“I was just with him on his little college tour the first year he went out,” she says. “And James one night just said, ‘You’re going to perform ‘Up on the Roof’ tonight.’ It was just a wonderful transition for me, from being really scared to realizing that the audience was with me, and it’s because James had set me up for that.”

I am always amazed when I hear truly brilliant artists and thought leaders talk about their fear of sharing their gifts. I am duly impressed by the generosity of the person who pushed these people onto the stage.

James was not a superstar yet. He was trying to find his way as well. Yet he had the vision, wisdom and compassion to share his stage with Carole.

I spend a lot of time asking people what holds them back and what they need to play big. This time, I’m going to ask you, “Who could use a push from you?”

I read an article recently that suggested we quit worrying about having a life purpose and instead, go find someone else to help. Who knows, you might find passion and purpose as a result.

What struck me were the questions and the distinctions the author used to help clarify the purpose of your purpose.

If you are looking to define your life’s purpose, think back on the last time you felt fully alive and excited by what you were doing, then answer these questions:

1. Were you creating something that would affect many people’s lives or had you completed something that made you feel the incredible depth of your knowledge, skill or art?
2. Were you able to glimpse and share something important about the future giving people hope or direction or were you able to fix something or improve something now that wasn’t working?
3. Did you get your sense of joy from helping someone else or were you most proud of your own achievement?
4. Did you give people hope or laughter or were you letting nature or life nourish your soul?

If you answered “both” for any one question, choose the option that truly made you feel good all over, honestly.

You might find your purpose by answering one of the questions or you might find your purpose in a hybrid of answers to two or three questions.

Adding archetypes to the mix, you would either determine your dominant archetypes, the patterns of energy you most identify with, and then further define your purpose. Or you can define your purpose and determine if you are giving voice to the archetypes you most align with.

Use your answers to the above questions to help you choose the focus of your purpose below. The suggested archetypes for each purpose statement might fit for you or not depending on how you express the archetype. For example, a Jester may be the one who lightens up the room and helps people be optimistic about the future (Focus One). For others, being a Jester might help others heal after a difficult time (Focus Three). Teachers might help others realize their potential (Focus Three) or they are moved to make things better because they aren’t working well now (Focus Four).

1. Focused on creating or making something happen for the greater good.

Pioneer       Queen/King       Revolutionary       Visionary       Magician

Lover       Idealist       Collaborator       Jester

2. Focused on creating or making something happen for self-expression or self-discovery.

Wanderer       Hero/Heroine        Adventurer       Seeker       Superstar

Ruler       Detective       Artist       Gambler

3. Focused on assisting others to realize their potential or help them make a difference.

Storyteller       Caregiver       Inspirer       Healer       Mentor

Connector       Companion       Nurturer       Mother/Father

4. Focused on changing what is not working now.

Warrior       Rebel       Advocate       Fixer       Entertainer

Thinker       Martyr       Teacher       Scholar

For me, I most enjoy helping people realize a new future than focus on fixing what went wrong. I love to do this through inspiration and storytelling and I travel the world, never happy sitting still. My Purpose is Focus #1 with my dominant archetypes being the Revolutionary, Lover and Pioneer. I am also a Wanderer, Warrior, Superstar and Storyteller. When I use these secondary patterns of energy to fulfill my purpose, I am most happy.

What about you? Can you define what gives you a sense of purpose? Are you giving voice to your dominant archetypes? If not, can you give them more air time in your life? Do you have old patterns that need to sit back to let you focus more of your energy on your purpose?

Please share this post and what you discover by commenting online.

Yesterday during a workshop for women, I mentioned how the limitations my mother faced in her life had a sad but powerful effect on mine. After the workshop, Svetlana said her experience was the same.

Her mother also had to sacrifice her dreams so that the boys in the family could go to school. She could not participate in sports like the boys. She was expected to marry young. Pursuing a career was a silly idea.

My mother’s life was similar. No college for her. No sports. No career. When the family moved to Arizona and her mother died in a car accident, the inheritance went to her brother with a note saying my mother could marry a man to take care of her.

As a result, Svetlana and I grew up with mothers who were angry and emotionally disconnected.

On the other hand, we both had fathers who lived life fully. They sang songs, told stories and loved to make us laugh.

