S1E11: Chasing Purpose with Don Wettrick

In this episode of Purpose Project, host Leslie Pagel interviews Don Wettrick, founder and CEO of STARTedUP and a former teacher. Don discusses his transition from teaching to promoting innovation and entrepreneurship among students. He shares how a TED Talk by Daniel Pink inspired him to integrate mastery, autonomy, and purpose into his teaching philosophy, leading to the creation of an Innovation and Open Source Learning class. This class culminated in the successful 'Innovate WithIN' program. Don highlights the importance of overcoming fear, taking calculated risks, and seeking support from loved ones. He emphasizes the need for self-discovery, problem-solving, and tackling real-world challenges to find one's purpose. Don also introduces reflective practices like the 3-2-1 video method to foster personal growth and accountability. The episode underscores the vital role of mentorship, social interaction, and addressing mental health in empowering students to achieve significant milestones.
00:00 Introduction to Purpose Project
00:45 Meet Don Wettrick
01:29 The Innovation Journey Begins
10:04 Facing Fear and Taking Risks
15:19 Discovering and Pursuing Purpose
19:35 Discovering Life's Purpose: A Personal Journey
23:10 Empowering Students: Real-World Problem Solving
25:06 The Impact of Technology on Purpose Discovery
28:27 Mentorship and the Hero's Journey
31:46 Practical Advice for Discovering Your Purpose
33:09 The 3-2-1 Reflection Technique
35:39 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Resources:
Don Wettrick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donwettrick/
STARTedUP Foundation: https://www.startedupfoundation.org/

Purpose Project is a research study on the topic of life's purpose. You can follow along in the making of Purpose Project:
Instagram: @purpose.project
LinkedIn: @purposeproject-media
TikTok: @purpose.project

Captions are auto-generated.

Transcript

0:06

If you're a parent or a teacher, you're not going to want to miss this episode. Hi, my name is Leslie Pagel and this is Purpose Project. On the show, we have Don Wettrick. Don is a former teacher and currently the founder and CEO of an organization called STARTedUP. STARTedUP has a mission to empower students and teachers to view the world through a lens of innovation and entrepreneurship while building a life of purpose. Isn't that beautiful? It is such a privilege and honor to have Don on the show. Let's take a listen.

Leslie: 0:45

Don, thank you so much for being here. Before we get into the depths of purpose, let's start by learning more about Don. Who's Don Wettrick?

Don: 0:56

well, first of all, I'm grateful that you wouldn't have me on here. Cause I love talking about purpose and, I feel like. That's, that's something I'm definitely chasing as a teacher. Uh, who is Don Wettrick? Uh, I am the son of Chuck and Sue Wettrick. I was a teacher for 20 several years. started to do other things in the realm of entrepreneurship and innovation. but most importantly, Alicia's husband.

Leslie: 1:19

So a husband, a son, a teacher,

Don: 1:22

father of three, father

Leslie: 1:24

of three. Yeah. focus on innovation and entrepreneurship. Tell us a little bit more about what that is.

Don: 1:31

Yeah, I had this, second awakening. I get bored easy. And so I always had to have either side hustles. I'd done some things and, owning rentals and some of these other things. but, I saw this Ted talk and it was by a guy named Daniel Pink. And, it's one of the more famous ones. And he was talking about what motivates people. And it was mastery autonomy and purpose mastery. We have this desire to master things, whether that is to complete a puzzle, to beat a boss on super Mario galaxy, to do a kick flip, to do a line dance perfectly, whatever. Autonomy. I want to be left alone so I can do this, or I want to work in a group to do these things that I want to do. And lastly, purpose, like I want to do this cause it feeds my soul or I need to do this. And so I started taking a look of like, when do we do that in education mastery? I mean, mastering the times tables or, I mean, sure. Autonomy and purpose. No, no. And so as Dan was explaining this, I'm like. It's because he went on to talk about what Atlassian and then more famously Google did with their Google time They gave you one day back then when they were smaller company trying to figure it out They gave you one day a week where you could do what you wanted, but they wanted to know what you worked on, it was your passion project. And so I was like, huh? I should totally do that And ironically enough Leslie it was pretty cool because I'd already had this class where it was FCTV so Franklin Community Television And we had levels of it to where the juniors and seniors were either working on video shorts And then we I discovered if you have a public access cable channel, you have to say yes to people So my students were working on on programming and shows for cable access and then my seniors were working on documentary films So we already had this sense of figuring it out and chasing things that you wanted to learn more about. So like, that's a, that is a documentary film. And so, I watch it and it's already fitting to what I do with the television side, but not necessarily my language art side. So I thought, what would it look like if I had that class and so I'm like, Hey, I'll give you Friday to work on whatever you want to work on.

