Embracing Life's Transformative Journey: From Setbacks to Success in Human Nature

Ever wondered how life's unexpected turns can reshape your purpose? Join me, Adrian Starks, as I open up about my transformative two-month hiatus and the profound changes in my journey since 2018. 

• Confronting the challenges of recent life events
• The evolution of the podcast and its purpose
• The impact of the pandemic on personal aspirations
• The physical move and its emotional implications
• Coping with the loss of my father and its significance
• The importance of vulnerability and self-expression

Inspired by legends like Les Brown and Maya Angelou, I reveal the raw truth about the winding path of self-discovery and how COVID-19 turned expectations upside down. Through the highs and lows, I've learned that making others feel valued is the true mark of success. Listen in as I share candid insights and stories that led to a new direction for "Your Purposeful Life," evolving from an entrepreneurial spotlight to a broader exploration of human nature and purpose.

Looking ahead to 2025, I'm thrilled to share plans for hosting an array of incredible guests and making empowering podcast appearances. Together, we’ll explore the depths of self-expression and growth, drawing parallels to the complexities of superheroes. Through engaging conversations, we'll unravel the beauty of humanity and the significance of embracing our emotions. With references to Socratic wisdom and "A New Earth," this episode aims to inspire you to honor your unique journey. Get ready for diverse content, from movie insights to Marvel comics and beyond, as we embark on this shared path of learning and growth in our chaotic yet beautifully human mess.

Chapters

• 0:00 Revealing Vulnerabilities and Life Shifts
• 15:51 Empowering Self-Expression and Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What's going on everybody. This is an episode that has been a long time coming. It's been about two months since the last episode so in this episode I just break it down what's been going on with YPL, why there's been delays. What's been happening with the pausing. What's been going on in my life, the changes, what to expect for YPL and I share a lot of things, even three major events that happened in my life that caused the shift in how things are being done now and I did a little bit of an ugly cry. I'm not going to be apologetic about that, but this was a very vulnerable episode for me and go check it out and, when you're done listening to this episode, go and subscribe to the podcast on my YouTube channel and also download some episodes to listen to more about YPL and all the amazing guests that we have.

Speaker 1: 0:49

I'm Adrian Starks, known as Mr Purpose. I'm a speaker, voice narrator, comic card and superhero fanatic, book lover, martial artist, health enthusiast and just a fellow human seeking purpose. Join me and our guest as we navigate the chaotic journey of life, of what I like to call the human mess, to discover how we can craft and share our purpose. There's no single path, but together we'll explore the diverse perspectives to uncover the tools to help you shape your purpose your way. Let's get it and let's create what's good. Everybody, I am doing an episode. That is just a surprise. This was not planned out. I decided that I needed to just get something out here for you so that you can understand what I've been doing and what I've been going through.

Speaker 1: 1:43

The podcast has done a lot of changes over the past couple of years and that's been based off of just my personal journey. When I first started this podcast back in 2019, I believe I think it was 2018 actually the podcast started off as the Purposeful Life, because I wanted people to see that there was some purpose to their life. And, of course, it started off really tailored towards what I would say the entrepreneurship community, because that's what I was heavily involved in at the time and it served this purpose and it still does to this day. And if you are an entrepreneur, please go and listen to those episodes, binge out. They're pretty much evergreen. They're still valuable to this very moment and I'm very proud of it. That is why I haven't taken down any of those episodes, because it shows the evolution of what I started and how now things have become. We fast forward now to 2025. The podcast is now called your Purposeful Life and I did an introductory video on my YouTube channel that expresses the why behind that. When you have a moment, go and check that out on my YouTube channel your Purposeful Life with Adrian Starks. Like that video, comment on it and subscribe, because I'm going to be releasing a lot more videos. You get a lot more things coming from me going forward.

