I support people to do what they love and be their best so that they make a real difference in the world. That’s who I am when I am at my best. That’s my why.

Everyone has a why.  When we articulate our purpose and take steps every day to live and be that purpose, our lives change dramatically.  No longer is our job, profession or business just something we do.  There is a fire or passion within us because we know why we get out of bed in the morning and how we can be of service to others.

When we are in service to self only, we may experience moments of happiness.  Happiness is a dopamine hit. It’s the feeling we get when we buy a new home or car, have dinner with a good friend or hug someone we love. Happiness is real and yet it is fleeting.

Fulfillment, feeling content and on purpose is different. 

Feeling fulfilled is an oxytocin hit. It’s the high we feel when we help others, when we make a difference in someone else’s life, often in what appears to be small ways.  It can be as simple as sharing a smile or as daring as rescuing children from a burning home. 

Fulfillment runs deep and is long lasting. It is a deep, heartfelt experience that does not leave us.

As a child and in my youth, I lived a very safe, sheltered middle-class life. When I was 17, we experienced a  calamity, a storm that stretched from Alabama to Canada, spawning 148 tornadoes nationwide, 27 of them in my home state of Kentucky.

And within that disaster, I felt and experienced fulfillment for the first time in my life, that I could make a difference in the world. I could give and receive selflessly, having no agenda other that to help and be of service, and that changed me.

The experience opened the doors of my heart to a new way of being. This may sound dramatic and huge, even though the actual story may not seem like much to you. What happens on the outside is not always indicative of what it feels like on the inside. We give meaning to all kinds of things in our lives, and those meanings can support and uplift us or drag us down and keep us small.

It was a strange day. First there were beautiful blue skies, then rolling clouds of darkness, then sirens blaring warning of an emergency, then a quiet eerie silence.

It was a hot summer’s day, and I can remember standing next to my mother and looking outside through sliding glass doors that lead to our back yard. We were oblivious to the danger of standing inches from the glass, peering inquisitively towards the sky.

My home was spared, but a few blocks away neighborhoods were damaged and destroyed. Roofs were blown off houses. Fronts and sides of building were gone. Debris was everywhere. The destruction was shocking, unfathomable.

I remember going for a walk into the neighborhood next to ours, knocking on the door of a home that had lost its roof, and asking the middle-aged woman who opened the door if she needed some help.

She did. We spent the day packing dishes and her valuables into boxes. 

This small experience was profound for me. For the first time, I felt like I had done something that really mattered. I felt the joy of giving. My heart was open and full. A seemingly small experience of selfless service opened me up in a profound way to acceptance, unconditional love and belonging.

I know I'm not alone.  We've all had these moments.  We've all felt the joy of giving back. We've all felt the gratitude of receiving a helping hand when we needed one.

Knowing our why is about selfless service, and that opens us up to the abundance of the Universe and, if we allow it, fills our cup with love. 

We feel successful when we know and live our why because it no longer 'all about me'. It’s about 'Let Us': Let us create a life, communities, a world where we are there for each other, where we have each others' back, where everyone contributes what they can, when we know that we’re never ever alone.

Imagine living in a world where everyone was their own purpose expert, where everyone was living their own unique why, where everyone felt and knew that together is better.

Imagine the contentment and joy of knowing and living our why in this world!

Every time we tap into our why, every time we live from this space in our hearts, every time we give for the joy of giving, we fill ourselves up with contentment and joy. 

Every time we love the kids inside of us that have been yearning for our love, wrapping our loving arms around them, we support ourselves in living our why, we nurture ourselves so that we have the ability to give back from a full and overflowing heart.

And even though the world that we live in often focuses on fear, lack and limitation, focuses on what separates us, our differences, we can choose to focus on what unites us, our similarities.

We can choose to focus on what makes our hearts sing, what brings joy and contentment into our lives and how we can best model that for others. 

As we embrace our why and share our passion for being on purpose, we plant the seeds that others might  discover their purpose no matter where they're living on the planet.

The energy of our excitement is there for the taking, just like when many people around the world discover something new about the same time.  It's somehow there for ones open to it to come to a new knowing, to have an 'ah ha' moment and be open to more abundance and love.

We can make a difference by how we bring ourselves to the world.  We never know how our heartfelt purpose ripples out and touches the lives of others.

That's hopeful and encouraging.

That sheds new light on how we bring ourselves to the world, what we choose to focus on, and the excitement and passion we bring to life.