This is from an article I wrote in 2018 on my LinkedIn - and I have now updated it to fit my vision today. Remember, you can find this in our telegram group, click the link in the description, or simply go to my instagram bio.
Today's episode is called: Finding Purpose - How hard you think it is vs. How hard it actually is.
The first question that we must ask is: does purpose exist?
I am starting to think it does not. I am slowly shifting to the idea that purpose is just a fancy word that we humans have found to describe something much more simple. To describe the moment we find what we love doing - and that brings us peace, to some extent - it breeds order in the midst of the chaos that life is. But purpose per se - the one thing you were "made to do"... That does not necessarily exist. Your purpose as a human is to make another human. But that's not a fair answer. So, for the sake of today's episode, we're gonna use the word purpose as everybody uses - with the caveat that I am allowed to further elaborate this concept on a future episode. But anyways.
I believe I have my "purpose" on Earth as I see it. Oftentimes people ask me how I found it, and how I did it, and I have always answered what I think is the truth: try everything until something wakes you up happy on Monday mornings.
But I have been thinking more about it.
Today's episode focuses on my 5 year journey on becoming an online entrepreneur as an ESL teacher. An online entrepreneur in its essence - but one that teaches English to Brazilian students. Today's episode is about finding that path, the goal, the one thing that you want to do for the rest of your life. Your purpose. It's about how hard you think it is to find it vs. how hard it actually is.
How hard you think finding your purpose is vs. how hard it actually is.
Teacher Mike's story starts even before I thought it did. It starts in elementary school. My English was good to an extent that my teachers absolutely loved me and wanted me to answer questions and help my classmates. They also got mad when I actually helped them cheat on exams. Once, a teacher allowed me to miss a test and gave me full marks anyways - she told me to keep it a secret. I did. Another time, a student all the way from Atlanta, US, came to study for a few months in our school in Brazil. I could easily communicate and actually be friends with him - although we were very culturally different. I was 11 or 12 at the time.
The funny part: I hated studying English or going to English class.
At 14 years old I was fluent. I came to study part of my high-school in Canada and I got the best grade in class in the English course. My classmates were all Canadian.
Only in English, though. I sucked balls in Biology and Math - and they overall did pretty well.
I still did not like studying English.
After, I came back to Brazil and wrote my admission exam for Law School - and I got accepted into what was then known as one of the best Law Schools of the south of Brazil, although the experiences I have had there would suggest otherwise. In my first semester, if you asked me what I wanted to be, I would tell you with 110% certainty: a lawyer. My whole family had gone to Law, so that was the "normal" path. I knew being a lawyer within my family would guarantee money and status - so that was what I was pursuing. Not happiness.
Now... how stupid is it to decide what you want to be before you actually know how it is and how it feels? Let me tell you: very stupid.
However, that is exactly how hard I thought finding a purpose in life was: you just had to decide.
And this is how hard a lot of people think it is when they ask me. But it isn't that simple or easy. A lot of people think those who "make it" are born with their goals and dreams. This could not be further from the truth.
Law School started, and my grades steadily declined - together with my overall happiness - as routine kicked in. Out of the 20 or 25 courses I had taken in the 5 semesters before I decided to quit, I can remember 4 or 5 that I actually enjoyed. So that is to say that I did not like 90% of what I was studying. I put a mask on, of course. Imagine telling yourself that everything you believed you wanted to do for the rest of your life might have been wrong.
It was June or July 2015 when my sister and her boyfriend decided they would come to Toronto. The conversations had been happening for a while in the family and by then they were 100% sure they would do it. That lit a spark inside of me. There was a feeling of uneasiness telling me that I had to go too. It was my gut feeling. I trusted it - despite every rationalization telling me otherwise.
See, going to Toronto would not fit my narrative at all. Law is different here - what the hell was I going to do in Canada? So I had to make up another narrative. Again, a fake one. The narrative was: I wanted to study Law over here. And so I put another mask on. And kept it. And moved on to study business for 4 years before I could pursue a post graduation in Law - that's how things work for Common Law. In June 2016 I was inside the plane coming to Toronto.
In my first semester in Business School, I was miserable. I was so far away from the field of law in my everyday life that it did not make sense anymore. I had been working as a cleaner, cleaning toilets and scraping floors, and that had been paying the bills at least. All I did was scroll down on Instagram just to see my friends living a life I could not afford anymore. As I was studying business, my gut told me another thing: maybe Law is not what I want to do. And I trusted it again. I had to quit business school and do something else.
So I started trying countless things at the same time. I started posting videos of me playing acoustic guitar online as a way of experimenting how the online world works. I started studying Foreign Exchange and Stock Investing - and I even read many of the well known books about business and investing. I created a website in which I would connect students and private tutors based on where they live. And I also tried teaching English. The last one I liked more than the others. And then I tried having a small course in Toronto, and I even created a web and a Facebook page. That failed as well, and teaching was not paying the bills. And I got more and more anxious and somewhat depressed. Funny enough, I think everyone around me knew I was somewhat miserable. But nobody asked what was going on.
See, there are two things you have to know about the masks you put on.
One: people may accept it...
...and two:
They fall.
So I think it was February 2016 when my masks fell and I really felt miserable and lost – I had hit rock bottom: I had trusted my gut twice, and it had apparently failed me. I did not enjoy my life, my job, and I had no idea what to do the next morning.
