The Purpose Mastermind: Helping Leaders Get Unstuck and Live with Meaning in Work, Marriage, and Parenting

This episode! What do I say about this? If you are married, just listen to this. 

The sex life between an husband and wife can be the darkest place of despair or it can be life giving. Here are some show notes:

• If a couple can communicate about their sex life, they can do just about anything together. 
• Anything that threatens our ability to give ourself to our spouse sexually, is also threatening our ability to thrive in other areas of our life. 
• Sexual intimacy seems like an extra-curricular activity. Take it or leave it. Actually, it is a crucible that exposes us. It reveals things in us that need to be exposed. 

Here is a link to the course mentioned in the episode about restoring intimacy in your marriage: https://www.mylifeplatform.com/restoring-intimacy

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The question of purpose will follow us throughout our life. It is relentless. We all want to live with purpose, but it can seem elusive. 

Does the question of purpose haunt you? Or is it a whisper that compels you that you can live a purposeful life? 

The question of purpose can haunt us for sure!

• I have messed up my life! I can't have purpose.
• I can't know my purpose. It's impossible to know.
• I can't talk about it! I have too much regret. 

What if the question of purpose was a wonderful whisper?

• You have a purpose! You can know it. 
• Of course you have failure in your life! The failures can become fuel for your purpose. 
• If you take the time to clarify your purpose it will bring meaningfulness to everything that you do. 

In this episode, Mark will share about how different we can feel when we have answered the question of purpose. We can live authentically, and boldly. We can stop feeling like we are circling a mountain with no chance of reaching the top. We can get rid of the feeling that we are always swinging and missing. 

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In this episode, you will hear the story of a young man that finished a successful high school career. After that he spent 5 years stressed, depressed, addicted, and suicidal. Thankfully, we connected through The Purpose Mastermind and his life is very different. 

I'll share with you a principle that really helped this young man to stop judging his life. Instead, he started living his life. 

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Personal Growth is a great endeavor, but it can cause us to spend our life circling in the information highway. We should be open to personal growth, but nothing replaces taking actual steps in life. 

In this episode Mark shares a story from his college days that causes him to live differently today. You will also hear "The Greatest 7 Step Process to Personal Growth Ever!" It's simple, it's not a gimmick and it's true. 

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Arrogance has many friends. When a teenager grows in arrogance, it ushers in many frustrations and fears for the parent. In this episode I talk about how a parent can respond to this situation. Here is a summary:

• Pride is a natural part of the human condition that we all share in common. Pride always offers us a false answer to our problems. The more arrogant a person is, the more deeply they are hiding their real insecurities.
• Sports can cause our kids to grow into a false identity. 

Here are three things that you can do:

• Let them face adversity. Their arrogance will put them into adversity of their own doing. Let them face it! The impulse will be to swoop in and be their hero. We might think that our relationship will get better if we save them from their trouble. We do want to care, support and guide. But we do certainly do not want to take away a great character builder. 
• Live your best life! When we focus on the problem that our child has we lose site of our greatest influence that we have. Our greatest impact is in living our best life. They may not want to listen to us very much, but they see, and our life can speak great things to them. The key to living our best life is to face our one junk!
• Humility is the best medicine for pride. Humility is not something that you study in order to embrace. Humility comes through experiences. Humility is cultivated by things that we actually see with our eyes and touch with our hands. (Catch the episode to hear what some families have done.) 

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Learn more at www.markdelaney.me

In this episode, Mark interviews a young couple about marriage. Devon and Jessi were married at the ages of 20 and 18 respectively. In this conversation they discuss the benefits that they have experienced in marriage. For many young people, marriage seems like a step that will slow them down from effectiveness in life. Here are some principles/quotes from the episode:

• “Marriage has moved me 100 steps forward as a man.”
• “Marriage has helped me become the person I have always wanted to be, but I struggled to become.”
• Marriage forces the yuck in us to be exposed. We can put on a facade for the world, but in our home it is very difficult to hide what we really are. 
• “Marriage forced me to tell the truth to her. The truth was hard, but it set me free.”
• “When he told me the honest truth of what he was struggling with, it was painful, but I also realized that I needed to be honest about who I am. 
• If a couple is willing to have a difficult conversation that can move to a better place rather quickly. It is far easier to avoid that conversation and pull away from each other. 

Here is the resource that we mentioned about restoring intimacy with your spouse. https://www.mylifeplatform.com/restoring-intimacy

Support the show (https://donorbox.org/family-paradigms-donations)

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Learn more at www.markdelaney.me

This is part 2 in a short series. Around the Christmas tree this past season, our family discussed the story of Mary and what it is like to be pregnant with a purpose. Here are the last 3 things we discussed:

1. There is always time between conception and the full revelation. Our life is like that of a farmer. We work the ground, we sow the seed, we water. But, what we do while we wait for the harvest is critical. 

2. Pregnancy is awkward! It's unavoidable. We all want to give birth to something great in life, but our instinct is to avoid anything awkward. There is no pregnancy without the awkward. 

3. Are we willing to live in a stable in order to birth something spectacular? Let's face it, if pregnancy didn't have a time limit, Joseph and Mary may have kept searching until they found the best place to birth the baby. If we aren't careful, we can spend a lifetime looking for the perfect "Inn". 

Support the show (https://donorbox.org/family-paradigms-donations)

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Learn more at www.markdelaney.me

In this episode Mark and Matthew talk about the conversation that happened around the Christmas Tree this past Christmas. From the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, we discussed what it is like to be pregnant with an important purpose. 

Lessons on purpose:
1. You don't become pregnant without giving yourself to someone in a vulnerable and surrendered relationship. We experience the amazing with others in this life, but not without experiencing the awkward. 

2. The work of God in us will often happen through the conduit of others. Most people have a desire to help others, but we usually try to perfect ourself in private before we engage with others. We can't perfect ourself for relationships. Relationship with others will work on us. 

3. When someone is pregnant, something awesome is happening within them, but it is very much out of their control. 

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Learn more at www.markdelaney.me

Books are great, but real friendships can move our life. In this episode, Mark gives his son advice on the importance of real friendship. As men, we are threatened to be so concerned with our reputation that we fail to develop a vulnerability that opens us up to real connection with others. With these real connections, we can have conversations that move our life forward. 

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Learn more at www.markdelaney.me

The passing of our faith to the next generation is of utmost importance to many people. But, we struggle with how to do that. In this episode, Mark and Adena talk about how they raised their kids in the faith. They share simple principles to help guide your parenting journey so that you can have confidence in how you lead your kids spiritually.

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