I used to believe that I helped other people because I lacked purpose of my own.
When someone had a show, a business, a podcast, or a dream they were pursuing, I would help them move it forward. I thought I was borrowing a little bit of their purpose in the process. In that framing, helping others was meaningful, but it also felt dependent. It made me feel like I needed other people’s direction in order to feel useful.
But I think I may have had it backwards.
Maybe I was never lacking purpose. Maybe my purpose has always been helping other people discover, clarify, and move toward theirs.
That shift matters. In the old framing, I saw myself as someone taking a small piece of meaning from others. In the new framing, I see myself as someone giving from something that is already deeply true in me.
The action may look the same on the outside: I help people. But internally, it changes everything.
Instead of feeling like I am searching for purpose through other people, I feel like I am acting from my own purpose. Instead of being reactive, waiting for people to need me, I can be proactive. I can build systems, strategies, and structures that help people at scale.
The realization is not that I need to become someone different. It is that I may have misunderstood who I already was.