How To Live With Purpose When Life Gets Loud

Competing is loud. Completing is quiet and powerful. After five months away, I’m back to explain why stepping off the hamster wheel can be the most purposeful move you make, especially when you’re tired of performing for likes, chasing timelines, or measuring your life against someone else’s highlight reel.

I talk through how my own mission has evolved, and why I leave the older chapters up on purpose: growth is supposed to be visible. Purpose isn’t one perfect answer you find once and defend forever. It’s a perspective shaped by your life experiences, your season, and what you’re learning right now. If you’ve been thinking “I’m behind,” I want you to hear this clearly: where you are can be exactly where you need to be to learn something important.

You’ll get a practical framework you can use immediately: learn, grow, express. We break down how to become a student again, how to apply what you learn through action, and how to build the courage to fully express who you’re becoming with boundaries and self-respect. I also share why grief can slow you down without stopping your purpose, and how introspection helps you stay kind to yourself while you rebuild momentum.

To close, I reframe The Tortoise And The Hare with one idea that can change your week: compete vs complete. One letter makes the difference. If this helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s been comparing themselves, and leave a review so more people can find Your Purposeful Life.

Transcript

Complete Over Compete Teaser

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So when you're doing things right now in your life, your purposeful living, remember to focus on completing things. Taking one step, one day, one action at a time, even if it's slower than everyone else's. I'm Adrian Starks, known as Mr. Purpose. I'm a speaker, voice narrator, comic card, and superhero fanatic, book lover, martial artist, health enthusiast, and just a fellow human seeking purpose. Join me and our guest as we navigate the chaotic journey of life of what I like to call the human mess to discover how we can craft and share our purpose. There's no single path, but together we'll explore the diverse perspectives to uncover the tools to help you shape your purpose your way. Let's get it and let's create. Well, hey, welcome back, everybody. It has been a moment since I've been on this podcast. Actually, like five months, but don't get mad at me, okay? I really needed to take that time off. And we're in this world right now, I'm just gonna get right into this, where we think that we always have to be in the faces of other people. It's the popularity contest for playing on social media. We have to have a number of likes, subscribers, shares, comments. And although a lot of us use that for business to promote our products and our services that we're putting out there to people, sometimes you can be a slave to it, to the point to where you're doing it and not really feeling it at that time. And it's okay to take a step back, to rest a bit, and think about some things. So I had to do that. And also life happens. There's things that come up, things that you need to reevaluate, reassess for yourself, things you need to fix or to improve. Let me let me not say the word fix, improve. That's including yourself, your well-being, your relationships, your work, whatever it is you may be working on. It needs to have attention. And when we take a step back, it's okay to do that. And that's what I did. I took a step back. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I did miss you all a lot. And there are more episodes coming out. There are going to be more guests on the show. But for now, you'll just hear from me because I'm feeling that in that state, in that mood. And I want you all to know that purpose is not something that we have to necessarily say that, oh, if I'm not doing anything right now, I don't have a purpose. Your purpose is whatever you're doing at that point in time in your life, no matter where you are. That's what's so important. And that's what I had to realize for myself. That although I wasn't putting out the episodes, there were things I was sitting with. Like I call the incubation process. I was incubating, working up ideas and things to share and to create with you later on. And that's why I've been away. And now I am back. And I'm happy to be back. And I want to keep this episode nice and sweet today, short, because I just want to reintroduce myself to you. Hi, I'm Adrian Starks. I'm a speaker, podcaster, voice narrator. I'm a comic card collector and reader. I'm a reader of books. I love health and well-being, all the above. And I'm here today because I love talking about purpose. And this podcast has changed over time. I remember when I first started out, I had a different mission. It was called Champion Up. And if you guys go back to the first episode, you'll hear that. And that mission is still there, but that's more tailored toward health and wellness. But that evolution of myself, you know, moving from that point now into purpose over the years shows how we can change and evolve as people. And we're supposed to. We're supposed to start here and then progress into other things. That's how we grow in character. That's how we grow in self-maturity. We self-actualize. But I remember I was talking with a friend not too long ago, and they said, you know, should you take down those other episodes? And I was like, nah, leave them up. People can see how I've changed. They can see that there's transparency there. And I want you to go back and listen to some different episodes. And you'll see that there's some differences with languaging. And during that time in my earlier episodes, I was heavily into business and working with entrepreneurs. So the languaging was a little bit different than it is now. And the episode title did change, or my podcast title changed. It went from the purposeful life show to now it's your purposeful life. Because now I feel after years of researching and working with people and working with myself and just interviewing, I realized that purpose is not some finite answer and it shouldn't be. I think it's where we get caught up on. We think that, dang, if I'm not doing this right now, if I'm not over here doing this, then I'm just wasting my time, wasting my life. No, you're not. You are where you are right now because you need to be there to learn something. The key is being observant, being vigilant, and knowing what's working, what's not working, and paying attention to that and taking note of it and asking yourself questions of is this, why is this not working for me? Why am I stuck here? Why am I not moving in this direction? What's happening? Why am I feeling this way? It's okay to ask yourself those questions. I asked myself those questions so many times. Oh my goodness, so many times, and I still do to this day. But the podcast, it shows that we can grow over time. And I want you to feel that way too, that you can grow over time. You can change and grow and you're supposed to. And no matter where you are, there's a purpose. So with the show, I decided that I didn't want to necessarily ask people what purpose was. I wanted their perspective on their understanding of it. It's not an answer of like, I'm going to tell you that this is what your purpose is. No, it's a perspective. My purpose is different than the next person's purpose based on our life experiences. But everyone has something that they're doing that brings purpose to their being here on this planet. And that is something we need to pay attention to. And we have to pay attention to the things that bring us joy, bring us fulfillment, bring us excitement. Because success comes after that. You know, a lot of us think that, oh, if I get success over here and ignore all these things over here, then they will catch up. And it's never that way. Success comes from attitude, comes from how you're feeling.