Speaker 1: 3:15

But let me just tell you and be very transparent when I first started out as a speaker, I thought that everything had to be a certain way. You need to be well polished, you needed to say certain things to make sure that you are perfect in your language and how you came across to people, and although this makes sense in front of professional audiences or if you're doing a presentation like a TED talk, et cetera, that makes complete sense. However, I did those things. I did a TED-style talk. I spoke in front of colleges. I spoke in front of high schoolers. I spoke in front of entrepreneurs. I spoke in front of an audience of over a thousand people plus. I've done all of that. At the end of the day, I realized that there were aspects of me that I didn't reveal because I didn't think anyone needed to know them, and so I just came across as this very astute person that knew about all the purposeful living matters. I had all the solutions to changes and challenges. And reality is is that I was just like you, trying to figure my shit out, trying to learn along the way, as I'm building what I felt so passionate about which, to this very day, I still do. I'm building what I felt so passionate about which, to this very day, I still do. So I learned a lot between 2018 and now, and I learned a lot about who I was during that moment and who I have become now.

Speaker 1: 4:37

When I was in the speaking industry, during that time, motivational speaking was the thing. It's no longer a thing now. Covid made sure of that. I was inspired by great people like the Les Browns, et, eric Thomas, tony Robinson, wayne Dyer, Earl Nightingale, jim Rohn, and the list goes on and on, and I pulled a lot of my value of what I've learned about self-improvement, self-empowerment, self-knowledge, self-awareness from those great people, and I was really inspired and, to this day, still inspired by Maya Angelou by Maya Angelou, and Maya Angelou had a quote that really resonated with me and she said that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And that has been my model going forward. And the feeling part was something that I had to feel.

Speaker 1: 5:54

There were three major events that happened in my life that really changed who I had become and what I've been doing now. For starters, when I started out as a motivational speaker, I thought the world. I was like hey, all I got to do is get out of here, be myself and inspire people and really have something that I stand behind and I'm going to be successful. I'm going to be able to travel the world, I'm going to be able to do what I want to do and still inspire lives. And baby, did I think I was going to do that and I did some of those things, but it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

Speaker 1: 6:32

You ever have that in your life where you're like plan something but then it doesn't come through and then you're shocked by it. That's what happened to me and I realized that, whoa, I'm going to have to go back to what I was doing before and to reevaluate, reassess and to recalibrate. I had a friend. I have a friend and her name is Michelle I won't say her last name, but Michelle and she told me she says Adrian, there's no such thing as a starving artist, but there is a such thing as an artist who is starving. You're starving, baby. You can't do this speaking thing, thinking that you're going to get paid to do it and you're going to live happily ever after. It's stunning your creativity. You are an artist and you're not happy. What happened? Folks was in 2020, of course, covid took place.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Things became minimized, no exposure to people directly, travel stopped and I found myself in another country where I really didn't have the resources to really do the things I needed to do, and I found myself having to go back. I was in Canada for a bit. I found myself having to go back to the US and to go back into the work field. It's taken me a long time to be able to admit this, but I went back to the nine to five. That time I thought it was very embarrassing, but now I understand it was part of the process and it changed a lot of things for me how I saw myself, my creativity changed a bit because I was no longer around the people who were like, yes, go for it, adrian, do this, do that. I was more around people that didn't really give a shit about what I was doing outside of work. They just didn't care. It didn't really phase them. I didn't have that inspiration. So I lost the inspiration, not realizing that it was supposed to be generating from inside me all along, me all along. So that was a major life shift for me and it slowed up my process of producing podcast episodes, of putting a material out.

Speaker 1: 8:51

Then there was a second change that happened. I moved. I moved to a different location. My setting was different and I was just trying to get myself up and going with a new job, with the new place I was living in, and that also caused me to slow down a bit. I think there was a quote I'm going to stay on Maya Angelou for a bit but she said that there's a point in time in your life where you just have to pull your car over to the side of the road and put your hazard lights on, and that moment came for me In 2023,.

Speaker 1: 9:25

I lost my father. He meant a lot to me. I still get choked up about it, talking about it. He was my world. Not many men, or black men, can say that their father was 100% present in their life. He was present in my life. He was very present. It was completely unexpected. I had to pull my car over and park, put my hazard lights on, stop the podcast episodes, stop everything, because I just I didn't understand what was the purpose of it all. I didn't understand. This is real, folks. This is very real.

Speaker 1: 10:30

He taught me about vulnerability. He taught me about preparation. He taught me about really educating myself, going for my dreams. He taught me about being responsible, staying in character. He taught me a lot of things, and my mother was completely shocked by it. My mother and father were married for over 36 years. They were high school sweethearts.

