Why You Need to Know Your Purpose

Inspiration
October 22, 2018
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I was home one Saturday morning watching Cesar Millan’s Dog Whisperer Show. It inspired me to look him up on Youtube. Not only did I find some true gems in some older shows and interviews, but watching him helped me understand why you need to know your purpose.

What do I mean by that? Well, throughout the last few decades we’ve been taught to identify what we’re good at, what our talents are and how to nurture the best parts of us. Nothing wrong with that, but those things are just a few pieces in the whole picture of the jigsaw puzzle that is our lives. The whole picture is our purpose.

In one of those interviews, Cesar talked about how he tried to kill himself and why. He had taken an overdose of some kind of drug via pills. His son found him, but he told his son to bury him next to Daddy. Daddy was the pit bull you remember seeing in older shows that helped Cesar rehabilitate other dogs. He said he wanted to die because he was a failure. His wife was leaving him, demanding a divorce. He found out that he broke even though his show had earned the network millions. And to top all that off, Daddy was already dead. He said to the interviewer “In that moment, I realized I was a failure. And that I had no purpose”.

Now, that wasn’t exactly true – and I’ll get into why in a minute. But in his mind, he associated certain successes with purpose. So when he failed at those things, he had lost his sense of purpose, AND didn’t see how to regain it. Without purpose, he had no reason for living.

One thing that I thought was so awesome was that either in the same interview or in another one, he said that a Mexican (himself) and a pit bull (Daddy) were helping to change American culture. He said that both Mexicans and pit bulls had gained such a bad rap, that he was on a mission to change how people viewed pit bulls, because all the negative stereotypes believed about the breed were untrue. He and Daddy were living proof that we (and our dogs) are so much more than the negative labels that are forced on us. THAT was his purpose. (Well, I don’t know Cesar personally so I can’t say that’s all to his purpose, but I think you get what I’m saying).

Cesar was also a father and had met another woman he later became engaged to. And the best part of this story to me was that before Daddy died he had trained his successor – a puppy pit bull named Junior. And from the videos that I saw, Junior was living up to his new role. It warmed my heart because I know that pit bulls are actually loving, smart, athletic dogs who thrive and excel when they’re given jobs to perform. Yes they’ve gotten a bad rap because of the humans who breed them and abuse them to condition them to be viscious. But that same strength, fierceness and tenacity when channeled properly make them dependable, safe for children to be around (they used to be called “nanny dogs”), and excellent rehabilitation dogs for humans.

Cesar worked his gift, and it’s your gift that brings you before great men. In Cesar’s case, his gift brought him before millions of people world wide who wanted to know how they too could live in a peaceful coexistence with the dogs they loved. He’s helped change public perception and helped people change for the better in the process of learning how to treat and care for their dogs.

What’s your gift? And what can you do today to start sharing it with others?

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