There's Gotta Be More Than This, Finding Your Purpose with Adam Landrum

Finding your purpose often starts with a sentence a man can't shake when he feels stuck, "there's gotta be more than this". Executive coach and author Adam Landrum has built his work around helping men answer what comes next. He faced this challenge firsthand. Adam founded his agency, Up and Up, and ran it for 22 years, which was long enough that it felt like an expression of his own values and beliefs. A coach had already helped him see the company wasn't his identity, but knowing that didn't make selling it at 49 years old any easier. Two months before the sale his mother passed away, and just before that he'd lost his dog. His head knew the difference between those losses and a business, but his heart didn't. He sold on Halloween, and by the middle of December he struggling and wasn't in a good place.

What moved him forward wasn't a strategy. It was time, simply letting himself mourn something that mattered instead of fighting the sadness. Adam tells Mike about an earlier blow, when a key person in his company betrayed him. A mentor told him it was his first betrayal, and Adam spent months bitter, feeling blindsided and helpless. Forgiveness got him unstuck, forgiving without forgetting, and so did owning his part in how he'd set things up. Years later, his own executive coach introduced him to the drama triangle from The Power of TED, where we play the victim, the persecutor, or the rescuer. That's where he learned that the opposite of a victim is a creator. The shift from reacting to his life to creating it now shapes what he calls repurpose coaching. He now works much of his time from his cabin, where he also spends two days a week alone to think and write.

For the man still in the thick of it, Adam's advice is to start now rather than waiting for these questions about life consume you in your late 40s. Build self-awareness first, with a tool like the Enneagram, and remember that you aren't your personality. Your personality is merely an operating system that runs on autopilot unless you choose differently. A lesson he learned as a Type 8 Challenger who spent his 30s like a bull in a china shop. Develop a centering practice like meditation so you can live from a place of calm, and start working out your purpose while you still have years to live it. His book, The Life That Matters, lays out 11 principles with a workbook, so your values, strengths, purpose, and goals end up in one place instead of collecting dust on a shelf. Mike's take is that it's never too late, but the time is now. If your calendar's been running you for years and the job that once fit now feels like resistance, Adam's story says you don't have to wait until the kids are gone to find out what's next.

What You'll Learn In This Episode:

Recognize the two questions men ask after decades in the same career, "there's gotta be more than this" and "okay, what's next," and why a midlife crisis is often a man fighting that wake-up call
See why leaving a business, a career, or a title can hit like grief even when you know it was never who you are
Understand the drama triangle and how moving from victim to creator changed the way Adam handled betrayal
Learn why forgiveness and owning your part, no more and no less, are what break the bitterness after someone you trusted lets you down
Walk through three things a man in his 30s can start now so the second half of life doesn't blindside him
See why purpose is the cornerstone of fulfillment, and how to keep it in front of you instead of forgetting the work you've done

The Key Moments In This Episode Are:

00:01:47 - Selling his agency and building a second half without the grind

00:04:57 - Focus days and clarity breaks, making time to think in your busiest years

00:08:40 - Losing your identity when you leave the business you built

00:11:21 - How to grieve the end of a career and move forward

00:13:15 - Rebuilding trust after betrayal by someone you trusted

00:17:24 - The drama triangle and moving from victim to creator

00:19:37 - Why retirement is dead and growth never really stops

00:23:03 - "There's gotta be more than this," the questions men ask at midlife

00:24:58 - What men in their 30s can do now to prepare for midlife

00:29:33 - The Life That Matters and why purpose is the cornerstone of fulfillment

00:35:21 - Does a life that matters look the same for every man

Whether your anger blows up in the kitchen or burns quietly on the drive home, it's running a pattern you inherited. Take the free quiz at whatsbehindyouranger.com and see which one you're carrying.

Your kids are inheriting more than your money, right now they're inheriting your patterns. Grab the free audit at yourlegacyaudit.com to see what you're passing down to them.

Connect with Adam Landrum

Website

http://www.madetomatter.coach

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlandrum/

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/madetomatter_/

Connect with Mike Forrester

Podcast Website

https://LivingFearlessTodayPodcast.com

Coaching Website

https://www.hicoachmike.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hicoachmike/