Leslie: 3:41

Very cool.

Don: 3:42

And immediately My straight A students didn't know what to think. How am I going to get an A? And my C and D students were like, are you serious? Cause I'll run with this. And they were going to do bizarre things. And so, uh, it went well enough that I asked my, principal, that's a longer story, but could I have my own class? And, he jokingly said, sure, if there is a Daniel Pink course description in the state of Indiana catalog, yes. And, you know, just like in dumb and dumber, I'm like, so you're saying there's a chance, and there was a really vague course description. I affectionately called it innovation and open source learning. And the students, ran with it. And so the innovation part became the, I'm working on something that is clever or I'm going to tackle a big problem or, you know, even something sweet. Like I want to learn how to patch quilt before my grandmother passes away. And then the open source learning part is I don't know how to patch quilt. And some of these other students were like, I want to code a basic game and put it on the it and store. If I see if I can make a few bucks, I don't know how to do that either. So we were taking to, and again, I'm, I'm at the right place, right time. YouTube just started to monetize.

Leslie: 4:50

Okay. When was this about? Oh,

Don: 4:52

geez. Uh, 2013.

Leslie: 4:54

Okay. So about 11 years ago,

Don: 4:56

I'm, I'm, I'm ballparking that. I've been a little bit earlier, but at any rate, the students were starting to reach out to people and they were getting yeses and like impressive yeses, like

Leslie: 5:08

an example of an impressive yes.

Don: 5:10

Well, I mean, in some cases, some of these people may not have, cause like if they're not YouTubers, but, Zach King, he's Final Cut King. He's still like number, he was number one on Vine for years now. He's, he's still huge. Um, Casey Neistat, um, Gary Vaynerchuk, um, so my favorite one though, so this is when I, I had my students, start to think about reaching out. And so I had them read chapter, I think it's four of the four hour work week by Tim Ferriss. In this chapter, he challenges these college students. If you could reach out and, and network and talk to and learn from anybody, who would it be? And he put up a$2,000 challenge. And if I'm getting my facts correct, hopefully your audience will tell me. But no one even tried.

Leslie: 5:54

Oh. And,

Don: 5:56

and Tim kind of reflected on that in the book. And so, anyway. I'm having them read that just to get inspired. And they're like, well, then let's reach out to Tim. And Tim Ferris is a big deal. And, uh, I was like, okay. And so we would have the system that if I would tweet it out or the students would tweet it out, like, Hey, we'd like for you to meet my class. We would all 25 of us retweet it and comment on it to up the chances. And so nothing. Okay. nothing. And so finally I had these three girls come up to me and they're like, Mr. Wettrick? We got it. Take a picture of us and they looked really sad. It's, and she says, put this, Hey, at T Ferris, we're so upset that we're taking your advice and you're ignoring us or something along those lines. And I'm like, Oh, that's good. So I take the picture, send the tweet. And it's like, And of course all the minutes

Leslie: 6:51

later, right?

