Finding direction and meaning in your life with James Cobbett

This week's episode we talk about finding direction and meaning in our lives featuring James Cobbett. We discuss his journey of discovering his purpose and the importance of uncovering one's "why" statement.

He reflects on his transition from working in a charity part-time to pursuing freelance web design full-time, highlighting a shift in his search for meaningful work beyond just financial stability.

James mentions reaching a point of disengagement and questioning the purpose of his work before coming across Simon Sinek's work on the significance of having a strong core purpose. Inspired by Sinek's ideas, James embarked on a personal quest to identify his own "why" statement, leading to the creation of a statement focused on sparking individuals into action to live life with purpose.

This process not only shaped his business approach, focusing on serving purposeful organizations, but also empowered him to make strategic decisions aligning with his newfound clarity.

You can connect with James on LinkedIn, check out his work on purpose, or his website building for charities.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-cobbett/

https://jamescobbett.co.uk/

https://goodbear.co.uk/

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Big shout out to my podcast magician, Marc at iRonickMedia for making this real.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

James Cobbett: 0:00

Once you've found your way to then live it out requires you to be a really authentic version of yourself publicly. Because I think our y's are something that we're contributing to the world. And so I don't think they can be an outworking of your why that you could do in a silo by yourself, well being, in some way, publicly, say publicly, I don't necessarily mean social media platforms or something like that, but at least working with other people.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 0:31

Welcome to answer at work. I'm your host, Katherine Stagg Macy, I'm an executive and team coach, and I'm interested in the conversations that we don't have at work. If you've ever find yourself aimless fed up thinking there was more to life, then this is an episode for you. And I know that place well, I've been there too. I went into my degree and my career of computer science because my father said psychology wasn't a proper degree. So being the good girl I was I did the career My father wanted me to do. So that meant that I spent a lot of my 20s questioning my career choice, but having no way of understanding how to work out why it didn't feel right. Like I didn't have a framework, I didn't have the questions in other language. And at the same time, all the signs around me saying, Yeah, but you're doing great by all measures of success, you know, it's all fine. You know why even difficult, though? Why don't you just be grateful for what you have. So more money, more promotion, and but that feeling just never went away? And can maybe 30s I emigrated, and my father died suddenly. And so my my life and my attention is thrown into turmoil. You can see the episode, the end of season one to hear more about how I blew up my life. But it took me several years to get stable. And when I did, and I sort of fell back into some sort of rhythm and good job again, that feeling just crept back again. So we know what was the point of this? I don't mean, what was the point of my life and that kind of way, but like, what was I doing at the time, I was advising insurers and how to invest their money in tech. And I can't tell you how little I cared about that I didn't give a shit. So you know, if you're listening to the podcast, you'll know how the story ends, I ended up changing careers. And at the very first time, aged 40, in my coach training got introduced this idea of purpose, you know, and a language and a framework and exercises to how to how to get up so you know, boom, mic drop moment in my life. My guest today is all about finding your purpose. He has been an alone journey to get there, a little shorter than mine, and James James COVID helps people join the dots of their lives, to help discover their why and live on purpose. So perfect guest for this conversation. He he believes that everyone has skills and abilities that they contribute to the world to make it a better place into doing find fulfillment and satisfaction for themselves. And so in this episode, we talk about purpose and why statements and you have finding meaningful work is important for fulfillment, and making a positive impact and how that why stable digital start with Simon Sinek can provide the clarity and guide your decisions in your life and what you choose to do and how you choose to live your life. We both share our own purpose, why statement, so stick around to hear that. You know, I believe that having a purpose or y statement is an act of rebellion in a world that wants you to go with the flow and just take the easy path and be the good corporate citizen. Maybe that is your path. But to not know that intently. That's your path. There's a tough place to be. So it's time to find your mojo. If you don't already have it. Come with me. And let's listen to my conversation with James. James, welcome to sit at work and somebody to have you here. Yeah,

James Cobbett: 3:47

thank you for having me. It's fun to be here. I had a little bit of self doubt about being on a podcast and I saw a few weeks ago you dropped your episode. I think there's Tyler Halladay about impostor syndrome. Yes, I listened to and it is recommended. But during deduction, you introduced her as a two time best selling author. impostor syndrome. I've written no books, but

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:10

as an upcoming podcast guest

James Cobbett: 4:14

was great. Listen, you can

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:16

override the rest. Just take with it what you want. One of the reasons why I invited you on is I've worked with you on finding my purpose statement and you've worked with a mutual friend of ours. I know your work and I know your passion for it. That's what we're going to be talking about. What kind of purpose and why what was the moment in time where you decided like, this is the work that you wanted to be doing helping other people uncover their why statement? Yeah, well, I

