Sunday Serenity: Finding Purpose

Happy Sunday, Cadre family. Jason Lennox here, your resident recovery champion. I am excited to share a little bit tonight about purpose. I talk a lot about purpose. In fact, I wrote a book in the subtitle is finding purpose in pain, loss, and addiction. So I had struggles in my life that helped me find my own purpose. So that's what I'll be talking about. Today is actually a special day for a couple reasons. February 4, it was my grandfather's birthday, and he was, you know, tragically, he left us about nine years ago, I guess 2015.

So it's his birthday, and he was just someone I was talking to, talking about with my family this past week. And we just talked about how he was kind of the center of the family. He had this really. Hey, good evening. Speak wonder. He had this really neat way of balancing the hard work and being stern and just a well respected person, but also being a bit of a gentle giant. So he was the life of the party, and he was the center of all things in our family. So his birthday. I love that it's a special day for a second reason, and I want to share the quote, actually, from Mark Twain that said, the two most important days your life are the day that you were born and the day you find out why.

And I'll never forget, February 4 of 2014 was the day that I really understood why I was here. And so that was several years, four years into my recovery. Three and a half, maybe. And. Yeah. Good evening, Luke. I love seeing you here, too, man. So I was three and a half years into recovery when February 4, 2014 happened. And by chance, I had actually asked to speak at my treatment center, the treatment center I went to. I went back, and I met with a community outreach person, and we started talking.

She's figuring out how to fit me into the mix. And she said, and I told her a little bit about myself, where I was from. And she happened to be going to my high school the next week. And so she said, what are you doing Tuesday? And I said, well, I think I have school, but I think I'm free otherwise. And she said, well, you're not anymore. You're coming to Nrheg with me. So I went with her. She was presenting on the topic aces adverse childhood experiences, and she said there would be nothing better than to have you stand up there and share your experience, how it contributed to addiction and so on.

So the day comes, and I'm a little bit nervous because I haven't spoken to the school in this way. This is the entire district staff and so they have a staff event, and this was part of the training. And here I'm going to be speaking to them on about four days notice. So I get up there, I share my story, and I'll never forget, as I sat there and shared and just watching in the audience, I could see people. I could. I explained this to a coach of mine, and she said, oh, that's just that message. I could watch the misunderstanding melt away from their faces.

So a little context. This is my high school, right? And so I grew up there, and the teachers that were there, they watched me go down a really bad path. As early as high school, I was homeless in high school and in a lot of trouble. And now there were also people working in the school district that had actually been fellow classmates of mine. So I had an audience of people who had watched the demise of my life and not really understood why, and they thought they contributed, and so they just had a huge misunderstanding.

And as they heard about my story, about what that experience was like for me, they started to realize that it wasn't as easy as I was making bad decisions. There was a disease component to this. And so as they began to understand, I could watch it, and I could watch the tears come down, and there were a lot of hugs. And I'll never forget walking out of that place. It was an odd experience because I walked out that day having felt something I'd never felt before, speaking to that group. And as exhilarating and as fun and rewarding as that was, I also had a level of sadness because I thought this was the pinnacle.

This was the. The greatest of the moments that I could ever speak. And I never. I couldn't fathom how I could top that, I guess, if you'll say, because it just seemed like the top of the mountain, if you will. So I had a little bit of sadness. But I also knew that day why I was born. I knew why I had gone through all the experiences I had gone through that nearly took my life, that left me in really bad spots for many, many years, was to come back on the other side and help the world see it a little bit differently.

Because as I started speaking and as I started sharing this more and more with people, I realized that people didn't think that others who struggle with addictions, they didn't think that that was a choice just because that's the choice they made, to think that they thought that because they didn't know any better. And as soon as they heard differently, as soon as they heard someone like me share my experience and my struggles and my desires to not go down that path, yet continue to fall flat on my face.

They realized that there was more compassion, understanding, and just education that was needed. So I knew from that day on, and I had spoken before, many times, I'd spoken at treatment centers, recovery meetings all over, but I knew that that was the ticket that day. And I haven't stopped since. I get out, and I. I probably speak once a month, and I made a bit of a living out of it to some extent, and have found ways to get to the, you know, the largest crowds in our industry and just around the world.

And using this platform to just share with people, to just share with people that it's not what we think. It's so often not what we think. Same goes for mental health, addiction. A lot of things you see in here, on here, there's just a level of misunderstanding. So that was my purpose. And I know purpose looks a little different for everyone. So my purpose, if I had to sum it up, I'm on a mission to help put a dent in one of the biggest problems in our world, addiction and mental health. And I'm going to do that as often and fast and hard as I can.

And that looks a little bit different for other people sometimes. Purpose is having a family and being the person, right? I have an 18 year old boy, so I don't have young ones at home. I have a different phase of my life going on, but sometimes it's being a great parent and being a great sibling, just figuring out how to work quietly behind the scenes. Purpose looks different for all of us, and that's okay. But here's the neat thing about purpose. When we do find it, when we do understand it, when we do follow up, and we align things with that purpose, everything else seems to get a little bit better.

And the addictions and the chemicals and the other things that we struggle with and look to find solace in, they're not there. They're not an option. I don't wake up today and think about if I'm gonna go back to the life I once lived, because my life is so driven and so full of the purpose that I've found that there's just no room for it. That void is full. It's there. And so, again, the thing with purpose is we find that and we tap into that, and we get to experience a lot of cool things. I get to work with a lot of neat providers of this service, mental health, addiction.

A lot of people out of CEO's who just have really unique ideas and impressive resumes, and it's just amazing. But again, just aligning with that purpose, there's a level of, you know, alignment, I guess, and consistency and harmony that allows me to live life free of the desires, to seek outside things all the time, and I'm guilty of that still. But largely, my purpose is what drives my life and the things I do. So here's the call to action as we go into the week. I want you to think about and answer this question aloud, if you can.

What is your purpose? And if that's not easy to come up with, that's perfectly fine. Again, this is not. This is not something that happens overnight. It took me years to figure out and an experience like I shared to realize this is what it is. And I think I still realize that in hindsight, I didn't know it then. But I urge you to think about that. What is your purpose? And if you can't answer that, clearly, start documenting possibilities and start leaning into those and figuring out where it makes sense and where it doesn't.

Because again, when we can get in line with purpose, boy, life gets a lot easier. It gets challenging at times, too, but it gets a lot simpler. Things align more. And, you know, the actions I take in life have reason in there, you know, with a goal in mind and an end in insight. So, hope you all have wonderful weeks. Hope you've enjoyed the discussion about purpose. I'm just an advocate for finding purpose and then delivering on it and continuing to align on it. And by the way, sometimes it changes every year, every five years, every ten years.

I'm pretty clear on mine. And again, if you can't clearly answer that question, that is perfectly fine. But start putting things on paper, think about what that is, and lean into each of them. It'll become clearer, I promise. So I hope you all have a wonderful week. I look forward to coming back and doing it again next week.