Finding Your Purpose - 4 Steps To Reconnecting With The Man You Want To Be

00:00 Last week I said men don't have a mental health problem. We have a purpose crisis. And today we're going to go through the steps of what you can do to address it. Roll theme. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships and results they deserve. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community at highvalue manproject.com. Let's go. Hello, man. Welcome back to the Johnny Jensen Show. I am your host and the founder, head coach at the High Value Man Project.

00:43 Great to have you back. If you haven't subscribed yet to the podcast or to the YouTube channel, then make sure you do. Ahead of today's episode, make sure you subscribe, leave us a review, share this with other men in your life. Men who need to just take control of themselves and their life so that they live, so that they create the life they desire, not one that they feel stuck in. You know, we as men need to really thrive. What the world needs more than ever is men thriving. Men leading in their work, in their family, in their social circle for themselves, holding themselves to account, having the pride and the confidence to hold other people to account.

01:25 It's not about being something you're not. Like, oh, I'm going to force you to be strong. I'm going to force you to be a leader. No, it's about being that man and dad that you actually want to be. So that when you are in the mirror, when you are in conversation with your wife or your kids, that you are able to do that with the presence and charisma and the confidence that you desire, not leaving yourself feeling some sort of, oh, that is a bit shit. Or I haven't got a voice or ah, she took my bollocks away ages ago. This is about men thriving. And that's what the High Value Man Project is all about. That is what we are here to do in the world. And if you listen to last week's episode, well, this is a bit of a follow-on. In fact, it is literally a follow-on from that.

02:09 Can you listen to this without listening to that? Absolutely, you can, because we're talking about purpose. We're talking about the steps that you can take to identify, to create a purpose, your purpose, a reason to get excited about not just life. Like, oh, let's get excited about life, right? That sounds a bit wank, doesn't it? But this is literally about you feeling energized, about you having passion and joy in your life. And the reason that we lose this isn't because something's wrong with us. Isn't necessarily because we're weak or a failure. Like, it's because we gave it up. We swapped it in for everybody else's needs.

02:50 Okay. Over the last, however many episodes of the podcast, there was reference a while back to me when I was 16, having this vision of being a TV presenter. This, you know, it was like embarrassing. Who could I tell about that? Oh, shut up. Like, what do you? Oh, yeah, as if, you know, there's a potential for a lot of piss taking about that kind of idea. So I kind of just got on with it on my own. But when it fell through, the college I went to, like the, not the like university college, but the, I left a really good school to go and do my A levels and this radio and journalism city and guilds, an all right place, but nothing like the level.

03:29 You know, I was at an excellent school in Maidstone, Maidstone Grammar School for Boys. And I left there to go to the local college to do this radio and journalism course. But I didn't really tell anybody what I was up to or why that was my main motivation. And then that program fell through, the radio guy didn't turn up. I didn't really want to be a journalist. So then when I'm sat there learning shorthand with a bunch of secretarial people on secretarial courses, I completely lost my mojo for it. And it wasn't really until, I don't know, about two and a half years later when I was at university, simply having fun. Like I was able to find a new purpose, a new vision. And quite honestly, that purpose was about having fun.

04:14 It was literally about having fun. But nonetheless, that was a purpose. That was a vision. That was a why. Like, why am I doing this? Because I'm having a load of fun. At that point, when I went off to uni and made a load of mates and it was early 90s and we were clubbing and raving and just mucking about to the nth degree, suddenly I didn't need a vision. I didn't need a purpose because my life was so rich with friendships and joy. There was no stress or worries, you know, literally. If I didn't have any money, well, we either borrowed it off a mate or as it was for me, I just went and got some random job making teas at a antique like showground place.

04:59 place, doing silver service at a catering thing. And then the longest job I had at uni was delivering pizzas for a company that had a car with a massive red phone on the roof. Hilarious. And so, in a way, there was a purpose there. The purpose was have fun and it was being served. The reason why, you know, that time of life for men, you know, early to mid-20s, it's as easy to be fair as when we were little kids. What do you want to be? I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a fireman. I want to be a footballer. I want to be a teacher. There was no question of how much money did that pay or was it even realistic?