Don: 6:52

Like they all retweet it and comment. Yeah. Quit ignoring us. And then five minutes later, I get the little vibration in my pocket. Then Tim Ferris follows you. I'm like, Oh, Oh, guys, it's happening. It's happening. And then a couple seconds later, ding, ding, DM, ha ha. You got me. Let's set up a Skype call for tomorrow. Yes. And that was one of those moments where they're like, we can get at anybody. So I should say like, when we started getting some of the real a list, it was after the Tim Ferris moment. Um, we still had some good luck with like Zach King was still in college. He became like, seriously, if you haven't heard of him, he's absolutely huge. But, they were starting to realize that. That whole, it's not what you know, it's who, you know, and I'm like, well, then don't get mad, like do something. And it's easier at your age to impress people. You know, at the time I was on like, as in my forties, early forties, and I'm like, no one wants to talk to a 40 year old guy, but if you're 16 and you have a purpose, they wouldn't talk to you. So at any rate, um, so the, the, the class then took an entrepreneurial slant because it was called innovation and open source learning innovation means you're onto something. Once you're onto something, you're like, this is really cool. But, um, so it just took a turn and, one thing led to another and I ended up writing a book about it and the book did better than I thought. And then, um, we had some influencers out there talking about what we did, um, which got some attention. And then the IEDC and the governor Holcomb's team, um, Had an idea of wanting to do like a shark tank for kids. And I shot down that idea cause I, I didn't like the, the approach. So they go, all right, what would you do different if, if we want to do this? And so was lucky and blessed enough that I was a behind the scenes person for a thing called Innovate WithIN year one. Um, and in year one, it was about a hundred students, about 33 of which were mine. and then in year two, I came alongside and did it with them. And in year three, the IEDC said an education initiative should be ran by an educator. We'll just get out of your way. It's yours. Smart. So we run Innovate WithIN, among a lot of other things. But, um, yeah, I just, then students start getting a lot of success. We had over 3000 students, uh, serve last year and now we have this eye candy of, we have students that have had. Sales in all 50 states. We have this year's Forbes 30 under 30. We have two of them.

Leslie: 9:16

Congratulations to

Don: 9:18

them. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's nuts. And so that's Don Wettrick.

Leslie: 9:23

Yeah. here's what I hear in your story. I hear. Action. I hear, uh, no fear.

Don: 9:34

We'll get into that later.

Leslie: 9:35

Okay. Okay. Because what I just heard there is you get inspired by watching a Ted Talk and you respond to it. It's, almost like instinct for you to just go and do and figure it out. Call the media on a slow day. Um, blow up on tick tock to get attention from, from the audience. So I love that I do want to get into fear. Let's just go straight to fear. Um, because I, I believe. That fear is something that holds people back from achieving their purpose. Yeah, it gets in the way and it causes us to freeze.

Don: 10:21

Yeah,

Leslie: 10:21

so tell me about fear Why did you have that reaction when I talk? Well, I mean because it's

Don: 10:26

just not I'm not being honest with myself I mean like there's two kinds of fear, right? There's there's realistic fear and then there's fear of the unknown and that's usually You Like once you can get over that you realize that it's not so bad.

Leslie: 10:38

Okay.

Don: 10:39

Authentic fear is and let me state like how lucky I am. I have a spouse that has a good job. And so I, you know, I, I had calculated fear at times. Um, you know, if, if, if my wife's not carrying our insurance, I don't do this. I started taking risks when I was in my forties. That's stupid, but it was measured, so the irrational fear I got over pretty quick. And, and plus, you know, there's this perspectives, right? What is that, that Confucius saying, uh, a healthy man has a thousand wishes and unhealthy man has one. Okay. So I realized I'm like, like I'm covered. I'm good. Like, you know, Alicia, like medical care is covered. And, and, um, Everything else can fall into place. So there was fear. Now I will say my other fear was what if I don't, like, I really loved my job.

Leslie: 11:36

Okay.

