What if every experience in your life is sent to you so you can 
understand who you are and what your life is all about? 

Just for a moment consider the possibilities within that 
question. 

What if it were true, would you be prepared to pay more 
attention to the events in your life and the meaning behind 
them? If you're not satisfied with your situation in life and 
have an issue or two you'd rather not handle then please read 
on - humour me, the author of a thriller, a public speaker and 
the writer of personal development books and newsletters.

It took a bump on the head to make me pay attention to issues 
in my life. And when I say bump, I mean a fourteen-foot drop... 
headfirst... onto concrete!

I don't recommend it!

But worse than the bang on the head - concussion, a few broken 
bones, nine stitches and colossal bruising - was the fact that 
I lived... and that meant I had to face up to things I'd been 
ignoring.

My life changed quickly - divorce, change of homes, selling my 
business - it literally turned on its head in a matter of weeks 
and before I knew it the husband, the father, the business 
partner in me had all be stripped away and I'd been left a 
shadow of myself wondering who I was and what I was doing. But 
this is when something magical happened.

A man I met - a man from the other side of the world, a man who 
I travelled over two hundred miles from where I lived to meet 
quite by chance - said something quite profound to me. It shaped 
my life from that day on.

'Learn to live with your self', he told me.  It sounded like 
great advice, but pretty quickly I discovered a floor in his 
idea... With all the issues I had to deal with I certainly had 
no idea who I was anymore. And that was when an elegant blonde 
from Germany crossed my path... 

And when she disappeared from my sight I felt a pang in my 
stomach that I should not have felt. Let me explain. I had 
been browsing inside a bookstore, looking through my favourite 
section as the clock ticked down and the store manager spoke 
in my ear. 'Can you make your way to the till,' he said. I did 
as he asked, unaware that his request was going to be the 
beginning of a life purpose lesson and the answer to who I 
was.

At the moment I accepted my change, the receipt and my purchase 
that I looked up and saw her, crossing the road outside the 
shop. She walked up to the store door, tossed her hair, blonde 
and shiny in the streetlights, over her shoulder and smiled 
nervously.

The store manager snapped before the woman could speak. 'You 
ain't coming in, we're closing.'

'Tis okay,' the woman said, in broken English. She unfolded a 
piece of paper and thrust it out to the Store Manager. 'I am 
looking for the Warwick Road. I am lost. Can you help me?'

'Ain't got a clue,' the manager shrugged. As I eased through 
the gap between the woman, the door and the store manager, I 
was appalled by his attitude. He managed a bookstore - surely 
they stocked a map!  

Then I thought... 'Warwick Road. Warwick Road... I know that 
road... 'Where is it? Where is it?'

As the moments rushed by, the woman disappeared, melding into 
the dark, busy streets of London. Then I remembered the A-Z map 
I had in my hotel bedroom, which was no more than one hundred 
yards away. I knew I would have to run to catch her up, but as 
I started to run, something happen. 

It all unfolded in my imagination: A woman walking the streets 
in London, approached by a man jogging after her, calling out, 
'I can help. I can help,' and saying follow me back to my hotel. 
I have an A-Z map up in my room!' 

It didn't add up. 

I stopped dead in my tracks. I let her go. I let her go into the 
darkness of a London night... alone... And this is what happened 
to me when I got back to my hotel room.

It bothered me that I had not helped the woman and I paced the 
floor. It bothered me so much I ended up looking for Warwick 
Road on the A-Z map. I found it, right at the end of the road 
my hotel was on... and for that matter where the bookstore was 
located! Right then I spotted the bag my new book was in and 
shook it out and it fell out onto the bed... open on a page 
with a very odd question. 

It asked a question. 'Who are you?'

Immediately I knew why I was so bothered by my inability to 
help the woman. In that moment it all made sense to me. I had 
become so frustrated because I knew that I could have helped 
that woman and didn't. I knew I was here to help people find 
direction in life. And that realisation led to another...

It really was quite ironic as I thought about the events: here 
I was, supposedly not lost and yet a woman who had admitted to 
being lost had made me think about my life again. The fact that 
she had been lost and I had failed to help gave me a wonderful 
reminder of who I was and what my life path is all about. This 
woman who claimed to be lost had most definitely given me 
directions back to who I am; that's the 'who' that got lost 
in all those life issues.