On today's episode Kristin has a conversation with Mark an Adena Delaney, Purpose & Life Mentors and hosts of The Purpose Mastermind Podcast, about how important having a purpose in life is and why without knowing our purpose and being able to live it out can cause us to feel hopeless, lost, depressed, anxious, aimless or addicted to unhealthy habits.

This is a must listen to episode about finding our reason for being and understanding that we were made for purpose. Mark an Adena also share their story of feeling like a bird in a cage in their jobs and their journey to discover and step into their purpose and now help other people do the same.

Connect with the Delaneys at MarkDelaney.com or check out their podcast The Purpose Mastermind here.

Do You want to feel less frazzled, more joyful and at peace in your daily life? Are you ready to put more focus into what God has promised us and how to talk to God and hear from him?

Are you ready to be encouraged as a Christian mom, wife and friend? I know how easy it is to let life get busy and not put God first but I am here working on doing just that right along side you.

I have been there and I continously have to keep checking back in to make God and following Jesus my focus. It's not always easy but I keep working on following God's plan instead of pushing my own. And I want to help you do the same.

How can we choose to do life a little bit different? To accept the invitation we've been given to step into the Adventure of pursuing God and what he has for us.

Learn about Kristin Fitch and her podcast Faith Fueled Woman and to sign up for her email and 7 Day Faith-based Encouragement Challenge (7 days of Encouragement sent to your inbox)- click here.

Reach out to Kristin to have her speak at Your Event, Summit, Church or Group - Go to KristinFitch.com/contact

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Hi friends and welcome back to the show today I have two great guests on and we are going to talk about why so many people are struggling with anxiety, aimlessness maybe even addiction or depression? The answer is we have to know our purpose. We have to have a reason for getting up in the morning and a reason for how we're showing up in the world. This is what we're diving into. And it is such a good conversation. I think you're gonna get so much out of it.

Hi, today on the show, I would like to welcome two amazing guests, Mark and Adina Delaney, they are purpose and life mentors. They are the podcast hosts of the purpose mastermind. And they have given their lives to one pursuit. They're helping people know their purpose. And they believe that living with purpose is the cure for depression, anxiety and addiction. And I cannot wait to have this conversation with them because they are helping people know their purpose so they can find freedom to live that purpose out boldly. And I think this is such an important topic I'm so passionate about as well. So welcome Mark and Adina.

Thanks for having us. We appreciate it. Absolutely. So can you tell us a little bit about what did life look like before? And then? What's life look like now? And how did you step into helping people with their purpose?

Great question. I think that for me, personally, I until six years ago, I felt like an ego living in a cage.

I went to I was at a tea. I was a school teacher at the time. And I liked it. I think I loved it because I loved kids and teaching kids was fulfilling. But at the same time, I felt like I was kind of trapped in my own life, where it had become a life where all I was really doing was searching for to keep my security and comfort and a dose of reputation. As long as I can tell people, Hey, I have this job, aren't you impressed? But deep down, I was just looking for security and comfort. And there was something in me that was like tapping from the inside of my heart saying you've got something more to give. And I recall it was about two years before I left teaching that I was on a school field trip at a zoo. And there was this enclosure and not as big as a large living room. It was inside of a fence. And I looked around inside of the inside of this enclosure. And in the middle was this tree that spread out and filled most of the space. And I couldn't see anything. And so I did what I hate to do with the zoo, which is read and I read the placard said some kind of ego. And immediately my mind just went to wait. Like how can an ego be in this small of a space. And sure enough of upon the branch was this ego. And I felt like I spent two years talking to that ego about its life.

Because really, it was my life. The eagle was comfortable. It was safe. And they come and feed it every day. And on top of that every now and then children stop with their parents and say, Look, Mom, isn't that an eagle? It's so cool. And I was like, I'm living that Eagles life.

In the question in my heart that I felt like I was metaphorically talking to that eagle about was what's it like to never use those wings you have?

Because that was me.

And so finally after two years, I just I was reading a book, actually on a treadmill at the Y at the gym next to my wife and the first line of the book. It's not even chapter one. It's the preface of the preamble and it says the stop living as if the goal of life is to arrive at death safely.

