"Without a sense of purpose, you won't get a sense of the promise." - Dan Strutzel

That quote hit me hard on the morning on Thursday, March 20th, reverberating through my head as I sat on a Team Momenta Zoom call. Samuel Funderburk was speaking about the importance of knowing your why — the deep-rooted purpose that drives you — especially when logic or external circumstances suggest you should quit. He shared how he walked away from a six-figure engineering job for a role at 1st Phorm that paid less than half.

Why would anyone do that?

Because he knew what he wanted: to empower people to achieve their fitness goals. That was his why. And he believed the money and fulfillment would follow once he aligned his work with his purpose.

He also said something that struck a nerve: “I don’t believe in burnout. I believe people just don’t have a strong enough why, and they’re scattering their energy everywhere.”

Oof. That one got me.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and burnt out lately — not because I’m lazy or undisciplined, but because I’ve been pouring myself into too many things without asking whether they’re actually aligned with my purpose.

In Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life, Bob Proctor and Dan Strutzel dig deep into this idea. They explain that purpose is our why — “the reason we get out of bed every day,” as Bob says. They also distinguish between two forms of income: psychic income (the internal satisfaction we get from meaningful work) and material income (the money we earn from it).

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When Samuel switched careers, his material income dropped, but his psychic income skyrocketed. And as he stayed aligned with his why, the material income caught up — because he was focused, consistent, and committed.

Here’s the thing: if you’re genuinely working from your why — and you show up every day with focused, purposeful action — success is inevitable. You’ll be rich in both fulfillment and finances. But that only happens when you stop scattering your energy.

Let’s put it this way: 

Imagine a massive garden filled with seedlings. You have one tiny heat lamp.

If you try to shine that heat on all the seedlings at once, none of them will get enough warmth to grow. But if you focus that light on just a few, they’ll thrive.

So ask yourself:

🌱 Which seedlings are you letting wither because you're too stretched thin?

🌱 Which ones do you refuse to let die — the ones that tap into your deepest sense of purpose?

Those are rooted in your why.

If you don’t take the time to discover that why, you’ll burn out without ever knowing what you truly lost. You’ll look back and realize the things you were meant to cultivate were left to wither — and by then, you’ll be out of light.

Don’t let that happen.

Do the hard thing: cut off the distractions, pull the weeds, and choose the garden you can’t live without.