I was delighted to have this conversation with Suneet Bhatt, who is an author, executive coach, and teaches purpose at Rutgers University. Suneet and I crossed paths, exchanged some emails and I decided to have him on the podcast. And while I don’t often have guests on this podcast, I’m really glad I did. This was a very organic, spontaneous, and lively conversation. I hit record one minute into our zoom just to see what would happen and if we could use it.
One of the things I realized, and I shared this with Suneet after recording, is that while I used to focus more on purpose and was trained in some methodologies early in my career at EMyth, and I don’t focus much on it now. I think there are two reasons for that. The first is that when students come to me I assume they’re clear about what they want and are willing to do what it takes. My work is deep, intense, and requires serious commitment, so it tends to filter out those who are not clear about their purpose.
But even before we spoke, Suneet’s work got me thinking about what may potentially be a second reason and a blind spot for me: because for almost all of my life, I have been so clear about my purpose (whatever it was at the moment) that I think I project that clarity onto others in ways that isn’t true. So I’m continuing to chew on the observation that he makes in the very beginning: that self-awareness is a critical and often missing foundation that substantive purpose must be built upon.
So I’m really glad that Suneet wrote a book and is helping people get clear, because I completely agree it’s vitally important, even if as a teacher I like to help people who are clear at the moment about what they want.
Suneet’s website: makingsenseofpurpose.com
As promised, here’s the Tony Robbin video we talk about:
