prayers, and acts of kindness fill my soul. So does having you to show up for. I take this work very seriously and do it with deep purpose. Knowing you are waiting for this love letter and podcast each week keeps me going. Thank you for that.

I’ve been thinking about purposea lot this week.

My students often tell me they’ve lost their purpose. They can’t find their purpose. They’re waiting to figure out what their purpose is before they really start living.

Even my sister, hours after being extubated, whispered to me, “I know I’m still here for a purpose. I just don’t know what that purpose is yet.”

Here is what I responded to her, and what I teach to everyone that comes to me with a purpose question because I believe it so strongly.

Your job is not to find your purpose. Your job is to live purposefully.

Those are two very different things. The former often feels like an open loop you can’t seem to close, consuming you with thinking energy but little progress. The latter is a choice to take the next right step with the information you have right now, trusting that the path will reveal itself along the way.

People treat purpose like they treat happiness, clarity, and many other things in life: as this destination they have to arrive at like an ending to a Hollywood movie.

But what I’ve learned from the people I admire most is that they don’t find their purpose and then start living. They started living with purpose, and their purpose became stronger and clearer along the way.

Usually in hindsight. Because that is when our vision is the clearest.

Just like I shared last week that waiting for good things or bad things keeps us from enjoying the present, waiting to find our purpose wastes the opportunity of living with purpose today.

Which brings me to my friend Jeff.

Jeff Bud is the owner of Apocalypse BBQ, one of the hottest restaurants in Miami, which is saying a lot in a city full of hot restaurants. From the outside, his story looks like a fun one. A guy who loved barbecue, started smoking ribs in his backyard, and built something incredible. But that is not the whole story.

At what he thought was supposed to be the peak of his life, Jeff was diagnosed with leukemia … twice. That journey led him to becoming the kind of person who refused to waste a single day he was given. But overcoming that diagnosis wasn’t the end of his struggles. Much of his success has been built one uncertain step at a time.

Jeff didn’t find his purpose. He kept moving forward until he looked back and realized he was living his purpose.

We went deep and personal in this conversation. Into the parts most people overlook.

If you have ever felt like life threw you a curveball and you’re not sure where your current life is leading you, this episode is for you.

[Listen to my conversation with Jeff here.]

And if it moves you the way I think it will, share it with someone who needs to hear it. That’s the best gift you can give a guest who showed up this honestly.

Sending you so much love today and always,