Speaker 1: 11:06

It was a story that you just do not hear about anymore, especially with the way dynamics are going now with families and relationships. Sorry, give me a moment here to compose myself, but it was a major shock. So we had to pull our car over and park supporting ourselves, supporting our mother emotionally, and it was hard for my brother and I. It still is to this day, but I've learned that when you are grieving, it's not something you ever get over. You just learn how to accept it and go through the flow of the process when it happens Right Like right now, I'm crying and I'm lying to myself to move through it.

Speaker 1: 11:57

That was what the major stop point was for me producing or putting out podcast episodes Because I needed to pull my car over and park. I needed to think about things. I needed to figure out this human mess, this thing that just happened, and how do I process it. My creativity went away and, although I recorded a lot of podcasts before, they remained in the vault because I still needed to get them edited with my team. I still needed to put them out and I just said I got to pause. So for the people out there that are wondering, how do you get through it, you have to just go with how your spirit feels and just move through it and at some point you have to take one foot and put it in front of the other. That's all you can do and that's what I've been doing, and it's been a hell of a journey and that's why today I'm back.

Speaker 1: 12:58

I'm here because this is something I'm very passionate about and part of me revealing other aspects of myself, which you will see now is because there is no fear of being perfect. I know I'm not perfect, I'm imperfect and it's beautiful to be imperfect. It's great. I think there was an episode I did with a great person, leslie Logan, and we talked about Pilates imperfection. Go check that episode out. I can't recall the number right now, but whoa, that was a powerful episode and actually it's something that ties right into what I'm talking about today.

Speaker 1: 13:31

And having that process of what I went through was really tough and daunting for me because, as I mentioned before through the tears that not many Black men can say that their fathers were 100% present in their lives from the time they were born until now and I say that with conviction my parents remained married. They were a very loving couple and we're an embodiment of that. So that hit me hard because I was very close to him and I knew him and he knew me. But I know that he's with me here in spirit and he's just in a different form. He's still around. I can feel him. I just you know, just you just want to hear that voice. You know, I know that a lot of you out there are grieving people. You have to know how I feel you just one time hear that voice, one time, have that last conversation that you really wanted to have. So that's where I was between 2023 and now, and now that I've had a chance to pull my car over and park to check myself emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Now we're back and this episode is about me opening up, about why there's been a stop and go with the podcast episodes and why you're seeing new changes with me, why you're seeing different things. You're seeing the fact that I love different types of things about life. I love comic cards. Before, when I was speaking, I didn't think that was important. I thought people would think I was immature for liking such things, but now I know that's part of my nature of being open and adventurous and part of that childlike mentality that we need to have in order to have fun and not be so serious all the time. I love playing the bass guitar, which you'll hear more of. I love reading. You'll hear more about books that I'm interested in and things that I love to do, such as voiceovers. You'll hear more about my perspectives on health, those things that I'm highly interested in, and this episode here is just off the top of my head. Folks, I'm not doing this with any scripts, any writings. I'm just going off of what I'm feeling, and right now I'm feeling like being vulnerable because I have to open up and get this episode out to you.

Speaker 1: 15:51

This was unrehearsed. I literally just was doing something and say you know what? I'm going to record an episode and do this, but I will tell you that good things are happening in 2025 for your Purposeful Life. We've got things lined up. There's a lot of other guests coming on, I will be doing a lot of podcast appearances myself, and I have just so much to share with you and I want you all to know that this is your purposeful life. It's not mine, it's yours.

Speaker 1: 16:20

I don't have all the answers, and neither should I. I'm not here to be the solution to any problems you have. I want to just provide you with options to rethink your problems in a different way and to be purposeful about how you see yourself and how you manage your energy, your time and the way that you see the world around you, because sometimes you can think that everything is going against you and really it's not. It's just how you're perceiving it, and that's part of the purpose of living is being socially and spatially aware of your presence on this planet and how much you contribute to the overall factor of the fluctuation of how this planet thrives, even when you don't think you do. You're all special and you all are very unique in your own way, and that's also, too, why I like superheroes. They have a backstory. You see them in one form, but that's just that part of them they're expressing. But there's another part of them, there's other aspects of them that people don't know much about, and this is why human beings were so mysterious but so wonderful at the same time.