James Cobbett: 4:38

kind of stumbled into it really became a bit of a, I guess, a crisis around sort of my own work and what I was finding meaningful, in my case, not really finding meaningful and so the fact that I suppose I was working three days a week for charity, which I really loved. It was a great role there. And I was fitting was over two days a week doing freelance web design stuff. us. And that was really fun. So I feed for five years, how long long I was there. And then it got to a point where I just naturally out do that job I was doing fatality. And there's various reasons why do I carry on their work? Or do I go somewhere else. And long story short, I decided to leave for charity and go full time into my main freelance business. And so my background was in charity work, I've always had this sense of like wanting to do something that I felt was meaningful, not just about the salary and the money you're making, but something that has a bit more of a purpose to it. But it was quite vague. It wasn't very structured. It was just recently I'd worked in charities. And so I suddenly went from having a reliable three day a week, income, which was covering my mortgage, having my bills, covering all of that kind of stuff you have to pay for in life, to suddenly having no reliable income, trying to scale up a two day a week side hustle business to full time, and having this vague sense of wanting to do it in a meaningful way. But really, what happened was that suddenly I had three days to fill income wise. And so the first few months was just spent taking whatever work I could get really just trying to boost my salary from two days up to a full time salary. And I worked with some really good clients, some really good people, I didn't have any sort of like horror shows in there. But after a while, I just got to a point where I was just really bored. And I find if I'm not emotionally engaged in what I'm doing, I become quite detached from it. I remember one day having a sport, but I kind of knew what the going rate was at agencies doing web development work with what I was doing, I thought I could probably make more money. If I went to work for an agency, have none of the stress of running your own business, manage yourself, manage your time, find clients, sell things, marketing, deliver, all of that comes from running a business, and maybe to have a simpler life, like making more money doing that. But I just didn't want to, I just hadn't done agency work performance I previously left to go into the charity sector. And so that was something that was saying, isn't what I want to do. But I'm just a bit aimless, I'm a bit fed up and emotionally disengaged from my work. And that kind of spreads into personal life to me, I find if I'm not engaged in what I'm spending most of my time doing day to day. Yeah, I just got to a point thinking like, why am I doing this? There's got to be more like I'm making enough money. I'm ticking that box. But what's the point of it? I need more of my life. And I discovered that by this guy called Simon Sinek. I know you're aware of it. I'm sure many people are. But for those that don't know, he's most famous for his TED talk. I don't know, probably 15 years ago now, maybe not quite that long. And this book he wrote called Start with Why. And he basically tried to answer the question, with the same resources. Why do some people achieve massive success? And other people either fail or just moderately get along? Fine. What is that difference, even with something people have a better idea. And it's less successful with someone who have a less general idea or a less strong business model or product. And so I got into that sort of reading, reading that book, really review for helping my clients. And the thing that he pulled out of that is that some leaders and businesses, they have a really strong why a really strong core purpose. And that's what they talk about. And so he talks about social justice movements from Martin Luther King, and but I Have a Dream speech to businesses like apple. And he says, the reason why they're successful is because they have a strong purpose. They have a struggle, why people buy into that, and it's enough to fulfill you as a leader, to keep plodding through the difficult paths. And so I thought, That sounds really great. That's what's missing from my business. Yeah, that's what I want to do, I get that. And so I went on a journey of trying to find what is my wife, like, I have this made, I want to do something meaningful. I want to help charities or people that are doing good in the world. But what is really like driving me was really my purpose in this. And so I kind of went through a kind of drawn out self guided process, bit of help from my wife at that point, to help me get there. And I came up with a why statement, which is the thing where Simon Sinek says, you need to, like reach the heavens advise you. And so I came up with this statement, which is to spark people into action. So everyone can live life with purpose. That statement was purely at that point, to help my business, I ended up relaunching my freelance business into a business called good digital. We target just charities and purposeful organizations. And the big thing it did for me really was I was doing that anyway. But I was other things get in the way. And it gave me the clarity to say no to a science, you'll have good relationships with the good projects where they just weren't taking me where I wanted to go. They weren't giving me fulfilling work. And so it gave me will kind of clarity to start saying no to things so I can say yes to the things that really, really mattered to me and find clients that resonated with me. So I thought that was probably like that. That was that was it. That's why I did it. That's why I found my why I have this new business models, this business idea, I'm gonna go ahead and do that. But while I was doing that, there was a part of me that thought this would be a really cool process to take other people through to help other people find their way and advertise a lot. You're just getting a bit carried away. You're just excited by this like fun, shiny new thing you found. I like new ideas, I like change. And so I put it to bed. And then, you know, a mutual friend that you spoke about came to me and said, I'm looking to launch a personal brand. I know you do websites, can you help me, we had a meeting. And she was that I'm just a bit stuck, because I've got all these three or four different things that I do. And I need to communicate that in one brand. That makes sense, all of these things that I just say, like detached. And there was a point where I was like, I don't think they are detached. Although they feel it, they've got a business over here, you'd like mentoring over here, a kind of a software product here. I feel a bit sad. But there's something there that ties these things together. And so ended up taking her through this why process and finding like what is different, there's something that's driving all of these things that you're doing, let's really dig into it and find that phrase. And that kind of led me to helping other people, food recommendations and things to do more of that and help them find their way long winded answer to go into it. But really, it was a selfish, selfish pursuit, but so did something that I could help other people.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 11:09

