Here we are, the first Monday of 2026! Let us take a chance to set ourselves up for success. This quote above is a great reminder that we are both the work of art, as well as the artist. We need to stop searching for our purpose, and start deciding what it will be. It can be helpful to consider what we are naturally gifted in and have a passion for. These will make our journey a little less stressful and a lot more enjoyable. We still have to spend some quality time deciding what we want the purpose of our life to be. One great way to do this is by using the ‘write your own eulogy’ exercise outlined in my second book, Living the Dream. We also discussed that a few posts back.
Neale Donald Walsch, despite spelling his first name incorrectly, is an incredible author. He mentioned how many people are looking for a mysterious chalkboard in the sky where God wrote “Your purpose in life is _____” That chalkboard does not exist. We must decide and write it. The great news is once we do decide our purpose, it can make decision making a lot easier. Does this align with my purpose or not? Another thing to consider is that once we decide on our purpose, it is not a life sentence. We can change or adapt our purpose as we grow and develop as human beings.
As we go into a new week, and a new year, let us take some time to decide what we really want to do with our life. What is our purpose? If we cannot decide on a life purpose, we can decide on the purpose of a year, or even a week. What are we going to do with our life this coming week? Will it be to practice the self-care we have been putting off? Maybe take the first step in writing that book, or starting that business? Maybe it is to reach out to some of our friends and let them know we care?
Our life, and our reason for living it, is entirely up to us. It takes some thinking and deciding to settle what that may be. The time spent on this endeavor is worth its weight in gold. It makes our decision making easier and brings a great deal of clarity and purpose to our life. Don’t you owe it to yourself to spend the time making these decisions?
Next to gratitude, which we discussed last post, clarity in one of the most powerful forces to improve your life. When you are clear as to where you want to go in life, you can always tell if you are getting closer or further away. Not sure of where you want to go in life? That can leave you feeling confused and that your life has no direction. I don’t know if you have ever felt that way, but I have and it is not any fun. How crazy is it to be unsure if your life is getting better or worse?
A clear purpose for your life actually reduces stress. Why? It can help you to better design the next steps and actions to take. Goals become easier to reach because they are attached to a bigger life purpose. Here is an important distinction. Goals and life purpose are two entirely different things. When we talk about life purpose, we are speaking of legacy. Why are you here? How do you want to be remembered when you are gone? How can you make the world a better place while you are here? These are the important questions to ask while you are here. They will give you the clarity you seek. Your life purpose is not something you can finish. Say you are a chef. Your purpose may be to supply the world with delicious food that brings smiles to people’s faces and joy to their stomachs. You will continue to do that with every meal you create, every cookbook you write or every cooking video you post. Maybe you are a future best-selling author who wants to bring joy to the hearts of millions. You will continue to do so with every book you write, every blog you post or every podcast episode you appear on.
As mentioned earlier, this also helps you come up with goals to accomplish. If you are a chef, maybe creating a cookbook would let people try creating your amazing recipes at home. If you make cooking videos, it will help them feel like you are in the kitchen with them. As long as you know it will help with your life mission to bring joy to the world through food. Gain clarity in your own life. It will bring you joy. It will bring the world joy.
Another great stoic quote! You may be thinking that you are not currently sailing to any port. In life, a ‘port’ can be any worthwhile destination. The greatest failure of modern humans is their lack of clarity on what they want out of life. If you ask someone what their goals are, they give you answers like “I want to be healthy, happy and make more money.” Sure, we all do. Those goals are generic and pretty much go for everyone.
The ‘port’ to which we are referring to is the overall purpose of your life. What are you here for? Some people say they are waiting to discover their purpose. As if life were going to drop down out of the sky and hand them a big sign telling them what they should be working towards. That isn’t going to happen and that is not how it works. We must decide what our purpose is. What sets our heart on fire with passion and desire? Here is a clue, it has to be something greater than ourselves.
Without clarity and direction in our life, any amount of good fortune will be wasted. Not to mention, the more clear we become in our purpose for life, the more likely we will be able to use any wind in life to assist us. Even the ones that seem to be blowing against us. Without a destination in life, we are not very likely to get far. In fact, we are most likely to spend our days filled with confusion and frustration. It will seem as if life is going in circles and we are getting nowhere.
Invest some time today to get perfectly clear what you want out of your life. It will be one of the most profitable investments you could make. It will not only help you take advantage of any good fortune in your life, it will help you reduce stress along the way.