Don: 11:37

Um,

Leslie: 11:37

as a teacher, as a teacher,

Don: 11:39

like I had the coolest class ever. And even before then I was, I taught like one section of language arts and then I taught broadcasting, documentary, filmmaking, and video editing. How to create a cool YouTube channel. Like I'm living a dream and we got into stuff. Like I did a TED talk about how we basically snuck into the NFL media day on Super Bowl. It was, like, I, we had, I'm, I don't think many people had more fun than me teaching. And I don't want to make that a competition. Like I did, I had, but I mean, like, I had fun. And so there was a fear of like, I'm going to leave. Because the people that helped me get this off the ground and sponsor this, they were like, you have a decision to make. You either can be a great teacher, And run a, a really pretty mediocre nonprofit. Or you can run a great nonprofit and. Be a mediocre teacher. And so I tried it in, in that last year and apologies to my students, but like I wasn't giving it my all. I was half in half in both worlds. And no bueno, man. Um, so yeah, I mean the, the fear of what if I hate this and it's hard to get your job back as a teacher. You get priced out of the market. If you have 15 plus years, it's like, they don't. You're expensive. Yeah. So, at any rate, um, so yeah, I got over that and I'm having more fun now. over that? Fun. What I'm doing now is, I mean, Non profits can also be soul crushing and terrible because, says every non profit ever, but um, But the fear of like, well, if we want to get into some real fun, humble brag stuff of what we've gotten to do over the last couple of years, you've seen some of those things. I can't get over it. I'm like, no way. Yeah. And so we have created a lot of interesting times and travel and meeting people and getting students to do incredible things. So those fears are now gone too.

Leslie: 13:30

Yeah. Yeah. So I still want to go back to the, to when you are facing your fear, how did you push through? Cause you pushed through Alicia. Okay. You re you leaned on support, your support. Yeah.

Don: 13:42

Yeah. I Alicia, my dad, um, my, my team Hunter Allie, Kristen, I mean like those people for sure. But I think first and foremost that the real fear, again, the irrational fear, I could just deal with like, it's never as bad, but the real fear is like, how are we financially? You know, the safest, steadiest job is teaching. And contrary to a lot of people's beliefs, it doesn't pay that bad. It's not great. It's not that bad. And so I'm like, I'm going to walk away from that. To a thing that could go under. So there was that. So, you know, I like, and once Alicia's like, go for it. And she's gotta be the steady one. Thank God. Like Alicia doesn't, she's like, you do these things. Me, I'm gonna, I'm going to do what I do. But like, Somebody has got to be, and I think that's important. I mean, and so if you're watching this, I'm like, well, I'm not married. Well, it looks different for you. Although I will say, if you're going to take risks, man, like do it. When your number is still in the ones or twos,

Leslie: 14:41

okay.

Don: 14:42

You're in your threes. It's a little bit tougher.

Leslie: 14:44

Yeah.

Don: 14:44

Um, and then ironically life gets, as we know, life gets even a little easier Like when the kids are gone.

Leslie: 14:50

Yeah, I mean, I'm not

Don: 14:52

quite done yet. Yeah, like it's easier now. Yeah.

Leslie: 14:54

Yeah. Okay, so One thing to help push through the fear is to find your support group. Yeah Ask them for help support you cuz cuz you are taking a risk. It's an unknown Venture and you don't know what's gonna happen on the other side, but you're gonna go for it and you need someone there

Don: 15:16

Yeah, and

Leslie: 15:17

Awesome. Okay, Don, we've gotten to know you a little bit. How would you finish this sentence? My purpose is

Don: 15:27

helping people find theirs.

Leslie: 15:29

Helping people find their purpose. Unpack that for us. So I

Don: 15:33

mean, like, this is the one of the things that drove me nuts about, as I later found out about school. This class, I'm going to go back to the class. We had so many students go. I was about ready to go to college for this. I hate it. Said like 75 percent of every college major, you change it, you start discovering yourself. Um, one of the things that I loved is start doing that. You know, I think that we're at an absolute mental health crisis of identifying what we hate. Well, I changed my profile picture. You didn't do anything. You changed your profile picture. And so if you're like, I hate this thing in society, well, hating on it all day is not going to change anything. And if all of a sudden you find out that you enjoy being the solution to it, that's positive mental health, man. And I liked getting students, adults of like, Life is brief, you you don't like some of the happiest people. I know don't make great money, but they do what they want, they do what makes them like feel awesome And then I also know some of the most miserable people that are making great money They can't can't seem to give it up because they're attached to that status and that salary So I'm, I'm kind of transitioning adults and I apologize, but like with, with the students, like, I would rather you figure out now on chasing purpose, on you chasing, understanding what your skillset is and then pursuing, solving problems, you know, throughout our curriculum, we don't say entrepreneurship for a long time. See a problem as an opportunity. And, and like, it's funny, I had this conversation with Anna last night. She's, She's got this into it. She's my middle child. Okay. So she's, in this internship. She's like, I don't know if I like it, which I'm now I'm a little scared because this is my major. And I'm like, you don't want, you don't like one segment of it. But we start talking about that and unpacking it. And I'm like, go to your supervisor and ask him, what do you not like about your job? And then go and try to figure those things out. Matter of fact, in any, any profession, um, um, If you're going headstrong into the things that people don't like, you're either going to find out really fast that that industry does suck. Or, and by the way, you building up a reputation that you know how to solve problems. You're gold, like, like, you're gold. Uh, I either could like complain about my work conditions and take my smoke break, or I could say, you know, I've got a better idea. Hey, the guys back here are complaining about blah, blah, blah, blah. I think I got a solution. gold, I want more people to have that mindset. As opposed to the world owes you the favors and everything's against you and nothing's fair.