I think setting itself is a tool, I think it's exactly what purpose is about, it's about how do you do the inner work to be able to come back and offer a service to the world, right. And the other thing I'm struck by is both for you and for our kind of mutual friends. And for me, right, the purpose isn't something left field, where you land is typically not something completely left field and like surprising. sense making and recognizing the patterns in your own life of where you've been, what you've been let up and what hasn't, that you are, yeah.

James Cobbett: 11:43

So your purpose or good in your past experiences, like, what's happened in your life has really shaped you as meant something to you, who were people in your life that really impacted you. It's not gonna be anything that's just a completely out of left field, but you've never considered before. It's all things that, in a sense, become obvious, when you spot them that the times just feel like these abstract things that have happened in your life. And it's about joining them together, finding what are those threads between all the things that happened to me that have gotten me to where I am? And why is that telling me about what I should be doing? Like moving forward?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 12:14

I get smart people coming to me going. They use words I because I think it's part of my language. Like I had an emoji you talked about being fed up, I got the same thing like I'm alive. You're like, what life am I living? For today? What

James Cobbett: 12:28

do I can't Yeah, meetings, but I just I can't be bothered, I gotta you must apply to but I just gotta leave them for another day. And

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 12:34

then there's a lot of guilt, like a year might be like, in my case. 20 years ago, I was well paid. Everyone said I was doing great work. Everything around you is like, well, you're very privileged and very lucky. What else could you possibly be wanting? Like? How are you? is ungrateful to want to live a life on purpose? I think it's a bit depends on your philosophy. But I think you and I agree with this. Like, we're meant to live our life to our phone. There's one precious life that we have. Yeah, we're made more powerful and sustainable. If we find the thing that passionate about, yeah, you'll be doing it for years and years ahead of you. Yeah,

James Cobbett: 13:13

I think our culture, for me growing up, like a lot of things was about like, what you'd like to do well, in school, you don't you do go to you and do well, and you and you get a good job. And a lot of it is just about not necessarily for me how much money you can make. But making like, the end goal is to be able to make enough money to sustain yourself. And that's true, we didn't have to do that. But if that's all it is, like, it just just feels like a really boring life to somebody, like I want to do something more, I want to do something that kind of impacts people and the world and just making money. Obviously, we need to and I know that's quite a privileged thing to to be able to save lots of people that would love a job that just helps them pay the bills. But I just think life is so much more exciting when we can find ways to bring purpose into that as well.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:54

But I think there's there's different ways of having because I think people often think to have purpose, I need to be working for a charity for some cause I think there's other ways at this. Yeah, one of them is there's a project called 80,000 hours born out of Oxford, you know, that's to the crowd the night I think. So if I if I say if I get this right now, because I didn't read this neuron to this. Their view is that you have 80,000 work hours in your life. And there's different ways of having an impact. So you could work for a large big tech company and $200,000 a year and feel that you were doing anything but what you wouldn't you could donate half that income to a charity and therefore have more impact. And if you worked for minimum wage as a charity as a fundraiser, because you were able to offer be able to donate so there's I think there's interesting ways once you've worked out your purpose, and we used to get out there but how do you live that how do you manifest that? I think another thing is doing it part time I think you don't have to be I do five rhythms on a Friday night just like a conscious dance practice. I could never make a living out of it. But it's Then them to my purpose, I have a well functioning, successful coaching business allows me to do the thing on the Friday night. That Yeah, well, at best just breakeven, and sometimes I'm gonna have to subsidize it. And I'm okay with that. So there's different ways I think you're living this without having to be in a charity having to work at a low wages. Yeah,

James Cobbett: 15:20

part of that probably comes into sort of your personality type as well as sort of what you're going to find motivates us. I remember quite early on is my working life, I went for coffee with someone who was talking about opportunities. I've gotten some career stuff. And he said, Just what were you saying, Actually, I think you've got to make a choice about do you want to go and try and earn lots of money and be impactful by earning lots of money and giving that away? And having impact that way? Or do you think you need to be more hands on to be to feel the impact, and I think, for me, personally, I don't know, maybe I'm driven Emotionally, I suppose, I feel like I need to be more hands on to see the impact rather than just earning lots of money. So for me, it feels detached from flight for my motivations. Lots of money, I mean, give it but like, we need people doing that. Because those people pay for the people that are like hands on. And as you say, purpose comes from all sorts of things, not just work, your purpose and your family, your life or your hobbies can be purposeful. So it's not just about where you're making your income from. But at the same time, that is where you spend the majority of your trading power for me anyway, in my week.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:28