Life can really take us on a crazy ride sometimes! We can face some very difficult and interesting challenges. How do some people seem to keep going and some find it more difficult? A good deal of it breaks down to why they believe they are here. Maybe you are looking to take control of your health after years of neglect? This can be quite a difficult challenge. Especially the older we get. Maybe you want to fit into your jeans or look better at the beach. That may be enough to get you into the gym. When the doctor comes into the room and tells you that unless you make some changes, you are likely to suffer a heart attack, that will have you cleaning out the cabinets and walking to work.
It is not just the quest of improving ourselves in which a ‘why’ becomes helpful. Making through a challenge can often only be done with a strong ‘why’. The greatest example I can think of is a loss of a loved one. We may often feel like there is no way that we can see living our life without them. Knowing that there are others who both love us, and would feel the same about our loss, can keep us waking up every morning.
This is not to say that life will not be a struggle sometimes. That it can feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders. What a strong ‘why’ can do, is help us carry that weight as we work on gaining the strength to be able to do so regularly. It is good to have one overarching ‘why’ in life, but we can have several others to keep us going.
In my own life, my ‘why’ is to positively impact the lives of millions of individuals around the globe. In my personal life, much of my ‘why’ revolves around being the best man for my beautiful lady, Margie. It is being a good example of how to treat your lady for anyone who is watching. It is living up to the standards that I have set for myself. Did I mention it is helpful to have many reasons to become all that you can be? How about you? Have you made sure you have enough, and strong enough, reasons for your life? Work on them today. They just might end up saving your life.
One of my favorite poets hitting on a very important point. What does planting trees have to do with the meaning of life? Plenty! What our poet friend from India is saying here, is that doing things for the greater good that we may neither see the benefit of, or get the credit for, is what the true meaning of life is all about. That is the meaning of our lives. To give something to this planet that will leave it a better place than when you arrived. Even if it is a seemingly small thing. In fact, there is a sure fire way to not only leave the world a better place, but to enjoy your time doing it.
The best way to leave the world a better place, is to live your purpose. As the picture above states, it is not what you do to bring home your paycheck. No, your purpose is what fills your being with pure joy. When we are in our bliss, we are happy people. How do you think happy people treat others and the world around them? Very well. People who are living their purpose do not start wars. They do not even start arguments. They are too busy creating, enjoying and living what fills their spirit with joy. Think of things that make you smile. Do more of that. In doing so, you will be planting that tree for tomorrow.
Between our poet from India, and the quote above, we have a good idea about how to leave the world a much better place. Doing things for others, and for the entire human race, that you may never see the result of is a start. Living your purpose is another great strategy. I know when I am writing it puts me in a good mood. Notice I said writing and not editing. Maybe your passion is cooking? Maybe it is spending time in nature? Maybe it is running? Whatever your passion is, do it as often as you can. What will help the world heal the quickest is having as many people living their purpose as we can.
This is a subject that I feel has been written about at great length. There is great scientific evidence that having a purpose does great things for your life. It can reduce stress. It can help guide you as to what actions you should take. It can also help sustain you when things are not going so well. In my own life, I have even felt a sense of energy and resilience when keeping my purpose in mind. This is why you owe it to yourself to spend some time on finding your true purpose. What we are going to look at today can take anywhere from a few seconds, to a few minutes. Nothing more than that. It will be easy and it will be fun. It will also give you a taste of all the wonderful benefits we mentioned above.
As we can see in the picture of the baby swan above, it is walking with a sense of purpose. One of the most difficult things about finding your purpose, is that people look at it as this larger-than-life activity. It doesn’t have to be. There are two important things to consider when finding your purpose. One, your purpose can change. You don’t have to worry about choosing the wrong purpose or making a mistake. You can always decide to tweak your purpose as you, and your life change. You can even decide to scrap it and choose a new one. You will still move further and faster than going through life without one. There is a fun little exercise you can do while you are pondering what your life purpose may be. It takes no time at all and will add a great deal of positive things to your life.
The secret to helping your mind get used to living with purpose is to start out small. Pick a daily purpose. It could be to clean a section of the house. A good purpose could be to reach out to someone you know is hurting just to offer them support. Hopefully, everyone in your life is happy and not hurting. If this is the case, you could even send a card, or even an email or message, just to say you were thinking of them and appreciate them. Your purpose may be to bring more joy into a friendship or relationship. Perhaps today’s purpose is to give 110% on the job site. There are more spiritual/emotional ways to go about it. Your purpose could be to just spend quality time with friends and be fully present, like these ducks and birds were doing when I happened upon them. Devoting time to self-care can be a great purpose. Spending 30 minutes with a good cup of tea or coffee and a great book can do wonders for the spirit. The more you practice these ‘daily purposes’ the easier it is to live a life that is both rewarding as well as fulfilling.