Leslie: 18:07

Well, and it starts with identifying what you hate and being real with it and saying it, naming it. And then And then saying, I have a choice. I can either keep doing this or, solve this problem. Yeah. So connect this to your purpose.

Don: 18:27

I, I was having this conversation the other day with the lady and I said, um, it occurred to me and I said it out loud. I'm like, I'm saving myself. I'm creating solutions that I wanted when I was 15 and aren't we all? And so my purpose was, was at the time to make school a little bit more tailored to you and your needs and discovering what your skillset is. But I'm also trying to then get them to transition and leave high school or leave college and also identify What would be a little bit more fulfilling to them? And fulfilling can look like, man, fulfilling doesn't have to be entrepreneurship. And I think that's also where we've on some of our messaging. People think that we only work on entrepreneurship. We work on entrepreneurial thinking. We have students that go through this and they realize this is tougher than I thought. I would much rather work for a large company and solve problems than go on my own. And that's fine too.

Leslie: 19:32

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So your purpose is to help others discover theirs. When did you realize this is your life's purpose?

Don: 19:43

You know, I, I don't know if I've ever really like, it's just evolved. I mean, I do have to think that watching the Dan Pink Ted talk I think that was one of the awakenings, but I also felt like this has always been. a part of me. Um, the other part of it was just like, I was not gonna be a teacher'cause my dad was a teacher. Okay. And my sister, I knew she was gonna be a teacher, and it was like, just don't be a teacher. But, um, there was several encounters like this, but there was one in particular, it was at the Greenwood Park Mall, um, when I was young. Um. And so there was a group of students that were shocked to see my dad because, you know, if you're a teacher, you live at the school, oh my gosh, you're at the mall. Um, so anyway. Some students were talking to my dad and so this guy looked at me goes your dad and they said these great things about my dad and You know, my chest kind of stuck out and I was, I was proud. And I think that like, so when I was in my first career, cause I wasn't always a teacher, I think I always knew that I, at minimum I wanted people to say that, like I knew my dad had an impact on somebody. I think that's cool. So I think that was early on, but I just didn't know how to put my finger on it. And as I was going through and being a middle school teacher, I had, if you ask my middle school kids, We had a different kind of class. I centered it around a lot about, there was a lot of discussions and, uh, so yeah, I guess it's, it's been an evolving thing.

Leslie: 21:12

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and one of the things that I've been interested in understanding is, are we, born with our purpose or is it something does purpose find us? And one of the things I heard you say is it's, it's always been in me, you know, but it's been this process of discovery and exploring those feelings that you're feeling. You knew you wanted to have that reaction from someone that you saw your father have at the mall. And it's, it sounds like it was a process of exploring what that could be for you.

Don: 21:49

Absolutely. I think like it could be that you're born with it, but I've met so many people that have created something beautiful out of something tragic. So of course it was never like there from the beginning. Terrible was at the beginning. So I think that a lot of times finding purpose is an evolving thing. If you were lucky enough to be born in a loving, nurturing home, which I was, I think it may be easier to understand what your purpose is early on. Yeah. It's probably like to preserve this, like. This loving nurturing thing is freaking like amazing. You know, your girls are probably pretty well set on the dude. I'm loved. They're pretty confident because they're like, everything's good. Um, but the people that didn't, they're, they're trying to figure that out. That's an evolving.