As adults, Svetlana and I had similar dreams and difficulties. We both wanted to create the lives our mothers never achieved. It may have taken longer for Svetlana, but she is now a very successful entrepreneur and was the first coach in Russia to achieve her Master Certified Coach designation.

And we both had difficulties with relationships. Not wanting to be treated as less important than a man, it took us years to discover what true partnership meant.

As women, we are different, yet the same. Finally, we are allowed, even encouraged to speak our desires and define our paths. Yet most of us struggle knowing who we really are as our highest self and what our true potential is. We are not sure how to define power, much less step into it. With few role models to follow, we fret over every life decision wondering what we might regret later on.

The best suggestion I can give is that we must stick together. I am sad when I hear of women sabotaging women at work, of how we judge each others choices, and of envy coming between friends.

What can you do today to support another woman to realize her dreams? What can you do today to remind a woman of the wonderful gifts she gives when she shares her ideas? What can you do today to mentor a younger woman or thank an older woman for what you can now achieve?

We have different yet similar journeys. We all struggle. We all triumph. We are all trying to do our best with what we have.

We are stronger when we stand for each other, together.

There are many exercises available on how to 1) vision possible futures, 2) identify strengths and passion, and 3) determine what to do first on your journey. I have blogged on these topics and Google can suggest many sites with techniques you can try.

An off-beat idea is to study your regrets. We tend to want to forget our regrets. I’ve read lots of quotes telling me not to have regrets (which is humanly impossible) or that regrets are just lessons (maybe, but they are still regrets).

The more you experience life, the more you look back on decisions you made with the sense that if you only knew then what you know now, you would have chosen differently. There is great wisdom in hindsight.

Yet hindsight can give you great foresight if you study your regrets.

What are you sorry for that you did or did not do? The answer to this question can give you great insight on what could be missing in your life.

Of course, there is no purpose in beating yourself up, again, for the decisions you made in the past. You had a reason you believed in. What you can do is use the loss you still feel to help you focus on what you want to create this year and beyond.

Consider these questions:

1. What do I miss or wish I would have done? Can I factor these losses into my plans for this year?
2. Do I still feel guilty for not doing something I think I should have? Is there a way I can complete this situation this year so I can move on whole-heartedly?
3. What is still stopping me now from doing what I really want to do or getting what I want? What can I do to remove these obstacles?
4. Have I set the right standards for my own success? Maybe I’m not celebrating what I have today regardless of what I thought it should look like. And if I want more for myself, can I clearly paint that picture looking forward instead of backwards?

If you call up and clearly identify what you regret, you can use this information to help you focus on the future. Your regrets can help you make major life decisions.

What insights do your regrets give you?

He didn’t live to fit into the system. He lived to create what he thought was possible.

Quoting Stewart Brand, editor of the Whole Earth catalog, Jobs told the Stanford graduating class to “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” How can you live by these wise words especially in times of economic problems and dark omens of the future?

For me, the most significant word is not hungry or foolish, but “stay.”

No person has accomplished great things without a passion for their work and strong beliefs that what they are doing is right and good for many.

And even with passion and conviction, there has to be endurance. I recently heard education expert Sir Ken Robinson say, “We live in a veil of beliefs and values.” If your life’s work is about lifting the veil so others can see the beauty of what else is possible, then you need to know how to persist even when it feels futile.

The Dalai Lama said, “To be born at all is a miracle. What will you do with your life?”

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

If money weren’t an issue, what change would you like to make? What movement would you like to create or add your voice to? What were you once passionate about but gave up hope?

Is there any reason that you would like to say, “Oh yeah, I’ll show you!” Great things have come out of the desire to prove others are wrong about us and our ideas.

Could it be that you haven’t stepped out or you gave up because what you tried didn’t seem to work?

Maybe it’s time to try again. Start small. Prove what you know is right with little experiments so you have inspiring data instead of just an idea.

Find people to work with that support your point of view. Stay away from people who tell you to play it safe.

Steve Jobs left a legacy that I believe is critical for women to live into. We must stay hungry and foolish to create a world where everyone can live up to their greatest potential. Will you join me in realizing this vision?