I would love to hear more about what activities you decide to choose as your daily purpose. Are you a parent that decides to impart one item of life knowledge with your child? Was your purpose to do one thing to improve your relationship with your boss? Maybe you would like to take a step to help local wildlife? I would love to hear what you decide. Your ideas could help spark an idea in someone else. Who knows what that might lead to? As a bonus, when you do these ‘little’ life purposes, you will not only see one aspect of your life improve daily, you will also have a daily sense of accomplishment.
For those of you who do not know, my name is Neil Panosian and I was diagnosed with the coronavirus on March 18th. As of right now I am all clear and recovered. Still getting back to tip top physical shape after 3 weeks of inactivity, but that will come. I am no longer contagious and depending on the day, I am considered to have some sort of immunity. Every day I wake up I am so grateful my symptoms were not worse and that I made it through. 10,000 people in the United States so far were not that fortunate and my thoughts and prayers go out to their friends and family.
I want to share with you what I believe was my secrets in making it through. The interesting thing about the 4 words that I am about to share with you is that they not only got me through this virus, but they are the same formula that gets me through many challenges of life. If you are as unfortunate as me and become infected with this virus or know someone who has, please share this information with them. If you are spending time at home as we all should be, you can put these 4 words into practice in your own life to conquer whatever challenges you may be facing.
The first word that I used was preparation. Was I actually preparing to get a virus? Not exactly. I was taking all of the steps you were supposed to. I washed my hands often. Did my best not to touch my face. It is amazing how much you do this without ever noticing. As we did karaoke Margie and I wiped the microphones with disinfectant wipes. (Although someone at our Friday show did use half of our container to clean their hands after eating wings) Still, working with the public and at the Postal Service somehow I managed to get it. What is important to note is how I lived my life prior to coming down with this virus.
My way of living includes going to the gym here in West Allis, where I live, roughly 5 days a week. Some weeks it might be 4 times, sometimes it might be 6 but I go there on a regular basis. When I am there I actually am one of the people working out, not texting while sitting on a machine. I do it for the stress-relieving benefits. After a hard workout the other challenges in my life seem a little easier to deal with. The side effect of all this running, lifting and stretching is that I can enjoy my beautiful lady’s cooking without gaining too much weight. It also means I am doing my best to keep both my heart and lungs strong. Being that I have both asthma and heart issues, this is a big plus. I also do my best to eat right (sans the occasional pizza) and take a few vitamins. Before bed every night I meditate and follow other self-care routines. Couple these with my loving relationship with Margie and you can see I live a fairly healthy lifestyle.
When the virus hit me I was in decent physical shape. My asthma was controlled the best it could be and my heart was as strong as it gets. I liken this to learning to swim. The best time to learn to swim is on the safety of the shore, not when the ship is sinking. If I had waited until I got sick to try and be healthy I believe the virus would have had a far more severe impact on my body. That is why it is so important to use the time we have to prepare ourselves for challenges before they come. The better we are prepared to meet challenges, the more likely we are to overcome them.
The second word that I used to beat the coronavirus may be the most important one. That word is purpose. While waiting for my test results to come back I asked myself 2 very important questions. 1) How can I use this? and 2) What is good about this? I knew if I indeed had the virus I would share my journey here on this website. I would do so with an attempt to calm a lot of the fear that people may have facing this situation. I guess the good would be that having the virus would allow me to speak from experience. I would be going through it. I would struggle with the shortness of breath, the cough, ,the lack of smell and taste and the dizziness. I could tell everyone how tired you would get walking from the kitchen to the living room. If I tried something and it worked to help my symptoms, maybe it might help someone else?
One of the biggest things since I have recovered from the virus is attempting to donate my antibodies to help critical patients. If I can donate plasma and it may help save the lives of two other people, I would be selfish not to do that. I am still waiting to hear back from a few of the places that I called. I guess this process is still a little fluid. Being able to potentially save 2 lives, if not at least help them recover quicker feels like a true blessing. To think of the joy this would give their families and hopefully save them from the sorrow of losing a loved one fills my heart with happiness and gave me a purpose to getting better.