And yeah, yes. And I I handed the book to Edina and I said read that first line and I said I'm leaving the school. So the next day I called the administrator and said this is my last year and that's that's where this next adventure became became.

That was the beginning of our next adventure in life.

So I loved being a part of just watching him just take steps and discover what it was that he was going to do with it with all the helping people to find their purpose, it's something that you don't just walk out of your job and know instantly.

So as the as I got to watch it, it was beautiful. And the thing is, it's powerful. You when you search and you try to find something that has deep value in you, you realize there's mindsets that you have that wait a minute, that's not healthy, you realize that there's ways that you do things that you you do it because it protects you for something that you don't want to face? And what would it be like if we really face to those things. So it seems like things that are too big, or that we can't do or we won't be successful in or we don't know how to do. But it's we we kind of realize it is actually very simple, yet deep, the things that you get to experience when you're pursuing your value. And so you can live it out simple, but it goes very deep. And so I've enjoyed getting to watch him on his journey. But I also, I mean, you never just live life, you always have experiences in front of you and I have had many different things that have helped me to chase my value, I grew up as a child not really feeling valued. Just because of how life was as a child different situations will teach you different things. If you don't get picked for the team, and this person is hurtful to you, those things will tell you that. And that's the simple story of it. But then a couple years ago, I had a brain injury. And that took me to the point where I really couldn't offer much of anything to anyone. And so then I don't have value, of course. So then once again, wrestling with my value. So for me purpose and value, they're interchangeable. And I want I love to help people see where their value is because everybody will wrestle with it. It just depends on what what depth. So while our business was being built, the first probably four years she was teaching and I was building. And then a year and a half ago, she left teaching. And so brother that would be in this full time together now, yeah, we're very excited to get to take that. So for the last 12 months, we have been together doing this as a team. And the thing is, is if there's marriages, like there can be a man that can speak to a man's heart differently. And a woman you understand can speak to a woman's heart differently. But what we absolutely love is one of the reasons I just had to stop teaching. I mean, I loved it, but I just had to stop is there marriages that need this, they are struggling with things inside of their relationship. And they think it's too hard too much. And, and yet, what we can do is we're a team, we get to come alongside each other. And we get to help both the husband and the wife.

So beautiful. I love that. Yeah. And I think, you know, speaking of Mark Patterson, I recently finished his new book, please start a face. And in the book he's talking about, you know, what you guys also talk about, which is, you know how mental health is measured. It's measured on a spectrum and it goes from depression. And then he says, languishing, right kind of in the middle where things aren't quite whole, but they're not terrible. And then it moves into flourishing. Well, I think all of us would love to flourish, right? We'd love to have lives that are growing and thriving, but many of us get stuck. While it might not be considered, you know, diagnosed Depression The point is, it's a lack of

It's feeling hopeless. It's feeling aimless. It's a lack of vision. It's a lack of focus on motivation. And often as we know, the reason for that is because we don't understand what our purpose is what our value and our worth is. So what have you guys found about that? Like when you when people are feeling aimless or hopeless, or they're just not clear on? What do they bring? Right? Like, how do they show up in the world? Like, what would you share this what you've learned whether from your own journey or how you've been helping people, I completely agree with what you said, this, I'll give a story there was a young man probably four months ago that came to me. And where he was at in life is the last year he was basically becoming an alcoholic. He was drinking very heavily had been to the emergency room one time because of a situation with alcohol. And the family is trying to get him signed up for a.

And his dad connected him with me. And he started I think, 32 years old. And he said something that was great. In our first meeting, he simply said, I don't know how I got here.

Which is perfect. Because oftentimes, when life, when life becomes meaningless, we search for something to give us some sense of substance. And oftentimes, substances like alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, these things give us a sense of meaning. If a person doesn't have a real, the real substance of meaning and purpose in their life, in my opinion, the human being must search for a substitute,

even if it's destructive. And so for this young man, we never talked about alcohol. We never talked about how to stop drinking. We talked about how to start living again.

