Is Your Purpose Connected to Your Contribution?

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself: Is the purpose driving your life connected to the way you contribute to the world? This question has been central to my own journey, and it’s something I’ve explored deeply—not just conceptually, but in how it shows up in my day-to-day life. Let’s unpack this together.

Contribution: More Than Just Impact

At its core, contribution is about the impact we have on others—through our decisions, behavior, and energy. It’s not limited to what we do today but extends to the legacy we leave behind. A quote that’s stayed with me over the years is from Brendon Burchard:

"At the end of our lives, we won’t be remembered for what we did for ourselves, but for what we contributed to others."

I think about that often. It reminds me that true fulfillment comes from making a meaningful difference in the lives of others, whether it’s in our family, our community, or even strangers we meet along the way.

A Personal Story: Finding Alignment in Contribution

I remember attending a personal development event where I was honored as part of a coaching program. Later, a man approached me and shared his passion for helping homeless people. It was clear he wanted to contribute, but when I asked why this cause mattered to him personally, he struggled to answer. He had connected to the surface problem—homelessness—but hadn’t tied it to his story or values.

That’s a critical piece of the puzzle. Contribution becomes sustainable and fulfilling when it aligns with your personal journey and values. For me, coaching is that contribution. It’s deeply tied to my own experiences of struggle and growth. I’ve seen the pain and confusion that comes from a lack of awareness—both in myself and others—and I’ve felt compelled to help others find clarity and purpose.

Early in my coaching career, I worked for free. After long shifts driving for Uber, I’d come home exhausted but excited to coach. My wife would shake her head, wondering why I didn’t just rest. But I couldn’t. Coaching felt too meaningful to me—it was the one thing I would do whether I got paid or not.

Purpose: The “Why” Behind What You Do

Purpose is deeply personal, often rooted in our story, values, or faith. It’s not just about what we do but why we do it. For me, purpose is about creating freedom, fostering connection, and showing care. These values shape every decision I make, from how I run my business to how I interact with my family.

When our purpose aligns with our contribution, we tap into a wellspring of energy and resilience. It’s no longer about external expectations or societal pressures; it’s about what truly matters to us. This alignment is what keeps us going on hard days, what gives us the courage to show up even when the odds are stacked against us.

Three Ways to Align Purpose and Contribution

1. Identify Your Core Values:
   Take time to reflect on your top three values. For me, it’s freedom, connection, and care. These guide how I show up in the world. Ask yourself: Why are these values important? Where do they come from? Understanding your values is the first step toward living a purpose-driven life.

2. Set Impact Goals:
   Instead of focusing solely on personal achievements, think about the impact you want to have. How does your work bring value to others? For example, my goal as a coach is to help people grow in awareness, find clarity, and create meaningful lives. Impact goals connect your daily actions to a larger purpose.

3. Ensure Alignment:
   Are the actions you take aligned with your values and purpose? Misalignment can leave you feeling drained or unfulfilled. Whether it’s the work you do, the people you surround yourself with, or the way you spend your time, everything should resonate with who you are at your core.

The Courage to Show Up

Living a purpose-driven life requires courage. It means waking up on hard days and doing the work anyway because it’s meaningful to you. It means standing firm in your values, even when others disagree. Courage isn’t about eliminating fear; it’s about moving forward despite it.

Think about leaders like Gandhi or figures who inspire you. What sets them apart is their unwavering commitment to their purpose and the courage to act on it. They weren’t driven by external rewards but by an inner conviction that what they were doing mattered.

Reflecting on Your Path

If you’re reading this, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your own story. What’s truly important to you? How do your values shape your contributions? Are you living in alignment with your purpose?

When you connect your purpose to your contribution, something shifts. You feel more alive, more connected, and more willing to embrace the challenges that come your way. And in doing so, you create a legacy—not just in what you do, but in how you inspire others to live with purpose.

For more resources to help you uncover your purpose and make meaningful contributions, download my free Unlock Your Legacy Life Power Pack at FaisalEnsaun.com. Let’s create a life that truly matters.

TRANSCRIPTION

Faisal Ensaun: [00:00:00] when we feel purposeful, when we're driven by a sense of purpose, and that's connected to something that we feel like we're bringing value out in the world,

 Faisal Ensaun: at the end of our lives, we won't be remembered for what we did for ourselves, but for what we contributed to others.

