Your Purpose Is Not for Hanging Laundry (Plug It In)

Having a powerful purpose without using it is like owning a rocket engine and hanging laundry off of it.

You’ve clarified your purpose, pinned down your big mission… and now you’re waiting for perfect launch conditions that never arrive.

I felt this tension recently as I threw rocks around Kits Beach alone, thinking about the friends I promised to have join me, yet stubbornly keeping my engine plugged into nothing but my own solitude.

Purpose isn’t supposed to gather dust. It has enough thrust to blast you so far beyond the gravitational suck of mediocrity that your crappy old boss won’t be able to resist pulling out a telescope to admire you and claim credit.

But that rocket engine is dead weight until you bolt it onto something real, mash some “I hope this doesn’t blow up” buttons, and drag a few brave (or foolish) others along for the ride.

Here’s a story of a rainy-day workout that showed me and a friend the power of plugged-in purpose.

What if Your Purpose Hates Calendars?

My rocket engine—my purpose—is to dismantle conformity and engineer extraordinariness in its place. Not just at work, but in every part of life.

Including fitness.

Most gyms smell like circulating sweat while people grunt through robotic routines, pumping popcorn muscles in the mirror. I prefer tossing rocks around on a beach. Plus, I saw an orca two days ago! You don’t see orcas at Equinox. 

Friends hear about this and say, “Hey Chris, we should do a beach workout together.” (Translation: “I’m too embarrassed and lazy to do that weird stuff alone, so I need you for accountability.”) I respond, “Yeah, I’d love to!” And I’m not just being nice, either. I inevitably feel a bigger pump (mentally and physically) when I work out with friends, rather than alone.

The problem is a common engine kill switch you’ve probably felt yourself: two core values at war. 

My need for self-direction (e.g., a pathological hatred of coordinating schedules) dukes it out with my desire for connection (e.g., actually getting pumped with friends). 

Self-direction reigns supreme, so I work out alone, thinking, ‘Man, I gotta invite so-and-so next time,’ but knowing I won’t. I feel the hypocrisy of preaching extraordinariness while hoarding it all to myself—well, me and the old lady with the Pomeranian ogling me from the hill above the beach.

The universe finally got fed up and slapped me with three workout requests in one week. Fine. I took the hint, created a WhatsApp and webpage, then sent a simple message:

If nobody shows? Great, I do my usual. If people show up? Great, we get sweaty together. It was a simple system to minimize friction between my conflicting values. A way to finally fire up the engine.

A Friend’s Unplugged Engine Problem

The second-ever FUKits, it was pouring. I messaged the group, “Should be plenty of space on the beach!” expecting nobody to be crazy enough to join.

But one person was: my friend Jorge.

As we started our workout in the downpour, I didn’t just ask, “Wild weather, eh?” My system was running. The part of me wired to unleash extraordinariness in others took over:

“What exciting stuff are you working on?” I asked.

Jorge told me his business, Sapiens, which makes carefully-crafted Montessori-style furniture for kids, was in a crunch. The market’s tough. He’s stressed, shoveling everything he has into it just to stay afloat.

Between sets of dragging each other through the sand, I had to ask. “Beyond furniture, what’s your bigger mission?”

I wasn’t expecting his answer.

“Honestly? It doesn’t have anything to do with Sapiens,” he said, wiping sand from his arms. “I just hate that some kids grow up unloved. I want to help them have spaces where they feel safe and can thrive.”

The extraordinariness engineer inside me starting hooting and hollering like a chimpanzee on banana split day. “Man. That has everything to do with Sapiens.”

He’d been treating his real purpose like an engine that would only fire up once Sapiens took off. But he had it backwards. Sapiens was floundering precisely because he hadn’t bolted the engine on yet.

His entire backstory—moving from Mexico, building a new life for his kids, venturing into entrepreneurhip—stopped being a separate narrative and became the mission’s origin story. Sapiens wasn’t just a business anymore. It was the payload.

Plotting a More Inspiring Trajectory

This insight ignited all sorts of ideas between Jorge and me. 

We joked that even with Jorge’s genuine story on the Sapiens website, a skeptical parent might still wonder if it’s just another carefully-staged drop-shipping side-hustle run from a laptop on a beach in Bali.

But what if Jorge plugged his deeper mission into Sapiens by making it about building safe spaces now, not ‘one day’? What if he fired up his engine this week by offering to start funding that mission immediately with a small step (like donating 1% from sales)?

Sure, generosity sounds crazy mid-crunch. 

But he has a sought-after CNC machine and a side-hustle doing commercial contracts. What if he used this bigger mission to buy himself the time he needs?

Pop quiz: Which email asking for a biz-dev informational interview gets a better response?

1. “…I’m trying to keep my struggling furniture business afloat.”
2. “…it’s for fueling my long-term mission of creating safe, thriving spaces for children.”

When people see your rocket is actually firing, they’re more likely to help clear the launchpad.

Plug It In and Start Hitting Buttons

Will our rainy brainstorm solve Jorge’s cash crunch? Who knows. But I know he walked away more pumped up—and not just from burning quads. He reconnected what he does with why he is.

And me? I too got a solid workout and an unexpected boost to my own engine.

That’s the magic: when you actually plug your purpose into something real, push some scary buttons, and drag others into your crazy mission, things start to move.

So stop polishing your purpose while staring at your reflection in it. Bolt it to something, even if the frame is messy. Build a FUKits. Send the email. Start the project. Forget a perfect launch. Just plug it in and start hitting buttons.

Fire Up Your Brain’s Afterburners

• The 16-Word Focus Line that Stopped My Scattered Effort – Distill your unique mission into a single, powerful sentence that guides every decision.
• How I’m Honing in on What I’m Looking for in Life – Turn the feeling of being lost into a search for “selfish-less” work that energizes you and contributes to others.
• Forget Master Plans, Follow Stepping Stones – Ditch the grand plan. Learn to achieve extraordinary outcomes by taking small, interesting leaps into uncertainty.
• Brainwash Yourself Into Living a Better Story – Take control of your internal narrative and proactively craft a compelling life story you’re excited to live.
• A Call to End Conformity Waste With Human Uniqueness Engineering – See the bigger mission behind plugging in your purpose: a call to end conformity waste and unleash human uniqueness.