Life Changing Opportunity

I was born in a small town by the Aegean sea called Izmir in Turkey. I loved spending time on the beach. I didn’t spend much time with my school studies and would have been considered a failure then. I was a girl without much courage to speak up in class, who struggled to express herself, and didn’t feel successful in general, whatever that meant at that time.

This was back before I knew about the "right " or "expected" thing to do.

I see now that “things happen for a reason " …This is a term that we may hear often, and the question is—what does it mean? And, do we believe it? Is it something that we tell ourselves to feel better when something goes bad in our life? Well, I guess that depends on your view of life, but what it comes down to is we either grow from our experiences or let our experience define what will happen in our life. In other words, we have the choice to find the meaning (or reason) within everything that happens to us, which infuses our lives with a greater sense of purpose.

Purpose exists in everything. We have 2 choices in life, allow the unexpected or negative aspects of life to be a curse, or turn them into blessings. We have always found that when we see experiences as an opportunity, we find that even what could have been considered the worst of obstacles and challenges turned out to be the biggest blessing.

My future changed in 1999 when I was 16 years old - the day a letter arrived from the US to my mailbox in Izmir, Turkey. We received a green card via the lottery! The next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Lawrence, Kansas! Flying across the ocean, everything went dark!

Dreams, friends, family, beach, happy thoughts…all melted away as I faced this big change. I didn’t know how to navigate through the unexpected experience. ​ I was challenged to rebuild the many things that I had left behind. The work required new skills, new values, even a new identity!

Discovering My Purpose

There are some people who have a specific talent that is so extreme that it is easy to detect that they were truly “made” to do it. I wasn’t one of them. Determining what I was “made to do” was less obvious. Part of this is because most of us are influenced by our families and society to follow paths that we're “supposed” to do. Our roles, careers, hobbies, and relationships are often chosen more because of our conditioning or because we feel we “should” rather than because they are a fit for who we truly are. It is no surprise that the people who make decisions for their lives based on who they really are and what they genuinely want are more satisfied and more successful. After 10 + years of my corporate professional experience, I simply found my purpose to spread the power of purpose, positively impacting people's lives and inspiring Greater Humanity through growth and success.