Leslie: 22:34

Well, and that is one of the things that I'm seeing as I've been, asking people about their purpose is that it can be discovered through trauma. I'm thinking specifically of a woman named Sela who I met at the Indianapolis airport. And I just randomly, I didn't know her, but just said, what's your purpose? And she said, my purpose is to give the love that I never had as a child. So that's an example of, of what I'm saying. Okay, Don, we've talked about your purpose, how you've discovered it. and would love to speak a little bit about the students that you, are around today and would love to understand if you could do just a little bit of description about who they are. Sure. But then also if you could speak into What you see in terms of purpose for them.

Don: 23:31

Yeah. I'd say like the students that become the most known with our program are, because they won their regional or state. We have a pitch competition and we asked them to solve a problem, please no more food trucks or no more cool t shirt designs. Okay. Not that those are bad. We're just we're wanting you to think about solving problems. Um, okay. And so problems can come in shape, several shape or form. So like we had one, we had a group of two young men in rural Indiana that their problem was fishing lures. Don't come the right color consistency for croppie fishing in the fall. Okay. Pretty niche. Yeah. They sold well. Yeah. Yeah. They're great. Um, we've had, uh, another, some students are like, Our No Kill Humane Society shelter lacks money and we wanna make money for it. Mm-Hmm. right. And there's a thousand other things. And like I said, we had some students get into Forbes 30, under 30. So some impressive things at the. beginning level, I like even the fact that one of my favorite moments is round one. Um, and it's one student, from here in inner city, Indianapolis, and he had that 1000 yard stare. And he, cause he said, you know, I've been listening to people complain. And I think that I'm onto something that was gold because he had listened to see a problem as an opportunity. And he was taking the time to listen to people complain. And he was reframing it as. What could I do? I want every high school student to go through this. Honestly. And so I think where a lot of our students are is that they're in a, a mind control game that the odds are stacked against the fact that they can't get off their phone. Yeah. Dude, I'm 52. TikTok has figured out that at night I like to watch stupid videos of kittens and dogs. You know, I like, and I'm like, stop.

Leslie: 25:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Don: 25:29

But I also know that, you know, rage bait. so I like, and I'm, when I say young people, I mean adults too, well, I, I know that this politician does this'cause I saw it. You know, you saw a bias source try to feed it. And we're being manipulated. And so my, my, I know this is a little bit of a left turn, but like, I want them to see purpose. I want them to take two steps backwards. And I, I have fear. That there is not enough mentorship in their life. And my biggest fear is there's not a lot of socialization. Think that we're coming to an understanding of how toxic this is. I think that a lot of education schools like, and I hate to say banning phones because this is still a valuable tool. There's a lot of things you can do on it, but. At the same time, if I had to choose between absolutely no phones and, and began to talk and communicate versus having a great, highly skilled supercomputer in your pocket, probably at this point thinking about going backwards and saying, it's like people aren't communicating well.

Leslie: 26:29

Well, connect that to discovering your purpose.

Don: 26:32

How can you discover your purpose if you're always constantly fed a feed of things that will just entertain you? Like, I'm guilty of this too. I was trying to watch a movie that I liked from the 80s and I realized, My gosh, this, this movie takes forever to develop. Like, come on, move it faster. Because I just realized I'm used to 90 second videos. It's me. I'm running out of patience and I'm like, stop. So. I've got a fairly developed brain, these 30 second videos constantly. And like, of course the students are bored to death. And then how are they going to find purpose? If they can, it's endless scroll, how are they going to find purpose? Now they can find things that they're inspired by. But if you feel like you're a part of something, they need to feel social interaction. They don't know why they're upset. They're just upset. And we're so easily manipulated and yeah, that rate, that constant rage, that constant, that you should be outraged on. It's, it's toxic, man. So.

Leslie: 27:30

Yeah. So going back to your students. So I'm hearing that today largely with the phone, but not just the phone, there's constant kind of manipulation of our time and distraction of our time and speed and patience. Mhm. I also know that you spend a lot of time teaching innovation and entrepreneurship. And one of the things that you talked about is identifying the problems and, solving those

Don: 28:00

yeah.

