Purpose Gap, Entrepreneurship, and Identity Diversification

Maybe you’re “70% VC-backed fintech founder”, 20% “ESG angel investor”, and 10% “fiction writer”. Or any other variations of your identity portfolio that suits you best.

The purpose gap is the disconnect between the kind of work that fulfils you and the work that actually pays the bills. It's the struggle to find a career that aligns with your values and passions while also providing financial security.

Sounds familiar?

This is the sinking feeling that you cannot have what you really want and you have to compromise by wanting what you have. Like that entrepreneur-at-heart who shows up at his corporate work every day at 9, puts on a brave smile, and leaves at 5, and wonders what if he could pursue his interesting startup idea. Or the founder who actually gave it a try, jumped through all the hoops for a year and decided to take a contract job “for now” because the bills were piling up. Or the one who has raised some VC money and the “urgency to create value” is pushing her in the direction that she is not that excited about. 

It almost feels like a major dilemma or a permanent conflict. Like having what you want and wanting what you have actively repel each other. You think you want something, say VC money, but then when you have it, the harsh reality of the situation blows up in your face when you see all the strings attached to it. Or you really want to pull the plug on your unfulfilling but well paid corporate job but the burden of taking care of your elderly parents or your young children means that you just simply can’t. Or you quit your cushy corporate job to start that climate tech company you wanted but end up realizing that no one really wants to solve climate change and you end up launching a vegetable delivery app.

Maybe it’s just part of the human condition to want things we can’t have. 

Or maybe it's the lack of infrastructure!? When I look back, nobody has ever taught me, at least directly, how to balance pursuing my most meaningful desires while acting like a financially responsible adult. There is so much money spent in education to teach us how to do math, write code, and create art, but no one has taken the time to show us how to reconcile those with what drives us as the social animals that we are. One of my favorite questions to ask people is “what would you do if money wouldn’t be a constraint at all”. People give different answers. But deep down everyone is saying, one way or another, “I would want to do what I love, with people I love”. Not only are we not teaching our children how important this is and how they can do it, we also actively make fun of those who pursue this, acting like they are not taking life seriously. And then in the same breath we also report stats on how our society is full of depressed, dopamine-addict, mobile-phone-bound drones we call humans. 

So, are we doomed?

Well, maybe! I hope not! At least the younger generations seem to be doing slightly better. Maybe that’s an artifact of the relative economic stability we have enjoyed in the past few decades without major wars or significant challenges for us meeting our basic needs? Maybe it is that they are “technologically native” which provides the opportunity for them to be free of the mundane and more fertile for creation? Or maybe it is the fact that they are less bound by the traditional definitions and rigid behavior patterns inherited from generations before them? Yes, I like that one better. The role of identity diversification and fluidity is quite interesting. Imagine if you weren’t so rigidly the “corporate guy” or the “VC-backed founder” or the “bootstrapped entrepreneur”. And instead you were 60% “financially responsible corporate guy”, 30% “bootstrapped clean-tech entrepreneur”, and 10% the social butterfly. Or maybe you’re “70% VC-backed fintech founder”, 20% “ESG angel investor”, and 10% “fiction writer”. Or any other variations of your identity portfolio that suits you best. 

I know what you’re thinking: who has time for all this!

Here’s the good news; well, two pieces of good news. First, it is not about time and it’s about energy. If you sleep well, eat well, exercise, take breaks that properly relax you and stay away from anxiety enablers like dopamine spike drivers, then you can maintain a significant level of energy and therefore motivation to get to all the things you want. Second, like all other types of diversification you can’t just do it cosmetically and have to get deep down into the details of your processes, objectives, and behaviors, and create systems that enable you to execute with ease. I’m willing to bet that a big part of the emotional toll associated with the purpose gap comes from the feeling that you are not in control of your destiny. Guess what intentional energy management and system creation gives you? Lots of control!

All in all, the purpose gap is real and its impact on our generation is devastating. We are often so focused on the breadth of the gap that we feel paralyzed in taking any actions. Going back to the fundamentals, energy management and system creation, to enable a diversified identity could be a way to get out of the hamster wheel.