With an idea that you consider one of your dreams, use the purpose model to answer the four essential questions that will help you see if that activity could become a life purpose:

While this is not enough to determine a life purpose, it’s a starting point that will give you clarity and help you build a much clearer path toward your dreams.

Although the letter on which you will write your destiny is a blank sheet of paper today, you won’t find what you’re looking for on a piece of paper or in a diagram method. That will only hold the beginning of a plan, a proposal. This has an obvious philosophical aspect, but it also has a practical one that we must pay attention to. At the same time, never forget that flexibility is essential, always being ready to take unexplored paths. The boxer’s waist is what allows them to dodge blows in each new round. We must keep moving, making use of all the space, because the only way to get off of the ropes is to step up to the center of ourselves.

IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL WHEN THE SPARK MEETS THE BREEZE.

Let’s turn now to the most concrete aspect of this whole process: money. When the creators of the model incorporated the dimension “what I get paid,” they didn’t establish an amount, but we should think about it. “What I get paid” can be an empty criterion if we don’t define it appropriately. The activities we seek to develop, the ones we’d like to devote ourselves to completely, should pay us at least for what we produce today.

I only want to show you that that this exercise begins with an intention map, which you’ll use to define the necessary steps to build the life you desire. No one can give you a map with a clear and smooth road ahead of time. Looking at your purpose is the starting point, the blueprint that you must study before taking to the field. Then comes the hard part: making it a reality. Staying on the sidelines and imagining what it would be like to reach the land of your dreams is useless.

Moving beyond it depends on your attitude and determination to cause and create productive days. Once you feel you’ve accumulated enough preparation to charge forward, let go of your fears and doubts, sharpen your sword, and go forth wearing the armor of eternity. Forge ahead with the attitude and desire to grow beyond your expectations. Dare to outdo your own competition. The soul and spirit don’t recognize fear because anxiety and panic are nowhere near this state. I know you will face circumstances that will raise walls in front of your goals, but believe me, you’ve worked hard to gain the strength to tear them down.

Self-control from the spirit is the most effective form of physical and mental control. Making decisions and navigating the twists and turns of uncertainty and of life’s anxieties are signs of maturity and gratitude. No fear will be irrevocable, so hold the urge in your chest and let your cry carry action and execution. Only then will you receive the echoes of triumph.

The key is to find the action that satisfies all aspects: Start with passion; you’ll build the rest from there. I love writing; that’s why I made writing a way of life. Then it became a profession. The commitment and love for my passion came long before the publishing contracts. If I had stopped writing because it didn’t pay the bills, I never would’ve become someone who pays some bills with what he writes.

I put my purpose’s vision into practice with my occupation as a writer. I sketched out my intention map and slowly but surely gained ground in faraway lands. The love of ink never ends. This love of ink allows me to write on paper or stone. Love is what finds a blank page where others left scratches. Love is what led me to do the small things with excellence and then reach the pinnacle of my skills.

Much of my fulfillment comes from writing. I’m someone who wants to give away words until the fingers of my soul and my hands are splintered from the need to express themselves. That’s my erogenous zone: I want to finish with all the blank pages.

I WRITE AND GOD TAKES CARE OF ERASING, CROSSING OUT, CORRECTING, COLORING, AND ADDING THE LAST PERIOD. I AM THE PEN; HE IS THE INK.

The author can die of love or sadness while writing their process. The writer grows with each betrayal, so I stitch my wounds with ink and paper. I want to write until I strip myself of all ties. I will not out of cowardice or negligence allow someone else to write my story. I want to spend entire nights in a metaphor, or let a quill ask my heart to dance.

I am made of marble, of foam, of tears. I can be whoever I am. I believe those who love life grab their pen and write their future. My vice is writing. I like art, the sonnet, and baroque concepts, lyricism, versification, celestial allusions—even a hyperbaton moves me. I write to breathe, to experience what I cannot yet reach, but with letters I can touch.

If I write “Japan,” I appear there. If I write “Heaven,” angels rain down from the sky. For me, to write is to possess, to burn, to be ashes, a ghost, and to turn into a vigil. My pen is a steed that carries no saddle and, therefore, its freedom is wild and pure.

It fascinates me and adds to my fulfillment. It has become one of my sources of income, and with my words I send messages that I consider valuable to those who read me. I have a purpose, and I will continue to write.

What about you? What are you waiting for? Jump at the chance to make a living enjoying what you love and are most passionate about.