Giselle had a dream less than a year ago to create a gathering for women in Trinidad committed to exploring possibilities for their lives. She had never created an event before. She asked if she could use my writing along with her own to print articles in the Trinidad Express to help create a following of women who would then pay to see me speak at the event in a year.

Giselle created a vision and didn’t let anyone talk her out of it. In fact, she decided that she would ask the women to sign up for not just an event but an entire year of coaching and teletraining so the like-minded passionate and purpose-driven women would work together to create their futures. The event where I was to speak turned into a kickoff for the year-long program.

Last week, as I stood in front of 50 beautiful Trinidadian women, I asked the question, “What is keeping you small?” I felt Giselle’s presence behind me, a shining example of a woman who decided to play large and step into her dream with trust and passion. Not only did she fill the room, but she attracted sponsors to pay the expenses, including my travel and speaking fee plus those of one other incredible speaker, Karen Walrond (check out her chookooloonks website if you want to see a tribute to the beauty of life).

I was even interviewed on Trinidad TV along with Giselle, another example of her ability to ask for what she needed and strangers, now friends, said yes.

What seeds of dreams do you have just waiting to sprout? What is stopping you from bringing them to light? What is keeping you small?

Giselle offers a World of Possibilities for women. Check her out on Facebook when you need some inspiration. I am lucky to have her in my life.

And Giselle, since I know you will read this, I want to publicly thank you and Anastasia for the delightful two days in Tobago after the event. You definitely win the best host award. I learned to not only choose to be with those who dream big, but accept the gifts and surprises that come with the package.

I can’t wait to visit your beautiful country again and to have you visit mine.

I loved that the author shared how Thanksgiving is celebrated around the world. It’s not an American holiday, yet I would bet most Americans think we invented it.

In truth, we tapped in to a wonderful tradition observed by many countries and cultures:

“Thanksgiving was celebrated in Canada on the second Monday of October this year, as it has been since 1957, to offer thanks at the end of the harvest season. Chung Ch’ui in China and Chuseok in Korea are major three-day national thanksgiving harvest festivals whose date of celebration varies slightly each year during the nations’ harvest seasons. Among other countries that celebrate a national day of thanks are Australia, part of India, Japan, Liberia and Malaysia. Many other nations hold a variety of events to express gratitude for their nations’ harvests.”

So many people lack a global perspective. I am grateful that as I work around the world, I see the world in a different way. There are amazing people everywhere I go. My perspective has changed from Us vs. Them to We Are All One. Because I travel, I have experienced this first hand.

I wish I could transfer this feeling to everyone I touch.

This year, while you are feeling grateful for your life and the people you love, see if you can open your heart to pray for peace, love and abundance for all people around the world. Then do it again the day after Thanksgiving, and every day when you have a quiet moment to share.

However, discovering your unique, value-creating capacity is not that easy. You may devalue your core contribution by thinking that what you do naturally is not that great. Or you don’t spend time developing your unique potential when you are busy doing other things, like surviving or focusing on what you think you should be doing.

Larry says this truth applies to organizations as well as to individuals. People who run companies forget what formed their core identity, leaving the employees little to align their efforts around and hitch their passion to. Everyone should know what made the organization distinctive from the beginning and what special contribution they provide in the form of products or services. And they should be proud of this unique value proposition.

The Exercise

Step 1. One way of beginning to discover your “proprietary contribution” is to list your eight most important achievements in life. Start with as far back as you can remember. What are you most proud of from your grade school days? What special thing did you do as a young adult? What amazing things did you create or overcome in the past twenty years?

Put your accomplishments on index cards or PostIt™ notes, one per note. Then arrange them in a circle.

Step 2. Can you find the thread or theme that fits for each accomplishment? Look for the energy it took for you to reach your goals or the desire that fueled your sustainability. What circumstances were similar in each situation? Can you discover one strength, value, feeling or attitude for each achievement?

Step 3. Give your force a name or label. It could be as large as “breaking boundaries” or as sweet as “making connections.” See what comes up when you connect your dots.

This thread is your life force. When you express this thread, you achieve amazing things. If this thread is suppressed, you feel trapped or numb.

This life force is fundamental to your success in life. It forms the foundation of who you are. It gives you the power to stay on track no matter what.

This force never changes. You might express your identity differently in different situations and times in your life, but this energy and the need to express it is consistent.

