The BraveHeart Story of Jade Simmons: What is Purpose The Remix?

We hear so much about purpose these days, our calling, and our passion, and that's great. But what if we're looking for a purpose in all the wrong places? You're going to hear more about that today on The Bravehearted Woman Podcast!

Dawn Damon: My guest today is a force of nature y'all in so many ways. She started out as a concert pianist and now she's an international voice of influence for so many on leadership and she's got a new book, Purpose The Remix: A Mind-Blowing Reunderstanding of Purpose And How It Works. Please welcome today to the Bravehearted Woman, my guest, Jade Simmons.

Hey, Jade!

Jade Simmons: I'm so excited to be here.

Dawn Damon: Thank you for being here! Well, first of all, your enthusiasm, you're like a bolt of lightning, and just got it. I always say in my moniker as I'm signing off, live with grit and glitter. And I'm thinking that you embody that grit and that glitter. You got that style going on. But listen, Haven't we been told that we need to find our purpose? What do you mean when you say we're probably looking in all the wrong places?

Jade Simmons: I mean, we've made it so hard. You know, if it's not eating, pray, love, and we have to fly to India and, you know, go live somewhere else for a year or switch our job 10 times. If it doesn't give us, you know, the chills all the time. We think we haven't found it. My belief is that purpose has been with us since before we were even born and the only job we have is that we get to uncover, not discover, go find, search it out. We get to uncover more of it as we live on this earth. And so my big soapbox statement, Dawn is that purpose is not the thing you do, it's the thing that happens in others when you do what you do.

Dawn Damon: Wow.

Jade Simmons: Yeah, I said that a few years ago, and for me, it was a personal epiphany. I had no idea how many people would be freed almost instantly. We would get these crazy emails, probably a bad advertisement for bringing me in to speak, but people would quit their jobs the next day. They would launch businesses and go into missions because it was like this sudden realization that we're not stuck where we are. That purpose actually goes wherever we go.

Dawn Damon: So are you saying that when you would connect with people, your purpose was manifesting in a way that all of a sudden they felt activated or bold or encouraged to do something?

Jade Simmons: Yeah. I mean, my purpose, my specific individual unique purpose is to activate people into being bigger and bolder. Then when before I met them and I believe it's the biggest version that God has called them to be. What would happen is, and this is because I believe that freedom inherently is connected to purpose and vice versa. When I would tell people, guess what? Your purpose is not the title you're wearing. It's not the role you're in. I have to say that twice for moms. Mom, it's not the role you're in. It's not the industry, it's not your talent, your gifting, your skilling, your ability. It's not even your passion. Purpose is actually that thing that is breaking out in others when you're doing whatever it is that you're doing. And so for me, to make it plain and clear, I thought my purpose was to play the piano. For those of you who are just listening in, I'm pointing to the piano. I'm sitting right next to it. This instrument is a huge part of my life and my identity. So I thought it was also my purpose ‘cause it was what I was training to do. It's all I wanted to do. It wasn't until I started speaking to the audience, Dawn, in between the music and saw that there was stuff breaking out, ‘Wait a minute,’ when I'm not even playing the music, I was insulted and people were like talking about the stories I was telling and ‘Oh my gosh.’ I felt this way when I heard you say that. I'd be like, ‘Did you not hear how awesome I just was on those 88 keys?’

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Jade Simmons: It took a while, you know, to realize that they were saying we actually got more than we came for. I think it's hard for us to sometimes release that thing we've been working so hard on that job for that business. We'd worked so hard to build and really take a step back and say, ‘What's happening in people when they experience the things I've built, when they hear the things I'm saying, uh, when they're watching me what I do or experience, what I'm doing.’ We realized that purpose isn't caught up in this piano. It's not caught up in that title. It's caught up in the outbreak effect that we have on people around us.

Dawn Damon: Oh, I like the way you're saying that outbreak effect. That's really interesting. I've not thought about it in those terms either. I do a lot of teaching about purpose, passion, redefining, and reimagining. As a bravehearted woman, a midlife woman, ‘What is my purpose now?’ Maybe in some ways, I am saying, ‘What is it I do now?’ But what I should be thinking about is. It's almost like an anointing, ‘What happens in other people when we're having an experience you're meeting me, but we should both be experiencing each other's purpose or feeling.’