Leslie: 28:01

Do you find that the students that start with that problem identification. Are they drawn to problems that are meaningful to them that align with their purpose or, or is it not?

Don: 28:14

If they have a good guide, not only are they drawn to it, they can see their way through it. Anybody can be drawn by something that pisses them off. It's the sustainability of seeing the highs and lows. This is why we have, I didn't really talk about it, which is funny because it's our North Star, but we have a teacher fellowship where we find, like, Trojan horse teachers that have this mindset, no matter what they teach, and be the epicenter of that. Love that. That a student in, a student in any part of the building knows that they can go to, Ms. Mr. So and so's class. To get this kind of feedback and advice. Could you take a look at my pitch? Could you take a look at my proposal? And then having the trust that when Mr. Schultz goes, it sucks. I mean, he may say it nicer, but like, it's not good. That they're like, oh, okay. Like, how do I fix it? Because right now a lot of students are. I'm upset with you or you mean I didn't get an A on this. And how, what is this going to do to my GPA? How am I going to get into that famous college? So the ability for having a mentor to help them see through, it's really important. Everybody's inspired. Inspiration is very brief. I was inspired to lose 15 pounds. And I did. And then it went back. God. So I'm not very, I'm not perfect. Leslie. Oy. Um, yeah. I, which by the way, is like why I like Joseph Campbell's work so much. Um, Joseph Campbell was this expert on world mythologies and religions and he broke down the hero's journey and every single adventure movie ever follows the same pattern. Um, which is why, like, I, like, I, I truly, and people always laugh when I say this, I truly think one of the best movies that I've ever identified with was Kung Fu Panda. Okay.

Leslie: 29:51

Okay. I thought you were gonna say Star Wars, because I knew it followed the Hero's Journey,

Don: 29:56

right. Well, I mean, technically speaking, yeah. I mean, Joseph Campbell was there as Mm-Hmm. George Lucas's muses. He wrote that. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's like when you start watching more movies, you're like, Oh my gosh, it's there. It is the departure. Yeah, there it is. They found their Obi Wan Kenobi. There it is. They got basically killed and reborn. There it is. They conquer that. It's beautiful. And I think that I used to teach that in class. And the sense that I would ask my students, if your life was a book, would anyone read it? And that can be crippling. But like your book doesn't have to be, you slayed dragons, it's that you're on an interesting journey. The reason why I asked that if like, yeah, I got up, I pushed my snooze alarm, watched 20 minutes of tick tocks, brushed my teeth, watching some YouTube, want to work at a job that I don't like, came home, watched some videos, went to bed. No one reads that book.

Leslie: 30:56

No, they don't.

Don: 30:58

I want to, a job that I don't really like, but I volunteered at my local Humane society. Helped foster five animals. Spent time at a youth. So like, like that's a book I wanna read.

Leslie: 31:09

Yeah. You know what this is making me think of? Daniel Pink Mastery Au Autonomy and Purpose. Yeah. I'd read the book of the person that's living that.

Don: 31:21

Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. True. You're right. Like even on people that have weird mastery, I watched the, watch the documentary wants of hero dreams of sushi. And it was this on this guy that was obsessed with creating the perfect sushi. I'm like, that's a really good film you're right. Like even people that have weird masteries were attracted to it because you're like, the fact that you're that dedicated is pretty cool.

Leslie: 31:42

Okay. That brings us full circle. Don. I'm thinking of all the people out there who are listening or watching this and they're in their process of discovering their purpose. What advice do you have for them?

Don: 31:58

Go through the hero's journey. You know, find your Obi Wan Kenobi. Find the genre or the era you want to be in and find someone that is mildly successful. If they're too successful, they're too busy. Or even reach out to the people that helped them be successful, right? Um, do not offer to pick their brain because you are taking from their time. Find those people and offer them may I help you assist you in some way? And they'll say, why you've taken a journey that I want to take, but I don't want to waste your time. I want to provide you value. You've upped the likelihood of them saying yes by a hundred percent. Um, if you can't get a yes out of those people, take that journey with your spouse. If you are not married or have a significant other. Find a group, man. Going alone is just a bad idea. You're not going to, it's, it's.

