The more deeply you live your purpose, the more non-personal it becomes. Early in Joe’s journey making music, he was terrified about what people thought. That terror was personal — tied to ego, identity, approval. As purpose matures, there’s nothing to defend. Joe compares it to defending the fact that you have sight — it’s just occurring, undeniable, and you can’t really defend or deny it.
“My experience of the more I’m living my purpose, the more non-personal it gets.”
This non-personal quality makes purpose unassailable by doubt. When great artists are deeply in their purpose, they’re doing it for themselves. Not selfishly — but from such a deep alignment that external opinion becomes irrelevant. There’s no way to doubt something that isn’t about you in the first place.
Brett frames this as purpose being an emergent property of how you are being, rather than an object you possess. You can look at the contents of your life or the contents of your career, but those tell you less than how you prefer to move through the world and what ways of relating to your experiences move you most deeply.
Related Concepts
- Purpose matures into choicelessness
- Humility is not taking life personally
- Sense of self expands then dissolves