Jade Simmons: Yeah. Well, you know, it's I love that you said, ‘What's my purpose now,’ and this is where. This big reward of this re-understanding comes with your purpose. I don't believe ever actually changes. It does evolve in the sense that as you realize more of what it is. It gets to expand. But for most people, you can trace the beginnings of purpose, all the way back to childhood. How many speakers do you meet who say they were the kids who, you know, got on the report card, please stop talking, right? Something was already in there and it came out by way of personality and activity.

One of the investigations we asked them to do in the book is to go back and ask people who love you, who know you, what effect you do have on them, and it's a very vulnerable thing, right, to ask your spouse, what's that unique thing that they actually do love about you that they don't see in anyone else. Even clearer for those of us who have our girlfriends come to us and tell us all their business. I always say to ask them why they come to you when they do, and you'll start to hear a theme. ‘Oh, well, Dawn, when I come to you, I know you're going to make it crystal clear.’ ‘Jade, when I come to you. You're going to tell me that thing that I kind of already know, but don't really want to hear,’ right? Then you're going to make me do it. Right? Or when I come to you, ‘Man, there's just a piece that I get, even though the storm's still brewing.’ And then you'll take that answer and you'll try it out in other places and see if that theme keeps recurring in that theme, that recurring theme. Is that outbreak effect for me, we started asking audience members what they were enjoying about the experience that I would put together for them. We heard this recurring theme of, ‘I feel like I can do anything now,’ or, ‘I feel like I see things differently or understand things differently.’ So I know that a part of my purpose is to, you know, activate people to be bigger and bolder, and that usually includes some kind of shift in perspective and a remix in the way that they're doing things. So when you say being a midlife woman, you're going to notice that now that purpose wants to ride itself out in another vehicle, right? It might start in one place, and you would still have that same gifting and purposeful behavior in one workplace, but even if you shift workplaces, you'll notice that same effect happens, you know, multifaceted and multi-passionate people often struggle because they think I'm all over the place. We'll know if you look, you'll find that that same kind of purpose kernel is in each of those activities. Our job is to focus on that and use it intentionally.

Dawn Dawmon: That's really powerful when you talk about purpose and passion, I'm hearing a distinction then. Those 2 things are not synonymous necessarily.

Jade Simmons: No, there's a whole chapter in the book on 4 words that we sort of mindlessly interchange, and that's purpose, passion, destiny, and calling. We just sort of use those words.

Dawn Damon: We do.

Jade Simmons: Yeah, but they're really very different. I focus on the purpose and passion thing because it's the one I think we mix up the most. We'll hear people say, ‘You should just follow your passion.’ I'm an extremely passionate person. I have a lot of passions and I will tell you, passion is the last thing you want to follow. It was never designed to be a leader. It's really a poor leader, but passion actually comes to fuel you in the thing that you're following, which should be a purpose. The purpose is renewable energy. Passion is exhaustible. That's why you can be passionate about one thing in one season. Then don't even know why you were into it in the next season.

Dawn Damon: That’s so profound. I got to stop you just for a second. Listen, bravehearts, you got to get ahold of that. We need you to say that again because the purpose is renewable energy. Passion is going to burn out. Passion is a poor leader. Wow.

Jade Simmons: We’re also the ones that tend to be burnt out, exhausted, and frustrated. Because we're giving everything and we're not but getting in return. We tend to put everybody else before ourselves. We can work someone else's purpose to death. We will help you build that thing. Then our little purpose baby's sitting there in the back, starving because we've depleted ourselves in passion, also an obligation and responsibility. And so passion, here's the great thing about passion. It comes to fuel you. I believe that God designed it so that we could enjoy the thing we are called to do. So purpose by default, it's so wonderful. Every time you operate on purpose, it refuels itself because it determines never to be depleted because it is tied to your kingdom's impact on this earth. You were designed to have an impact every last day, every last millisecond, right? Since God has given us each individual purpose that hooks back up with his, he has made it. So you can't burn out on purpose. You can burn out in passion. I always say really quickly that calling is literally the thing that you're called to do. It's usually for a season. It can be for a lifetime, but give yourself permission that the call may change. The destination is just what it says. It's a destiny point. It's where you end up. And if you're living life, right, you get to have multiple destination points throughout your lifetime.

Dawn Damon: So sometimes then I encounter women who feel that their purpose is obscure. Let's put it that way. If the purpose is with us since we were born and even before when we're in our mother's womb, which I also believe is true, then why don't we identify it? Has our purpose been snatched by somebody? Stolen? Do we have purpose thieves or purpose amnesia?

Jade Simmons: Yeah, you can. I love those phrases. As you know, I talk about them and the idea of having your purpose snatched, but I want to talk briefly about that first word you use that obscurity. It's not all our fault, Dawn.