Leslie: 32:46

Yeah. Which also brings us back to earlier, where you talked about going through your fear, you really needing that support group to help. So find your tribe, Join it in a way that's productive and helpful to the tribe. Yeah. Not taking from, but giving to.

Don: 33:06

Right.

Leslie: 33:06

And, um, go for it.

Don: 33:09

And lastly, I used to do, I used to journal a lot. And at the end of the year, I would culminate this thing this year in review. And I'm borderline getting emotional thinking about the fact that I don't do this because, you know, I can go back for my first year of marriage all the way up to maybe 2012. That's how long it's been since I've done it. But I could tell you everything about that year. I'd have maybe like written journals. but I, I saw the evolution of my family and myself. And then I used to also do this and I'm again, man, life gets in the way. And I should do this. I used to do a three, two, one video to myself. And a three, two, one video was basically, three things that didn't go right this week. Two things that that did go well or that I improved on and one piece of advice for my future self And future self could be the next video post or the future self is because I have a series of private videos on YouTube but I watch it and I'm like I used to worry about that, oh, I remember, gosh, that was a low point. Oh my gosh. I forgot about that. And, um, I almost think I liked it better than journaling because it took less time. I mean, it's literally getting your phone, here's three things this week that just didn't. And I started off deliberately with things that didn't go well, because I knew that I was going to appreciate that more. And you

Leslie: 34:26

did this once a week,

Don: 34:27

at least.

Leslie: 34:28

And then you would periodically go back and I'm going to start

Don: 34:31

tomorrow today. Okay.

Leslie: 34:33

All right.

Don: 34:34

But no, I, this

Leslie: 34:35

airs.

Don: 34:35

Yeah, no, I will. I've, I will promise. I'll,

Leslie: 34:38

I'll reach out and ask how your three, two ones going.

Don: 34:41

But anyone should do that.

Leslie: 34:42

Okay. It's really healthy. It's cathartic. Reach out to Don Wettrick. Ask him about your three, two

Don: 34:47

ones. We can hold

Leslie: 34:49

each other accountable. That's what we need.

Don: 34:51

Yeah. And you will just the therapy of yourself talking out loud of the things because you're being honest with yourself, three things that I told myself is gonna do or I just didn't accomplish and it's on your mind. You said it out loud. You're saying it to yourself. You're going to watch this again. And then the two things is you're on this one uptick. And that's, that's why I like the format of it because that one piece of advice, you've just waxed poetic now for a couple of minutes. You're being honest. You're being a little critical on yourself of like daggone it. Why didn't I? But I did do. And then the, all right, future Don, hearing myself talk, I need to do like, ironically enough, I just kind of went through my own three, two, one.

Leslie: 35:28

Well, and you end in action, which I love that too, cause it is about taking action and taking the, the one next step that you can do, Don, how can we find you and hold you accountable? But also Support you and yeah,

Don: 35:42

I, I guess LinkedIn is probably the best place.

Leslie: 35:44

Okay. Don Wettrick on LinkedIn.

Don: 35:46

Don Wetterick on LinkedIn. Um, our website, should you feel so compelled to want to get involved? Or if you have a student. Or if you want to nominate a teacher that should be in our fellowship, if you know that teacher for right now, we only, we're only, um, accepting high school teachers. Um, but startedupfoundation.Org. So I'll put it in the notes. Yes. Start with ed, startedupfoundation.Org. Check out what we do.

Leslie: 36:12

Awesome. Thank you so much, Don. I learned a lot from you and, looking forward to sharing with others as well. Thank you. Thank

Don: 36:19

you.

Leslie: 36:19

Wasn't that incredible? I love Don's energy. I love his perspective. And one of the things that I'm going to take away from this and I'm going to put into my routine. is his tip on the 3 2 1 video recording. I'm thinking Friday's end of day. As I wrap up the work week, head into the weekend, taking out my phone, doing my 3 2 1 And over the course of weeks, months, who knows, maybe even years, being able to see how that power of weekly reflection allows me to move my life's purpose forward. Thank you all for listening. Purpose Project is brought to you for education and for entertainment purposes. This podcast is not intended to replace the advice that you would receive from a licensed therapist or doctor or any other qualified professional.