 Faisal Ensaun: Yeah. So let's jump in, uh, in the next, actually, the next couple of sessions really dive deep into our awareness. How we relate with the world around us. And today's session is, um, around, uh, contribution, but a more purpose driven contribution is.

And the question that I asked around this is, is your purpose connected to your contribution? And well, the answer is yes, for human beings. It's almost in every culture, but I want to go a little bit into it. And, um, and I wanted to find a couple of terms and go deeper into it. And it's not just around the [00:01:00] terms and the, the idea behind it.

It's actually. How it shows up in your day to day life. And like I said in the message today, that it actually really impacts how we feel on a day to day basis when we feel purposeful, when we're driven by a sense of purpose, and that's connected to something that we feel like we're bringing value out in the world, which is connected to contribution, which I'll define in a little bit, but we'll, um, we'll start with some terms.

And the first one is contribution. Actually, before I go to the, uh, contribution, I want to share this quote. Uh, at the end of our lives, we won't be remembered for what we did for ourselves, but for what we contributed to others. This was a quote by Brendan Burchard, and it stayed with me for a while. Um, but going to contribution, why is that the case?

So contribution, what is that? Well, It is the impact that we make on others with our decisions, with our behavior, with our energy, whatever we are in our life, whether it's in our family, in our job, in our business, [00:02:00] with the people that we run into, it's the impact that, that we, that, that is created around us, but not only the impact that's created now, but the impact that we leave behind, which connects to legacy for a lot of people, which I want to connect that to.

And what is purpose? Well, purpose, um, as we put it, purpose, what it means, well, it means meaning, uh, what does have meaning in your life? What is, and this is why we associate purpose with why, and this is why it can be very personal for people, but I want to generalize it first that for human beings, purposes, usually, Uh, related to either an ideology or something that they have decided on their own or it's connected with with the two.

That's why a lot of people's purpose is connected to their faith. A lot of people's purpose is connected to their culture. Sometimes a lot of people's purpose is connected to sometimes their path forward. And I want to connect it to a couple of other things here. [00:03:00] One self. And this is the part that a lot of people don't think about enough.

And this is the part that I want to kind of bring a little bit of a twist. This is also going to be something we're going to be diving deep into in the group coaching session. A lot of people don't realize how much their own self is is connected with their contribution. A lot of times when we think of contribution and something that's meaningful to me, this is important to me.

That's why I'm doing this for other people. But where do you come into the picture? And this is a very, very important piece of contribution because if you don't know where you come in and by you, I don't mean the ego you, I mean the Your narrative that goes beyond just the personality, the surface of you that you talk about every day.

And the narrative is that, um, up until this point, the person that you are, that's connected to the past that you come from, from the time that you've been alive to the time that's now, and maybe even beyond the time that you know of that you're alive, depending on your [00:04:00] belief system. But let's take what's in front of us from the time that you're alive to now and to the visions that you have for the future, for the present.

For yourself and those around you to the values that you carry to the way that you show up every day determines how you contribute to the world around you, whether that's your family members, whether that's other people, or whether that's, uh, in your community, whether that's in your business. So I'll give you a story around this.

I remember, um, one of the events that I had gone into. Um, there was, um, it was, it was a personal development event, but we were there as also representative of the coaching program that that Brendon Burchard was holding at the time. So you kind of honored us, you know, you got us to to get up and kind of acknowledge us for the work that we do.

And then one of the persons in front of me later on, he came and talked to me and for some reason he wanted my opinion on this. He's like, I really want to help homeless people and he wanted to contribute to that cause, to that [00:05:00] thing. And he's like, I'm really passionate about that. I'm like, that's great.

And I just asked him, I'm like, the question that I asked him is why is that important to you? And the way he's thinking about it in the moment, he hadn't actually really thought about it that much. He had thought about it at the surface in the, in the sense that this is a social problem. Okay, that's fine.

But why is that important for you to solve or for you to do? Because there are a lot of hundreds of social problems. Uh, there's something that, um, uh, this author talked about. It is like, um, uh, I want to share this. It was a funny thing in his, I think it was Tim Ferriss at the end of his book. He said that.

Should we should somebody save the whale or kill the whale and feed the Children? And then the following statement goes, Children, please stop judging people for their contributions like that. Everybody can contribute in their own ways. We need more than ever. We need more and more people to help.

wherever that [00:06:00] is, whatever you're passionate about. But the key is coming back to that person who asked me that question. I asked him like, well, why is it really important to you? How does this connect to your story? Why is it? And the reason why I know this is because the reason, and it goes to the sustainability of that contribution, because a lot of people pick something that they feel obligated to do.

And that's it. They think that it's a social problem to solve and I'll go solve it. But it might not feel aligned with their values and what they care about or something else. It might give them some kind of social status because they're trying to do something good in the world. Not saying anything wrong with that, but I'm talking about the sustainability of something.

So, um, even though I do this as a business, I also look at my work as a contribution to the world. I would rather be doing this than anything else. I can run all sorts of businesses at this point, but I choose to do this. I've said no to a lot of opportunities because this is deeply connected to my story and what matters to me.

Why? Because I struggled. I saw a lot of my family members. I [00:07:00] saw a lot of friends. I saw a lot of my community members struggled in their awareness as human beings. They were in pain. They were suffering. They didn't know how to deal with. I saw a lot leaders that didn't know what to do. And everybody just went about things as that's just how things are.

And as I grew up in my early twenties, I struggled a lot with this stuff. And then I've thought a lot about it, that, hey, had things, had things, things would have been a little bit different in that environment. I would be a very different person now. I don't regret the kind of person that I am now. I honor the path that I'm on.

But. And I can't change the past. But what I can do is pass on something that would make a create a better future that's connected to my story. So myself matters in this process. And the reason because the reason I'm showing up every day, day after day, no matter whether I I'm running a business, but whether I'm making profit or not making and I can tell you for many of you know this, I [00:08:00] spent the first year I did this all for free.

Because I just wanted to do it because I loved it. I remember I used to come home driving from Uber after like 10, 12 hours, I would have a session booked and nobody's paying me. My wife would be like, are you nuts? You need to take a break. I'm excited. I want to do this because it's so meaningful to me.

And then I'm sharing this because I want you to find what is truly meaningful to you. What is purposeful to you? And you use that as a way to contribute. because what happens with that is that becomes sustainable. Nobody has to tell you that's not an obligation. Nobody has to force you. Some of the best leaders in the world, they did that because that thing mattered to them.

Sometimes we connect that to passion. We say that that person is passionate about it. What that means is that this is there. It doesn't mean that I like every aspect of this thing. It just means that this is so meaningful to me based on my story, based on my path, that I will do this as long as I'm here.

Or an aspect of this as long as I'm here. So my question to you is, have [00:09:00] you contemplated with your story with your path? What is truly important to you? Why are you getting into the things that that that is in your life that you feel are contributions? Some could be in your family. Some could be, um, it could be in your organization.

Some could be in your community. And the part that I want to identify here is self. And a big part of it is not even doing things for others. Just the kind of person you are can be a contribution, which we'll explore very deeply in our Thursday session. But the kind of person that you're becoming is passing on certain types of values.

And I want to connect that with Courage because almost always as soon as you identify as soon as you identify that you Something is important to you and something is in alignment with you It's connected to some kind of value and some kind of value that you have that's deeply important connected to your story And it takes courage to show up Whether others like it [00:10:00] or don't like it or it feels you feel scared or not scared or whatever it is You show up because it's truly meaningful to you because there's a part of you that's telling you, telling you that this is important.

This is why people can persevere. This is how people can build resilience in their life because they will do it not because it's easy, not because it feels good, but because despite the discomfort, despite the, The lack of clarity, despite the odds against them, they will do it because it's truly meaningful to them.

This is why you see people like Gandhi will stand up in front of an empire and say, I'm not moving from here. Why? Because it was truly important to him. He knew why it was truly important to him. Pick any leader that inspires you. You will. Any person who is off any significance in the world, you will know that they stand for something that's deeply meaningful to them.

Even if you don't like them, you will find values that are deeply meaningful to them. And they, they show up with courage, even if you [00:11:00] disagree with their, with their stance. And sometimes we admire people because they show up with courage, even if we disagree with them. In fact, if you go to the past and these are some of the things that we've forgotten about in our history as human beings, that people, when people used to go in war, um, um, people used to respect their enemies.

There was a huge amount of respect because of the way they were, because they, they, they showed up even in war, in battle with honor. That there was something important to them. They knew that they had to do it because that was important for their family, their tribe, their community, whatever it was. Even though they had to fight them, they had to battle.