And this part of the story a lot of you already know, as I have told many times over and over. But there’s a bit I often don’t tell. So here are the two things you might already know:
Here’s the one thing you might not know YET:
I went to Church with a friend and from the bottom of my heart prayed for guidance and happiness.
From February to April, that’s when my life changed completely. I got so many students I could not believe, and I got to meet one lady who single handedly changed my entire life: she told me to start Teacher Mike. And I did. And it changed everything.
Then, in the same way a light switch turns on the lights of a dark room and exposes how beautiful it is, a switch clicked in my head and made it clear: that's what I want to do for the rest of my life: to teach. And it was right under my nose. But it had not been clear until I allowed all the masks to fall.
So, now, 5 years later, I own a business - a quite successful one. It is profitable, it has employees, and it has over 600 happy students. I host one of the biggest podcasts when it comes to ESL Education online, and… now I have a baby. And you may think this has nothing to do with this story. But it does. Baby Ben has rearranged everything in my head. Nothing that I had been chasing - even the happiness - was for someone else other than myself. Now it is. Now it's for my family. Ben and Clarissa - and hopefully Ben's brothers and sisters in the future. So now, once I found "what I wanted to do for the rest of my life" - that gave me some purpose. But the responsibility of raising a child and having a family connected the last missing pieces. I now understand it.
Trusting my gut was the correct thing to do - but it took me a few years to see it.
Another funny thing as I reread this article to record today's episode. The financial aspect is finally dealt with. My business is growing and I don't need to "worry" with the money, all I need to worry is that we keep growing and delivering a great experience to our students.
However, the biggest goal of my life has now changed. It is not necessarily to have "the strongest brand in the ESL online business", as it was before. It is, instead, to have a happy and strong family, and a happy, faithful and strong marriage with my wife. Things have changed dramatically. I believe that, in order to raise my children and have a strong and happy family, money is a tool - and therefore the goal of growing my business is still incredibly important. But it is not the end goal - and *cough* it's not the purpose anymore.
Do you see now how hard it actually is to come up with a goal in life? It took me 5 semesters of a complete misalignment between my mind, heart and soul studying something I did not enjoy. It took me putting on some masks and allowing them to fall and to be hurt. It took creating web pages and spending hours learning how to deal with WordPress and plugins and posts just to fail at the end. It took spirituality, and it took trusting my gut feeling and watching it fail me before I could understand why... twice.
However, it all boils down to: trying everything until one thing kicks you out of bed on Monday mornings.
Now, as time goes by, and as I proceed to the end of this episode, I would like to point out 5 key things that you have to do as you try to find your purpose - and trust me when I say I went through each of these points.
1.Try everything;
You will have to try everything before you find one thing that gives you a burst of energy that you hadn't experienced before. It won't happen overnight. It will be a journey, a process in which you have to trust. Among all the things you try, some of them will be "cool". Do them. Keep doing them. One day, it will be black and white. Something will happen and it will kick in. You will know that you have found it, the same way I did. And you will be able to see on people's eyes those that have found it and those that haven't.
2.Trust your gut and be patient;
As you try everything, trust your gut and be patient. What is your gut telling you to do right now? Do it. And trust that it's correct despite everyone and everything saying otherwise. Of course, be self aware to what you are doing. There's a reason why you have that feeling and voice inside you. Life would be easier if we listened to it more often. On a side note: only listen to the positive voice you have. The negative one is there just to make things blurry and harder. At the same time, be practical. If you don't have money saved to quit your job, don't quit it - if that's what your gut is telling you to do. Be practical. Save money first. Quit later.
3.Have some spirituality;
Finding a purpose on Earth is impossible if you decide to believe that you are just a piece of dust in the universe and that your existence is pointless. It isn't. You could believe in God, like I do, and that He has made you in a very specific way with very specific abilities, and that He knows where you are now and where you are going to. However, if you are just too rational to believe in such nonsense, rationalize it.
If you meet 100 people in your lifetime, and those 100 people meet 100 people. And maybe you help improve the life of 10 of those 100. And each of them may impact 10 after you. Which will then help 10 once again. You are actually 3 people away from impacting the life of 1000 people. You and the actions you take matter. So be responsible and take accountability. You find your purpose in life not for yourself, but for the greater good that causes in society.
4.Understand that it is always 100 times harder than it looks.
Understand that whatever your purpose is, to live by it is hard. To live life on your terms is hard. To do what you want for the rest of your life is hard. As it should. It is 100 times harder than it looks. It is 100 times harder than you imagine it is.
But it's worth it.
Oh, and how worth it?
100 times more worth it than you could ever possibly imagine.
And this is the last - yet most important point of all -
5.Take absurd amounts of responsibility - and handle it.
Probably the most important aspect of being "happy" and having your "purpose" is taking absurd amounts of responsibility upon yourself. Take an important job you'll need to study for. Get married. Have a baby. Move out from your parents. Taking responsibility for your actions and for your life is what is going to allow you as a person to grow and see the bigger picture. This part is probably the hardest part. We have a generation of big babies. Big babies who are 24-26 years old and still haven't got a clue about life. And the reason why this happens is because all the responsibilities of their choices is still on the shoulders of their parents. And that's the issue. Take responsibility, because scientifically, it is a very big antidote to feeling void and unhappy.
And that's it for today.
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