05:41 You know, you just, in your mind, you're a little kid and you'd seen whatever you'd seen or you'd heard whatever you'd heard. And you're like, that's what I want to be. And then when we hit our 20s, it's just, I would like to think for as many of us as possible, particularly guys that are doing okay. And this is maybe a reflection on young men who are struggling with knowing what to do and where to go. Comes back to not having a purpose. But when I was early 20s, it was just, yeah, where could we go? What can we take on? What's possible? Can I make some money? Can I have some fun? Can I make friends? Can I fall in love? Can I get married? Can I buy a house? Can I have some kids? There's a clear, distinct vision.

06:19 And actually, when I left uni and me and my two best mates, we went down to a completely different city in the UK called Southampton simply because one of us needed to finish up his degree. And they offered him a place at Southampton. And we went with him just to keep the dream alive, quite frankly. Like, why else would I not want to do like hang out with you two and have a laugh? But the problem was with that, the vision was gone. The purpose was gone. And I wasn't really very happy there. Least of all, because every time the washing up needed doing, we would play cards for it. They would gang up on me. I would lose. And then they would laugh their heads off as I crashed about in the kitchen complaining about all the bloody washing up that I had to do.

07:04 Thank you, Mark and Chris. You knobeds. But yeah, I felt like I wanted to be in London. I felt like I wanted to work in a marketing agency. I felt like I had to be in a different place. And so that new purpose kicked in. The vision was created and all the energy that I was missing in Southampton, all the joy for life came back. And it didn't happen instantly, like click your fingers. But within about nine months, I got that job in London and that game, that challenge, that new chapter had been created and I was off again. And so here's what happens. And by the way, if any of this, as we go through this today, resonates with you, then I have the high value man scorecard, which will give you an indication across the four key areas of your life where you are leaking your energy and joy, like your drive and passion, like where's it leaking.

07:59 So if you go to highvalumanproject.com forward slash score, it takes about two minutes and you get a fully personalized, it actually goes through high value man AI agent, which has been taught all the frameworks, all the coaching systems that we've built inside our system for living are inside this AI agent. So when you complete your score, you'll get a fully personalized review of your answers and what suggestions can be had around that. And then an invitation then to book a power call, basically, to talk about what your score means, where you would look to improve it. So yeah, highvalumanproject.com forward slash score. It's an epic way to start your high value man journey.

08:45 So let's just get straight into it. The steps that we take are the very first parts of the 3XC formula, which is part of the system for living. Okay. And it's clarity. And it's really easy to say to someone, oh, yeah, you need goals. Like, yeah, set your goals. But it's so much more than that. It's about tuning into who you really are and who you want, not apologetically, not, oh, yeah, but she wouldn't like it. Or, oh, yeah, but we can't do that. It's, it's unhinged. Blow the bloody doors off. No restrictions because it's not just about what you want, like a goal.

09:24 Like, oh, yeah, I want more money. I want to see Niagara Falls. I don't know. There's probably some better things to go and see if you've ever been there. It's impressive. It's just the stuff around it that's not that great. But it's so much more than that. It's about you and your values. It's about your strengths, your weaknesses, your passions. Even, did I say weaknesses there? But yeah, so it's not just about all the things you're good at. It's about the things that you don't like doing so that you avoid those things. And it's about having a why. You know, Nietzsche and Victor Frank. Frankl, borrowed it in his book, Man's Search for Meaning. A man with a clear enough why can withstand any challenge. When you've put all of that aside for so long to focus on your work, to focus on your wife, to focus on your family, to make sure there's enough money to put yourself last, you suddenly find yourself lost.

10:12 And that is a real simple metaphor. Is it metaphors or analogy? A metaphor is something like something else. I think that's a metaphor. Analogy is an example of a story, a comparison. Yeah, I better talk to Mrs. Harris, my old English teacher, and find that out. But this is the clarity part of the 3XC formula. Number one, getting clear about what's working in your life and what's not working in your life. Men have a huge tendency to focus on what's not working. And it comes out of survival instinct, really. It's an awareness of the things that aren't going well, which if you're talking about something's about to eat you or you're about to die from freezing cold when we're like cavemen stuff, that's fine.

