Finance Entrepreneur Explains How To Find A Career With A Purpose

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If you want fulfillment and happiness in life, it’s crucial that you find your passion – or purpose – for getting up every morning.

Without a purpose as the compass to guide you, your goals and action plans may not ultimately fulfill you.

Andrei Cherny is a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton. In 2013, he left the political world behind and founded Aspiration – an online financial firm that provides customers with ethical, sustainable banking, and investment accounts.

When he’s not wearing the CEO hat, Cherny is an author, Democracy Journal co-founder, and dad. He’s not just passionate about what he does but also helping other people find their purpose on planet Earth.

In this edition of On The Grind, Cherny talked with us about finding a career with purpose instead of chasing money and success.

Let’s say a person is just getting out of college..what should they look for first? Should you look for purpose first, or career first? Or do they kinda go together?

The idea of a career in the way that maybe our parents knew it has gone away in this day and age.

It used to be– 20 or so years ago —people would say that you’re going to be changing jobs a lot more than previous generations. And the idea of a single position where you show up at a factory at age 20 and leave there 50 years later with a gold watch having retired has gone away, and you’re going to have multiple jobs throughout a lifetime.

Well, now I think people are going to have various careers throughout a lifetime, and there isn’t a single path that people are going to be on. So the idea of purpose becomes even more critical.

In fact, you absolutely need to start with your purpose. Start with what you care about most deeply. And then there are so many different ways you can bring that purpose to life.

Can you touch on a few of those?

Well, I think it’s just you find different ways throughout a lifetime.

You know I’ve always cared about financial opportunities for people, and so I’ve worked on that in the White House in the Clinton administration and as a financial fraud prosecutor. I’ve worked with large financial institutions started Aspiration to be a company that would help people have better bank accounts and investments accounts.

I’ve always looked for different ways to bring my own purpose to life, and each person is going to have their own sense of purpose. Each person is going to have their own set of passions and concerns that get them up in the morning and power them forward, and finding what you care about is really the most important thing.

There are all different kinds of ways that each person is going to identify to make that happen.

Let’s say that a person does find what they want to do–career-wise, the first time around–let’s say that it doesn’t pay a lot of money. Should they find a way to make money with it or should they just do it and hopefully it works out….or should they do it on the side and maybe try to find work that isn’t too taxing but doesn’t take away from it.

I would say it depends on what you’re doing, but if you care about something enough and you have enough passion for it–you’ll be able to find ways to make it happen.

Sometimes that means you’re doing it at night or sometimes it means you’re doing it during the day and working at night.

I wrote a book called The Candy Bombers about the pilots who dropped candy to the children of Berlin after WWII and won their hearts. And I was a prosecutor at the time.

So I would be in court during the day, and I would come home–I was recently married at the time—and have dinner with my wife and then start working. Then I would work from 8 pm to 2 am and then wake up a few hours later and start again and did that do write that book.

I really believe when there’s a will, there’s a way.

So not only is there purpose, but there’s gotta be a motivation to it?

Purpose is just another way of saying passion.

When you really have a sense of purpose about something, it’s a fire within you, and it drives you forward. That purpose becomes your internal combustion engine.

It also serves as a compass, and it points you the way forward on what you’re actually trying to accomplish. If there’s something, you really care about there’s going to be different ways to make it happen.

Do you think it’s possible to find purpose when you’re stuck in a job you hate? Not like something outside of it, but do you think it’s possible for someone to find something meaninful while doing a job they hate.

Every day is a learning opportunity and a chance to learn about yourself and from others.

Find out what you’re good at, and push yourself to do the things you’re not good at.

Getting outside of your comfort zone is essential. Especially if you care about something and maybe the way to do it is not readily apparent.

How did you figure out what you wanted to do?

I’ve always known what I cared about. I’ve always understood my sense of purpose.

Going back to a kid, but never in a million years would’ve thought that I would’ve started a financial institution like Aspiration.

In fact, if you told me that’s what I’d end up doing, I would have said, “That’s exactly what I DON’T want to do!”