Purpose has been painted to be this big lofty thing that only Mother Teresa or Mandela, right? Or Martin Luther King. And if we aren't martyred for that thing if we aren't changing the world in a very tangible, visible way, or rewriting history. We can be made to think, we have a small purpose or no purpose at all. So that's where some of that obscurity comes from. I blame Hollywood as well. I'm a superhero fan and we can believe that it's the superheroes that have it. The rest of us are just the extras in the movie.

Dawn Damon: We’re just Clark Kent.

Jade Simmons: Yeah. We're just Clark Kent at best, right?

Dawn Damon: At best.

Jade Simmons: And I believe that purpose actually is one size fits all. There is no small purpose, medium purpose, or large purpose. There's only how much purpose we decide to walk out. When you talk about purpose snatchers, come on, Dawn. We'll do all this work. Finally, uncover. I am here to activate people to be bigger and bolder than they've ever been. Then we start getting all excited, all jumpy about it, moving in it, and then what comes? Obligation sometimes comes. Well, slow your horses there. You've got to do this thing over here first, or really you're locked into this thing. Sometimes we have a false sense of obligation that can snatch purpose. Fear can snatch purpose. Other people. We always talk about intimidation or they're jealous of what we're doing. Some people just don't understand what you're trying to do and they really love you as they know you. I'm really familiar with you doing this thing. I really, I made a pretty big political move a few years ago and it shocked a lot of people and they didn't really know how to respond to it. I was responding to a specific call. In that season of my life, completely 100% sure. It was what I was supposed to be doing, but the people who just were used to me playing the piano, just wanted me to keep playing the piano, right? I say, you know what, this is uncomfortable for everybody and it's a stretch for me. So let me just stay back here and operate in the last iteration, right? So it will take that courage, that braveheart to really understand that purpose is usually always waiting for us in a new purpose vehicle out by the curb, come join it.

Dawn Damon: You know, I heard an interview that you were doing once and this line kind of caught me as well because you said, I believe that people should always remix in their lives. That's kind of like what I'm hearing you say right now and that is also for my audience. What can you say a little bit more about that? Because that re-imagination or that remix, is that a getting a fresh perspective about the eternal purpose, if you will, that we carry?

Jade Simmons: I want us to understand this is not just, self-help talk to make us get excited for a season. The word of God says I didn't make this up, right? And Isaiah that God's always doing a new thing. He is right after that. It says, can you perceive it?

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Jade Simmons: So it's not that things are stale, dry, old, and not changing, but do we have the lens of change on? Are we looking for the new thing that God is doing? I think if God always makes everything new, that must mean he makes me new. So my question to Him, even today was, God, ‘What's the new thing you want me to know today? For my business, for my team, for this project we're working on, for my marriage, and for my family? So whenever we start to feel like things are getting old news, ask God, help me perceive what it is you're doing a remix aaiting. I mean, my original dream was simply to be a classical concert pianist minutes before we got on, I'm practicing Beethoven. But the truth is the large majority of my time is spent in front of audiences with only a fraction of that time going to the piano. My voice is the instrument. In this season for quite some time now, I had to be open to that because, you know, my pride and ego said, listen, ‘I've been waiting a long time to get on these certain stages, God and I just started hitting it and you're making me switch this direction. What's up with that?’ Right? We can really marry the things that we, uh, consider our dreams. I always say, God, okay, I want to make sure that I'm not just chasing my childhood dream, but that I am going after my God-size destiny. And a lot of times they do look alike, but I really believe that God has a new iteration.

Lastly, I'll say for women in this midlife period, I feel my mother, who's 73 says this. She says I don't feel whatever 73 is and she moves differently now. She can't cartwheel, right? She definitely is different than when she was in her twenties, but she said, on the inside, I still feel young. I still feel life. I think we have to embrace that. I saw a funny meme on Instagram that says, ‘I'm going to stop saying I'm 45 years old, and I'm going to start saying I'm at level 45,’ which sounds way more hardcore, which is really what it is, isn't it? That we get to live out these levels with God.

Dawn Damon: That's powerful. I'm identifying with you in many ways because for so long in my ministry, I was a singer, I was a worship leader, and I had a musical group with another woman. We were a duo and in between songs, I would begin to share and speak and suddenly that fire and then we'd get speaking engagements and I realized that I love singing, but that's not what it is inside of me. That's not what lights my fire or it's not what I even feel like my God's purpose as you're speaking about. God has designed to communicate the word of God. And so then I became a pastor and a preacher. So, you know, kind of the rest of the story, you know, we're preaching and now podcasting and doing those things.