Because the short story of his life is that from ages 16 to 30, he was doing things that enabled him to have a high sense of purpose, and community with people

all the way through. And because of

that having now a family and a couple of young kids, he decided to sell, sell his company, which was giving him all that camaraderie and purpose. And he took a corporate job.

That and he in his words, he said, I work 12 hour shifts, and every time I leave, I feel like there's 12 hours of wasted life.

And so now he's living a life for two years that has no sense of purpose, and no camaraderie. And he's wondering why he's drinking.

The only question is, why are you not also doing drugs?

Like the life that has no purpose, fulfillment, it is going to lead to things like addiction, depression, and then the great threat that that.

And this is why I'm so passionate about what we do. The great threat is that we will stop. We're focused on stopping depression, or stopping our addiction. What people need to do is start their life again, yes.

Gosh, I have so much I could say right there, and I am going to share a couple of things. The first is, you know, in it for whatever reason, I do have a couple other things that Mark Patterson said, because he really does speak to the heart of this right and the first is I'm gonna get the quote wrong. But he says something like, the cure for sin isn't to try to stop sinning. And when I say sin, I'm surely not saying like addiction, people are trying to do it. You know, we've all we all have our things that we've gone through. What I'm saying though, is if you have something that has a hold on you, he says the character is not trying to stop it. But it's to step into purpose, truly, so that you don't you don't try to stop doing this behavior that maybe you want to change by changing the behavior. It's because we have to set our sights on something else. And we have to set our sights, sights on something that's so impactful in that it does bring that purpose forth. And then this he says this,

I had written this down before our call because I knew that I wanted to bring it up a bit came about he says, we don't die when our heart stopped beating, we die when a heart stop skipping a beat in pursuit of our passions, when a march breaking for the things that break the heart of God. And so to your point, so important and I actually have one of my college age sons as he came home from college away university, because he started struggling with mental health issues, depression and suicidal thoughts. And luckily he came home luckily he shared that with us and he's on that journey to get better but part of it is he doesn't understand or see any purpose for himself any value and worth and while I can try to tell him this all day, he's a young man. I mean, you know my

has been too, but he's a young man. And he just he struggled with that. And he does have a little bit of a social,

you know, some social challenges. And so I think he has a hard time seeing like, the big picture still. But it's a it's a daily work in progress, right? He's doing well in school, he just started a summer job. But my point is, I even see how much more important this is. Because of how, how aimless I can tell he is like in his purpose in life, you know, and I can tell him a million things about his value and worth but he doesn't believe it yet.

He doesn't.

You know, so I saw it firsthand in my own life, but someone I love, just how important this is like that. This is literally, I think one of the most important one of the biggest problems in our society right now. Is this hopelessness, this loneliness. This aimlessness, it's because people don't. They don't know how they fit in. They don't know, what is their reason for being right. What is their lead reason for living?

Yeah, it's so powerful. I was talking to some leaders over young people recently, and they talked about

excuse me, all these things that are coming against our kids. And they're talking about, okay, how do we help them with this, and this, and this, and this, and this, listing all the threats that are coming at our kids? And I said, listen,

they don't have a chance.

Our kids do not have a chance against all those things. Nor do we as leaders have a chance to somehow block all of those things. But if our kids know who they are, they have every chance. If they know their purpose, and they pursue it. They have every chance.

Absolutely. Oh, so true. So tell me, what have you all found that week, people are struggling with understanding this value in this purpose? You know, so where are you finding that we've not been able to tap into that or that we can't, we haven't been able to explore it. I know security and comfort is part of it. But what else have you found?

We look, we live in the wrong places.

We're searching for it in the wrong places. I'll tell a story. A young man named Chuckie sat down with me and his older brother at a Chick fil A. We're all good things happen.

Little Chucky at the time was 15 years old. And he had gotten into trouble. So much trouble that he had to be taken from his home and sent to a boys school.

And he's home for a week on it on a vacation. And he's looking around at Chick fil A, as if he's looking at the whole world. You can see it in the space. And he said, How does someone find it?

