Fuel Gauge or Compass?

One day last week, my wife was driving our family through town. The car in front of us was clearly distracted—driving slowly, missing green-light opportunities, just a dumpster fire of unfocused driving. My 17‑year‑old son couldn’t believe his mom showed zero road rage.

She smiled and said she tries to live “perpetually unbothered by most things.” I loved how she said that, and even more how consistently she lives it.

Later, before watching a big firework show, my wife, daughter, and I were talking about passion. My wife said she doesn’t want to be weak in her quest to live unbothered; she wants to be deeply passionate about what really matters, and not waste focus or energy on things—like other people’s driving—that aren’t important to her at all. I love this about her. But I challenged how she was using the word passion, mainly because of my research on identity and purpose.

Lately, I’ve come to believe that passion is “barely controllable emotion.” Using that definition, passion isn’t a strong indicator of identity or purpose; it’s an indicator of strong feelings at a particular time, season, or event. Dr. Carey Corley teaches in our leadership institute that emotions are great teachers but can be horrible leaders. That’s been shaping how I see passion.

Passion can be fun and can teach us a lot, but I’m beginning to see it as a fuel gauge more than a compass. It can show us how much energy we have for something, but it probably isn’t great for setting our direction or defining our purpose.

Last week, I referenced the Bosches’ definition of purpose as “what you have to do to help others.” I still agree with some parts and disagree with others, but I’ve been wrestling more deeply with their broader Purpose Factor system and how it connects to my ongoing work on identity and purpose.

Their framework looks at four main areas:

·       Natural Advantage – what you’re naturally good at

·       Acquired Skills – what you’ve learned to do over time

·       Pull‑Passion – the kinds of needs, problems, or opportunities you feel drawn to

·       Origin Story – the key experiences that have shaped how you see the world

Each area has subcategories, and together they’re meant to describe a mix of purpose, personality, and direction for living an impactful life.

I took their assessment, which felt more like Six Types of Working Genius or StrengthsFinder than a long Birkman. It identified me as:

·       Natural Advantage – Recruiter

·       Acquired Skills – Intellectual Skillset

·       Pull‑Passion – Needs Satisfier

·       Origin Story – Betrayal Overcomer

My translation of that is this: I’m good at moving people to action. I’ve learned to learn new things and share what I’m learning with others (often in ways that move them to action). I’m drawn to helping smaller groups of people solve a problem or seize an opportunity. And much of that likely flows from how I navigated my mom’s alcoholism as a child.

Put simply, I see my purpose as helping groups of people grow and develop past their problems and into their potential.

For the last few years, I’ve been leaning into a personal purpose statement: “Simplifying complex things to help people get better at complex things.” Based on Purpose Factor, I’m impressed with the accuracy of their assessment, but I still have no idea how it technically works, and I question the accuracy of some of the categories and subcategories.

Here’s where the difference between research approaches matters to me. Pat Lencioni has described the difference between his work and Jim Collins’ research methodology: Lencioni is a field practitioner, developing theory based on real‑time observation and discussion with leaders and teams, while Collins uses comparative, long‑term, quasi‑empirical studies of companies over time. Both approaches are wildly beneficial, yet very different.

I think the Bosches’ work is very interesting and potentially very helpful to people. At the same time, my pursuit of understanding purpose—and helping others develop theirs—continues. I wouldn’t say I’m passionate about this work, because I try to keep it very controlled and grounded. I’d say I’m perpetually curious about it. And while there are days I’d prefer to be unbothered, I’m bothered enough to want to help people maximize their life.

So here’s my question for you: What are you passionate about—and where might your steady, focused energy say more about your true purpose than your loudest emotions do?