10:59 But in this modern day world, the things that we fear, we don't even realize we fear them. It's more like stress, but our body reads it as anxiety, which in, you know, aka fear. So it becomes, oh, that's something to worry about. And it's all the things that aren't working. And because we get preoccupied with them and focus on them, it seems like that's all we ever experience. It's all we ever put up with. We become overly sensitive to the little things she does or the kids' room being messy or the so-and-so pot not being put back away. And so we react to it. So we're turning into a bit of a miserable git. But we're miserable gets because we're focused on all the things that we don't like, that we don't want, that we want less of or we want none at all of.

11:43 The trick there is to get way more interested in what's working, the things that you like doing, the things that are positives and light you up, that give you some amount of joy and power, freedom, energy, happiness, contentment. Because by the way, those feelings are the complete opposite of anxiety and stress. They induce cortisol and adrenaline and fight or flight chemicals. Whereas the feel-good stuff will induce dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin, the feel-good chemicals that lift us up and drive us forward, that help us sleep well, that help us be better company to be around, that help us be excited and motivated.

12:28 So it's important, in fact, essential to get really focused on what's working, what you appreciate, what you want more of. In fact, what you're grateful for. Now, a practice of gratitude sounds a bit fluffy and woo-woo, and people write it off, but it's not. It's becoming aware of, emotionally tuned into the good things in your life that are working. Second up, and basically all these tasks, you can sit down and write them out, actually building some AI tools to you can access and do this interacting with. Next up is your values. Now, when you're living inconsistent, like out of alignment with your values, it's uncomfortable.

13:13 It's friction. It's mildly annoying, but it's also, it rubs against, just like a piston being slightly out, it rubs against your soul, to be honest, your absolute core. So if who you are, and this experience was very personal to me inside of my marriage, which ultimately failed, who I am is intuitively, without even thinking about it, more of a positive tendency. I see the opportunities, I see the good in things. Now, my ex, more of a negative persuasion. And that's okay, but it's bloody annoying if you're those two people are complete opposite.

13:53 So every time you say up, they say down. There's only so much road for that conversation to run on before you hit a wall. Okay. So your values are absolutely vital. Getting clear on what they are. So for me, family or love falls into the same sort of thing. Winning, like the sense of competition and pushing yourself to be your best. Joy, fun. Okay. Laughter is a value. And generosity. Definitely that is one of my core values as well. And you will have around four or five core values. You can write down, like set yourself a timer and write down all the things that matter to you, all the things that, you know, give you goosebumps or light you up or when you think about your family and friends and what you do for them or things that other people do for you and you appreciate and you feel gratitude towards.

14:43 You could think about favorite movies or TV personalities or sports people. Like, what do you see in them that you like about? about them? Sometimes it's easier to describe other people than it is to describe yourself. And you can start to group these all together. Like I was saying, love and family and connection, they become a value in it themselves under one umbrella. And if you want, if you go to the opposite end of the spectrum and look at things that annoy you about people, the characteristics that you don't like in people, TV programs that wind you up, you'll see some of your opposites of your values. So you go, okay, well, actually, if I don't like aggression, I don't like drama, I don't like negativity, what is the opposite of that?

15:26 That's probably the value that I am. Okay, it's about positivity, love, freedom, generosity. These are the opposites. So when you know your values and you start to live by them, then life becomes a lot freer. You start to see the good in things rather than being constantly low-level frustration. And it is that pinch on our values. If you don't know this or have never seen it before, take a look. You know, that picture gets used a bunch of times, but you know, the rumble strip, the digger digger, digga digger on the side of the road. If you start to veer off the main lane of the road into the, what do they call it? You know, the bit where you break down, right?

16:05 If you start to go off into that lane, you hit the rumble strip and it's to wake you up. It's to nudge you into this correct path again. When you're operating out of alignment with your values, you will find yourself digger digger digger digger constantly, but you don't realize it. It just becomes low-level frustration. So then next up is really about clear vision, right? We call it the blueprint inside of the High Value Man Project. You'd have heard it elsewhere as the vision board, but getting truly clear on what you want in your life. Like in each and every area, we have seven core areas, okay? You, family, home, work and money, friendships, health and fitness, and

16:52 did I say family? To get this tattooed on the inside of my arm or something. But, you know, they fall into those areas. And what you do is you create around that how you want it to be very specifically. You don't use any negatives like, I don't want this, I don't want that. No, that's the not working. You put into it exactly what you see yourself having, what it is that you want to create. If it's a larger home, what does that home look like? If it's the vibe, the atmosphere, the people that are around you in your home, what does that look like? If it's the view out the window or the location that you're near, or it's the kind of weather you experience there, it goes in there. If it's the kind of relationship that you want, you put it in. If you haven't got a partner, then you describe the kind of partner that you want to have.

17:38 It becomes this blueprint. The reason why I prefer blueprint over vision board is because a blueprint is something you build. It's something you create. You know what it is that you want to end up with and you start to put the steps in place to create it. And that, along with your values and your strengths and weaknesses, I didn't even mention those, but let's come back to those. You build this picture up exactly of who you are, what you stand for. Inside of which are your strengths and weaknesses, passions and commitments. What is it that matters to you? What are you responsible for? What are the things that light you up and that you enjoy doing?

18:21 And then weaknesses, what are the things that annoy you and you don't like doing? Being clear about these things actually written down means that you can lean into and do more of those things. You become aware of the hard lines for you in certain areas where I'm not going to do that because it's inconsistent with what I am, who I am, what I said I'm creating. And weaknesses in particular, because some weaknesses we might want to work on. Other weaknesses, and this is far more where I would encourage you to go, is that you find people to delegate to, find people or ways to minimize the amount of time you have to spend operating in your weaknesses.

19:03 One of the hardest things for a human, let alone a man, because we're focused on men, to persevere with is something that you don't like doing. That will undoubtedly, obviously, grind you down. Okay. And then the final part of this is your why. Your why is a clear connection between what you're doing and the reason you want to do it. And people talk about motivation as where can I get motivation for? How do I find motivation? What happened to where's my motivation gone? It's not motivation. It's commitment. And commitment is your why. It's your why above all other things that will get you out of bed to do that thing that you said you would do.

19:44 When you're connected to your why, you can quite frankly withstand any challenge. You've got to have a why that's bigger than you, right? And when I say bigger than you, it normally means something external to what it is that you want. And the best example I can give of this, or the one that springs most to mind, is around my fitness. And I used to have it when I was younger that I would enter an event, get fit to enter the event, to do well, to kind of look good. I've always, I've got a bit of an issue about not getting overweight, or some people accuse me of being fattest, but I don't think that's very fair. But I never want to be like that, right? When I was younger, that was what it was, enter an event, get fit. Then I would do the event, then not go to the gym for six months.

20:28 And it wasn't until I felt so bad about it, I started to feel so unfit. And then I was like, the pain got so much that I would then go back to the gym. So it's about like that pain, the pain of not going, but got so much that I went and started doing it again. When I read Charles Dungie's Power of Habits, I realized that my why for getting fit was only about me. And when it's only about you, your motivation for it can drift in and drift out. It doesn't really impact anybody else. It's not connected to a higher reason, a bigger why. And that's the common mistake that people make with motivation. Motivation comes in and out. You've got to find a way to access commitment.

21:10 And why, your why is how you access commitment. So when I realized that when I'm fit, I work better. When I work better, I make more money. When I make more money, I can do cool things with my kids. When I can do cool things with my kids, they're happier. And at the time when we were going through a divorce, their happiness and our quality time together was absolutely paramount. And obviously, money was a bit tricky back then. So in terms of getting up in the morning and going to the gym and doing what I needed to feel good about myself, being fit was an absolute non-negotiable. And it transformed my attitude towards going to the gym. It transformed my reason for going to the gym.

