The napkin
Napkin 16 of 21
Two callings drawn as a two-stage rocket: the engine that funds, the payload that’s the reason.
If an idea does not fit on a napkin, it is probably not an idea yet. Redraw this one on your own.
You have two callings, and everyone tells you that means you’re not serious about either one.
The threat here isn’t losing a calling. It’s having two, and being told by every piece of advice you’ve ever received that you have to pick one. Find your one thing. Focus. Commit. The world loves a clean narrative, and two callings is a messy one. The fear isn’t stupid: follow both callings is genuinely how a lot of people end up doing neither well, two half-built things and a lifetime of spreading yourself thin.
The cost of treating them as rivals is years of splitting yourself down the middle and apologizing to each for the other. The way out was never do both equally. They aren’t equal partners. One funds the life, sharpens the craft, proves the concept. The other is the reason for the trip, the work you’d want read at your funeral. Stop asking which one to kill and start asking which one funds the other. The moment you see it that way, the apologizing stops.
Name which calling funds and which is the reason; set a minimum viable commitment to each. Not equal, sequenced.
Name your two pulls: the day job and the side project, the career and the passion. Decide which one is the engine, the one that funds and sharpens, and which is the payload, the reason for the trip. Write down what each looks like this year, and set a minimum you’ll give each. Not equal. Sequenced. Then stop apologizing for being whole.
Two callings drawn as a two-stage rocket: the engine that funds, the payload that’s the reason.
If an idea does not fit on a napkin, it is probably not an idea yet. Redraw this one on your own.
The system is free and it works alone. If you want a second set of hands on the wheel, that is what the Purpose Pit Stop is for.