Long time, yeah, I'll put the examiners website in the show notes, because it's an interesting one, they track the current biggest world challenges or problems. And I was looking at recently, and one of I can the top three, this is largely about AI at the moment, like ethics and AI. And I speak for myself like 10 years ago, if you said, well, one of the big world's biggest problems, I would have said, trafficking, human trafficking, child poverty, and malaria or something like that, which are still up there. But if you want if you back to making it having an impact of the future of the planet, humanity, today, it might be AI and ethics as a way of looking at where do I apply myself? Or what brings meaning and then you're back to where you need to be a very experienced software engineer, and of course, a philosophy major to be part of solving that world problem. Yeah.

James Cobbett: 17:19

Something like that, like, AI terrifies me. That where that's going, like, it's so hard to even predict what's going to do and how it's going to impact everything.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 17:29

And what a big impact like we're back, like one of the words you and I have used repeatedly is impact, I want to have an impact that

James Cobbett: 17:34

surely is going to, it's probably going to impact things like trafficking, and like all those issues that have already existing in our world are going to be impacted by AI and yeah, news and all of that kind of stuff that we're already starting to see.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 17:48

Do you think there's a certain age or one gets to where the question of wine purpose becomes more apparent? Or do you think it can happen at any time based on the people that you've worked with?

James Cobbett: 17:58

That's a really interesting question. The answer is I'm not sure. For me personally, I think I've always had, at some level, this desire of like, wanting to find meaning and purpose, I think that might come from seeing my parents growing up, like my mom worked in care and had really hard tricky jobs like she had to sometimes do when sleeping night shift on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and things like that things that didn't seem to me like a career that I wanted to follow because of the sacrifice. But I can tell she got fulfilment from my my dad's always he's into cars, but he worked as like a service arts manager and in damages, and like it was a good job. But it was a based around, he did that for the family. So you could earn money for us, which is a strong purpose. But he I didn't see him being particularly inspired by kind of his work day to day. And I think I remember growing up with a sense that I wanted to have a job, I guess I enjoyed but also that kind of, I don't know, but I got some sort of fulfillment out of so I think it's always been a factor. And so when I started doing this, I imagined I'd be helping lots of people that weren't my age, like maybe starting to think about launching a business or something like that. Every year, more than likely, I was actually going a few weeks years and industries like where do I go now? And I've got my feet under the table. But actually, what I've found is, for a lot of people, it's happening later in, in life. And I think it's starting to think more about like, what is my legacy? So a lot of people have had really successful convenience, risen quite high in their field. And I've been starting to think about maybe I've got, I don't know, 10 years left of working maybe a bit longer, but like what do I want to actually do with that time, but what do I want to leave? I've got this platform that I've got this kind of wealth of experience and behind me, but how do I use that to do something about like now I think is really meaningful and matters to me and so on, in a way that when I say that, I think it makes complete sense, but actually that kind of surprised me a little bit just because it wasn't, I mean, I haven't gotten to that point in my life yet. That wasn't my experience. So yeah, I think it kind of happened, of course perspective of ages. But it was interesting to find

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 20:05

my perspective as if the generations are experiencing it differently. I mean, this is very anecdotal. Despite some people, I've had conversations with my generation through Gen X, like, we're in our 50s. Now, we reached the pinnacle of what we thought like we're VP of this, or C suite of that, or whatever. And you're like, Okay, and now you have the money, the prestige, we were children of the 90s, and the booming world economy, and we're told be good capitalist citizen. Yeah, go and earn hard and work hard. And that was my family background has put your head down and just work frickin hard and you will be rewarded. And so I did that and you like, but I didn't want these were these rewards don't have any sort of meaning to me, really, and again, acknowledge our massive privilege in this conversation. But I mean, I'm getting people coming to me who are in their late 20s and early 30s. Yeah, awesome question much sooner. And I just think, the booming economy and the ease of which I think we had it in the 90s. And maybe even the early noughties is not what people have who are younger, however, and therefore, that they've maybe they're questioning a lot sooner, like, why am I putting I'm working my butt off? I'm barely earning anything, I can never afford a house in my lifetime, like my parents did. And so what am I? What's the social contract that I'm supposed to be subscribing.