What is your life force?

This is a simple exercise to introduce you to Larry’s work. If you like this exercise, check out www.theidentitycircle.com.

Many people have been forced to rethink who they are and what they do. This is good. We all need to regularly re-invent our work and renew our enthusiasm for our daily lives.

At the same time, many people are lured into the promise, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” This is bad. If you don’t know how to articulate what you do in a way that other people would love to be with you, no one will run to you with cash in hand. If you don’t have the energy and time to do what it takes to create widespread visibility, you will remain a well-kept secret.

It is important to have passion for what you do, no matter who you work for. If people don’t sense your enthusiasm for your ideas and plans, they will be cautious about aligning with you or buying from you. Even if they decide to work with you, if you aren’t emotionally engaged you won’t do your best work.

But passion isn’t enough. Living off love for your work has created many starving artists.

Launch your business or choose your career path with passion. Look for what tasks energize you, what things you look forward to doing and what makes you feel good when your work is done.

Then make sure the work you choose is not only work you do better than anyone you know, but you are providing a product or service people want and are willing to pay for.

What special knowledge or expertise have you developed? Even if you think you don’t want to do what you have been doing anymore, you might find a way you can share what you know that feels better than your last job. Maybe you can help non-profits that have a special meaning for you. Maybe you can coach or teach others not to make the mistakes you made on your journey (then help them to be more successful than you…I’ve done that one although I then have to rethink my own approach). Maybe you can write and speak on what it took to be successful in your field.

Once you have some ideas, you can start the research…yes research. Gut instinct is unreliable when judging the outside world. Look at who your competition will be. Can you do what they do but better? Who are they targeting – are they missing some people you think need your help?

One of the easiest ways to weed through your ideas is to write a business plan. It doesn’t have to be long, but it should cover the basics of who will be your customers, how you will connect with them and how much it will cost to get started.

Follow your dreams, but learn how to hustle.

More than anything, they wanted to make an impact, in the workplace or for their customers. If their work didn’t prove to be meaningful to them, they wandered in search of their purpose.

Kelly, said, “If my work doesn’t give me a sense that I am doing something special, I’m not happy. That’s when I feel most restless–when I get so busy that I lose an internal sense that what I’m doing is important beyond making a profit.”

The problem is that they kept repeating this pattern. They kept searching for something more, then felt disappointed when they didn’t find it. They felt their work didn’t align with their life purpose, but they couldn’t articulate what that purpose was.

So how do you define your purpose? Most likely you know when your sense of purpose is missing, but if you can’t define what gives you this feeling, you leave its appearance in your life to chance. Then you feel restless, discontented and disappointed more than you feel fulfilled.

First, know that there is a difference between having a “life purpose” which is a specific destination and having a “sense of purpose” which is feeling that provides you direction. Having a sense of direction will help you make career and life choices even if you don’t have a specific life purpose.

Declaring a definitive purpose defines a specific destination. The latter—living with a sense of purpose—identifies a feeling. If you haven’t identified your life purpose, choosing to find your direction over a destination can makes your life easier. You can quit beating yourself up for not having one purpose in life.

When you release the need to know the definitive answer to the purpose question, you live for a feeling instead of a goal. You appreciate what sparks your love, gratitude, laughter, pride and awe instead of losing these moments to your to-do lists.

We look too hard to find a unique, profound, and tangible reason for our existence. Instead, seek to discover everything that makes you feel alive and connected.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to have a life purpose. I honor those who have found it. The rest of us may stumble upon one someday. In the meantime, choose to enjoy the gifts of contentment, love and gratitude for the sunshine and people in your life today.

First determine what having a sense of purpose feels like to you. Then you can recognize what ignites these feelings. Once you identify what sparks your laughter, love, passion and pride, you have the means to determine if you are on a purposeful path or if you need to shift your direction.

Your sense of purpose then becomes the guiding light that keeps you focused as you wander through life. When you passionately live with a strong sense of purpose, you can remember what is most important to you no matter what difficulties you face.

What brings you joy and fulfillment may change over time so you may feel you have lost your sense of direction. Allow the source to change. There is no right or wrong answers to the question, “What makes me feel alive and connected right now?”

Just ask and see what shows up.

Adapted from Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction