S2E328 From Confusion to Clarity: The Strength of Purpose with Elizabeth Dixon
It's a Good Life
Brian Buffini
4.4 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
So much of modern life rewards busyness, but busyness often crowds out what matters most. In this conversation, Elizabeth explains how a well-defined purpose moves you “from confusion to clarity” by serving as a daily filter for the 40,000 decisions we each make. She and Brian explore common roadblocks, practical building blocks, and how seasons of life shape the way we live our purpose. You’ll hear how Chick-fil-A’s corporate purpose anchored the company through crisis, how the Trillith Foundation serves “story makers” who shape culture, and why your purpose—written down and lived out—ultimately becomes your legacy.
YOU WILL LEARN:
- The clearest way to define purpose, mission, strategy, and vision—and why confusing them derails teams and leaders.
- How purpose becomes your daily decision filter, moving you from “rudderless” to resolute in business and life.
- How to overcome the three roadblocks to purpose (discomfort, distraction, defeat) and build a purpose that lasts through every season.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
The Strength of Purpose by Elizabeth Dixon
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware
Buffini & Company Leadership Conference
NOTEWORTHY QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE
“Purpose is why you exist. Mission is what you do. Strategy is how you win. Vision is where you’re going.” — Elizabeth Dixon
“Purpose moves us from confusion to clarity.” — Elizabeth Dixon
“The life we live is the legacy we leave.” — Elizabeth Dixon
“Say ‘no’ more often so your ‘yes’ is intentional.” — Elizabeth Dixon
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to It's a Good Life, the podcast for entrepreneurs, where it's all about growing yourself and your business. |
| 0:09.6 | Here's your host, founder of America's largest business coaching company, Brian Bafini. |
| 0:17.4 | Well, the top of the morning to you and welcome to It's a Good Life. |
| 0:20.4 | I'm your host, Brian Bafini. And today we have a very special guest. Her name is Elizabeth Dixon. Elizabeth's an author and an entrepreneur. She was a former executive at the Chick-fil-A organization, which we all know and love. And really all about customer experience, which is fantastic. Today, she's the CEO of the Trillet Foundation. |
| 0:38.2 | I believe that's in Atlanta, Georgia, and she's doing an amazing job there. And she has a book called |
| 0:43.1 | The Strength of Purpose, A Guide to Knowing and Living Your Reason for Being, which is the raison |
| 0:48.6 | deaths that the French would call. And we're really excited. Elizabeth is also going to be one of our keynote speakers at our |
| 0:56.4 | leadership conference here this September at San Diego and the Bayfront Hilton. So we're really |
| 1:02.0 | excited to see her in person. I'm delighted to have her here today. Elizabeth, we're honored to |
| 1:06.7 | have you on the show today. Thanks for making the time for us. Thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:11.6 | So lots to talk about here. You know, there's an awful lot of books about purpose. |
| 1:16.6 | The purpose driven life being one that, you know, okay, however many tens of millions of people |
| 1:21.7 | bought that. And so it's like, who needs another book on purpose? As very interesting as I started |
| 1:26.8 | to dig in here, you have a very unique perspective on this. |
| 1:30.2 | And I find myself being drawn in. |
| 1:33.3 | Can you talk a little bit about this whole dynamic in finding your purpose about the defining purpose and what it is? |
| 1:39.9 | So in the business world, we throw out these terms, purpose, mission, vision, values, all the time. |
| 1:45.9 | And sometimes you'll be in rooms and you'll think, wait, I think we're defining words differently from each other. |
| 1:52.9 | And so what I found, purpose is why you exist. |
| 1:56.7 | It's your reason for being, whether it's a person or a business. |
| 2:00.1 | It's your why. |
| 2:18.8 | And then mission is what you do. Strategy is how you do it. Vision is where you're going. You need all of those pieces, but purpose is the foundational part. It is the most critical. Can I get you to say that again? I will say that may be the best explanation. I've interviewed hundreds of people and you just drop some liquid gold there. Can you go through that? Because I think so many people |
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