unknown 6:49

Right?

Learn Then Grow Then Express

Grief And Stepping Back To Heal

Tortoise And Hare Reframed

Introspection Plus A Clear Next Step

Where To Follow And Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 6:49

So if you have a good attitude about things, good attitude about your life and about where things are going, success is going to follow because your success is tied into your moral compass of being, of how you feel about yourself, your self-esteem. There's a lot of people out here on the planet that, in your eyes to society's eyes, may seem it's very, very successful. They've got everything everyone could want. But if you open that door up that they keep closed on social media, you'll see they have issues just like you. They got bills to pay, they've got issues with family members, they got issues with partners, they've got issues with business partners, they got issues with themselves. It happens because it's life. But we can't put people on a pedestal and then compare ourselves to them and say that we're not showing up when really you are. So no matter where you are right now, remember this that you're never too old. Never. And you're never too far, you know, out ahead that you can't look back at something and say, I want to pick that up again and take a look at it. That idea, that project I was doing, that vision I had, that dream. I want to take another look at that. It's so you can do that, and you should. But you have to be patient with yourself and know that your purpose is your purpose. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach, it's different for everybody. And I want to give you a few steps here about living a purposeful life. And then I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a lesson, a story that I've learned over time and that I've come to understand in my life, and I want to share with you. The first step to living a purposeful life is to be a student, to learn. Be willing to learn things from people and learn things from yourself. There's two categories in that. You learn what to do, and you learn what not to do. And a lot of times you learn what not to do from people that you think are everything to you, right? But pay attention to those people. Pay attention to the things that you're doing, the mistakes you're making, because you can be your best teacher or your worst student. It's up to you. So be a learner. Read books, read articles. Don't just trust Google or social media to tell you the facts, and then you just say, well, that's just the way it is. You have people like that that you come across. I call them fact machines. They think about all the facts, but they have no content, no references of those facts, other than they got it from this source. Okay, well, what's the secondary source? And who told them that? They can't go that far because they're only looking at the one source. So be a learner. Questions, question people, question yourself. The greatest philosopher to me of all time, he's tattooed on my forearm right here, Socrates. He said that I know that I know nothing. And he was considered to be one of the greatest minds of all time. I know that I know nothing. And he talked about knowing thyself by introspection, asking yourself questions. So that's what I want you to start with. Be a learner. The second step to living a purposeful life is to grow. Now, this one here requires action, meaning that you have taken what you've learned over here. Now you're moving it over to the middle of growth. You're taking what you're learning and now you're applying it to action. You're putting it into your daily activities, into your behaviors. If you're reading about having a better perspective on life, well, today this person is probing you. How do you bring that better perspective into life with this conversation? That's how you apply things. You don't just read to just build your brain up with facts. You apply, you find ways to put those things into action. And as you do that, you'll start seeing things open up for you. You'll start seeing doors open. You'll start seeing obstacles move out of your way. Or if they don't, like Marcus Aurelius said, he's one of the great emperors of his time. He said that the obstacle, if it doesn't move out of your way, it can become the way. So that's part of growth, action. And once you start growing and putting things into action, you start believing more in yourself. You start saying, Oh, that worked, that didn't work. Let me try this a little bit more. Let me go over here and let me investigate this a little bit more deeply. Let's see what I can do. So the second step is putting things into action, applying what you've learned in the first step. Now, the third step that we're going to talk about, the final step, but it's part of a full cycle that repeats. The final step of this your purposeful life living is self-expression. Self-expression means now that you're having fun with what you're doing. You're