Books about finding your purpose have fascinated me ever since I needed to make a decision about what to major in in college. I only changed my major three times. I’m also proud of the fact that even though I changed it, I was still able to graduate within four years.

Granted, I had to go to summer school in my junior year to finish on time. Yet, discovering my soul’s purpose took a lot longer than that!

Even after I graduated and started working at Random House in publishing, I still was always questioning if I was living my life’s purpose.

My work path kept meandering. Yet, I basically worked for publishing companies for over 20 years. Granted, my position seemed to change every two years. I went from sales to sales management, to market research, product marketing, international marketing, tech marketing, and finally, corporate communications.

When I was finally laid off for the 3rd time, I got a call from a mentor who implored me not to go back and start my own business. And that’s what I did and still doing to this day.

During this journey, I’ve bought almost every book about finding your purpose. I’m still fascinated by how we find our purpose here in this human experience. And is it the same as how we’re creating income?

When I found Mark Thurston’s book – Discovering Your Soul’s Purpose, I had to buy it. And I totally devoured it. The core reason is that it wasn’t like any other books I’d read. It was all focused on Edgar Cayce’s method. If you don’t know Cayce, he was pretty radical in his day. He was a 20th-century Psychic and medical clairvoyant, right up my alley of spiritual adventuring.

It really helped me focus on the latest iteration of my business.

Let me backtrack for a minute…

Being an entrepreneur often times you can start off in one place as I did – the first iteration of my business was as a marketing implementer. (That was the domain name of my first website.)

I did all kinds of projects working with many kinds of entrepreneurs, from financial markets to internet marketers like Jeff Walker.

What’s even more interesting is the beauty of hindsight. I coined myself as a marketing implementer for six years until I changed it to Soulful Vision Marketing – focusing on helping various folks with product launches and building their lists.

And then, four years ago, my business morphed into Soulful Marketing. I mainly work with folks in health, wellness, creatives, and coaches to implement soulful marketing techniques in their online dream client experiences (Others call them funnels) and launches.

I needed to make these changes because I got tired of working with a certain type of entrepreneur. I didn’t feel like what I was doing was aligned anymore with my soul’s purpose.

I felt more aligned, changing my focus to working with a group of entrepreneurs with whom I felt more connected and knew I could make a bigger impact.

Plus, with all the “soul’s journeying” I’ve done, I was more intuned on a conscious and unconscious level to work with these types of entrepreneurs.

Now might be the perfect time for you to sit down and have a “good think” about your business and where you see it in 2023.

Maybe you need a “Discovering Your Soul’s Purpose Reboot.”

I’d highly recommend Mark Thurston’s book – Discovering Your Soul’s Purpose: Finding Your Path in Life, Work, and Personal Mission, the Edgar Cayce Way.

Where you can get started on rebooting your business in 2023: (I’ve adapted this from Mark Thurston’s book.)

1. Remove Barriers to Find Your Hidden Talents – Are you aware of the exact talents that will help fulfill your soul’s purpose? Pay closer attention to your meditations and your unconscious connection to your abilities. Write down your dreams. Invest in a class, training, or trip that will inspire you. Listen to your thoughts in meditation, in the shower, in nature, or however, you receive your inspiration of ideas. And be adventurous – try things you wouldn’t normally do.
   
2. Reclaim Your Strengths Hidden In Your Faults – You may have some gems hiding in your faults. If you feel you tend to be a bit judgmental in nature – take a closer look. Maybe it’s based on your talent of seeing the whole picture and fixing something so easily that it frustrates you and comes out as judgment. Be more tolerant and patient with others’ faults. When you do, you’ll also be shown a new way to view your weaknesses.
   
3. Get Your Talents Off the Bench – Much like an athlete who’s relegated to the bench, what talents are you hiding and “benching” from others? Look at your fears honestly, and look to your support team (or create one) that will listen and have their hands at your back to help you face and move through those fears. Also, look at your own fears. Maybe it’s of success or failure. When you play down or ignore a talent, do some internal digging as to why you do that. What you discover may surprise you and lead to your next big idea.
   
4. Rescue and Release Your Talents from a Rutt – How many of your talents get lost in your day-to-day because they become so rote that you get bored and tired of them? They become so routine and predictable that you don’t even notice them anymore. That’s when you know it’s time for a reboot.

Step back from your day-to-day and be more present and notice. That’s when you can make a change. Many exercises in Thurston’s book can help you. (Or reach out to me. I’m happy to help.)

It’s time to reboot yourself and your business to be primed for the incredible success you deserve in 2023.

A Summary to Inspire You To Read this Book!

Quick Summary: If you’re struggling, having questions, searching, or maybe burnt out with the current way you’re earning income, this may be one of the most important books you read. I’ve read many books on discovering your purpose. As I mentioned in this blog, it’s been rather a hobby of mine.

I loved this book because he talks about finding your purpose using some interesting methods from Edgar Cayce. This book is based on Cayce’s teachings that we’re spiritual beings living a human experience. And the definition of spiritual has nothing to do with religion. There are many life-altering questions and some exercises that, after I did them, gave some amazing clarity on how I shifted my business to be more soulful aligned.

This book shows you how to use the spiritual and psychological teachings of renowned mystic and psychic Edgar Cayce to guide you in finding your authentic mission in work and life.

