Synthetic purpose.

I'm usually up by 5:30 am with a big cup of coffee and my laptop open, wild-eyed and ready to get after it before the sun's even up. And just about every day, I end up doing the same thing with my quiet morning.

I open Claude and run the same financial numbers I've run hundreds of times before. I tinker with how our stock portfolio should grow, different budgeting scenarios, and withdrawal strategies.

I've toggled every variable hundreds of times, and I already know what the results say. But I run the numbers again anyway, like maybe this time, some new answer will appear. When it doesn't, I move on to the next thing.

I think a lot about our cost of living, because our spending is directly tied to how much money I need to make, and how long I have to keep making it. I dream about cheaper living. So the next thing I do is research where money goes the furthest in the world, where the weather's great year-round, and there's good food and wine and walkability and enough people who speak English. I already know these answers, too. I can recite them from memory by now. But maybe today I'll discover that fairytale place that's never popped up before.

Then I sketch out what an ideal day or week should look like after I make whatever change I'm considering next in my life and business. How I'll fill up my purpose bucket, my exercise bucket, and my friend bucket.

I want every piece of my life accounted for and predictable, laid out in front of me like a blueprint. I've been like this since I was a kid.

But every morning, after all the ceremony, I'm in the same place. The path hasn't gotten clearer, and the choices are still unmade. No amount of spreadsheeting and research has made the uncertainties more certain. So I go on with my day and wake up the next morning to do it all over again.

I've been stuck here a long time.

Dale

Last week, Jennifer and I took our friend Dale out to dinner here in San Francisco. Dale's 61, married to the love of his life, lives on a 100-acre farm in Southern Indiana, and helps consultants launch and grow their businesses. He's been a member of our community for the past year, and he'd traveled all the way to California to attend one of our events.

Dale's one of those rare people who listens more than he talks. He asks thought-provoking questions instead of giving answers. And when he finally says something, there's genuine care and curiosity in his words. Like I said, rare nowadays.

So when we sat down with Dale for dinner, I didn't give him a polished version of how things are going for me. I told him about the morning routine I've found myself stuck in. The spreadsheets, the research, and the planning loops that never go anywhere. I told him I'd been trying to figure out the next chapter of my life for more than a year, and how I want to know exactly what it'll look like before I push the ball forward.

Dale sat back with his Cabernet and asked me questions for a while. He was patient while I talked myself in circles for a bit. And Jennifer finally jumped in. She told Dale that ambiguity throws me off. Like, genuinely upsets me. That she hates watching me struggle to enjoy the present because I'm always trying to be three steps ahead.

Dale nodded along, finished a few bites of his burger, and then asked me a question I didn't have a great answer for.

"I'm curious. Do you know what you're actually looking for when you open Claude and do all of that planning work and spreadsheets? Because it sounds like you already know what the numbers say."

I answered something about needing more assurance. But even as I was saying it, I could hear myself copping out. The spreadsheet gives me the same answers every single time.

Sensing I was flailing a bit, Dale didn't push it. He just nodded again, smiled, and said:

"That question is worth thinking about, ya know…" and then we changed the subject.

But his question stuck.

The treadmill

I woke up the next morning with a jolt. Dale's question was still rattling around in my head. I went to the gym and got on the treadmill, and the question gnawed at me.

What am I looking for when I open that spreadsheet?

It can't be "assurance" or "confidence" because the same answer sits in the same damn cell on Google Sheets every morning. So what am I even doing?

Then, two miles into my five-mile walk, it dawned on me. I'm not looking for an answer. I'm looking for a problem to solve.

I've been a problem-solver my whole adult life. For the last 17 years, I've woken up every morning with some target to hit, some number to chase, or a system to build or fix. Startup revenue goals. Sales teams. A business to grow from zero. Every morning had a clear purpose because there was always something that needed figuring out. And I'm a good figure-outer. That's been my thing for as long as I can remember.

Then I figured a lot of it out. I built a successful business. I made money. I chose the quieter life. All choices made on purpose, and all the right calls. I genuinely believe that.

But now I'm sitting in the life that I've chosen, and there's no quota. There's no dashboard that turns green when I've won the day. There's no urgent problem that needs me. And for a guy who spent almost two decades feeling most like himself when he was solving a big problem, this quiet space is hard to sit in. I keep finding myself wondering what my purpose looks like now.

The Claude exercise isn't about getting the information I need. It's giving me the feeling of working on something important. A "synthetic purpose," I guess. A manufactured problem I get to solve for an hour every morning, so I can feel like the old version of myself that I know and understand. And when the hour's over, and the answer hasn't changed, I wait for tomorrow so I can do it again.

The pattern

I started thinking about just how many people I know who do some version of this.

I have a great friend from high school who found himself deep in debt with the trifecta: credit cards, student loans, and car payments.

Over several years, he got laser-focused on climbing his way out. He got an app with a countdown timer, put together a weekly plan with his wife, and the two of them got to work.

When he finally made his last debt payment, he told me it was one of the best days of his life. But a few months later, he felt lost without the tracking, the weekly number crunching, and the shared goal. So he and his wife signed up for a real estate investing class and started obsessing over rental property metrics and taking on debt to acquire some properties. To me, that seemed crazy for someone who just climbed his way out, but he needed something with a number attached to it that he could chase, too.

I think about the 180,000+ people who read this newsletter every week. Successful solopreneurs, founders, consultants, and creators. People who wake up every day, ready to build and solve and optimize. And I can't help but wonder how many of you have already solved the problem you originally set out to solve, and are now quietly manufacturing new ones just to keep the old identity going.

I've spoken to and received emails from thousands of you by now. Folks who hit their revenue milestone and immediately raised it, not because they needed more money, but because the goal itself is what gives their mornings purpose.

An old friend emailed me recently about how she keeps launching new offers every quarter, even though her core business is booming. In her last email, she admitted that she does it because "sitting still makes her feel lazy." But she might be the least lazy person I know!

And I can't tell you how many founders I know who could step back tomorrow, but don't and won't. Because stepping back means sitting with silence, and silence means facing questions they don't really want to answer.

I've been all of those people at certain points in my life. And I've realized that money and success don't eliminate our need for purpose. It just takes away the easy version of it. The targets, the goals, and the stuff with all of the numbers attached. And when the easy version of purpose disappears, trust me…your brain will invent problems to solve before it lets you sit without one.

The bottom line

The morning after the treadmill, I woke up at 5:30 again. Made my coffee. Sat down at the kitchen island with my laptop.

I went over to Claude out of habit, but this time I stopped myself.

My brain begged me to open it and start running the spreadsheet. To crunch the numbers one more time, to find the "secret city," and to plan one more version of my week, budget, and future.

It would have felt like I was doing something important. But I wasn't, and I haven't been for months. I've been manufacturing the feeling of making progress on a question I've already answered. Because the alternative is admitting I don't have a big problem to solve right now. And when I don't have a big problem to solve, I'm not sure who I am.

So rather than fall back into the old habit that morning, I opened a blank Notion page and wrote this newsletter to you instead.

I still don't know what comes after you stop manufacturing purpose and start sitting with the fact that some of your biggest problems might be behind you. I'm probably going to be figuring that out for a while.

But I know that the "spreadsheet life" isn't it. I also know that a 61-year-old guy from Indiana asked me one question over a burger, and it cracked something open that a year of 5:30 mornings couldn't touch.

So here's a question that might do the same for you:

Have you ever struggled with a “synthetic purpose” yourself? Keeping yourself busy with something because you’re unsure of what your actual purpose is?

If you’re comfortable sharing, reply and tell me. While I can't respond to everyone, Jennifer and I read every response, and we love hearing from you.

That's all for this week.

See you next Saturday.