A Cold Night in January

 I want to tell you about a night that changed my life forever. It was a cold, dark Saturday in January of 2023. The kind of night where the world outside feels hushed and you’re perfectly content to be inside, warm and cozy.

I was doing what many of us do on a late Saturday night: watching television. The hockey game was on, and I was texting with a friend of mine, who lives down in the States. The game was good, the conversation was flowing, and everything felt completely normal.

And then, I started to feel something… off.

It wasn't a sudden, sharp pain. It was just an uneasy feeling in my chest. A discomfort. I told myself it was nothing. Maybe I ate something too fast. It felt like a bad gas attack, or some kind of crazy heartburn. I’ve had heartburn before. This was different. This was intense.

So, I did what a lot of us would do. I tried to ignore it. I wedged myself back into my chair, thinking if I just sat still for a few minutes, it would pass. I kept watching the game. I kept texting my friend. I even mentioned, "Hey, I don't feel well. I don't know what's going on, so I'm just gonna sit here and rest for a bit while we chat."

This went on for about an hour. The feeling wasn't going away. In fact, it was getting worse. I tried to sit up again, and the same discomfort hit me, only harder this time. The "gas attack" was turning into something much more sinister.

The Call to Action

Finally, when I couldn't take it anymore, the denial broke. I told my friend, "I think I'm going to go to the hospital. I don't know what's going on." She immediately told me I needed to get looked at. We ended our conversation, and I proceeded down to the bedroom.

My wife was sleeping. I woke her up and said, "We need to go to the hospital. I don't feel well. I think I'm having a heart attack." I described the bad chest pains, the heartburn feeling, the burping like crazy. But the reality was, she was on medication to help her sleep and was in no condition to drive.

So I made the decision to call 911. Before the ambulance, I spoke to a nurse. She asked me a series of questions and then, out of the blue, she said something I'll never forget: "You need to take four baby aspirin and chew them."

Now, if you've never chewed baby aspirin, don't. It's an experience I recommend you never repeat. It's gross. But I did it. All the while, the pain was still there, a constant and growing presence.

Then she told me she was dispatching an ambulance. The station was only four minutes away from my condo. As I sat there, buzzer in hand, I wondered how they'd even get in. But within about eight minutes, they were at my door.

When Things Got Real

The paramedics were in my condo in seconds. Within moments, I was hooked up to a cardiac machine, and they were running tests. The first ECG came back. The paramedic looked at me, looked at the machine, and then looked back at me. He pointed to the screen and said, "You're having a heart attack right now. You see all this?"

He showed me the monitor. My heart was spiking like crazy. He lifted up my arm and gave me a shot of nitro. It tasted minty. Me and my smart mouth, I said to him, "I guess that's one way to get a minty taste in my mouth!" He chuckled, but the fear in his eyes told me this was no joke.

About 30 seconds later, he said, "Okay, are you starting to calm down? It’s working." I was. A few minutes later, as the nitro wore off, he gave me another shot.

The next thing I knew, I was on a gurney, on my way to the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital. You get expedited when you come in by ambulance, so I went straight through triage. I was eventually put in a room. It was filled with monitors and equipment, and I asked the nurse, "Why am I in this room?"

She told me, "This is where you wait to see if anything is going to happen. If you’re going to crash, we’re going to do surgery on you right here."

That's when things got real. I started to think to myself, "What did I get myself into?" I was sitting on that gurney in a hospital room in Grande Prairie, completely alone. My family was in Ontario or scattered around the world. Nobody was there. It was just me.

I also started to ask myself, "Why did this happen?" This wasn't a total shock. Heart conditions run deep in my family. My dad had a quadruple bypass. My brother Teddy had a double bypass. My uncle Tony, a triple bypass. My sisters suffer from heart disease and high blood pressure. Some of us are diabetic. It was a family history I couldn't ignore, and it was now my reality.

The Moment of Reflection

I was there for about 45 minutes before being taken upstairs to a private room, hooked up to more machines, and told I would be monitored for the next eight to twelve hours.

And as I lay there, alone in that room, that's when everything started to flash through my head. Not just memories, but conversations. Every single conversation I’d had with every person in the last 30 days felt as fresh as if it happened yesterday.

I wasn’t thinking about what I’d regret or what I hadn’t done. My biggest fear, the one that kept replaying in my mind, was this: what if I can't do and provide for my family anymore? What am I going to do after this? But even deeper than that, I was thinking, "What were the last words I said to a lot of these people?" And, "How would I be remembered if something drastic did happen?" It wasn't about the end of the world for me dying, but what I would leave behind.

Finding My Purpose

My diagnosis was that I would need two stents put in. While I was waiting to be flown to Edmonton for the procedure, I had some truly terrific nurses. One of them, Kristen, was the daughter of the receptionist from my church. We became friends. She’d check on me, and we’d laugh about the event every time we saw each other.

A short time after I came home, I went to my church on a Saturday night to sell tickets for a spaghetti dinner I was heading up. As I was setting up my chair, Kristen spots me from across the church. She comes running over and gives me a talking-to because I should have been at home resting. After she got that out of the way, she asked how everything went.

That night, after mass, a bunch of people came up to me, asking how I felt. And then one lady said something that stopped me in my tracks. She said, "Now you have to find your purpose. Find what God put you on this earth to do." I didn't think much of it at first, but over the next few days, a few other people said the exact same thing to me.

I started to ask myself, "What is my purpose? Why am I really here?"

