What is your purpose?  Do you know?  The last time I spoke about purpose I was on Periscope crying.  Don’t worry I saved that video, because I want to reflect on that breakthrough.  I may share it again publicly one day.

I certainly didn’t arrive at what my purpose was overnight, and sometimes I feel that my purpose morphs into other things, but arrives at the same end point.  Storytelling.

Yesterday, I discussed being thankful for my passion.  Yes, I believe there is a difference between your purpose and passion.  Now, hold on, work with me.  Your passion is what you love to do, and your purpose is what you were put here to do.  Can they overlap?  Sure. Mine certainly do.  Does it take some time to figure it out?  It depends.  Once you accept your purpose, the journey is not easy, and that’s why I’m #SteeleThankful.

My passion is clearly history.  I mean, no brainer, I have other passions, but that’s definitely #1.  My purpose, I wrestled with it for a long time. A LONG TIME!  I used to joke about having a “trusting face.”  I said people trust me with their life stories, even strangers.  How can I be an example and let them know everything will be okay? When I arrived at the notion of being a filmmaker, it almost frightened me.  Documentaries intrigued me.  The art of capturing a story and telling it in such a succinct way was the challenge.  Was I up for it?

When my first documentary project idea came along I thought, “yes, that’s it, I’m going to change the world with this one.”  Life happened.    The loss of my dad shattered my own world, and I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to relive a moment that we shared together.  I was in my room one day and it hit me.  All the videos that I recorded were for a reason.  It was for this divine purpose.

I changed my focus.  It was no longer about changing the world, it was about providing closure, one person at a time, and that changes their world! If I could provide a safe place for someone to share their story and in turn impact others, I was on the right track.  Only one person besides myself has seen my home videos.  That was my test.  Could I do this?  I’m asking others to be vulnerable but was I able to do the same.  Goes back to walking in your purpose isn’t easy, oh but it’s worth it.  Your purpose can keep you up at night.  It had me sleeping with my journal next to my bed every night.

I still struggle with it sometimes.  The comfortable 9-5 lifestyle be calling me.  Then I ask myself, am I running into these roadblocks because I’m not obeying my life’s journey, and not trusting what God told me.  God clearly told me to have faith, you know the size of a mustard seed.  Do you know how SMALL that is?

My purpose is listening.  Listening leads to understanding, understanding leads to wisdom, and wisdom leads to one heck of a journey, impacting one person at a time.

What are you #SteeleThankful for?