Speaker 1: 17:32

And I want you all to realize that this platform that I have created, this community that I'm building, is about the power of conversation. It's about the power of understanding. We're all different, we come from all walks of life, but we all have a purpose to be here on this planet, and it's our job, our responsibility, to honor that purpose and to express it. And we can do that in three ways by learning, being a student of learning about yourself and about the world, not saying you have to memorize a bunch of facts and know everything. Because I go by the Socratic method of good old Socrates. I have him tattooed on my forearm and he said that I know that I know nothing, but I do know that I know thyself, and that's what we thrive to do to learn more about ourselves in the midst of the human mess which is also part of our process.

Speaker 1: 18:26

The second thing is to grow. It's to trust what we have learned and put that into action and to let that be a behavior that we exercise outside the environment, because the environment is reflective upon how we act upon it. That creates change across the world. So, no matter what you see in social media, what people are telling you, what people are trying to convince you of, that it's not going right in the world. You can make yourself right with the world by acting out what you've learned through your self-growth process. You don't have to prove people wrong. You can just understand that not everyone's going to agree and you certainly don't have to feel like you have to be right all the time. You just have to learn how to be yourself and trust what you know, and know that what you know is limited, but at the same time, that's part of your growth, of maturity, and to respect yourself and to trust yourself and to walk in a line of integrity.

Speaker 1: 19:31

The third thing is to express yourself. Now I talked about learning. Learning allows us to grow, and when we grow and we exercise that growth of self-esteem, self-confidence in the environment, then that becomes a level of expression. So, for example, if I'm learning how to play the bass guitar and I want to grow in that, well, the next step is to, of course, express that now, express that growth by playing the guitar more, by sharing it with people, and so your self-expression comes from the growth, from the trust in your growth. You begin to now show up in the world, you begin to express yourself in the world, and that's what it's about. And it's not about being perfect. Again, it's not about that. Forget that. It's about being honestly who you are in this present time.

Speaker 1: 20:21

Now he also talks about it in this book I'm reading, currently called A New Earth the power of understanding where your ego stands and where you are, which is behind the ego, and understanding that your purpose of being here is to learn to grow and to fully express yourself and to have some fun doing it. And it's okay to go through your emotions, because you're going to have to go through them in order to understand that you're human and that you're just here to grow in a certain way and learn a certain amount of things. That's what I've understood. So your purposeful life is not about telling you how to live your life. It's about sharing the human experience with you, bringing on people who are not influencers, but people who have impact, bringing on people who have different perspectives of their life. That I find interesting, because if I'm interested in what they have to say, then so are you, because I'm going to be engaged in that conversation.

Speaker 1: 21:24

So that's how I pick my guests going forward and to be ready for me sharing other aspects of myself. I'll do videos talking about movies, about Marvel comics, about Marvel heroes, about philosophy, about health and perspectives. You're going to hear a lot of different perspectives from me, because that's what I want to do I want to open up more. So I'm glad that you were able to be with me today to hear what I had to say the reasons why the YPL episodes have kind of been delayed a bit, but, going forward, you're going to hear more episodes. Some of them will be episodes that were recorded back in 2023, 24, but they're still relevant and you're going to see a lot of new episodes coming up in the 2025 year, this year going forward, and we are going to make so many great changes. We're going to inspire people in so many ways and I'm so excited about it. I would be smiling more, but I did go through a crying face for a second there. Didn't think I was going to do that here on the video or on the microphone, but I did, but I did.

Speaker 1: 22:34

You get one opportunity to live this lifetime, folks, one opportunity. Tomorrow's never guaranteed, and there was a philosopher I can't recall his name, but he said it's not how long you live, it is how you choose to live, and that choosing becomes part of your purposeful living. I want to wish you all much love. Go and subscribe to my podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel, because we're going to be doing some amazing things and they ain't going to be perfect and they don't need to be. This is your purposeful life and it's up to you to live it one day at a time and to have some fun doing it. Thank you for listening to your Purposeful Life and I'm your host, adrian Starks. Download this podcast on your platform of choice. Join me on my social media channels and be a part of the your Purposeful Life community. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and hit that like button with a purpose. Come on now. Remember your human mess is the process. Let's help you shape your purpose your way.