James Cobbett: 21:22

So I grew up, but I was born in 1990. Financial Crisis was sort of hitting as I was starting to think about, you know, jobs and careers and all of that. And I think I was slightly anyway, it didn't massively impact my opportunities. But I think I was quite privileged about and a bit, maybe slightly born, but a few years later, I think impacted people a bit more. But it raises that question of the things that I think I grew up in my 19 thinking are very likely reliable jobs and a path to live your life if ABC following that path, actually, suddenly, questions are asked about what what, hang on, that was meant to be the route to follow that was meant to be my always going to be a banker, but that was meant to be like, Oh, that's a really good job. And suddenly, people were losing jobs and the economy was falling away. And so I think then that kind of gave birth to my generation that starting to ask questions about Well, that didn't even work anymore. So what do we want? And I think that's tied into a lot of cultural questions that have been asked about workplace environments and social conscious and stuff. But I think having space to behave the word snowflakes, but there's a reason like that came about because people are asking new questions about things and not just not accepting what used to be in the past challenging

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:32

the status quo, which my generation didn't until we were much older and then could, because we were, we weren't there. So there's a whole process that you take folks through and finding the why some of the questions you've talked about here, what do you see as some of the obstacles that get in the way of people uncovering or articulating what they're wise?

James Cobbett: 22:51

I think the biggest obstacle is, it's probably just being like too close to yourself, knowing yourself too well, and not being able to have that distance. So I think the fish in the fishbowl he doesn't know he's in the fishbowl. Yeah. And so I think we're just so familiar with our past experiences, and we build narratives over around what's happened to us and become very hard to, once you build that now do it's quite hard to escape it, if you've had a few times in work, where you've been passed up for a promotion or something when you can easily build a narrative. But yeah, I'm not appreciated, or I'm not good enough for but people aren't just people don't understand the animators, there might be other reasons why you haven't got that promotion, maybe somebody's got more experience. So we build up these narratives. And I think by yourself that can be quite hard to spot what's actually going on underneath that. And I said, a big part of finding your process is looking back in your life, finding what has been significant to you finding times when you've really felt alive? Who's been significant in your life? What lessons have you learned, what values have you adopted? And when we ask these questions, we begin to find connections. But I think we very rarely stopped to actually do that. And I know I don't, because I forced myself, like I'm always thinking forward, what am I doing next? I very rarely, naturally will look back at my life. And when would I do? If it's just me doing by myself. And it can be quite hard to get a real picture of actually, how those things, links, like what actually happened. And

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:15

I think that's the you need the partnership of someone like you to go Oh, that's interesting. Those are two things I thought about because he says, as you say, like, we're so deep in our own

James Cobbett: 24:25

story. Yeah. And something that I find a lot of people saying they find really valuable was just the opportunity in the space and the time to really like zoom out in their life. And see and just look back and see where they been, how they got to where they are, how do these things linked together. And one of my clients called it a light bulb switch on moment where suddenly we just saw these things in their life and saw how they linked up. I give up I get it. That makes sense. I can see you how like, I can see how I got here and I can see now like, what well I shouldn't be going forward with one of the big fizzle signals is just busyness I just was so distracted of phones and internet and TV box sets. And we just I don't think we spend enough time looking inside and introspective to reflect. Yeah. And I think one of the other obstacles, particularly big challenge, I found is that, once you've found your way to then live it out requires you to be a really authentic version of yourself and publicly, because I think our y's are something that we're contributing to the world. And so I think about this morning, actually, I don't think they can be an outworking of your why that you could do in a silo by yourself without being in some way publicly out there. I say publicly, I don't necessarily mean social media platforms or something like that, but at least working with other people, because I why so intrinsic to us, and how, what makes us tick, what gives us energy is really personal. And so it requires I find, it's required me to step out of my comfort zone quite a lot. So I tried Sharpe as a more authentic version of me, and not the version, but I think I'm supposed to be to tick the boxes, like we're talking about theories in the 90s. What successful James should look like, but what is actually driving me what's actually true to me. I don't know who sort of has a new podcast, but you've I've seen you on LinkedIn and via email as you're being be like, Bob.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 26:21

Bob, the drag queen was my motto my inspiration for last year. Yeah, thing? Yes.

James Cobbett: 26:27

So unashamedly them, and being and showing up in spaces and being unashamedly

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 26:32

at times where it was even dangerous, potentially dangerous for him. Yeah,

James Cobbett: 26:36

the stakes are a lot lower. It hasn't. potentially dangerous, but there's still a part of me was like, oh, but if I put that side of myself out there, what people? What are people going to think they're going to think that I'm a bit silly and a bit naive on a bit? I don't know. But there's that fear that I think you actually find what you want to be doing?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 26:55

How does that show up for you? And now? Is this about launching the new website, or what's the version of that

