10/16/2026
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PURPOSE:
WHY I CHOSE SERVICE WORK
AND THE NONPROFIT WORLD
I want to talk to my fellow entrepreneurs, creators, and anybody out there trying to build something meaningful, because I’ve learned something about myself that completely changed the direction I want to take my life.
Let’s start with imposter syndrome.
You can have the best fu #%ing idea in the world, a solid business plan, the marketing, the ambition, the connections, and the intentions to back it all up. Then you see somebody else succeeding with a similar concept, and suddenly you start questioning your own ability to pull it off.
You start telling yourself you need more money, more resources, better timing, or another opportunity.
I’ve been guilty of every bit of it.
But there’s another psychological
obstacle I’ve had to confront, and that’s my relationship with money.
I’ve spent most of my life obsessed with it. Making it, chasing it, calculating it, figuring out how to make more of it.
As an entrepreneur, I can take something I’m genuinely passionate about and completely exhaust myself worrying about the return on investment.
Eventually, the financial expectations start interfering with the very reason I wanted to create something in the first place.
And that’s what led me toward service work and the nonprofit sector.
Now, I want you to understand the psychology behind that decision,
because something happened to me this past January that confirmed I was moving in the right direction.
We were preparing for our Pizza Power Respect outreach, delivering pizzas to people incarcerated in jail.
That morning, I woke up with an overwhelming sense of excitement and happiness that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
We hadn’t delivered anything yet.
Nobody had thanked us.
There were no photographs, recognition, or accomplishments to celebrate.
I was simply getting ready
to pick up pizzas.
But here’s what was
happening in my mind.
I’ve been incarcerated. I know what it’s like to sit in a cell eating the same institutional food seven days a week. I know what it’s like when you don’t have money for commissary, you’re hungry, and something as simple as a hot pizza can become the highlight of your entire week.
So that morning, I mentally
put myself back inside that cell.
I imagined how I would have felt if somebody had walked in with
a pizza for me.
Then I started imagining that same excitement multiplied by every
person we were about to feed.
And I could feel it.
I was experiencing the happiness I imagined those people were going to feel.
Psychologically, there’s something fascinating about that. Researchers describe experiences such as anticipatory joy and empathic joy, where we experience positive emotions through the expectation of something meaningful or through the happiness of others.
My own lived experience made that emotional connection incredibly powerful.
And that’s when I realized why service work was so important to me.
For the first time in a long time, I was experiencing an extraordinary sense of fulfillment without calculating what I was going to get in return.
I remember thinking, This is it. This is what I want to spend my time doing.
And that realization changed how I wanted to approach entrepreneurship.
I started looking at my ideas, my creativity, my ambition, and my ability to organize people and build things, and asking myself how I could apply those same skills to helping other people.
That’s why I’ve chosen to dedicate so much of my energy to building People Power Respect and developing purpose-driven projects.
I want to use my entrepreneurial mindset to build sustainable service programs.
Programs that feed people. Programs that help individuals coming out of incarceration. Programs that support families, create opportunities, and restore some dignity to people who may have forgotten what that feels like.
Now, let me make something clear.
Nonprofit organizations still require money. They need budgets, fundraising, financial accountability, responsible leadership, and eventually the resources to compensate the people doing the work.
I’m fully aware of that.
But I’ve learned that I personally need a mission powerful enough to keep the financial side of things in perspective.
And for me, service work provides that.
There’s also something I want entrepreneurs to understand about imposter syndrome.
Somebody else having your idea, building a similar organization, or achieving success before you doesn’t diminish what you’re capable of contributing.
There’s room for more than
one person to make a difference.
And your lived experiences may give you a perspective that somebody else simply doesn’t have.
I know what it feels like to be the person sitting on the other side of those walls, wishing somebody would remember that you’re still a human being.
That experience has become one of the greatest assets I bring to this organization.
So here’s the lesson.
Before you decide what you want to build, spend some time understanding WHY you want to build it.
Study your own motivations. Pay attention to what excites you. Recognize what drains you. Understand your relationship with money, recognition, achievement, and fulfillment.
Because you can become incredibly successful at something and still feel completely disconnected from the work you’re doing.
And sometimes the clearest indication that you’ve found your purpose comes from something so simple that you almost overlook it.
For me, it was waking up on a January morning, excited to deliver pizzas to people in jail.
I had spent so much of my life chasing the feeling I thought financial success would eventually give me.
And there I was, experiencing that feeling before I’d even delivered the first pizza.
That’s why I chose service work. That’s why I founded People Power Respect. And that’s why I’ve decided to invest this chapter of my life in the nonprofit world.
I know the work ahead won’t always be easy. There will be financial challenges, setbacks, administrative headaches, and days when I question whether we’re making enough progress.
But I have something now that I can return to whenever those doubts creep in.
I remember how I felt that morning.
And I want to keep creating opportunities for other people to experience that same kind of happiness.
People Power Respect
Service • Dignity • Accountability
