The Michigan Health Improvement Alliance (MiHIA) held it’s third annual “Live Your Life on Purpose” event on Saturday, November 17 at Delta College. The event provided community members in the Great Lakes Bay Region the opportunity to hear from experts on how to enrich their lives by taking charge of their health and discovering the necessity of having purpose in their lives.
Dr. Gregg Stefanek, MiHIA Board Member, introduced the event by encouraging attendees to purposefully take charge of their lives. With suicide rates rising across the country, he stressed that taking control of your health and your life is more important than event. “Find something that has meaning and drives you,” he said.
Following Dr. Stefanek, Brian Pruitt, the first of two keynote speakers, addressed attendees about the power of hope. Mr. Pruitt is a former All-American athlete, author and entrepreneur. He discovered that people could accomplish just about anything if they had the right perspective, took the right approach, lived by the right principles and walked through the appropriate process, and shared this philosophy with attendees.
“Everyone needs something to live, something to do, something to hope for”, he shared. “Hope is that thing that when life says give up, it says try again.”
Pruitt urged audience to ignite the feeling of hope in others who might need it. “If you can create hope in people, they can do the impossible,” he said. “Create it. Start it. Maintain it. Take it to the finish line. Hope is contagious.”
Chief Master Sergeant Ernest D. Crider stepped to the podium to discuss with attendees the concepts of emotional intelligence and meaningful conversations. He stressed how powerful human connections can lead to life changing conversations that help to improve emotional and physical health. He informed attendees that the power of human connection is formed through listening, and that to create emotional intelligence one must evaluate and critique themselves to become fully in tuned to what their body and emotions are telling them.
He provided the following advice that he learned from an “Our Community Listens” class to attendees on how to better their listening skills:
- Don’t interrupt
- Don’t make the story your own
- Don’t over question or comment
- Don’t reassure.
Fine-tuning these listening skills can lead to better understanding, conversations and relationships between yourself and others.
The engaging keynote speakers helped attendees better their emotional health and taught them the skills to go out and make an impact in the wellbeing of their communities.
Interested in other MiHIA events? Visit us on the web at www.mihia.org.
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