Richie Harkham: Purpose & The Return on Resilience

Welcome To The Decoding Purpose Podcast.When it comes to diving head first into purpose time and time again I have spoken to people who have discovered their purpose not via their work or their passion. For these people purpose looked a little more like a Tsunami that in hitting the shores of their life wiped away any resemblance of what that life once looked like. The wave crashed through any perceived identity and shattered the layers of ego that we so often attach to our self worth.You see when the wave hits we are called into survival, and it is in survival mode we are faced with any demons, any fears and any shadow that does not serve our recovery - our journey into the future. We are confronted with one of life's hardest questions ...and that question is quite simply do I choose to live? Do I choose to survive, and If I survive how is my life meaningful? How is it significant and how am I going to use that depth of purpose to rise from the waves, to rise from the after shook ...and ultimately to live again.I first met today's guest in 2017, and I remember when we first had a conversation being taken back by the infectious energy and vivacious nature of the voice that boomed down the phone. This was a person determined to become a speaker, and an influencer no matter what and I was the person to help him on that mission. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that the person I was talking to was actually in hospital at the time recovering from another round of surgery, and when we catch up he still had a chronic limp and a drip hanging out his arm.Today’s guest is the incredible Richie Harkham. Richie has always been a serial entrepreneur, and since we first met he has also fulfilled his dream of becoming a speaker and Influencer. That said, there is much more depth to this incredible human being which is exactly why I am honoured to dive into the intersection of resilience and purpose with somebody I include amongst my dearest friends.To provide context, In 2014 Richie was involved in a near-death accident on his motorbike. This accident left his left leg shattered and over the following four years he battled through eight operations, a knee transplant and a golden staph infection.While in recovery from this life altering near death experience Richie received a donor knee from a young boy in Germany who had lost his life in a car accident. To thank the young boy he decided to create a wine label called Hark Angel to raise funds to build a school in Burma for disadvantaged young people. This enabled Richie to turn pain into purpose… and since then Hark Angel has literally grown wings and today is a fully fledged non for profit on a mission to build 100 schools throughout the developing world. To date Hark Angel has built seven schools.Todays podcast is for those of you out there who have ever had a bad day, or for those of you who may have felt the grip of darkness or depression. It is for those of you who feel disconnected from a depth of meaning in your life and need to take the steps to wake up to the wonder of life. It is for those of you seeking the courage to grow, to expand and to transform ...regardless of the mountains to climb. Most importantly it is a reminder for all of us to have gratitude for the strength and resilience found in the human spirit, and to celebrate purpose as the greatest gift we have to navigate the more difficult times life can throw our way. After all these times can often hold the greatest gifts for ourselves, for others and for the planet at large.Richie Harkham. Welcome to the podcast.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.