I almost quit last Wednesday

I was in a room in Puerto Rico staring at my laptop. Couldn't write a single word. Classic writer's block. I tried taking a walk — nothing. I tried writing anything at all, but it felt like it was going nowhere. Frustration set in. I was ready to give up, distract myself with emails and busywork. Then the real spiral started: Maybe I should just quit. This isn't for me. I have nothing to say anyway. The doubt crept in, and the fear took over.

This happened last Wednesday. I was on a book-writing retreat — writing a book about how to lead in uncertainty. And I was drowning in uncertainty myself.

Then I stopped. I reminded myself of my own principles. I was struggling, yes. But did I remember why the struggle was worth it? I went back to my purpose statement: "My life purpose is to enable and support others in reaching their full potential, find their own purpose to encounter the unknown with agency, and connect as many good people as possible, so that more people contribute with their full potential to the betterment of our civilization."

I sat with it for fifteen minutes. How does this book fit into it? The book is the next step in giving away what I've learned building four social movements, four businesses, and working with activists and entrepreneurs who encountered tremendous amounts of uncertainty and used it to fuel their leadership and freedom.

That was all I needed. My emotions and my mind found the right spot. Clarity returned. I rewrote the concept, reworked the outline, and wrote most of the first chapter that afternoon.

In the face of uncertainty, reconnecting to your purpose unlocks you. So let's talk about that 👇

During the COVID-19 crisis, companies with a clearly defined purpose saw 14% higher revenue growth than companies without one. That gap wasn't there before the crisis — it widened because of it. A DDI study of 1,500 global executives found that purpose-driven companies outperformed the financial markets by 42%. Not during easy times. During hard times.

Why? Because in uncertainty, everything you normally rely on becomes unreliable. Your strategy was built for a world that just changed. Your expertise was developed for problems that just shifted. Your plan assumed conditions that no longer exist. One by one, the tools you trust most stop working.

Except one.

Purpose is the only navigation tool that remains useful when the map is wrong. Strategy tells you what to do. Purpose tells you why you're doing it. And when the what keeps changing — which it always does in uncertainty — only the why holds steady enough to guide you.

Viktor Frankl understood this at the deepest human level. A psychiatrist who survived concentration camps, Frankl observed that the prisoners who endured weren't the physically strongest — they were the ones who had something meaningful to live for. A child waiting for them. A book they needed to finish. A purpose that made the suffering bearable. This line captures it perfectly: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

That's what purpose does. It doesn't eliminate uncertainty. It mobilizes your emotional capacity to face the uncertainty with agency.

Most people think purpose helps you decide what to pursue. That's true — but it's the obvious part. The deeper function of purpose, especially in uncertainty, is helping you decide what to release.

Prof. Heifetz makes a crucial observation: adaptive work always involves loss. Old competencies that no longer serve you. Old identities that don't fit anymore. Strategies you're emotionally attached to. Projects that made sense last year but don't anymore. Without a clear purpose, people cling to everything because they can't tell what's essential from what's expendable. They fight to preserve things that are already gone — and exhaust themselves in the process.

With a clear purpose, you can let go — because you know what actually matters. Purpose becomes a triage tool: does this serve where I'm going, or am I holding on because it's familiar?

This is why a vague purpose is dangerous. "Excellence" and "innovation" sound good, but they can't help you triage anything. They can't tell you what to stop doing. A purpose specific enough to help you say no — that's a purpose worth having.

Purpose doesn't just motivate you — it literally changes how your brain processes stress.

Research shows that people with a strong sense of purpose produce lower cortisol under pressure. Their prefrontal cortex — the part responsible for clear thinking — stays more active when facing uncertainty. Purpose doesn't just give you direction. It gives you access to the part of your brain you need most when things get hard.

Remember what we explored earlier in this series — how uncertainty hijacks the amygdala and shuts down your capacity to think, collaborate, and decide? Purpose is the counterweight. It gives your brain something stable to anchor to when everything else is moving. Without it, your brain defaults to self-preservation. With it, your brain stays in problem-solving mode.

So how do you craft your purpose?

Most people try to find purpose by thinking forward — imagining their ideal future, setting goals, and writing vision statements. But purpose isn't found by looking ahead. It's crafted by looking backward — at the moments that already shaped you. And then interpreting them in a way that clarifies your values and helps you shape your present & future.

Here's an exercise I often use in my workshops. I call it Past-Future Authoring.

Think about defining moments in your life — points where something fundamentally shifted. Not achievements. Turning points. The job you walked away from. The failure that redirected you. The conversation that cracked something open. The moment you saw something you couldn't unsee. When you had to overcome something important, that changed you.

Here's how to do it: Sit down for 15 minutes. Write down 3-5 of these turning points. For each one, answer questions: What was the challenge? What did I do? Where did I find hope to overcome that challenge? What does that tell about who I am and what I care about? What did it change in me?

Then look at them together. What's the thread? What keeps showing up across these moments?

That thread is pointing to your purpose — not as a slogan, but as a lived experience. Look at those events and interpret them in the way that feels truthful but also empowering to you - so that you self-author your purpose. You are in control of your narrative and the way you want to interpret your past in order to shape your present and future.

Do the Past-Future Authoring exercise. Twenty minutes, three steps.

Step 1: Look backward. Follow the exercise above — 20 minutes, 3-5 turning points, answer the questions I shared above. Find the thread.

Step 2: Look forward. Take that thread and put it into words using this simple structure: "I live to [what you do for others] so that [the impact you want to create] because [the experience that made this matter to you]." It won't be perfect on the first try. That's fine.

Step 3: Share it. Share your purpose statement and experiences that shaped you with two people you trust. Watch how they react — and pay attention to how you feel when you say it out loud. The purpose that stays in your notebook is just a thought. The purpose you can share starts becoming real.

Every tool we've built in this series — adaptive thinking, antifragility, regulating the room, bias towards action, holding environments, collective intelligence — they all work better when they're anchored in a clear why. Purpose is what gives all of it meaning and direction.

Your purpose is already inside you — in the turning points that shaped you, the values you keep returning to, the thread you've been following longer than you realize.

Until next time, keep evolving ✊