The path to your dreams is through your purpose.

The Dream

I love being a dreamchaser, an entrepreneur, and a changemaker. Having the ability to dream big regardless of my circumstances — and regardless of what's going on in the world.

If you've been around the CanaGlobal community for a while, you already know there are two questions we love asking. 

IF/WHAT: If you had a magic wand, what would change about your life? (finances, health, relationships, purpose, faith, etc...)

WHAT/IF: What would you set out to accomplish if you knew you couldn't fail and had unlimited resources?

If you take some time to ponder these questions, the answers will paint a portrait of your true desires in life. That is, what you want out of life. And if you pursue the answers, they will develop into your dreams and goals. Your destiny. Your future.

I believe these dreams are God-planted. 

Yet for far too many people, these dreams are only fantasy. Why? Because since they can't imagine how they'd achieve them, they rule them out. They call this being realistic.

Well, do you want to know what? I can't stand the phrase just being realistic, or keeping it real. Wannabees love these phrases. They use them as an excuse not to pursue their God-planted dreams.

FYI ... God planted-dreams are rarely realistic. Most often, without a miracle from Him, they seem impossible. 

Think about the limitations associated with the law of gravity. Now think about how the law of aerodynamics supersedes the law of gravity. What many people thought was impossible became possible. It started as an idea or dream, and just like that, we can fly. 

Note: Every great idea seems impossible at first.

Lesson: Go after the impossible and expect miracles.

Sadly, most people limit what's possible, to their past limited experiences. You can see how this thinking puts a damper on new ideas, dreams, and innovations.

The Secret

Let me share a secret with you. The path to your dreams can be found through discovering your purpose.

In fact:

Your future is not determined by your present circumstances. It's determined by your perception of what's possible, the size of your dreams ... and God's plan and purpose for your life.

Here's the thing, the God who created you and me, created us with a specific plan and purpose for our lives. A calling. Our God loves to partner with humans. He makes the trees, we build chairs. He makes the wheat, we make cakes. 

Throughout history, God has partnered with humans. It's a family business.

Many inventors say their ideas come from God. That they are God-planted. For me, the idea behind every business and social impact organization I've ever launched has come from God.

In the late nineties, God gave me an idea to retrain people in low-paying jobs for high-paying jobs. I started the first coding bootcamp in America. It became my first INC 500 company, it's where "learn to code" originated. Everyone said it was impossible, but God knew better and as a result, thousands and thousands of fellow dreamchasers have changed their lives. Today there are coding bootcamps all over the world. Anyone can have a high-paying job, just learn to code. 

Incidentally, I believe becoming an entrepreneur is the new path to the American Dream, and every day at CanaGlobal we teach entrepreneurs how to be successful at their God planted dreams and goals. At Cana, God turns their water into wine.

We can be co-creators with God. When you think about it, this is an amazing opportunity. What seems impossible, is actually possible.

Purpose vs Roles

Many people confuse their life roles with their purpose. I am a husband. A father. An entrepreneur. A friend. A community leader. These are some of my roles and they come with great responsibility, and they are important.

But God created me do more.

In fact, He has a plan and purpose for my life, a path from season to season, assignment to assignment, and dream to dream. It's my roadmap for success, custom-fit by God Himself, for me.

My purpose is to help people discover/achieve their dreams by connecting the dots between business, purpose, success, and faith. This is God's plan and purpose for my life.

And when my life roles are connected to my purpose, my life increases in meaning and impact in every area of my life. Especially in my vocation where I will eventually spend over 100,000 hours of my life in the marketplace. My God-planted purpose has totally transformed my life, along with those He has connected me with.

How did I discover my purpose? 

It was during a time in my life when everything revolved around my career as an entrepreneur. I was on the fast-track to success. The grind. That is until I encountered a great setback. A crisis. I had no idea this setback was actually a setup to discover my purpose. It's when I began connecting the dots between business, purpose, success, and faith.

Life had not worked out the way I planned it. I was experiencing great adversity in my life and I can remember praying for God to help me. I remember telling Him that I was tired of doing things my way, my plan wasn't working and I was ready to try His Plan. 

I began the journey of seeking out God's plan and purpose for my life. This was the path to living my dreams.

I always imagined that if I followed God's plan and purpose for my life I'd have to give up on my entrepreneurial dreams. That I'd end up a missionary in Africa or something like that.

But to my surprise, I discovered the dreams of my heart were God-planted. The things I wanted to do were actually God's ideas. And for me, that's getting paid to do what I love.

Your Turn

If you believe that God actually exists, there's also a good chance you believe God created every human being as part of His plan ... WITH a specific plan and purpose for each one.

Most believers will agree that God has a plan and purpose for each one of us, yet when asked what their specific plan and purpose is, regrettably … they can’t tell you.

When life has not worked out the way we imagined, it’s natural to ask, “Why am I on the planet? Is this all there is? There must be more, right?”