James Cobbett: 27:01

I'm still doing the website that fits in with my wife as an outworking of it. I've always known what I've been selling without selling a physical product, it's quite a tangible product, like it makes sense goes to go to give you this website, people are gonna come on it, they might buy things from you, they might donate to charity, it feels like a public thing to sales where like a proper sort of career path might understand how websites work, but everyone now understands websites is it makes sense. Whereas when I started moving to this space, there was a lot of what is a why what purpose is so airy fairy, what's purpose even me like, just as your purpose for your job? What about other things? There's so many sort of question marks, I suppose. Other people's opinions on what what does purpose mean connect different to lots of different people It felt and still sometimes dance feels like a less concrete career path that would be respected as like, here's a concrete thing I'm doing and selling. And so for me, that's yeah, that's drawn up by a lot of insecurities, or kind of things that I'm holding myself back from really like something that I believe in. But I found it hard to sometimes articulate about or really, like, really properly run with it at some points. It sounds like it's an act of rebellion to live your why. Yeah, I think so. I don't think that's a massive, massive tangent, because I could talk about this for ages. Glad to have you. Do you know about the Enneagram? Yes, yes. Okay. So it's a personality test. And I know, high roll personality test, often a bit sick of it. And but I found the Enneagram personality test to be really useful. Personally, I find it much deeper, and my cycle out as a type three, which means that I am very driven. By achieving things by being successful, I find it very hard to switch off, I always want to be productive, like, my wife is doing jigsaw, and I'm like, why are you doing that he's gonna make a jigsaw and we're just gonna put a box afterwards, I want to go make something that will fit something in the kitchen, because that's going to be productive. I think lots of times threes will be people that go into corporate, the corporate world and rise up the ranks and like achieve success in a kind of corporate setting of what we think success looks like and find a big house, have a nice car, all of that stuff. And I think, overall, I haven't been particularly drawn to the corporate world, there's still that image of what success looks like. But I think I sometimes have to remind myself that success, for me doesn't look like that. It can look like looks like following your purpose, which isn't always what success looks like to other people.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 29:23

But that's a big choice that you make. I think my soul knew that I was meant to work with people when I was very young. So as a teenager, I decided I was going to be psychology. My father said it wasn't a real degree. And so all these years later to get into coaching, although he had died by that point, there was a sense of betrayal. We are hast of the environment that we grow up in and to do something different and to behave in different ways. It can be very challenging. call it an act of rebellion to live your purpose. Two things happen. One is without necessarily meaning and people are jealous. that you have that clarity, and sort of want to pull you down. Yeah, like what do you? Oh, that's just, that's a stupid Yeah. And then the other one is just a lack of understanding and perhaps a complete subscription to the capitalist model of success equals money equals pay rises equals positions of power, which were all part of the system of oppression, that is capitalism, like, Can't blame people for that. It's a system that we're living in. Yeah. And it offers a level of security, doesn't it? Like having a I had more security when I had jobs that maybe a monthly salary?

James Cobbett: 30:32

At first, when self employed is that there's a risk involved? Yeah.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 30:36

Back to that social contract, like your body, your labor, gets this reward in the form of money or hesitating security, anything any job secure in the holidays, in the corporate setting? There's a link here between purpose and happiness, but living your purpose doesn't necessarily make you happy. Will you be with us? Yeah,

James Cobbett: 30:56

definitely. Yeah, I think we're quite obsessed as a culture, finding happiness. I mean, who doesn't want to be happy? Why Why wouldn't you want to be happy, chasing happiness, that doesn't work. I don't think I can go for a walk today and get extreme happiness and a sense of well being from that, but I don't receive more tomorrow and have a terrible time because of something that has happened in in my life. And the same action won't always give me the same feeling of happiness or or result. Because we don't control that much. In our lives. Unfortunately, we can show our actions and control our thoughts to a certain extent, but there's, everything else happens to us, and we have to adapt to it. I mean, my own sort of experience, the last few years, lots of things have happened, but we kind of put in my life plan and have been real, real struggles and challenges. And so just relying on trying to find happiness, I think it's building on sinking sand, you can't chase that. I mean, having a purpose also doesn't guarantee us happiness. But for me, it's something that we can, we can control, in that. We don't have the control over the outcomes of what we do. But I can control today, whether I take small steps, small actions that move me towards what I feel my purpose is, so I won't be happy with at the time, but I can feel content that I'm making small actions every day, that feel meaningful to me. And that gives us a sense of fulfillment and like what I'm doing is worthwhile. And, of course, some days you feel well, more than others. I still even having a wife David doesn't mean every day in every moment feels like living your best life. I still struggle with there's still days you think what's important. But underneath that, there's still something to come back to that's, that feels more something more that I can build towards than just what's gonna make me happy in this moment.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 32:38

Well, it's a Northstar. Right. I mean, that's what the why state Yeah. Company. Yeah, yeah. It's for me, it's like, well, I get frustrated with this podcast. Because the amount of effort that goes into it, I take on too many coaching clients and slightly overwork myself. And I go back to like, Well, why am I doing this? And for me, I mean, you said your purpose everyone else in mind, because you helped me make this let me share. So mine is to shake people awake to their talented fabulousness. And they can play big. So back to like, am I helping people play big? The conduct lines I'm getting Yes, I am this this podcast, however exhausting. It can be at times. And it's not always. Do I feel that that is helping people play big? Yes, it is. It has nothing to do with happiness. But that calibration of is the effort and how in what I'm doing? Do I feel like it's contributing to that? Northstar their compass? Am I still going in the direction of north? Yeah.