Word number 3 in my healing journey was persistence. When I was not feeling so good, especially the first week, I was tempted not to share my journey. I certainly did not feel like setting up my laptop, or making myself remotely composed enough to go in front of a camera to shoot a YouTube video. When this happened I thought of all the preparation I did that allowed me to be able to keep the symptoms to a level they were at. Most importantly, I thought of my purpose. Why I would use this virus even more than it was using me. I thought of the people who were out there that were scared watching the news and hearing nothing of the people that recovered. I thought about those who would fear what would happen to them if they got the virus. I thought of those, who like me, already had the virus. They may feel alone and scared. Having to be away from family and friends with a sickness that we know so little about. If, by logging on to my website or seeing my posts on Facebook, it helped them to see they are not alone, then I had served a purpose.
With every blog post and every video came not only well-wishes that I was extremely grateful for, but questions. I knew if I was home scared and had a question I would want it answered as quick as possible. This allowed me to persist in logging on every day and answering those questions. I once heard Earl Nightingale say “Persistence is another word for faith. If you didn’t have faith, you wouldn’t persist.”If there was one thing I had through this, it was faith. I am not sure what you believe in, God, the Universe, the divine power, to that end it doesn’t matter to me. What I did know is the creator had me get this for a reason and I believed that reason was to help others. That faith translated into persistence on days when I was tempted not to post or answer questions and just spend the day in bed.
The final word in my healing journey was perspective. Like all of us this virus and the challenges it has brought with us has also brought with it a change in how we see the world. Recently, I went for a walk in the park. This experience was appreciated more than ever. After roughly 3 weeks in the house I cannot explain how good it felt to be in nature. After not being able to do my 5 days a week in the gym, it felt so good to get my heart pounding and my lungs working. Every neighbor, or at least most of them, seemed to say “Hello” or some other greeting as they passed. It is not that I look friendlier than your average person, but I think everyone is just grateful to see new faces. Perhaps they were as grateful as I was to be out in fresh air. I watched the geese, ducks and seagulls on the lagoon and thought how blissfully unaware they were of all the societal dramaunfolding around them. I watched the squirrels running around gathering food and attending to their usual spring preparationswith a greater regard for something routine.
One of the biggest changes in perspective was how I viewed all of the news. I rarely saw stories of people going through the virus and how they were coping. There were not even that many stories of what to do once you had the virus. I was one of the fortunate ones that made it through, but all I heard were numbers of cases and deaths. Rarely would there be anything about those, like myself, who made it through. I knew it was even more important to share my story and to give people hope to help balance out the fear. As I return to work at the post office and am dealing with the fallout from my illness there, I feel it will be important to share this story too. That way something may be done to protect those workers who face uncertain reactions from both bosses and coworkers once they return.
Preparation, Purpose, Persistence and Perspective.These four word were the key to overcoming the virus for me. They are also my keys to overcoming the daily challenges we all face. I encourage everyone to take a look at there own lives and apply these four words as well. It may very well be the difference to falling victim to a challenge verses having the strength to overcome one. Next post we will look at a secret ingredient that also played a big factor in allowing me to beat the coronavirus. It also allows me to live a life filled with joy each and every day, whether sick or healthy. Be sure to look at that. As always if you have any questions about the virus, my formula for dealing with it or self-improvement in general, feel free to leave them in the comments below. I am here to serve.
Self -knowledge, how important is it? The title of this post leads us to believe our very life depends on it. The quote in the picture draws comparisons that sound the same.
Does our life really depend on our degree of self -knowledge? The answer, as you may have guessed, is both yes and no. Surely we would be physically able to continue, but our spirit will slowly begin to die.
“Most men die at 25…we just don’t bury them until they are 70.” – Benjamin Franklin
Was Franklin speaking of waiting to put dear great-grandpa in the ground for 45 years? Of course not. He was encapsulating what we are discussing here today.
Without self -knowledge, an individual makes their way through life at the mercy of others. They allow the media to dictate who they should be. They let their spouse determine their fashion sense. They let their friends and colleagues determine their moral code.
That is not to say one should not take advice from outside sources into consideration. Just understand that is what it is, advice. Spending time investigating who we are, why we do what we do and what drives us will allow us to live a life full of passion and purpose. A soul on fire with desire and passion for life is the greatest gift we can give the world.
This goofy character is me at our local museum which is one great museum if I must say so myself. The other day my lady took me there on a date. For those of you who know how much I love learning that is as good as it gets. Even during a day filled with love and learning I still have an eye out for something I can use to help live an amazing life.