I recalled reading "The Purpose Driven Life" by Pastor Rick Warren a year earlier. It's a 42-day devotional that talks about why you're on earth and what your purpose is. It helps you find your "why". We're not here on Earth just to eat, sleep, work, and repeat. We're here for a higher calling. We each have to find out what that is.

In my mind, while I was still in the hospital, I was thinking, "If I can't do my job as a Field Agent for the Knights of Columbus. How will I provide for my family?"

 I came up with an idea: I could talk and I was going to create a training platform to teach people about sales, leadership, spiritual talks, and inventory management. Something I am passionate about and things I knew I was good at from my earlier career as a manager in retail. I began working on a website with a close friend of mine.

Now, let me be clear. I am, first and foremost, a Field Agent for the Knights of Columbus. But I offer training and other services through my website. I’m in the process of becoming certified through Leadership Coaching Canada, thanks to my coach Gilles Seguin.

I quickly realized that my mission is two fold. First and foremost, to be there for my family and friends. And secondly, to continue the legacy of Father McGivney and the Knights of Columbus. That means ensuring all my members have the opportunity to protect their families from financial ruin. I came close to leaving my wife that night and dieing —my only concern at the time? What would happen to her if I passed and what would she have without me?

My other concern was, "What would people remember me by? What would my legacy be?"

Beyond the "why" of financial protection, there is the noble "purpose" of our profession: sales as an act of service. Father McGivney's entire life was dedicated to serving others, and the Knights of Columbus was built on this principle of charity. As sales professionals in this industry, we carry forward that legacy of service.

Every conversation we have, every policy we help place, is an opportunity to make a tangible difference in someone's life. We are not just closing a deal; we are opening a door to security, dignity, and opportunity for families. Mahatma Gandhi famously stated, "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

Our profession offers this profound opportunity daily. When we focus on the needs of our clients, on truly understanding their fears and aspirations, and on providing solutions that genuinely benefit them, we find immense satisfaction and purpose.

Blessed McGivney work was a testament to the idea that true purpose emerges from addressing real human suffering with practical solutions. The "why" for Father McGivney was clear: to prevent the destitution of families and to foster a brotherhood of support. This foundational "why" remains the bedrock of the life insurance, especially within the Knights of Columbus.

Winston Churchill: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." Our work allows us to make a living, certainly, but more importantly, it allows us to make a life – a life enriched by the knowledge that we are contributing to the well-being and stability of countless families.

Ultimately, our purpose extends to shaping legacies. Peter Strople wisely noted, "Legacy is not leaving something for people. It's leaving something in people." Through life insurance, we help clients leave a legacy of care, responsibility, and foresight. We help them instill in their children and grandchildren the importance of planning and protection.

Pablo Picasso captured the essence of this giving spirit: "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away." As life insurance professionals, our gift is the ability to provide security and peace of mind, and our purpose is to give that gift generously.

For the longest time, I was unsure about my role as a field agent. Now I know. We all have the opportunity to do good in this world, to leave it a better place than we found it. We have a responsibility to our family, to our friends, but first and foremost, we have a responsibility to ourselves. That is how we find our "why."

Our why is different for each of us and that is the beautiful part. What matters to me most is different than what matters to you. In the end all that matters is you found your WHY and why you do what you do - the purpose is what drives you to get out of bed in the morning

In the book “Success starts within “ in the chapter dedicated to Discover your why. There is a question -How do we stay motivated despite the failures and setbacks?

How you would respond to that question? 

It really comes down to your why? Nothing else.

If your why is strong enough you can overcome anything and achieve anything that you set your mind to . If your why is strong enough you will never quit on yourself or on life. Everyone has a strong WHY for who they are.

If you don’t have a strong why, every decision or problem you have, will be faced with challenges, apprehension and mental turmoil or indecisiveness.

Our why is our Shepherd, our North Star so to speak. Its the foundation of all you do. In basketball, everything starts off the “bounce pass “. Its fundamental to the game. Just like “Defence wins championships”. The “why” will help define the goals we seek in life and give us purpose to seek them.

I realized after my heart attack that what i was doing had meaning and purpose and i had more time in my day to do things i enjoyed. I was going to the gym daily, playing golf, my mens Cursillo spiritual Group reunion, volunteering with the Knights, Plus I was serving the brother knights and their families with much more clarity.

I now understood what it meant to be an agent for the order. I came close to leaving my family behind. The reason why Blessed McGIVNEY started the order hit me like a ton of bricks. I now understood his WHY?

Ask yourself “What do you truly value”, What energizes you? go chase those things and make your lives better! 

Mark Twain Said “ The key to success is to make your vocation a Vacation” think about that ? Make it so it is simple, that you enjoy doing the work.

We work hard, but we are not lined up with our values and our purpose. “Success without fullfilment is failure.” We must have a clear and strong why for our lives, human nature is motivated by the search of a life of purpose .

We must set time aside for us to think about who we are and what our why is?

That is one of the most important activites we can do to better ourselves as men, husbands, brothers and human beings.

Our WHY for life is our highest goal and mission. If you cannot answer your WHY? then what are you doing, what are you chasing ?

The why is the guiding light to psychological strength, mental stability and gives us confidence in all we do.

The WHY you are looking for cannot be answerd by Google or any online source. It resides deep within each and every one of us and you need to figure it out for yourself.

Thomas Carlyle the scottish essayist and historain said - “the man without a purpose is like a ship witout a rudder , Purpose and meaning are wrapped into our genes “.

Find your WHY and your purpose .