But at the end of the day, they, they gave them the respect even as an enemy. But that's lost in, in the current world because we don't think about those things in, in that way. So, um, we talked about the, the contribution connected to purpose, but it's also connected to yourself, how you show up, how it's connected to your story, your values, and with those values, how you show up on a day to day basis with courage.

[00:12:00] Sometimes that means big things. Sometimes literally that means that I'm going to wake up today because even though I feel like crap, I feel like shit, I'm going to wake up and do my work because it's important to me to do this thing. It's important to me to. I don't know. Analyze the deal. You can only tell me why that's important to you.

I don't know why that's important to you. Um, today I didn't feel the best, but I woke up no matter how difficult it was. Um, I'm dealing with a lot of challenges, but I'm like, you know what? It's important for me to do this. I will show up. Not because somebody's forcing me, not because somebody's telling me, but because it's important to me.

Now, if you differentiate this with, uh, with how we're taught to think, and for example, if you're, if you go to school, if you've gone to any kind of schooling or you've been in the corporate world, most people are trained to do things because other people want them to do. It's based on expectations from outside, but they don't have a deeply intrinsic thing connected to it a lot of times.

So as soon as you let go of the social stuff, like if [00:13:00] there's nobody telling him what to do, if nobody was watching, they will just do the complete opposite of that thing because they were doing it because of the pressure of the social side that doesn't take courage. That just takes, that's just conformity.

But the deeper part of this is. How you show up with your values, with your purpose, um, that's connected to your contributions. That's connected to who you are deep down as a human being. That becomes important. I want to talk about three ways you can, you can show up here with your contributions that are connected to your purpose.

Uh, the first one I've written it here. The first one is think about the, your top three core values. Think about what they are and put them in priority order. So for example, for me, the. Top one is freedom. That's the reason why I'm in entrepreneurship. That's the reason why all the things that I do, anytime I see that freedom is, is inhibited, I will fight for, whether that's government imposing that freedom on, that [00:14:00] lack of freedom on me, whether that's my own family members, whether that's somebody else.

If I perceive something to be, Uh, anything around me that is affecting my freedom as a human being, my God given right to show up in the world the way I want to, then I will not like that. I will fight that because that's my value. Another value is a sense of connection. I want to feel deeply connected to myself, the world around me, and to God.

That is a huge value for me. Another value is, uh, is care for those around me. Again, these values make up how I show up in the world, whether it's for my clients, for my family members, for myself, for, uh, for God. for the world at large. They determine my actions on a day to day basis. If you're not clear about your values, you don't know what they are.

And usually to become clear about your values, you need to understand your story better. You can think about them in the moment, but ask yourself, why is this value important to me? Where did it come from? Did somebody pass it on to me? Was this an influence [00:15:00] given to me that somebody modeled this value for me?

A lot of people, they get those values from their household, from their family. Sometimes they get it from a friend, from a mentor, from a coach, from And have I thought about why it's so important? Why was I so inspired by this value? So come up with those three values. The second one is impact goals. A lot of times when we think about, um, uh, the world of achievement and development, it's all about what can we achieve, but what are your impact goals?

Which means that the thing that you're doing, how does that bring value in the world? And incidentally, this is how the economic system, at least in the Western world is set up like this is that. you put out value in the world and you get in response to that, you get wealth, money, assets, whatever else you get.

That's just how the capitalistic market works. Now, of course, there are exceptions and corruptions involved in this whole thing, but then the inherent thing is that you put out value and people decide whether or not that's valuable. That's just in terms of business, but with anything, whether you [00:16:00] volunteer a church or show up a certain way in your home, what is the value you're bringing in?

Sometimes that value might be just with your energy. You are at peace even though everybody else is in turmoil, you are showing up with courage when everybody else is not. You are showing up with a smile on your face when everybody's freaking out, freaking out. Those, that's contribution. That's why even in, in a lot in Bible and a lot of places say that the ba, some of the best contribution might be, uh, just a smile on your face today.

It might not be something big that you're thinking in your mind. It can be, but it has to start from you. And, and then, so what are these impact goals? How are they connected to your values? How are they connected to your why? This is why we explore a lot of this in our vision, um, and our identity, the person we're becoming in our, towards that potential.

Even when we think about the potential as a human being, because we're a social species, we usually measure that by the impact or legacy [00:17:00] that we leave behind. We don't measure it by how strong we became. What did you do with that strength is more important than how strong you became. Who did you help?

