Purpose Value Creation Plan™
From Success to Significance
“I’ve reached the top… why doesn’t it feel like enough?”
That’s what four C-suite leaders confided in me in one day.
Not because they weren’t successful. They were.
Not because they were ungrateful. They weren’t.
Because something in them knew: this can’t be the whole story.
This is the part of leadership no one trains you for.
Success doesn’t automatically become meaning.
And if you’re a high-achiever, the default move is to solve the discomfort by climbing again:
a bigger role
a bigger scope
a bigger platform
a bigger exit
But if the “why” isn’t clear, bigger doesn’t fix it. It just amplifies the noise.
The Shift: Treat Purpose Like Value Creation
Private equity understands something most humans forget:
Value doesn’t “happen.” It’s created.
It’s created through a plan—one that starts with a base case, gets honest about constraints, and builds toward an upside case with intentional moves.
So I built the same thing for leaders.
Not as a motivational exercise.
As a strategic model.
That’s the Purpose Value Creation Plan™.
The Purpose Value Creation Plan™ turns personal growth into a value creation strategy.
Base Case First: The Truth Of Who You Are
Most leaders skip this step. They want to jump to action.
But you can’t create the upside case with a fantasy base case.
The Base Case is self-awareness:
what you believe
what you value
how you operate under pressure
what you’re avoiding
what you’re pretending not to know
This is where assessments and 360 interviews are so powerful. They don’t flatter you. They reveal you.
And once you’re revealed, you can build cleanly.
The Four Phases
1) Know
Know isn’t “self-reflection.” Know is due diligence.
It’s clarity on values, patterns, strengths, blind spots, and what you’re optimizing for.
This is where leaders realize:
“I’ve been living someone else’s definition of success.”
2) Grow
Grow is where intuition and risk tolerance come in.
It’s where you build capacity for ambiguity and learn to act without perfect data—without becoming reckless.
Growth is reps.
Small, frequent risks.
Ruthless reflection.
Pattern recognition.
Better decision-making under uncertainty.
3) Sow
Sow is where you stop wasting energy.
You invest time, attention, and relationships with intention.
Because leaders don’t scale alone.
They scale through alliances, through trust, through the relationships that compound.
4) Go
Go is where you define your offering to the world.
Not what you want from life.
What you’re here to create.
This is the stage where the output becomes simple:
A sentence.
A thesis.
A clear “this is what I do now.”
Why This Matters For Leaders Who “Have It All”
Because the most dangerous leadership moments aren’t the obvious ones.
They’re the quiet ones.
The moment you stop feeling alive.
The moment you realize you’re winning a game you don’t actually want to play.
The moment your performance keeps rising and your meaning keeps shrinking.
That’s when leaders become cynical, numb, or restless.
Or they blow things up without a plan.
PVCP is the alternative.
A structured path from success to significance that doesn’t require you to torch your life.
A Simple Exercise (Do It In Five Minutes)
Write down your top two values.
Now answer:
Where am I violating these values in how I lead or live?
Where am I honoring them?
What is one decision I’ve delayed because it would force a values-based tradeoff?
That last one is usually the doorway.
The Closing Truth
Purpose isn’t soft.
Purpose is stabilizing.
It’s what keeps you coherent when pressure hits.
And in a world where everyone is overwhelmed by complexity, coherence is one of the rarest—and most valuable—leadership advantages there is.
Next in the series: Why Intuition Is Your Strategic Advantage in the Age of AI → /blog/intuition-strategic-advantage-ai
Ready to Turn Hesitation Into Clear Action?
Let's explore how the Purpose Value Creation Plan™ can help you and your leadership team navigate high-stakes decisions with confidence.