Said find what Chucky? He said find their purpose.

I was like, well, we'll Checky if you look in the wrong place, you'll never find it.

We'll look in the right place.

It's actually simple.

And I told him about the philosopher Kermit the Frog.

Kermit the Frog once sang a song about rainbows. And why are there so many songs about rainbows? And what's on the other side? I said Chucky, most people are looking outside of them to find this great rainbow. And then somehow figure out how to get the other side of it. Where there's this pot of gold. And they can say look world, I found it, I did it, I accomplished it. I got to this place, I got to this job. I did this thing and said Chucky,

if you look outside of you her purpose, you'll never find it.

Actually, your life, my life, we are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

We're God's workmanship created to do good works in this world. Our life is the rainbow for others to see. The gold is the gift within us that we get to live boldly, our life in front of people and help people be inspired to what they can be with their life. So probably one of the most simple ways that we miss purpose is we look for it in the wrong place, looking for it outside of us, instead of finding it inside of us.

Absolutely. I mean, and I think a lot of us, you know, we we are taught in a lot of messages from Culture Society teach us, you know, take the safe job, oh, that's silly, you know, the job that's gonna pay the bills and not that we, we of course we need to be able to support our families and such but what I'm saying is

We take the path that we believe we need to take, because people are messages are telling us that but we kind of stopped listening often, to what our heart is telling us, right? We stop listening to the things that actually interest us the things we're curious about the things that we're drawn towards that those are actually the things that are trying to tell us how we should show up in the world. And we will actually be, we will feel that purpose, right will feel that value, because that's actually how we were made we were made often to step into something related to those things. Yes.

Totally. Totally agree, then that was, it was interesting. Check. He sat at that table that day. And I had my purpose mastermind or program booklet on the table, actually my leader guide, and I had open to the back of it, where there's this fill in the blank since the first part says My purpose is and there's a blank. And I said, Chucky, I'm gonna play this song for you. And so I pulled up my phone and I, I went to the song rainbow connection, and I slid over in front of him, I said, Chucky, I bet you can know your purpose before this song is over. And I put that phone in front of him. And I talked to his brother for a couple minutes. And about two minutes into the song, he reached over and grabbed my leader guide and pulled it over to himself and took my pen and wrote his purpose in that book. And I'll always keep that old leader guide I had, because His purpose is there. And just like you said, it is so connected to the turmoil of his life, because the turmoil of his life is actually pointing him to the gift of his life.

And when you're 15 years old, it's actually kind of simple to see that. But once we're 40 and 45 and 50. It's amazing how almost impossible it is for us to see it without someone guiding us there. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think you know, I know it's a common term nowadays. You know, and I've talked about before, we do kind of have to unlearn because even in the last few years, I've had quite the journey. I've known where God was leading me and my purpose. But just because we know it, it's very hard to sometimes get there fully meaning I had worked in online technology, online marketing for so long, that every time even with this podcast, I went through a program last summer, you know, and I said, Oh, I built this one website, you know, my mom and I had co founded, you know, we had over 10 million users to the website over many years. But it was all organic. And they're like, Oh, well, that's what you should do. You should teach teach people how to do the SEO and how to do the growth traffic. So but then I was like, no, this doesn't feel right. It's because people keep trying to push me back to what my background was in what my kind of expertise was in what my zone of excellence was in. But it wasn't where God was calling me. And it wasn't where I felt like my purpose where I'm most suited to show up and serve the world. So I had to, I have to keep kind of letting that go so that I can step into these other things. But that can be a hard journey, especially when you're like, Well, how does that pay the bills when you're moving into something different? You know, so I think that is why when, when we're 35 or 45 or older, that can be hard. And it's it's partly because everyone around you is trying to tell you, Oh, stay in the responsible job. And are you sure because this thing will pay you a lot more right now? Right? And so it's where we literally are seems like we're going against the current or not, but it feels like that for a moment in time before I think the river opens up.

Yeah, yeah. Couldn't agree more. That's a very common, I like to use the word river.

