Scott’s Life Purpose

Scott has been with us since before Day 1 (I think that I mentioned that we ‘met’ via a question that he sent me on NetWorth IQ?); I think you will enjoy reading this post as much as I did. However, Scott, same question as for Ryan: what do you think it will take to live this kind of life (in time, and money terms) … in a general sort of way – we’ll get to the specifics soon enough?

Honestly, I’ve been working on discovering my life’s purpose for quite some time now. Being a student of many successful speakers, authors and success coaches for a few years now, the importance of finding one’s life purpose has been stressed to me in past teachings. But as Adrian has pointed out, this is no quick or easy task! Narrowing down your purpose for existence is very difficult to do in a sentence or a few written words. However, I have been able to ask myself a few very important questions that have revealed a thing or two about me. The first question has to be: What are the things that I value most in my life now? And to that I would have to say that my family, my health and any personal freedom I do have away from the “busi-ness” of work to focus on family and health. The second question that has helped lead me to my purpose is: If I no longer had to work, what would I be doing with my time? And to that, of course having more time with my family, having more time to exercise, get the proper amount of rest and other necessary healthful activities, make the best food choices for myself and my family and after these things, I would have to say that I would look for ways to spend my time helping others using any knowledge I’ve acquired along the way in any way I can.

Also helping me discover my life’s purpose was a serious of “Don’t Wants.”  One of which has been overwhelmingly to not be at the mercy of an employer or his/her employees. Setting my own stage, running my own businesses and having the freedom to make choices regarding my work are extremely high on my values list. Also, I feel that working IN my business should be a choice, not an absolute necessity. And at least a third “Don’t Want” for me would be to not want to have the feeling of coming home stressed out, beat down and exhausted from my work. My career is not only mentally demanding and stressful at times(like most careers are), but it is also physically demanding and exhausting when I’m working at the level I need to in order to earn the level of income that I desire. I really want to be able to enjoy my work and not allow it to take its toll on the energy levels that I have for my family as well as not taking a toll on my health.

When dreaming about the future, with the help of 7million7years.com and 7m7y.com and visualizing accomplishing my life goals, I can imagine sitting on the back porch at the ripe old age of 90, still very sharp-witted, very active and healthy, able to play with grand kids and great grand kids and being able to explain my life’s vision and purpose to them with total clarity. I can imagine telling them “You know kids, the most important thing in life that you can do is to first discover yourself and what your life’s purpose is! You gotta spend more time than anything figuring out everything you really want in life and how you would prefer to spend your time kids! I discovered for myself along the way that FREEDOM was extremely important to me. And I’m not talking about just personal freedom or physical freedom; I’m talking emotional freedom, spiritual freedom and financial freedom. Once we built up enough wealth to cover my and grandma’s dream lifestyle, we no longer had to be confined to work hours, working for someone else, making them rich! We were able to have the freedom to travel the world, to sleep in as many days in a row as we wanted, to experience life to the fullest and to exercise any time we wanted and take care of our bodies, so we could be with you here today as we are, alive and healthy. But most importantly kids, when you have that kind of freedom, you have more time, energy, strength and resources to HELP OTHERS! Yes children, that’s what life’s all about, to enjoy it to the fullest and help others along the way learn how to master THEIR life and experience and enjoy it to the fullest!”

So I guess by now, you have probably picked out one key word that certainly makes up my life’s purpose…and the word is FREEDOM. And to complete my life’s purpose in one full sentence, it reads:

“To have the financial, spiritual, emotional and physical freedom to use my knowledge, skills, talents and wisdom to help others.”

So ask yourself, what would your back porch speech to your grandkids be like someday?

]]> http://7m7y.com/2008/09/17/scotts-life-purpose/feed/ 0 http://7m7y.com/2008/09/15/ryans-life-purpose/ http://7m7y.com/2008/09/15/ryans-life-purpose/#comments Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:28:03 +0000 Ryan http://7m7y.wordpress.com/?p=534

Ryan’s Life Purpose

Ryan is the first cab off the rank (well done!) by posting about his Life’s Purpose … feel free to weigh in (ask questions; make a comment, or whatnot) … I know that I have a question or two … for example, Ryan: what do you think it will take to live this kind of life (in time, and money terms) … in a general sort of way – we’ll get to the specifics soon enough?

Why are you here?  An easy enough question to answer when you’re at Burger King, but slightly more complicated when we’re discussing your entire reason for taking up space on this planet.  For the lucky few, the answer is incredibly obvious and found early in life.  For the rest of us it takes some serious soul searching and is constantly a work in progress.  

I was not born with the super human abilities of a Michael Phelps or the acting abilities of a Robert Deniro, but am just “pretty good” at a lot of different things.  The proverbial jack of all trades, master of none.  So for me to figure out what I am here (on earth) to do, I asked myself what I am passionate about, what drives me.

Looking back on my life thus far, and my many different jobs, three simple things have remained constant.  I’m a people person, and I like to solve problems and be creative.  I have utilized these interests in my professional life primarily by building relationships with people and learning about their problems or wants and finding solutions for them to fix/fill those problems/wants (some of you might know this process as sales!).  While this has been fulfilling to a degree, I do not currently feel as though I am utilizing my talents to the best of my ability, but believe that I can develop these skills to effect real change (hopefully positive!).

So that leads me to My Life Purpose, which is to build relationships that build dreams.  I need to help people in life changing ways.  I feel as though I can build the kind of relationships that will enable me to build dreams.  My dreams and the dreams of others.  Not with simple hand outs, but by being creative to help them help themselves, and each other (through things like networking).  My dreams include being financially able to have the resources and time to devote to others while still providing a good life for my family.

This purpose statement certainly resonates with me, but I do feel like it lacks clarity in my mind.  In other words, I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to do it, but I’m nearly certain it’s what I want to do.

When it is all said and done, and my next of kin are discussing my journey through life, my hope is that they see me first as a loving and caring father, grandfather, and husband.  Then as a good stewart of my talents and resources by striving to constantly learn and better myself while always helping those less fortunate than me.