Finding Your Own Path

This morning I listened to a podcast with Arthur Brooks. He was asked a big question: how do you find your calling?

His answer:

    1.   You must earn your success

    2.   You must help other people

Look… I get it. It’s clean. It’s socially acceptable. It sounds grounded in “the data,” whatever that means.

But it felt empty to me.

It sucked all the life—and honestly, the fun and adventure—out of the question.

A calling, at least the way I’ve experienced it, doesn’t come from following a formula like that. It comes from saying “YES” to something that pulls you. Something that feels uncertain, maybe even a little irrational.

A call to adventure.

You commit time, energy, resources—not because it checks the right boxes, but because it feels worth it. The meaning comes later. The “helping others” part may often show up, too. But it’s not where it starts.

Anyway… bringing this back down to earth.

The same idea applies to financial independence.

When I started, I followed systems like Your Money or Your Life and The Total Money Makover pretty closely.

Both are useful. Both are clear.

And both basically say: follow the steps exactly.

But I didn’t.

Not because they’re wrong—but because they weren’t fully mine.

For example, one system says track every dollar, immediately. I did that… for a while. Then I switched to batching it once a day. Same awareness, less friction.

Another says never use credit cards again. I went a different route. I use two—but I track every purchase and pay them off weekly. For me, this actually increases awareness instead of decreasing it.

Same goal but a different path.

That’s really the point.

Frameworks are helpful. But at some point, you have to take ownership and adapt them to your life.

Otherwise, you’re just following instructions—not building something that actually works…for you.

So here’s where I’d leave you today:

What’s calling you right now—even if it doesn’t make perfect sense?

And where in your life are you following someone else’s “rules”… when you might need to make your own?