So what if God actually has a plan and purpose for your life? Wouldn’t you want to know what it is? The truth is, God will begin to meet the desires of your heart as you pursue His plan and purpose.

These three truths have radically changed everything in my life. 

Truth #1 – God has a master plan and purpose for my life.

Truth #2 – God will reveal His plan (for me) to me.

Truth #3 – No person or thing can stop His plan for me … Except Me!

Whether you are a believer, an unbeliever, churched, de-churched, or un-churched, God stands ready to prove to you that He exists, that He loves you, that He has a plan and purpose for your life, and that His plan will completely fulfill you.

Furthermore, no person, event, or circumstance can stop you from fulfilling His plan, except you, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE not to identify it, pursue it, and fulfill it.

HisPlan MyPlan: Roadmap To Your Purpose

Around 12 years ago I launched a program called HisPlan My Plan, it was designed to help people identify God's plan and purpose for their lives. It started as an online educational platform and grew into an in-person 10-week workshop. In our first year, 3,500 people went through it.

Years later I authored the book, HisPlan MyPlan: Roadmap To Your Purpose.

Today, it is the backbone of our entrepreneur accelerator at CanaGlobal. And in just a few weeks, it will be offered as a stand-alone online mentorship program. Stay tuned.

The genesis of HisPlan MyPlan began with my hearing the voice of God. Not audibly, but a persistent calling to build a curriculum of how to identify and fulfill God’s plan and purpose for one’s life. The HisPlan MyPlan curriculum began as my personal life success checklist.

Over the years of being mentored to, listening to great teachers, and spending much time with God in His Word, the ten stages of the program, representing ten critical stages for walking in God’s will, began as my personal checklist. A spiritual how-to for dummies, with me being the primary dummy. I had stacks and stacks of journals and spiral notebooks containing everything I had ever learned from my studies of the Word.

Lots of practical how-to’s and what-to-do’s.

When my life would get out of balance, or I encountered trouble, or I stopped hearing God’s voice … I looked to my notes for an answer. My notes always pointed to specific scriptures and what I learned from them.

HisPlan MyPlan also became the curriculum I used to mentor and disciple others. Because I was known as a successful business leader, people gravitated toward me throughout the years for coaching and mentorship. When I brought up faith, they listened.

Much of my time, energy, and money have been invested into helping hurting people who were struggling with life. It has always felt like an honor or a privilege when others reach out and share their very personal challenges, and to give me the chance to be part of their solution. The checklist was the center point for all my conversations.

In the late '90s, God began speaking to me about putting the HisPlan MyPlan message into a formal curriculum. I procrastinated and delayed. I reasoned with God that I am a business guy, not a preacher, or a religious teacher. But His message to me was persistent: “Do it. Obey.” At the time I was the president of an educational company. We had a curriculum department and I knew a thing or two about building a curriculum.

But I felt so under-qualified to build some kind of faith-based study like HisPlan MyPlan. After all, a curriculum for whom? Who would read it? I didn’t want to do it. But God wore me down, so I finally obeyed and began developing the curriculum.

Months later when it was finished, I thought, OK, now what? Then one Sunday the video announcements of the church I attended advertised a career and purpose seminar. The bullet points on the big screen sure sounded a lot like what I had written. So I decided I might volunteer. I met with the pastor in charge of the event and he asked me to teach the course. That led to many conference speaker invites and other opportunities.

Then God began speaking to me about building a curriculum the world could access. After about a year, our work was finished and the online platform went live. Only one problem! How would anyone find it? How would we market it? I had self-funded the building of the site and the buying of the video and audio equipment, but I didn’t have the budget to market it. So I went back to God and asked, “Now what?” I needed to hear His voice.

Then one afternoon God put an idea in my head. How did I know it was God? Because the idea wouldn’t work without a miracle. At the time, my company was the largest buyer of radio advertising in the part of Indiana where I wanted to launch. The idea was that I would approach the radio stations and ask them to give me a free spot for every paid spot I bought for my company. So if I bought 30 expensive drive-time spots at $300 a spot, I wanted 30 more drive-time spots for free. Unheard of. I essentially asked them to give me $30,000-$40,000 a month in free advertising for the HisPlanMyPlan program. Trust me; they don’t do that.

I pleaded with God that this idea wouldn’t work, that perhaps God didn’t understand marketing the way I did. So of course, every station went along with our strategy, which was basically, “If you want to keep our business, you must do this.” The only station that balked was a national Christian station. Go figure. But I pressured them and they gave in too! Sometimes God plays hardball.

In our first year, over 3,500 people went through our course and 150 people joined God's family our first month.

All this to say, the path to your dreams can be found through discovering your purpose. Stop settling for stuck and start choosing God's success for your life!

-Gerald

If you are not a member of God’s family but you want to be, this would be a great time to join it. Just click here to learn how...