We use that with young people and talking to them about their life that life is much safer if you stay on the shore. Sure, yeah. So much so that you think that's where you belong. But the river is where the adventure is. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that's I've given a talk a couple of times, when it was like a faith based group, you know, and I say that I mean, like, literally, I say, you know, God, God's called us into adventure. He didn't call us into safety, right? He actually is trying to beckoned us to step up and step out in our lives. That is where all the good things happen. Yes, there might be risks. Yes, there might be troubles ahead. But that is where we're meant to live. We're not meant to live a safe, comfortable lives in our where we never leave our homes. But I think that's what many of us who have gotten used to, you know, is, oh, I'll just stay right here. I'm comfy. I have everything we need. But that's not where our hearts really are. Called to Be.

Yeah.

That's been our story. It's learning.

It's been learning how to swim. Yeah, we got so used to learning how to fly when it was, for me specifically was so used to being in that cage of comfort. Yeah, but I wouldn't trade it now.

I won't trade it either. It's like the difference for me, it's kind of like living life and renting. Rather than just enjoying life. That's the simplest way I can say the changes, because I always like to try to do things intentional. I mean, as a teacher, I've got goals that I need to accomplish, I want to take care of their hearts and the whole, you know, whole person of who they are. But I lived life, more grunting, working, trying doing this, the other. And there were so many important things that I needed to do. And there were so many great things happening around me. But the experience of it from my heart, it wasn't, it wasn't like a long, sustainable it. For me, I just needed to

surrender some things that I thought I needed to absolutely have.

And when I did that, I found a peaceful place to just do some of the same things, but in a different way. And I love the difference of the granting versus the peace. Because sometimes, you just need to look at your life differently. And you might already just be pursuing exactly what you need to be. But you're pursuing in a way where it sucks the life out of you. Yeah.

Absolutely. And that's why I was sharing with you. Before we started recording, and I've shared it on my podcast a little bit, although I just recorded a full episode that will come out soon, that I talked about, you know, helping people get into joyful alignment. So it gives them this, but it's also redesigned here, like the way that I think God intended it. I think too many of us are cramming multiple days into one day, and we're wondering why we're burned out and exhausted. It is purpose. But it's also because I think, instead of slowing down, and actually putting into that day, what needs to get put into it, you know, relationship time, you know, with God, time to obviously do you step into our purpose, to serve others, we're doing 500 Other things often way too many obligations, and we wonder why we're exhausted. I have so many friends. I watch them, and I just sit back. And I'm just like, how it's like a frenzy around them. You know, and but I think we actually don't realize we're doing it to ourselves. And so I think part of that is we choose how we spend our time. And no, I don't mean that means if you're in a job, and, you know, it's maybe not where you want to be in the future. I get that. But we still have all these other hours. And we choose how we spend that time what we say yes to and what we say no to. And so I think, to your point is I've had to do a lot of that to over the last couple years is does this feel right? Like does it feel right at my soul level? You know? Or could I do this differently? Could I choose to say, oh, at this hour, I'd rather go and do something for my family, you know, then sit at my desk for two more hours, you know, or whatever it might be. But so I think we have to be intentional with our lives. But I think we also have to audit our lives, right, or take inventory of our lives, you know, in lots of areas. But I think even with our schedules as well, ya know, our individual fingerprint of who God created us to be is something that is going to help us to just make those decisions. Because our uniqueness if we allow expectations to pressure us, you know, sometimes we don't know if expectations are just helping us to get the job done or whatever. But expectations usually leave like a pressure and a weight with them. If we get to, even if we like your job, there are expectations within your job. If you change it from expectations of others onto you, versus you're excited about doing it, there's a different heart experience in that. So your unique fingerprint,