not afraid to share what you know. You're not afraid to step into situations and be that person that you are now, that you've grown into be, to handle that person, to talk to that person with character and respect, but create boundaries for yourself. To tell people that, hey, I don't agree with what you're saying. To tell people when you know that they should be improving for themselves, to have the courage to really show up for yourself and other people and put your things out there in the planet for people to see. When you create something, don't be shy about it, put it out there. Let people experience that with you. That's what I call expression. Fully expressing yourself. We see this a lot in actors, musicians, writers, creators, entrepreneurs. We see this. They put themselves out there. They fully express what they've learned and how they've grown. Now these ideas become physical, right? They come to become into fruition with the environment. They become their reality. And then as you do that, you start getting a little bit more confident. Then you go back into, okay, now that worked. What can I learn more of now to get more of this result? Then you start putting that into action. Then you get the results that you want or you don't want, but you still learn from them because you've learned now that you can learn from your mistakes. And then as you grow more, you express more, you put more out there. And this becomes a cycle of purposeful living. It goes, one, learn, grow, and then fully express, and it goes around and around, no matter how old you are. That's what I want to share with you. Think about the first step. What can you learn more of? The time that I've spent away, I've learned a lot. About myself, about my health, about my well-being. I've learned about my grieving process. You know, I've lost my father a few years ago. And whoo, it has been tough. Like it has been really tough because he played such a huge factor in my life, in my brother's life, in my mother's life. He was fully present. And he taught us so much. And I remember the first year was just, I don't know, how we got through it. It was rough. But I learned a lot about myself. And over time I've learned that it's okay to grieve. It's okay to take a step back. So if you're out here right now and you've lost someone, could have lost a partner, family member, a friend, a business, could have lost yourself in something. It's okay to grieve. It's okay to take a step back and to protect yourself and to say that you're going to be all right. And that's why I've been slow about getting back into things, allowing myself to feel, to feel the connection with things I I need to feel the connection with. And you can do the same. So that's the three, that's the three steps to the cycle of your purposeful living. Now it sounds simple, but it's not. Trust me, it is not simple because you're going to skip a step or you're not going to apply a step. And this is when introspection comes in. You got to sit down and be like, okay, what am I missing? What's going on? And most importantly, be kind to yourself. Don't allow yourself to try to be perfect. Stop the comparison games of looking online at other people. Stop saying, well, they're over here and I'm not over here. Stop saying that they got the promotion, I didn't get the promotion. They got married over here, I didn't get married. They got in a good relationship, I'm not in a good relationship. They got money and I didn't get a lot of money. They got this, and you just keep blaming people. Instead of taking responsibility for how you're feeling about yourself. That's part of your purposeful living as well, is to take responsibility for you. That's what you have to do. So speaking of comparison, let's end today with a short story. Aesop fable. Some of you may say Aesop, but it's Aesop. I will see, I will say Aesop Fable. And he was known as a Greek slave who told wonderful stories. Now, here's the backdrop of this. The reason why these stories were told with animals was because during the time that he was trying to help people become better, inspire them, give them courage. He didn't want those people around, the masters or the soldiers that were controlling people, to hear what he was saying and to understand that he was talking about them. You imagine they were realizing that he was specifically talking about them, what they would do to him. So he was very clever to mask it with just animals. So over time, people began to associate the Asa fables with just children. You tell children these stories. Adults should be listening to these stories. And the one story I want to end off with today is a story called The Tortoise and the Hare. Now, of course, you've all who are readers, and you may have heard this story as a young child or even in business. A lot of businesses will use this story. And it's a story of patience. And it talks about slow and steady wins the race. That's kind of the