One of the first things I have people do in my seminars is determine where they want their life to go. Sounds simple enough, but really it is not. A lot of people know a lot more about what they do not want than what they do. This time of year I hear a lot of people complaining how it is still cold and dreary where I live. Ok, some of those voices come from the other side of the mirror. I hear people say “I don’t want to live in this state anymore”. The fact is a lot of us approach our life challenges this way. Such things as “I don’t want to be overweight anymore” “I’m sick of living paycheck to paycheck”. These statements can be heard by people anywhere and everywhere.
There is nothing wrong with being discontented with where you are in life. In fact, this can be very helpful. What we need to focus on is not where we do not wish to be in life, but instead where we do want to be. When people say I don’t want to live here it is too cold. They could end up in the artic circle. They were not focusing on where they want to go. As you can see in the picture above I have a specific goal in mind, Fiji. I would like to visit there for the sunshine and the friendly nature of the people and culture. Tired of being overweight? Focus on the benefits of living a healthy active lifestyle. It is a lot more productive and fun for that matter to focus on where we want to go instead of where we want to leave.
So how do we do all this? The first step which I do in my seminars in more detail is to create a life mission statement. This contains two parts. The first part is the declaration, or where you want to go. The secret is to make this powerful and positive. Instead of “I don’t want to be overweight” try “I am determined to live a healthy and happy life”. Make the words powerful and positive. If your statement is weak, chances are the actions behind it will be too.
The second part is where we make sure this motivation lasts. The ‘why’ of your statement. Here is a secret about that too. We as humans are really only motivated by two basic principles at our core; the need to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. If you can include both of these in your mission statement it will keep give you the motivation to keep going when the going gets rough.
How does one include both of those in a powerful and positive mission statement? Let me give you an example. Sticking with a person determined to live a more healthy life. Notice I didn’t say ‘wanting’ or ‘trying’ to live a healthier life. Say “I want to live a healthier life”. Now say “I am trying to live a healthier life”. Finally take a deep breath and say “I am determined to live a healthy life”. You can feel the difference choosing the right words can make. So including the pleasure or what we stand to gain is pretty easy. In our above example it could read something like this. “I am determined to live a healthier life so I will have more energy to accomplish my goals”.
Ok, but what about including pain or what we stand to lose? How can you do that and keep your statement positive? That requires a little creativity, but can be done. In our example if you do not live a healthy life, you may lose time with your loved ones. That is not a particularly fun thought, but you can include it in your statement to add even more motivation. Here is how. “I am determined to live a healthy life so I will have more energy to accomplish my goals and spend the maximum time with those I love” Read that in the mirror every morning or when you are tempted to eat an entire medium pizza and it will keep you motivated and on track!
Again I go into this in more depth at my seminar and in my upcoming book. For right now create your own positive life mission statement using the guidelines above. Don’t worry about it being perfect, just get one down. You can always tweak it as you go along. The sooner you get focused on where you want to go and motivated to do so, the sooner your life will transform before your eyes! Feel free to share this idea with friends. Perhaps get together for coffee and work together on your mission statements.
This title is a little tongue in cheek. Success does require a great deal of work, focus and discipline. Still, there are things we can do that allow success to have a smoother, and thus, a quicker road in our lives. Who would not want that?
Aside from developing and maintaining an attitude of gratitude, surrounding yourself with positive driven people who want to see you succeed is one of the most important choices you can make. Notice i ‘choice’. For the most part we can decide who we would like to have in our lives.
What is the benefit of this? There are many. Just some of them include the following; increased accountability. Now this can not always seem fun at first. Who wants to hear “did you go to the gym today?”. Quite often though knowing we will be held accountable for our actions keeps us focused on taking positive ones. Encouragement. The opposite side of the coin, when you feel like giving up having someone to pick you up and let you know they believe in you can give you the strength to keep going. I heard Les Brown say once “sometimes you have to believe in others belief in you until you can believe in yourself”. I can say from personal experience that is true. Lastly there is an increased network. There are always people who know people, and knowing more of them only serves you well. I cannot count the times i have had people tell me “I know this person that would like to buy your book“. Through them i am able to reach and help more people.
These are just some examples and there are a great deal more. Regardless of what you stand to gain, surrounding yourself with good people who want you to succeed will help.
Feel free to share tips on surrounding yourself with good people or what you can gain out of it in the comments below.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 