RELATIONSHIP WITH MONEY

I usually don’t talk about this topic simply because it’s not one of my priorities. As we have seen when we talked about purpose, money is no more than a result of my passions. But I do know that resources will keep coming to mind as you approach the edge of the summit, where you will be left with only two options: Turn back or take flight.

Over the years and with experience, I’ve come to realize that the relationship with money is one of the main barriers people face in reaching the depths of their dreams. And in many cases, it’s related to the beliefs that we’ve formed about the importance of money in our lives.

To sum this up, there are two philosophical extremes, two sharp and opposite points that prevent us from imagining that following our desires is a way to generate income. On the one hand, there are those who refuse to turn what they love into a source of income, and on the other, those who refuse to try because they can’t afford to stop producing income.

Thousands think that wealth is bad, and even hate it and those who have it. Let me show you what you despise: the ideological representation of the wealthy and all that goes with it.

While I agree that the idea of portraying that person as a scoundrel is appealing to most, this characterization is often misguided—in fact, it can be vague and basic. The world has stigmatized a role mostly constructed by the opinions of those who never managed to become wealthy.

I DON’T CHASE MONEY BECAUSE IT SEEMS TOO SLOW FOR MY SPEED.

This perspective is rooted in the culture of Latin American countries. This doesn’t mean we’re like this—there are notable examples to the contrary—but it is a common social tendency among us when comparing ourselves to people from other cultures.

We plunge into adulthood soaked in a downpour of technical and theoretical confusions that complicate our approach to wealth. We have a lousy relationship with our personal finances due to the fact that educational systems allocate marginal, almost nonexistent resources to subjects that have to do with the possession, management, and multiplication of resources. Even at universities, there’s a fairly widespread view of money as something associated with vices and represented by wealthy people with strong negative values. From popular sayings to daily soap operas, there is an insistence on portraying the rich as reprehensible figures. Although we live in a society full of corruption, abuse, authoritarianism, and inequality, cases in which the possession of resources is due to one of these reasons alone will always be the exception.

Although it is very pronounced among our peoples, this perspective is not exclusive to Latin America. The Anglo-Saxon world repeats these patterns. From the earliest literature to TV series, and from children’s stories to comic books, the great villains are rich, lonely, selfish, and bitter people. We could fill the book with characters who fit these attributes. From Lex Luthor to Cruella de Vil, there are many villains who share, among their main traits, the practically unlimited possession of resources.

We need to examine this mindset to see what makes it so strong, what its essential concepts and beliefs are, and why it’s so prevalent among us. To begin with, this notion helps us justify what we have not achieved. What’s more, if we insist on associating poverty with virtue, we will have gone a step further: “poor, but honest,” as if honesty could kneel before a comma, as if we could not be “prosperous and honest.” We’ve been taught to value poverty more than humility, vivaciousness more than ingenuity. Our leaders insist that being rich is bad, but it was never bad for them. We see the abundance but not the effort. We’ve been told it’s good to save, but we’ve never been invited to invest. Politicians have said that salaries paid by companies are bad, but they put up a thousand obstacles for us to become entrepreneurs.

Life won’t care about your reasons, but about your facts. Using false modesty hidden behind a double standard as an excuse is unacceptable. Let’s say you have a million dollars in your head, but you don’t know how to transfer it to your pocket. The formulas have changed and will continue to change, but it’s time to stop hiding behind your circumstances.

MY DOUBTS FIT IN MY TORN POCKET.

Money is one of the fruits of our labor. Whether it’s bad or good depends on how you obtain it, but above all, on how you use it. It should always be a means, never an end. That’s why convictions should never be for sale. I think it is likely that many of those who “hate money” probably hide behind that hatred the frustration of not knowing how to produce income in such a competitive, mutant, and voracious world. Those who criticize the sins of abundance are the first ones who would enter hell to enjoy them.

Just as there are those who despise money as a toxic entity, there are those who consider it a virtue in itself. This is another negative extreme, which ends up putting money above people. It’s as harmful as the previous one when it comes to being productive. This is important because these ideas lead us to honestly believe that wealth is the consequence of a superior, almost ontological quality, and not the result of creativity, initiative, and a lot of effort, regardless of the fact that some start in the basement and others on the rooftop. The problem is that when a low-income person believes in this prejudiced view of society, they surrender to the belief that there are no alternatives. But being poor is a design, not a condition. These classist concepts try to instill in our minds that there’s a predestination, that effort is not enough to get ahead. And when push comes to shove, this almost celestial vision of wealth ends up being just as damaging as associating money with exploitation and deception.