James Cobbett: 33:32

I think also like we, we learn a lot from our mistakes. And so you can, with the best intentions make a decision, and it goes horribly wrong. And you're going to feel nothing but unhappiness about that decision, you really muck up a client meeting or taking on a project, we ended up those red flags I took on anyway. And I'm really unhappy about it. And so my happiness level in that level is low. But I can use that to in a pursuit of my purpose, because that's maybe showing me somewhere not to go. And so I think I had decisions to make do a in order to achieve my purpose, shall I say yes, to explain what doesn't align, but is quite well paying. And so that will see when I think of a client who is less well paying, and they really are aligned to my purpose. There was always questions about that. And I think if I'm just following happiness, my decisions about whether that went well or didn't do well could be quite destabilizing and making make judgments that like, Oh, I didn't make me happy. So that's the wrong thing. But viewing that through a lens of purpose means Okay, so what am I going to learn from that about how I move forward to get where I want to go?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 34:38

And if there's anything I've learned from 12 years of coaching people is that the human spirit wants some sense of meaning. Yeah, I think I mean, seriously, fuck happiness. It's like, the hours of talking to people. It's like well, what is this whole like, why am I here? What is what is my as Mary Oliver says new one precious life. What is it all about? Yeah, it's not. Happiness might be a momentary outcome, or gift in the moment. But there's something way more nourishing I think is the word that to have a sense of purpose in that. Yeah. How do you see purpose evolving as the why step over time? Do you think it's like you land on it? And that's it like, oh, and it's static, it's moving, evolving. What's your,

James Cobbett: 35:26

like, Simon Sinek school of thought is that your purpose is fixed. It doesn't change over time. But once you discovered it, that is your Y. I tend to agree mostly, but with a few caveats. One, I think, if you're going through some major life event, particularly a really traumatic experience, and it's so big that it really it shapes how you see the world, maybe when you're Why would change if it is fast, if what's happened to you as fast, significant, but really, you just see the radically different way. Don't have experience of that. But I could see maybe that words. But for the most part, I think a couple of things happened with evolving purpose. One is that I think we just refined them. And I talked about my wife statement, and you've shared yours. But I find very few y statements from first draft to what you end up with. And in a few weeks, or even a few years time mine, my wife has changed a few times, really suddenly, just a few words, tweak, which gives her a better kind of internalization of what actually what I'm trying to articulate, because we're trying to articulate something in a way that I don't know if you can fully articulate in words, because it's such a big thing. Whereas I think I wasn't a limit. In some degree. With that, I think sometimes, we just need to find that you're building that experience and see actually, and maybe it was a bit too narrow. And that can also happen if you struggle to look past kind of the current lens of your life. So you've got a job, and you kind of go through this process while you're in that job. If you're unable to fully remove yourself from that common role, you're you're in to find your purpose, you might find a vibe of your purpose, but values of it might be the same. But you might find it hard to look past that current role, your findings there might be in two years time you didn't take anything. I'll actually my purpose is bigger than that, like my bad job was a way I was living out my purpose. But actually, there's more to it than that I needed to dig a bit deeper and say your why hasn't changed when you might have a greater understanding or like a broader understanding of what that means. For example, I live out my way through helping charities that are having other people live their purpose, or what was anti slavery charity, for example, and I'm losing my wife by helping them are wise aligned. But so I could build a wire that's really tied into that website business, but actually, that would be too, too granular. My wife is bigger than that, and has multiple out workings. And I think back and expand.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 37:44

I like your phrasing out workings. Like it's the thing is you choose to do in your life or with your life that are an expression. Yeah. Why statement? Yeah.

James Cobbett: 37:54

And that's why I think follow your passion is quite like is advice I see quite a lot. Yes. So books and I think it came from a Steve Jobs.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 38:03

Graduation Ceremony. Oh, yeah.

