SUMMARY

Physician and author Jordan Grumet joins Lisa for a wide-ranging, deeply reflective conversation about what happens when the life you worked toward no longer defines who you are.

Jordan shares his personal journey through medicine, financial independence, and hospice care, including the unexpected panic that followed reaching financial freedom earlier than anticipated. What was supposed to be a moment of celebration was a terrifying realization: without work, his identity collapsed.

Drawing from his work with the dying and his own experience of burnout, he explains why money and achievement fail to resolve deeper questions of meaning, and how so many of ys mistake purpose as something to be proven rather than lived.

The discussion unpacks the difference between meaning and purpose, the hidden costs of trauma-driven ambition, and why subtracting what drains us often matters more than adding what impresses us. The conversation moves fluidly between philosophy and pragmatism, touching on time, mortality, creativity, legacy planning, curiosity, and the critical work of rebuilding a life that aligns with personal values.

This is a conversation about modern ambition and  how to reassemble identity, motivation, and direction once certainty dissolves and the old reasons stop working.

Behind his brilliance: Empathy + Intuition

 

TOPICS COVERED 

·  What happens psychologically after financial independence

·  Identity loss and disorientation after achievement

·  Meaning vs. purpose — and why confusing them creates anxiety

·  Trauma-driven ambition and "purpose built from scarcity"

·  Why money is a tool, not an endpoint

·  Subtraction as a life design strategy

·  Purpose anxiety and the myth of "big P" purpose

·  Hospice work and lessons from the dying

·  Regrets of the dying and how they inform daily living

·  Mortality as a clarifying force rather than a morbid one

·  Curiosity as an antidote to fear and burnout

·  The achievement treadmill and hedonic adaptation

·  Creative work, writing, and process-based fulfillment

·  Legacy planning: emotional and practical considerations

·  Slowing down, seasons of life, and doing less better

 

THINGS MENTIONED

• Jordan Grumet
• Jordan's books:  Taking Stock, The Purpose Code
• FIRE
• Status Anxiety — Alain de Botton
• The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem — Nathaniel Branden
• The Simple Path to Wealth — JL Collins
• The White Coat Investor — Jim Dahle
• Jack Reacher — Lee Child
• I'm Dead, Now What - end of life planning book