To me I wasn’t looking to start a business I was looking for a way to put my purpose int practice and to bring my ideas to life. I tried all different kinds of ways to do so, and this was another way to make it happen.

We’re always interested in talking to people about their daily routines. What are some daily habits that you do to kind of help you stay focused and stay on track on things? Do you have a morning ritual or anything like that?

You know, like a lot of people the first thing I’ll do in the morning is to reach for my phone and catch up on all the emails…

You’re not supposed to do that.

I know you’re not supposed to do that, but it’s the reality of life. To make sure nothing is burning.

Then I try to make sure that I’m scheduling a time for myself to really be able to think about what are the most important things to accomplish that day?

And any day –you know there’s going to be, often times, the crisis that springs up. It’s easy to not be to, especially in this day with emails, it’s easy to be in response mode all day long. Sometimes you just have to do that. But it’s also important to be able to say, “Okay, here’s what I NEED to think about today. Here’s what I need to do.”

And so, for me, I spend a lot of my time during the day on the phone or in meetings. But then after my kids go to bed is the time I can really think about what I need to get done–what I need to produce and if I need to write something or think about some issue–that’s really the time that I have to try to devote to that.

Aspiration-CEO-Andrei-Cherny-03

Andrei Cherny of Aspiration


What if tomorrow something just sprung up on you and you were just like, “This is it. This is what I should do for the rest of my life.” But it’s completely different from what you’re doing now. How do you think you would handle that? Like, what would be the transition for that?

Well you know it’s hard to imagine that because I’m so excited about what we do at Aspiration. There’s nothing else I could imagine that I’d rather be doing right now.

Well, then you probably found your purpose then, right?

I definitely found my purpose, and I think I found my role.

You know, it’s the question of ‘what if I got hit by a bus tomorrow?’ What would happen then?’

I think part of my role as a leader is to convey a set of values about what we’re about as a company and also how we think about doing business. So you have, for us, we’re always talking about solving for trust and building trust with our customers and trying to be great at that.

We’re really about sustainability and climate change. We just announced a partnership with Leonardo DiCaprio around that. We want to have these pieces in place that are important to Aspiration so that even if I were taken out of the equation–this would be a mission that would be going on because it’s larger than any one person.

If a person were to sit down right now, right after reading this article, and took a blank piece of paper to try to find their purpose. Where should they begin? Like, would I start with what I like personally? Would I start with what I’m good at? Would I start with what’s gotten me this far?

I’d say start with a blank piece of paper and don’t think about yourself, but think about how the world should be different.

Maybe that means there is a particular cause you care about. Maybe there is a specific idea you have that would be a different company. Perhaps it means it points you towards a career as a trapeze artist, but whatever it may be thinking about what’s important to you in the world.

That’s your sense of purpose. Then the question becomes “what YOU should do, as an individual, to make that happen.”

A few of us on staff are fathers as well. We want our kids to follow their dreams and do whatever they want to do, but another part of us is like, “God, I hope they do something safe and can make money.” What do you do if your kids walk in tomorrow and they’re like, “Dad, I want to do THIS,” and it’s their purpose but its something where you’re like, “Oh God. How are they gonna make money doing that?” What would you tell them?

Well, I’d say that I think they should follow what they want to do.

There are so many stories fo people who set out to do things where, you know, you never would’ve thought would make money–but they’re able to provide for themselves and their families.

Life is not about building a fortune. Life is about being fulfilled and finding service to others, and part of being satisfied is the ability to put food on the table for yourself and your family. So you certainly as a parent always want the best for your kids, but I think part of wanting the best is helping them be able to reach that moment.

The saddest question that somebody can ask is what might have been. Living without regrets is hopefully something we all teach our kids as well.

Do you think your entrepreneurial journey should be featured on On The Grind? Maybe we do too. Hit us up here and let’s talk.

Chris Illuminati is a 5-time published author and recovering a**hole who writes about success, fitness, parenting and occasionally pro wrestling. Reach out to him on Instagram & Twitter.