caveat of the story. But over time, I started to really dissect the story, think about it a little bit more in my own perspective, and just dig into it and think about it in terms of like what's really going on in this story. Now, to get to the story, there's a race, right, between the tortoise and the hare. Let's just say rabbit. The turtle and the rabbit. We'll keep it simple. The turtle and the rabbit. The rabbit challenges the turtle to a race. Now, the rabbit was very, very arrogant. The rabbit knew it was faster, it was smaller, it could jump around, it could move. And the tortoise, the turtle, agreed to the race. Now, as time as the race started, the rabbit just took off. Gone. And here comes the turtle, just doing its thing, right? One foot in front of the other, a big, enormous shell on its back, and just walking slowly. And of course, the rabbit gets cocky, gets arrogant, and starts looking around. Where are you at? Where are you at? Spinning around. The rabbit even gets so arrogant to the point where it gets far ahead of the turtle, it decides it's gonna go to the corner over here or to the side and take a nap. Now that nap is what really got that rabbit in trouble. Because as it took the nap when it woke up, the turtle was already far ahead and near the finish line. Now, when the rabbit tried to catch up, it was too late. Now, the big question here is who really won the race? Was it because the rabbit fell asleep? Was it because the tortoise was just resilient? Or was it because the rabbit just didn't focus? Now, I looked at this on many angles. And the answer is a lot of a lot of variables came into this. But at the end of the day, what we have to look at here is who was more focused to complete the race, to finish the race. And it was a turtle. The turtle didn't care about what the rabbit was doing, how fast the rabbit was. The turtle knew what it knew best: that it's just going to put one foot in front of the other and move. Now the turtle had a big shell on its back. It had a lot to carry. The rabbit didn't. And this is where we need to look at too in our lives. When we are comparing ourselves to other people, when we're looking at their successes versus ours, their experience versus ours, we have to look at the fact that do they have the things that we have on our back right now that we're holding on our shoulders? Do they have those responsibilities? And they may have, they just no longer have them. But we have to be careful about those comparisons because we're coming from different angles. The turtle knew it couldn't run as fast as the rabbit. It knew that. It wasn't gonna even try. But the turtle knew that it could do something that the rabbit couldn't do, it could just continue to go on and on until it completed the race. Now, here's the interesting thing about this whole concept of the race between the rabbit and the turtle. One word compete versus another word, complete. The rabbit wanted to compete. The turtle wanted to complete. Now it's pretty much the same word, separated by one letter, L. And when the rabbit didn't focus on completing, it lost. Think about that. One letter separates those two words compete versus complete. If you're gonna complete something, don't focus on Competing because if you focus on competing, you lose that L and you take the L. Literally. So when you're doing things right now in your life, your purposeful living, remember to focus on completing things, taking one step, one day, one action at a time, even if it's slower than everyone else's. As I mentioned before earlier, when I took time off, I did not pay attention to all the other people that were doing things. I stayed away. I just kept to myself incubated. I read, I took care of my health. I worked on some projects that I'm going to be sharing with you all later on in the year. And I feel great. And I want you to feel great to understand that wherever you are, turn it on. Don't wait for things to get perfect. Just take out time for yourself. Sit back, ask yourself what do you want? What do you want to do? And what do you need to change to do the things that you want to do? That's introspection, and that's called being purposeful. Remember those three steps I told you earlier: learn, grow, express. Try to use those this week if you can in your day-to-day living. And if you mess up, that's okay. The human mess is part of the process. Just keep doing it again until you get better and better at it. I want you all to know that this is your purposeful life, and you only get one. So let's make it good. Thank you for listening to Your Purposeful Life, and I'm your host, Adrian Starks. Download this podcast on your platform of choice. Join me on my social media channels and be a part of the Your Purposeful Life community. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and hit that like button with a purpose. Come on now. Remember, your human mess is the process. Let's help you shape your purpose your way.