What did you do with that? What did you do with that intelligence? What did you do with that wisdom? We look up to people from thousands of years ago who have left scriptures or, um, uh, scholarly books or, um, uh, philosophy or a model. And we say that, you know what? This This person with their wisdom brought something to humanity.

It wasn't how intelligent they were. It was what they created. It wasn't how intelligent Einstein was. It was what the value he left in the world. What was his legacy here? And then finally, it's the thing that I'm keep going around around yourself is that your alignment, the things that you're doing, are they really aligned with you?

Whether it's the things that you're doing on a day to day basis, the people that you're around, or the actions that you take, uh, or the things that you do, are they, Are they aligned with you or are you just doing them because you have some kind of [00:18:00] external pressure? Nothing wrong with external pressure because we can respond positively to that, but is it connected to your internal core values?

Is there alignment with who you are deep down? Again, that goes back to your story and your vision. If those are not clear, you don't even know what that is. I know I'm going through a lot of concepts here, but The those three key things will determine whether you're showing up with purpose with contributing with purpose in your day to day life or not.

Do you know your core values? Are you clear about the hierarchy of those values? Uh, do you know what your impact goals are? And do you do you feel aligned with the things that you do, whether those around your, uh, your, uh, goals that you have, the things that you do on a database is how you show up your energy.

The people around you. Do they feel aligned? If those things are in order, usually what happens and this is the effect of it. The effect of it that people feel is that, you know what? I feel alive. I feel connected. No matter how hard life is, I'm going to show up. I'm going to accept it. I'm going to serve.[00:19:00]

It feels hard. It feels hurtful. It feels difficult at times. You know what? This is important. I'm going to do this. This is why we admire people who've gone through a lot of struggle and they've done amazing things because that's how they showed up. The things that they're doing in their life, how they're showing up day to day, how they're contributing, how they're doing anything.

They're connected deeply to who they are. And they might even be claimed that say that, you know what? I came with those things. That was a huge part of my soul. That's not just random. I just figured that out at the point that I did figure it out, whether it was in my 60s, whenever that was. And then that completely changes your experience in life.

The quality of your life, no matter what's happening in the outside, changes. If you guys haven't read this book, definitely read it. It's called Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Dr. Victor Frankel, who lived through Holocaust and, and, and he was in a concentration camp and he observed it from a human being point of view, but also from a, um, a, a [00:20:00] psychologist point of view.

And he really watched the people who, who were purpose driven, people who showed up with faith, the people who showed up and, and, and served others around them. They had a much higher chance of surviving even than the worst of human conditions that we've brought on to ourselves. Not only that, they had a better quality of life and even in the concentration camp to the point where he's like, I don't know how to talk about this, but, but we would joke around about our torture and the torture that we went through the problems that we had.

And that's how that made us go through life in a better way in that concentration camp. And most people can't even think about it. But. But consider that like the meaning, the purpose, even though, and he also attributes something else. He's like the people who would come in who didn't have a better mind, a better, a better way of approaching life.

They had stronger bodies. They would disintegrate really fast versus those who had a better mind, who were serving, who were connecting, who were doing other things in that state. and he also created one of the three [00:21:00] forms of therapy in Europe, which was logos logos therapy as well, which connects the meaning and purpose that that this.

This is the one driving factor for human beings. The Y means a lot because it's very personal to us. It's connected to who we are and the bigger culture around us. So I'll leave it at that. Um, I'd love to hear from you guys. , if we can just put in the chat, what was the biggest insight or biggest realization around your purpose or how you're thinking about contribution?

Or maybe it's completely something different than what I'm talking about. If you can put that in the chat, what was your biggest insight or realization or a thought related to your life? If you can put that in the chat, we'll have a short discussion around this. And, and I want you guys to think about this for the next week up until Thursday, because we're going to go much deeper around how it all connects to who you are, your identity, and we're going to go deeper in your life and figure that out.

Um, figure out how you can show in your life with [00:22:00] purpose. And with contribution that's connected to your purpose. So put in the chat, what was your biggest insight or your realization or a thought around this topic? Hope you guys have an incredible week. We'll talk soon. Take care y'all.

Thank you for being here.

And if you want to take this training further, download your free unlock your legacy life power pack at Faisal and son. com. You should be able to find that link right below. Take care. Bye.