How to Turn Pain Into Purpose: Annie Meehan's P3 Formula

Jan 9, 2025

5 min read

Updated: Oct 29

Everyone carries some pain. The degree varies and so does the season, but leaders carry it into their work whether they notice it or not. Annie Meehan, a speaker and talk show host, built her work on what she calls the P3 purpose formula. Pain plus passion can become purpose, if you so choose. The key is the equals sign. Annie says that is where you decide whether you will be bitter for the rest of your life or use the pain to be better. Her napkin pairs that formula with the pineapple poem, which she turned from something cute into a principle for how to treat people. Together they make a simple case. How you treat yourself shapes how you treat everyone else.

Inspired by Paper Napkin Wisdom Episode 207 with Annie Meehan.

What is the P3 purpose formula?

Annie's formula is pain plus passion equals purpose. She sees passion as the energy inside us that pain stirs up, from a small disruption all the way to a devastation. Passion can go either way.

That is why the equals sign matters. In her words, not everyone's pain plus passion equals purpose. For some it equals bitterness, or staying stuck. Getting to the equals sign is when you choose. The work isn't done when you arrive. You do the work so that you can choose, every day.

I added one caution in our conversation. If you are already feeling passion and flow, you don't need to go looking for pain. The formula is a way through pain, not a requirement for it.

Annie's driving force is to use everything that has been hard or horrific in her life to impact other people for good.

Why some messages only land years later

Annie says she sat in pain for the first 20 years of her life and let it define her. She grew up in a very dysfunctional, abusive family. At 18 she was invited onto the Oprah Winfrey show as an exceptional teenager. She had dropped out of high school and was working 3 jobs so her little brother could finish.

After the show, Oprah shared parts of her own story and looked the young women in the eye. She told them not to let their past define their future. Annie says Oprah was the first woman to make her feel seen and valued. But she didn't really receive the message until she was 20, holding her newborn son. That was when she decided she would not repeat the cycle she came from.

This is something I notice in leaders too. Hearing a thing is different from feeling it. Annie's point is that you also have to be in a place where you can receive it. Picture a crowd where 999 people tell you that you're amazing and one says ugly shoes. If you're not in a good place, all you hear is the shoes.

The pineapple principle: see people, value people, be kind

The pineapple poem a friend taught Annie in 2018 is short. Stand up straight, wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside. Annie turned it into a book called The Pineapple Principle, and later a TED talk, Life Lessons from a Pineapple.

Stand up straight means see people. We live in a world of people looking down at phones, plugged into headphones. Looking up makes people feel seen and valued. Annie jokes that she asks for a middle seat on flights, because if she irritates one neighbor she has another chance to make a friend.
Wear a crown means value yourself and others. Say kind things to yourself in the mirror. Then value the people around you, even when you disagree.
Be sweet on the inside means spread kindness. First to yourself, then to others, in how you speak and write. That includes a hard conversation or redirecting someone who works for you. You can still do it with kindness.

She calls what used to be considered soft skills essential. Her shortest version for audiences is that it isn't seven steps or 21 steps. Just look up.

Why how you treat yourself shapes how you lead

Annie started taking better care of herself for her son. Over time it had to become about her too. No matter how much she loved him, she had to learn to love herself, because she was giving from a depleted place. She now tells clients the same. If you can't do it for yourself, start for someone you love. Then get to where you love yourself as much.

She draws a direct line to how people handle criticism. If we don't like ourselves, everybody's words crush us. If we do, it's fine that not everyone likes us. She knows she is fast, animated and big picture, and that is not for everyone. Negativity still matters, a lot less.

What I took from this is that your capacity grows when the way you see yourself changes. Thinking there is a crown is different from wearing it.

Annie's daily measure is simple. Be good to yourself and be good to at least one more person before you go to bed. If she does those two things, she has won the day.

Who lit your path?

Annie says she never had a long-term stable person in her life. When she traced her story back, her phrase for it was who lit my path. She became a noticer of the people who showed up for a moment. A man who once gave her a butterscotch and a nickel. Someone who leaned over her in third grade, when she didn't know how to read, and told her it was okay because she was good at math. Her best friend's mom, Chris, who always let her stay over and eat. Annie keeps a bowl of candy out at her own house because of her.

She took a sliver from each of them and decided to give all of it to her own children, and to everyone she meets. She wanted people to feel loved and seen by her in a way she never felt as a child.

For a leader, the question works in both directions. Who lit your path? And whose path are you lighting today?

How to apply this in your business this week

Name one hard season in your own story. Ask what you chose at the equals sign, and what you would choose today.
In your next few conversations, look up. Put the phone away and notice the person in front of you.
Before a difficult conversation with someone on your team, decide how you will be direct and kind at once.
Notice the one negative comment you keep replaying. Ask whether you are in a place to hear the rest.
Try Annie's daily measure for a week. Be good to yourself and to at least one other person before bed.
Write down three people who lit your path. Then pick one person you can do that for this week.