Product Therapy: rooftop season, churros and finding your life purpose
May 2026
Life Purpose
I’m not sure why I was thinking about life purpose last week. Maybe coming off a Hampton retreat with founders who went all in on something, I started to wonder what I would go all in on. And I realized going all in might be tied to something you feel so strongly about, that it has to be your life’s purpose.
I sat with that for a while because I don’t really identify as someone who has a life’s purpose. I’ve always been very passionate and entrepreneurial, but less driven by a singular cause. And, for a long time I felt like maybe something was wrong with that.
Over the past few years, I’ve come to feel unburdened by it. Instead of chasing a static purpose, I started paying attention to how things feel energetically when I’m engaged, whether that’s work, relationships, or hobbies. Less about the singular goal and more about how I feel while I’m going about my day.
That’s been a much better compass for me.
There was a meme going around for a while after Alysa Liu’s Olympic win: about how hard it is to compete with people who are having more fun1. It was everywhere and eventually overused, but it lands so hard for me.
I'm less energized by a singular thing and more by having fun in whatever I'm doing. For me that's intense creativity, deep collaboration, building from scratch, curating my favorite things and pulling others towards their greatest potential.
Those feelings make whatever I’m doing feel worth my time.
When I focus on the feeling, the energy, I feel untethered from needing a title, salary, company, or industry to prop me up and sustain me.
With that, I’m curious: Do you have a life’s purpose? Do you feel better off or burdened by it?
Things I Stacked
I wrote about attending my first Hampton member retreat and I continued to go “all in” on Substack, saying goodbye to Squarespace for good2. Product Coaching is front and center on my page, but hey, that’s why I started this thing anyway.
Loved this piece by next play - I echo a lot of this same advice to clients and friends.
Revisiting this classic piece from Harvard Business Review, Who’s Got The Monkey - and even brought a plush monkey to a meeting to drive the point home.
Culture Clicks
🍕 Important Pizza Updates: Il Leone dropped down from Maine and is serving perfect Neapolitan pies in Park Slope. Prince Street Pizza opened up in my Brooklyn neighborhood and according to my husband its not nearly as good as our favorite local spots (immediate local: Alvo, localish; F&F & Baby Luc’s). On the Manhattan front, it’s important to report that Roberta’s Pizza opened a location next to Penn Station3 with a rooftop, a solid option for pre-Madison Square Garden events. Lastly on the food front, I went to Vato but will return for the churro. Holy cow.
I had wonderful meetings at Conwell Coffee Hall, a scene from the roaring 20’s NYC in FiDi, and The Hotel Chelsea, yes that hotel in Chelsea. Perfect spots to linger for awhile in iconic NYC settings.
🎭Years ago I watched a heartfelt special on HBO that is now making waves on Broadway. I’m dying to see Daniel Radcliffe in: Every Brilliant Thing. I’m enjoying Lena Dunham’s book 📕 Famesick. That woman gets a lot hurled at her so I’m endlessly curious to hear what it was like when she shot to fame in the 2010’s. 📺Rewatching Girls for 2nd time as a companion piece doesn’t hurt. I’m also enjoying the Jon Hamm press tour and second season of Friends and Neighbors. Is now the time watch Mad Men?
Have you ever bought something and wondered I can’t believe I lived [insert absurd amount of time] without this? These affordable loungers are the latest of the kind in my household.
Substack clicks
I’m Jori Bell, VP of Core at Hampton and a coach for Product Leaders. Learn more about my coaching practice here.
I saw mallory contois say it first, ftr.
Good riddance
I work nearby, I don’t hang out here for fun.
I've noticed there are two kinds of people: the ones who pick the mountain, and the ones who build the trail. I'm a trail builder, give me someone else's impossible goal and I'll find the path, but ask me to pick one mountain and I'll stand at the trailhead for a year.
Took me way too long to realize that's not a bug. You nailed it in this post - stop hunting for the purpose, start noticing what actually lights you up. Would've saved me a few existential spirals.
P.S. Now I need to try that churro at Vato after the Brooklyn half-marathon
I feel like I have a life purpose, and that is to create ripples of confidence among people with a higher level of consciousness and abundance mindset so that our species can save itself. It inspires me.
That said, I think the tension is that when meaning and purpose don’t emerge naturally, the search for it can have a negative effect. So the dance I work with my clients is to uncover the purpose if it is there, and otherwise to focus on a vision of life without this outward purpose having emerged yet.