it will be it will be hidden and they'll be shadows over it, the people won't be able to see exactly who you are, the more you allow other expectations, outside expectations that are not healthy for you to come on you. You get to choose how you experience the different things around you. You know, the the Bible talks about you know, you can have peace even when it doesn't make sense. You can have joy no matter what the circumstance. So some people for them to really know the value and the purpose of the need to pursue. Part of it is just by recognizing what's my heart experience in this. And if I'm not peaceful and joyful, what can change, but we don't think anything can change. As a teacher, I knew things couldn't change because I needed to do XYZ to teach these students and I learned a different way of doing the same exact job but in a way that I then had a just exuberant amount of peace and joy as comparison to doing it and being strong because this is a worthy is a great calling to teach kids, you know, impact lives for future change. But I love the difference of changing. When I found my purpose and my value inside of me. It helped me to handle the expectations around me and it helped me to make decisions

so that my heart gets to enjoy my life. salutely Oh, so well said. So what what advice would you have? Or just tips for people that are still, you know, trying to understand what is their purpose? And how do they tap into that inside of themselves? How do you guide people in that?

Well, our program is, is an eight week journey on doing just that thing.

We take people through the first four weeks, we take people through the the confusing mindsets that make it impossible to find our purpose.

We look at it like, imagine your life is in a wilderness. The good news is the treasure hunt. That sounds great. The bad news is like we live our life, there's not a pathway, it seems sometimes. And we're surrounded by bushes and trees, and they're everywhere. And we don't know which way to go. And we're limited in our supplies, and time is running out. And in the wilderness, there's also poison ivy and poisonous snakes and spiders, and bears and all kinds of things that can get us so our premises that see you're lost in the wilderness. What if you find the path of your purpose in that wilderness. And so our journey is to take people from the mindsets that keep them in the wilderness. Instead, the mindsets that can get you on that path. And so, in short, a couple of things I would say, like I mentioned earlier with the story of Chucky is that purpose is not outside of you.

It's like I talked to man yesterday, who talked about how he talked about

ADHD, you know, he's like 55. And he's like, I'm always delighted to have gone from this to this to this to this. And he said, it's because of ADHD. It's not because of that. It's because he doesn't know who he is, and what he wants to chase. And so culture, it feels like every tree is a tree that I should climb. And while I'm climbing one tree, I see five other trees, I should climb. And so I go climb a different one. And it feels like I'm always chasing to find my destiny.

And it's exhausting. And so purpose is not something, it's not outside of you, it's inside of you. It's not something outside of you that you attach to your life. It's something inside of you, that you give with your whole life. So it's something that you can, purpose is not something you attach to your life, it's something you bring in everything that you do with your life, which is really the liberating component of purpose is in a enables me to have meaning in all that I do, not just my job. So for many people, we think that if I get the right job, I will have purpose. I'll say this boldly. Jobs do not bring us our purpose. What we can do is have purpose and take it to our job. I'll say this, anyone listening, your job is not going to make you awesome.

But your job can be awesome because of who you are when you're doing it.

People make jobs, awesome. jobs don't make people awesome. So those are a couple of the things that I would say

about finding purpose.

So good. And you're so right, you know, absolutely always comes down to

the person, the people, you know, and and the relationship with other people, right, how we're showing up, you know, in other people's lives, and like you said, that has to do with purpose. And of course, if we understand our purpose, right, what we're doing here, we can understand, or we can change our perceptions we can change, right, kind of like Adina was talking about, we can change the way we're showing up for everything. You know, the perception we have at it, you know that I get to do this not I have to do this, that kind of thing.

Totally. So what, what other, was there anything else that you would just like to share with the listeners, you know, or any stories just about, you know, this whole concept? I mean, obviously, we've talked a lot about purpose, but just, you know, what else have you seen that have shift how helped people shift, you know, and just the way they see their life, the way that they

understand they have permission to change to create and design their lives moving forward to look a little different than maybe the past slipped.

My mind is like going through this list of stories and what to say about that.

I mentioned a young man.

We'll call them Jesse.

He sent me an email

Oh, and he said, this has been my life. The last four years since I left high school, he talked about going to college and and becoming addicted to gaming, and food and pornography. And he said, the last two years I've been depressed and suicidal.

And he said, I don't want to hide anymore.

That last sentence was the only thing I needed to hear.

Because most people, the problem is not what's gone wrong with our life.

It's that we hide what's gone wrong with our life.

The second problem that happens is that when we do expose what's happened with our life, people rally to that person and they say, Stop gaming, stop eating too much. Stop watching that.

Stop being depressed Here, take this pill, don't think those thoughts, that doesn't help people.

I called him immediately he gave me his number, I called him and I said, we're going to meet. And I said that we're not going to talk about depression, we're not going to talk about suicide, we're not going to talk about pornography, food or gaming. We're gonna talk about one thing, and talk about your purpose.

And that's all we did is talk about previous made for we talked about, we didn't we didn't even talk that much about his life. We talked about people's lives in general, because one of the biggest I think things that holds people back is we become a student of our life problems.

You can't live out your purpose while being a student of your problems. And so we take him through this journey called the purpose mastermind, not the problem mastermind. Because focusing on it is your biggest problem. And so we tell stories, we draw lots of pictures. Because we want people to see a stick figure on a piece of paper, to take them to a place where they can understand their life better. It's so much easier. And so I'll just never forget those conversations we had once a week. And he just began to change.

Because he was looking, it's almost like the light was coming on in the room of his life and saying, Oh,

I forgot what I was made for.

I was just hating what was happening. That was wrong. I forgot. I forgot there was something in me, I forgot that I have something to offer the world. And, you know, I think it was three weeks in, we sat down and he told me he said I did something this week.

He said I texted my friends.

See, it becomes so down about himself. He was literally too afraid to even text, his friends. Because he felt like such a loser. And the next week, he got together with his friends.

And then he had he was because he was living at home with his parents, just afraid to be out afraid to be with anybody. And then it was five weeks in he applied for a job out of state.

And after I think it was two months, he got that job, moved out of state boldly I talked to him I think three months ago. He's in a great relationship planning a marriage.

He's focused on his purpose.

And that's enabled him to walk away from his problems. When human instinct is when my problems go away, then I can move on. That is not how life works.

If we try to fix ourselves,

before we can be ourselves,

we will never be ourselves. What we can do is we can be awakened and have almost this practical son experience like we're like we're the prodigal son came to himself but he said wait a second. I wasn't made for this

and with with simple steps a human being kind of walk away from their problems, but only because they're walking toward their purpose.

So good. I love everything you just said Mark and you know a couple things that were kind of coming to me is first thing is you know, even my dad so he's at he's struggling with plenty of medical stuff at the time he has Parkinson's and such, but he has the best mindset right about improving and getting better even if he if

fell and ended up in rehab. But he said, you know, he said to me, he's a he's definitely a strong man of faith. And he said, you know, since I was young, I knew that I had a purpose. He said that even recently, you know, and because that was instilled with him, right, he went to faith based school growing up, you know, but he, he knew from the time he was young, you know about that we all have a purpose, right? We were made for something. And so he's always kept that with him. And I think that's, it's so important. The other thing is, there's a quote I've recently seen that says something like, focus on me, not the storm. But the truth is, so many of us focus on our problems, whether it's our own problem, or it's in our marriage, or you know, whatever's going on, instead of focusing on the one that can actually leave, it's bigger than our problems, right. And so while purpose is so important, I think sometimes we get stuck in the, like you said, trying to solve the problem, instead of looking, you know, out to what else we should be doing, you know, and so I think that that's important didn't, but I think at the end of day, it comes down to when we know our purpose,

we have hope. And I think what's lacking in so many people's lives is hope, hopefulness. And so, I would just remind people, while we're talking about purpose, and it might seem a lot, like we're talking about purpose for their own lives, which is important. And we are, it's also important, I think, to remember that we need to speak hope, and we need to speak potential. And, you know, what we see in people? What do we see in them? Because I think right, helping people see, wow, hadn't even realized, like, this is what I was made for this is couldn't be my future, you know, in this deeper way. And I think it's important to remember that because I think we don't always remember we have impact the words we speak to other people. And so I would just encourage others to make sure you're speaking that way, especially to youth, you know, and young people, because I think we really can just like you guys are helping people with their purpose, we can help point people towards a future that is full of hope, and is full of purpose and is full of joy.

Without a doubt, yeah. So Edina, any last thing that you would like to share, just to add to our conversation before we start wrapping up.

It's in life, we don't think that this is possible, because we see the truth all around us.

But there's a greater truth, there's life will teach us truths. And we, and we believe those, like when I was a child, I believe it didn't have value, we'll just go to that simple example there. And I'm sure many, many people feel like their value has been sabotaged, or damaged, or hurt or destroyed completely. And we don't really think that there's another option, not really, like, we just get this, if life is up zero to 100%, I just get this 12% life or there's 23% life and my heart wants to be like 100, but I'm not going to get that. And there's hope. No matter what situation, you find yourself in it, we seem to write ourselves off, kick ourselves off the team of life, we put ourselves on the sideline, or even just, you know, even just go out to the car, and we're not even watching the game. It's, we kick ourselves out. But we don't realize that we're believing a truth that is actually alive. It's not alive. It's we we don't live life,

chasing after our problems and get to a healthy place. We have value. Life teaches us lives that we believe as truth. It just it squelches our hope. And so then we sit and we do nothing. And we just live out our definition of normal, which is our 12% or 23%, or whatever. We just live out that because that's all we can have. But that's not true. You can have an abundant life, you can have hope. You can have peace, you can have joy. And really, it's not an it's not a calculus formula to get there. It's simple. It's simple. So people can take a step. And we'd love to get people one step. Because when you think the whole everything is overwhelming, and way too much when we show them one simple step. They're like, Oh, I can do that.

And they don't even see how much life change will happen when they take that step. But when they, when they take it, then they're experiencing something different. And they're like, Wow, I didn't realize I was talking to a mom and three teenage girls. And we were just talking about one of the concepts and their responses after they did this action step.

You don't get life change unless you make movement. So these young ladies in this moment they made movement and that they were like we thought that that was going to be

He just like so simple. And just like, no big deal. We already know how to do that. They were coming back with life transformation stories. I'm just after our first conversation together. And so there's always one simple step that you can take. And there is hope. And if you don't have it for your own life, we can step in and have it for you until you see it.

So good. Oh, my goodness, thank you for sharing that. So tell me how or tell tell everyone? How can people connect with you online? Learn more about your podcast and your experience and all those things?

Yeah, the website is Mark delaney.com. The podcast is purpose, the purpose mastermind podcast. Those are the main ways people can reach out to us.

There's a if you would like for your listeners, there's a free course that we always offer to people called How to change. It's a lot of it comes from my story of weight loss. And

I'm not a skinny man right now. But I'm a free man. And I used to be a man that was going to die because of food. But it wasn't because of food. Just like for other people. It's not about addiction. It's not about alcohol, not about drugs. It's the lack of freedom in our lives. And so this course on how to change is really not focusing on your problem. It's how to see your whole life differently. So you can walk away from your problem. And so it's called How to change. And your listeners can have that. I'll be honest with you, we're not really salespeople. So if people, if people contact us to get this, they're not going to get into a recurring email with us or anything. You're just going to get it and we're going to walk away. If you want us in your life, we'll have to reach out. But anyway, I'll give you a phone number for that and easy code that they can just simply text, the word might change, and they're going to have that course.

Oh, that's great. Thank you. Well, let me just say to both of you, thank you so much, Mark and Adina for being on the show. I think it was filled with so much good. Goodness, so much hope. And I think, you know, I think one of the most important things that we can do is to help people understand that there is hope there is light, there is a future for them. And the fact that you help them understand how to do that through understanding their purpose, through finding freedom and knowing that they have value and worth I don't I can't think of anything more important. So thank you so much for joining me and taking the time to be with us today.

Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thanks again for listening. And if you would like to be encouraged and lifted up, I have a seven day encouragement challenge. If you'd like to sign up, go to faith fueled woman.com and just enter your email address and you will be sent seven days of Christian encouragement inspiration to your inbox. Thanks again for listening to faith peeled woman. If you enjoyed the show, we would love it if you would share it with a friend. And if you would leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts because itg in. helps us get discovered by more people to spread more hope in the world. Thanks again for listening.