21:50 So then when it's cold and dark, you don't really feel like it, you are still compelled either to do the home workout, like find a way around it, or to buddy up and do it with some people, or to go and get more knowledge, to turn on YouTube, to find things that you could like. Whatever it is, you won't be stopped simply by the, I don't feel like it. And that's where so many men are missing right now in their lives is that they think they have something important that they want to do, but it's not really make or break. And so their motivation is just constantly drifting in and out, which in itself will drag you down.

22:30 Because if you, if there's something you know you want to do or there's not something you know you should do, I know I should exercise. I want to look fit and attractive for my wife, my girlfriend. I want to feel good. I want to be alive when my kids are, you know, and I've got grandchildren. Like if, to be fair, that's drifting into the whys. But if just getting fit is whether you like exercising or not, that won't be enough. It's when you associate those whys that I just went through. It's when you have a reason that's bigger than you is when motivation sticks around. And it's not actually called motivation. It's called commitment. So in terms of what's wrong with men today, in terms of it's not a mental health crisis, it's a purpose crisis.

23:15 These are all the reasons why that's the case. Because if you don't have a purpose, then you don't know what you're going after. If you don't know what you're focused on, like if you don't know your levels of which you're grateful for what you've got and you're doing things that are tuned into your values and that your passions and strengths are where you find yourself active most of the time, if your why, like your reason for getting up in the morning is clear and strong and it's something external to you, it's about impacting other people, either your family or your extended community. It's something that you just won't be stopped in. That is a man who is magnetic, who is energized.

24:00 People want to be around him. When he thinks about what he's got going on, he's got loads going on. He's inspired himself. And it's almost impossible to feel bad about life, to feel, let alone have a mental health crisis when you're balls out excited about what you're up to in the world. And so that's the message. That's what we've got to go after. When a friend of yours says, I'm really struggling at the moment, ask them what they're up to. Ask them what they're excited about. Ask them what their vision is. Like, what are you working on? What's your mission? Tell me about it. And they're like, oh, what do you mean? I don't know. I haven't really got one. You say, well, look, here's mine. you think about this? Oh, that sounds cool.

24:42 How did you do that? This is how I did it. I listened to the Johnny Jensen show. I'm part of the High Value Man Project. That's what our kids need to see in us. When they look at their dad, same as our wives or girlfriends, like when they look at us, they want to feel inspired and led and enthusiastic. They want to be on that mission with us. Because if you can't get excited about what you're up to, how the hell do you expect people to be excited about being on the journey with you? It just doesn't work that way. And then we like the low value death spiral. We lead with confidence and charisma, chasing a life we desire and not one we feel stuck in.

25:23 And that's it. I wanted to share this with you because there's practical aspects to what we do here at the High Value Man Project. It's not just, it's definitely not therapy, right? Although you will get the results that people look for in therapy. It's not tipping your life upside down and becoming somebody you're not, but it is about a life that works and about being connected with the man and dad that you want to be. And in terms of the rewards and the output, it's exactly about the connection, about the joy, about the experience of loving life rather than this four out of 10 existence that so many of us find ourselves in.

26:03 I'm now going to go away and chop this up because I've had to do it in two parts and all sorts of other technical issues that have been going on. Hopefully by the time you're listening to this, none of that will be apparent and you can say, wow, that's sounding good. I've got a couple of guest episodes that are ready to be published. So expect to see them coming up later on in the week. And the easiest ways, or over the next couple of weeks, the easiest way to make sure that you're receiving the latest episodes of the Johnny Jensen show is to subscribe either to the podcast or on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening or through YouTube to both the channel

26:42 and to the and to the podcast as YouTube manages them. If you've got ideas or things that you want me to talk about on this show, if you've heard other guests on other podcasts that you're like, yeah, I need to hear him riff with Johnny, then by all means, message me. Tell me what it was that you want me to cover or who it is that you want me to get on the show. And then finally, go and get your score. Go and get your high value man score at highvalumanproject.com forward slash score. That's the kickstart for you. That will show you where you're leaking energy and drive in your life and help you build the connections and the commitments that you want to create.

27:24 Thanks for listening. It has been my absolute pleasure and I'll see you on the next episode. Let's go. Thanks for tuning in to the Johnny Jensen show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow dads. Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.