James Cobbett: 38:07

Yeah, yeah. So I'm not a big fan of follow your passion as sort of all for life. Because I often think time a massive football fan as often I think of most things, sure you will enjoy football. And so if you say to a 10 year old and follow your passion, and my passion is football, yeah, in fact, annuals Leonel Messi, that is great advice. Because he's the best one we've ever lived for them. Success story, but yeah, for every Messi there's 1000s of kids that maybe even get a good use level and then get let go by Academy systems. I mean, if you're just following your passion, and the mass taken away, just because not everyone can be a professional footballer, very few of them what do you do? It's very, it's like have passions Great. explore them following that sense but if you build your whole identity and life around around them, I have concerns about what happens when loads of reasons why you'd break your leg you can be taken away from you. It's

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 39:05

too singular lens why Yeah, to passionate it's like well, what does the world need? In this moment of time? What are your skills and your superpowers? Yeah, can you get paid to do Yeah, that's gonna give you the kind of income that you can live off so there's a there's a there's a question not just passion. Now I agree with you. I think passion as a singular driver is is completely overrated. Yeah,

James Cobbett: 39:27

definitely. We have passions Great. I'm passionate about Liverpool Football Club but is not one but building myself.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 39:36

Maybe that's also part of the outbreak, right? Like if you have this wide statement, and when it what would be the manifestation of that? Why is that where you would feel passionate? Like now I'm starting to overlay the Venn diagram. Yeah, I

James Cobbett: 39:48

think you can be passionate about different things at different points in your life as well. Yeah, follow those but basically enter why and there's so many different ways you can, your career could change 15 times Um, but you can still be following your why and all of those things. It could just be.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 40:04

Yeah, back to my point earlier, you could be doing side gigs or side hustles that don't pay. But that's still allied to be living a version of your why?

James Cobbett: 40:14

Yeah, or even conversations you have with your friends and your family like you can take your way into that. Like, I love it when people that I know, talk about like, steps bold steps have made it have helped them move into something that's more purposeful, like I had a friend that recently is invading of conflict and had a difficult conversation at work about promotion. And I didn't do it. That was a story he was telling. But I was really like, proud of him that he was like, taking a step to put himself out there and for what His purpose was.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 40:43

Yeah, that's great. I'm convinced now that people are listening to this, or they haven't already got a wise take. But then I want to I want to practically, where would you start people on this journey? Aside from of course working with you? Yeah.

James Cobbett: 40:59

Yeah, I would say, start just by taking some time out, turn your phone off, get away from your desk, take him out for coffee lampposts, take some places and start just looking back at your life. So maybe take an hour and just worked through a few questions. Not that you have to do all of them. But think about when was a time when you were so into something that you just completely lost track of time, like, what were you doing in that moment, when you were just so engrossed and dedicated to that one thing? A couple of hours later, find out later, something now, but you were saying like in the moment, like, what were you doing when that happened? Who in life has helped you to make you the person that you are today? Think about what did you admire about them? Write down specific memories about that person? Another question maybe to look at is, What have you accomplished, that you're really proud of whether that's in work, or personally, but what's really like, when you look back, what are you really proud of what you think stands up that still sticks in your memory maybe years later? And then also think about? Like, what are some of the challenges you've faced as high as them as lows? And in our past, like we can learn from both of them? Often, we can learn more from the challenges and the hard times? What are some of the hardships you've gone through? What are some of the really difficult things? And what did you learn from those, how that shaped you? And then when you start thinking about those things, just be that annoying kid that just keeps asking why? It's just keeping steep? Why did I feel like that? Why did that person act like that? Why do I still remember that? If you keep asking that question, I'm convinced you will get to something that feels like a truth about you. And not just about that moment. Look for trends between those things like what are the threads that are tying all those memories together?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 42:38

The thread that runs through all of that? Yeah, that's it. I think he's had four questions. There's a four sided question to get people going. I mean, you say an hour and like some of these questions, they require cooking as I call them, like, exactly, yes, an hour, then you go back a week later, and you look at it again.

James Cobbett: 42:54

Yeah. And take them to other people that you've given permission to speak into your life and tell them about those memories as well and see what they might have a different perspective on it. Or if it's someone that went through that with you, they might have a different memory of it. Or they might look at these things differently to you so that people that you trust, but yeah, share with with people and they've taken board kind of interpretation because they might be different to yours. That's

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 43:18

beautiful, James Well, that's I think that's a wonderful kickstart for people to get going, just occurring to me in this moment that this is that even just being on this podcast is an outworking of your purpose statement of purpose today, even small actions like an hour of your time on a podcast it could be a way of living your purpose so David thank you for your time and yes to the planet being healthier and happier because we have more people living on purpose sounds

James Cobbett: 43:49

great thank you Catherine

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 43:55

to finding what lights you up, you know your why your purpose however you want to put it is a task. Things are spiritual tasks, and it might The answer might come quickly to you. And if so, I'm delighted for you or it may take you several years like it did me however long it takes. I think it's a worthwhile spiritual endeavor. And I can tell you this, you know, once you know that North Star that why and then you have a way to check in with yourself. It's such a gift to yourself. You don't know your why stay and when it's time to find out I suggest you do this with someone as we, as we mentioned, it's really hard to see the patterns in your own life and to meet and connect the dots. You'll find the support. I think James is a great resource if you want to tap to be able to work with him to find details in the shownotes so how to connect with him. And good luck. Let me know how that that journey goes. I'd love to hear until next time. This is your woman saying