Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a conversation designed to help leaders go further faster.

On today's podcast, we'll begin a conversation on the unexpectedly complex topic of purpose.

Andy, the idea of purpose is one you've talked about with our staff for many years, but it is unexpectedly complex.

Yeah.

In fact, when we decided to talk about this, I thought maybe we should name it something else,

because if I found out that a podcast I listened to on a frequent basis was going to be about purpose,

I would think, oh, yeah, yeah, I got that.

But this is a very, very important conversation, because as we're about to discover, purpose

has a catch.

And whereas everyone is inspired to find their purpose and embrace purpose and bring purpose

to the marketplace, there's a catch.

There's an obstacle.

And I think one of the reasons more leaders aren't more successful in embracing the notion of purpose, whether it's in the for-profit or nonprofit, is they're not aware of the catch. They bump up against it. They're not sure what it is exactly, but they oftentimes retreat from it. So I'm so excited about this conversation. And the other thing, too, depending on the age of the podcast listener, you know, early on in our careers, purpose is not all that important. As my mentor, Charlie Renfro often says everybody's got to eat and live indoors. So when you get out of college, you get that first job or maybe you get that first promotion. You know, purpose is a nice to have, maybe someday, one day, something maybe I hear about

in church, you know, or from some nonprofit. Meanwhile, I got to sell stuff. I've got to account

for stuff. I've got to manage stuff. I've got to lead stuff. I've got to get a paycheck.

I need that bonus. And so, you know, purpose sort of hovers out there somewhere. But I think

eventually, at some point in our lives,

and the earlier the better, we bump into this, you know, why am I doing this? What is this leading

to? So I think eventually purpose becomes a big deal, as it should. Andy, in your book,

Visioneering, you wrote this. You said, vision translates into purpose. It gives you a reason to get up in the

morning. That makes purpose seem very important. Yeah, and purpose is always associated with vision.

Anybody, whether it's a project, something new, even making something better, there's always a

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