But I want to shift gears just for the moments that we have left and you alluded to it a moment ago. I want to hear about your brave story because you took a leap of faith. You entered a political arena. You did some powerful things. Could you just talk about what did you have to do to walk in that boldness? The question I guess is how brave did you have to be to enter a new arena, leave the sure thing and get out of your comfort zone? And didn't everything in you and all those people that love you say, what are you doing? But you knew you had heard from God.

es and foreign affairs around: 2016

Dawn Damon: Lots of times.

litics started percolating in: 2016

Dawn Damon: Oh, goodness.

Jade Simmons: People felt very strongly about their, their chosen side or candidate. And I felt even strong, even more, strong about the division that I felt was being caused by the two parties. So, I did that thing. We were able to be voted on in 42 states and we were on the ballot and several of them, but we were what you call a registered right in and all of the others. I traveled this nation and it was one of the most rewarding things I'd ever done to get to meet people for myself and hear their heart versus what was being presented to me in the media was completely life-changing.

Talk about a change in bravery? I'll tell you what, I was insulted and threatened more in the first three months of tossing my hat in the ring than in my 43 years on earth at that point. God does what he says he's going to do. My husband probably was more upset than I was. I didn't feel a lot of the darts that came my way because I knew what God was telling me to do. He was asking me to use my voice to speak against division. We prayed over every state we were in. The communities that you wouldn't think would want to vote for an openly Christian candidate said, we have never felt this loved before. We have never felt this seen before. We know you don't agree with everything we agree with, but we can tell that your heart is to lead, with power, but also with courage and also with compassion. So it was a tricky thing in that I probably still have some acquaintances that we're no longer in contact with because I think that move really shocked a lot of people and then some who came back once they saw me playing the piano again, right? Okay. She's back in my comfort zone. I can receive her there and I received them with love, but people had an alternative to vote for and that's what we knew we were supposed to provide. And we knew there was a certain message we were supposed to carry that entire time. That's what I did. It took courage, but I will never be the same. My courage level has quadrupled, if not really times a hundred. I think the biggest lesson is God, when you're really cultivating a relationship with Him, you know, be very careful about that thing. We say, ‘God, I'll go wherever you go,’ and I'll do whatever He's going to collect on that, promise. And the wonderful thing is when you dive into that scariest thing and as the song says, right, you go out to that part of the ocean where your feet can't touch the bottom. It is most amazing. You will never be closer to God than when you are doing that breakthrough-bound thing, you have no business doing it except for God, your creator called you to do it.

Dawn Damon: That's beautiful and well said and I just had an epiphany to I've not done this ever before. I'm going to come up with a BraveHearted Woman Award and my friend is going to be the very 1st recipient because I just have to say. Congratulations! Well done. You got the grit, you got the glitter and you've got the anointing. Your message is for such a time as this. Truly. I know that's Esther. You're much like Deborah in the Bible. You are a bold-hearted, audacious, wonderful woman. I'm so thankful that you are with us and I really feel inspired. Your purpose is activating me and I know it definitely will activate others. I know we could go on and do another whole podcast and I hope that we will sometime. I'd love for you to just tell people you've got many places they can find you, but what is the best place? And that y'all got to get her book. You've got to get Purpose The Remix: A Mind-Blowing Reunderstanding of Purpose And How It Works.

Jade Simmons: You can find it at jadesimmons.com, but if you go to purposetheremix.com, you can do some exercises that help you really begin the process of uncovering it. All my social media handles are there. I'm on Instagram at officialjadesimmons and now at Jade Simmons Live as I get ready to go on tour, Dawn. So I'm excited to be in the room with people up close, speaking, performing, administering, and all the things all at once.

Dawn Damon: Well, you're beautiful.

This is Dawn Damon, your braveheart mentor, encouraging all of you women. This is your moment. Uncover your purpose, find your brave, and live your dreams!

And Jade, thank you so much for being here. I can't wait to connect with you again. Would you play us out?

Jade Simmons: I will.

Dawn Dawmon: Thank you so much.

Jade Simmons: Thank you.

I will do a little bit of Beethoven.

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Jade Simmons plays the piano.

Dawn Damon: Woo! Tears to my eyes.

Jade Simmons: You're so awesome.

Dawn Damon: Well done.

Jade Simmons: Thank you so much, Dawn, for everything. I am honored with the award.