WHO Ought to Read this Book: Looking for some focus, clarity, and insight as to why you’re here on this planet and what you’re meant to do to make the biggest impact? Then you gotta get this book! If you’re like me and have a good idea of why you’re here, yet you want to refocus, then this will truly help you. The exercises on creating your vision and mission are worth the price of the book. (Chapter 2 – Self-awareness and Your Soul Talents, Chapter 3 – Values, Ideals, and Intentionality, and Chapter 4 – Faith and the Experience of a Call.)

Why Read this Book? As I said earlier, I’ve read many books on finding your life’s purpose. And I resonated with my vision and values of how I live my life – with purpose, through meditation and loving-kindness. If you’re on a soulful journey and want some guidance on your soul’s purpose of why you’re living this human experience, then you gotta get this book. It gives you the tools you need to guide you on your path. It has some excellent exercises that you can do, meditations, and methods that will help guide you to your soul’s purpose. If you’ve read any books by Michael Singer, Bob Goff, Barbara Sher, or Wayne Dyer, to name a few, you will definitely resonate with this book.

Things You Will Discover:

The template for your journey to discover a personal mission starts with the first four chapters:

Chapter 1: Cooperation – Being able to love, appreciate, and cooperate with all parts of yourself.

Chapter 2: Self- awareness and Your Soul Talents – Insights into your true nature

Chapter 3: Values, Ideals, and Intentionality – Choosing them will lead to living your soul’s purpose

Chapter 4: Faith and the Experience of a Call – You open yourself up to experiences from deep within to access your soul’s purpose

Wake up in your daily life – “Learn to stand aside and watch yourself go by,” Edgar Cayce. Slow down, get out of the rut of doing things without being mindful. Shake up your daily routine. Change your perspective, and see things with a different lens.

The Five Aspects of the Individuality Self:
1. Unity – It’s the oneness and being aligned with self

2. Continuity – Your essence is still developing and will live forever.

3. Sensitivity – Realize the visible and invisible realms.

4. Creativity – See life through fresh, imaginative eyes.

5. Activity – Ensure that your Higher Self is involved with your daily life, no matter if you consciously experience it.

INSPIRING BOOK QUOTES:

Avoid Habits & Getting Into a Rut:
“…avoid letting the sense of automatic, habitual living from your workplace spill over into the other parts of your life. Keep a fresh creative spontaneity alive in your relationships, your home life, and your free time alone.”

Non-Cooperative Spirit Is Expressed as Self-Judgement & Self-Criticism:
“It’s quite revolutionary to turn this tendency around and practice profound self-acceptance. Ultimately the first step – the shift to self-cooperations and healthy self-love – makes it possible for us to go on a search for meaning and purpose.”

The Realization – You Are Unique & Have Your Own Individuality:
“The highest goal in Jungian psychology: the development and awakening of one’s own distinctive, special personhood.”

You Are Uniquely Gifted & Talented:
“Each individual has a gift – a kind of sensitivity or talent. The very essence of a soul’s mission is to discover that gift and then present it to the world.”

Your Calling:
“We are all called to be something and to do something. That calling from God and our own most authentic selves.”

It’s Not About Conformity It’s About…:
“… universality – it invites us to reach more deeply into our unique selves and find the very best of who we are.”

Self-Knowledge Through Connecting to Others:
“As strange as it may sound, you can sometimes recognize your own authentic self – your own Higher Self, as it is often called – living through the words of deeds of someone else. Someone says or does something, and it’s as if your own best Self is communicating directly to you through that person.”

You Have a Choice:
“As we choose to put our attention on a particular state of mind, we feed our souls a kind of ‘psychic food’ whose quality is based on the nature of that thought or feeling.“

Self-Observation:
“With one aspect of attention, we continue to be involved in events and situations around us; with another part of our attention, we are acutely conscious of what we are thinking, feeling, doing, or saying. An aside of ourselves stands apart from the personality wheel and looks back to witness it.”

About the Author – Mark Thurston:

Mark Thurston, Ph.D., is an educator, psychologist, and author of more than a dozen books about personal spirituality, dream psychology, meditation, and mind-body well-being.  Among his publications are The Essential Edgar Cayce (2004) and Willing to Change: The Journey of Personal Transformation (2005). Mark worked for the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) and Atlantic University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, for 36 years.  In 2009 he moved into a new phase of his own soul’s purpose, becoming the Director of Educational Programs for George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being. In that capacity, he focuses on teaching undergraduate and graduate courses about consciousness, mindfulness, and the science of well-being. Mark and his wife of many decades, Mary Elizabeth Lynch, are co-founders of the Personal Transformation and Courage Institute, a non-profit educational organization begun in 2000 that offers small-group learning intensives. Mark and Mary Elizabeth are parents to two adult children.

Where I Would Recommend Getting Your Copy:

Discovering Your Soul’s Purpose: Finding Your Path in Life, Work, and Personal Mission the Edgar Cayce Way by Mark Thurston

Other Like-Minded Books:

A Life at Work by Thomas Moore

Callings: Finding and Following An Authentic Life by Gregg Levoy

Find Your Why by Simon Sinek

I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was by Barbara Sher

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go Of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené Brown

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer