Paul Marcellino - Discover Your Purpose

Feeling pulled in ten directions and still wondering what you’re here to do? We sit down with Paul Marcellino, founder of Purpose Quest to talk about the difference between staying busy and walking in a God-given purpose you can actually name. Paul shares his path from early faith, to a sudden move overseas, to a college season where he drifted and hit a breaking point, then found his way back through repentance and a timely confirmation that reset his direction.

From there we get practical. Paul explains how he spent months refining a single “why” statement and how that clarity became the seed for a purpose discovery app built at the crossroads of innovation and calling. We unpack “mishmerit,” the Hebrew idea of a divine charge rooted in Genesis 26:5, and connect it to Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:16, where purpose is personal, pre-known by God, and as unique as fingerprints. If you’ve been searching “how to find your purpose,” “Christian calling,” or “what is my mission statement,” this conversation gives language and steps you can use.

We also talk about daily alignment, not just big visions: a one-page manifesto you can read each morning, personalized devotionals that reinforce your next right step, and why you can’t outsource your destiny to a boss, a friend, or even a trend. We close with grounded spiritual practices we rely on: worship, reading the Bible daily, committing to a Christ-centered church, and finding a small group where honesty leads to healing.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, welcome. I'm John Martin. We're back with you today. Here on Road to Redemption. Excited to have my friend Paul Marcelino. How are you doing, Paul?

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I'm doing great. Great to be here. Thanks for having me, John.

Childhood Faith And A Sudden Move

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Thanks for having me. I was excited to get to meet you again. We had met recently, but y'all had a really cool little gathering to get to hear a little bit about your your purpose quest, uh, which which we'll talk about in a minute. But just so good to get to know you and your family. And we're we're excited y'all are here on the Emerald Coast. And uh just was excited to have you on today. Would you mind just starting off giving giving us a little background on you and your your journey?

Losing Ground In College Then Returning

Choosing Ministry Over Pharmacy School

Building Purpose Quest Through Innovation

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Absolutely. Um so I grew up in a Christian family. I mean, was saved at like five years old, just young. I mean, I was you know, engaged in seeking the Lord in my in my youth. Um, I I got to a point, uh, it was about 12 years old. My we had a beautiful home in Colorado, kind of like in Denver, looking over this golf course. I mean, it was kind of a childhood's dream, you know, going out and playing out there in the woods and whatnot. What we used to do in the 80s, you know. Uh anyway, uh, give my age a little bit. Um, and then uh my my parents actually just up and moved us to Israel um out of nowhere. Um, and so this was I was homeschooled up until eighth grade, and then I went into uh moved moved to Israel, and they don't actually um at that time it's not homeschool wasn't a thing in Israel. So you go right into the public education. And so I found myself the first day of high school, um, you know, with the teacher speaking Hebrew and not understanding a word that he was saying. So that was my like quick upbringing. Uh fast forward a few years. I spent a few years there, came back to the US, finished high school, and then decided, you know, I was really um into science and technology. So I enrolled in the university and started studying sciences. Um, I think that that was my first time really um where I really had this um Jonas story that that began to unfold, right? Where I I'm in school, and it's unfortunate this is so often that you know, I think children are going out uh out into that environment for the first time, and you begin to just fall away from the Lord, is what happened to me. And I was sort of veering off, and you know, um within I think it was about a year and a half, I think it was my my freshman year, I just found myself really um broken, you know, and I the Lord, I mean, I I maybe was turning from the Lord in a sense, but uh he never he never left me. And it was like it was ever present, right? That I could I could feel his presence. And so I found myself uh at a conference where the the last speaker of the last session of the last like last altar call situation, he had just preached on Jonah, and I um found myself kind of crying, repenting on my knees on the ground. And I I uh stood, I asked the Lord, I said, I I I I want this to be real, I repent, but I I want to I need a sign that this was real. So I stood up, turned around, and this man was staring at me and it came right up to me and said, The Lord just gave me a word for you. Meet me outside in 15 minutes. And so that was kind of my I didn't, you know, I I went outside, met him, and it became this like word of prophecy that he was speaking over me. I I didn't believe in prophecy, I'd never experienced it before, so I just didn't know. And uh, I heard this word for the first time where he he just gave me very specific here, the Lord forgives you, he sees you, he's gonna do amazing things in your life. This is how he's gonna show you that he's real. It was just like such an answer, exactly what I asked for. Everything occurred in the next two weeks and just kind of wrecked me, you know. Uh, but it also reset me on the path, right, toward what I would call the path of purpose, you know, of finding, looking for purpose in your life. It was, I immediately began this um kind of rejuvenation process of studying and reading and understanding. I read Rick Warren soon after that, purpose-driven life. This is kind of like early 2000s, and it just gave me this like um, you know, amazing redirect in my life. So fast forward a little bit, I uh I graduate, I graduate school. Um, I actually graduated with a degree in chemistry, and I got into top pharmacy school. Um, and I was heading to pharmacy school when I actually was invited to lead kind of a youth movement and uh on on a and and anyway, I I invited several leaders, I invited uh my to be wife to that event, and that's really where you know we we fell in love, and then ultimately what happened was she said, you need to ask my dad for permission. So I fly out to Oklahoma, I ask her dad for permission to date her, and it starts this whole thing where he really didn't speak to me. He's like, Let's jump in the truck, you know, we drive around for about an hour and a half and uh didn't say a word to me. But when we got back, he he said he really heard from the Lord. He said, What other way could it be? You all are meant to be together. We come in, he comes inside with the family, we all meet, and uh, I'm kind of like, you know, I was sweating it, and then I'm it's kind of I'm going through an emotional roller coaster at this moment. And um, he begins to just like prophesy over us that not only can you date her, but you guys are gonna get married and you're gonna be in ministry and you're gonna be doing all these amazing things together and accomplishments. And I have to say, this is over 20 years ago, and everything has happened and more. Yeah. That he and so anyway, this is my father-in-law, he was the guy that met me there at the altar call in the beginning. He may figure that out. And uh Kurt Landry Ministries is the ministry that we started um over 20 years ago now, really built it from the ground up. And we're in a kind of a beautiful season after 20 years. We felt the Lord calling us here to destin to the Emerald Coast and to expand the ministry specifically for media outreach and a a new company that um I started called Purpose Quest, which is something that I'm working on. Um, it's a software that helps people uncover their their destiny and uh who they are.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I love it. Yeah, I got to to to start it a little bit with the Purpose Quest app. And I just think it's something that so many people are really trying to figure out, you know, at all seasons of their life is what what is their God-given purpose? What what are they here on earth for? Uh, and and I know you had you had talked a little bit about your why, your why matters. You want to share a little bit about that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Well, it's like um I I I was praying this morning and I got this like really clear word from the Lord saying, Do you know you in the way that He knows you? Right. And so it's this whole idea of your why, what happens is you you go, and I went through this process a couple years ago where I had had so much fulfillment in what we had accomplished in ministry and all the all that we do work around the world. I mean, we we have the humanitarian aid side, we help people. I mean, we get to do amazing, fulfilling things. It's it's such a blessing. Obviously, I gave up pharmacy school 20 years ago and didn't go that direction, thank God. Um but um yeah, about a couple years ago, I was really seeking and said, Lord, is there something in my purpose that I'm still missing? Because I felt I felt like something was still missing, even though I'd I had we had done all these things and it was amazing fulfillment. But I took this process of about um it took about eight months to go through a process. And at the end of that, it was a lot of self-reflection, a lot of reading. I went to trainings and all sorts of different, and what I what I had at the end of that was a statement, a one kind of line statement of who God called me to do, what my why was. And that that was the moment of clarity where I realized not only was it my journey of self-discovery and kind of purpose discovery that I had to go through, but I'm actually my my purpose, my calling is to harness the the crossroads between innovation and purpose discovery, and that's why I built a platform to accomplish that. So we have a software now that really represents that. That's awesome.

unknown 8:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Um and I know you also talk about understanding your mishmerit, right? You want to tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah, so in uh Genesis uh 26, 5 is where this comes from, it's Abraham talking about, you know, I will bless the nations of the earth through your offspring, because Abraham obeyed my voice, right? And kept my charge. So in that verse, kept my charge, and then you you probably remember my commandments, my statutes, my laws. But charge, when you look at that in the Hebrew, it's a word called Mishmerit. And so this is this is very um, this is different from if you think about like all of the Bible characters through the Bible, that if you were able to condense everything they did into a single statement, it's really what it's that charge, it's that Jeremiah, you know, uh 1.5, right? Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, right? This is this is what you were, this is what God had pre-sort of ordained you to be, right? That he knew he wrote about you. There's there's also scripture in Psalm 139, 16 that says, Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me, when as there were none of them. So this is like before time, you're written everything about you and what you were called to do. It's written in the book. So it's it's really we're we're called here to uh each understand, we all have a mishmerit, and the mishmerit is very unique because this is not something that is just is just for anyone, right? Everyone has one, but everyone is unique. The scripture that talks about the Lord bless my hands, right? Um, this is a lot of like in the Hebrew, like when you look in commentary, it talks about the your fingerprints, like the uniqueness of who you are. It's it's really your mishmerit is as unique as your fingerprints. It was meant to be for you. It was written in your books, and God knew you, right, ahead of time. So this has been a powerful, as part of the software that we created, it it takes you through a series of self of self-reflective questions, basically. You get to go through and you answer these, and then we're able to sort of combine and look between the lines, maybe even some common sense things that maybe we are not recognizing ourselves, or maybe it's just confirming for you, but it ties together and writes out your purpose statement and writes out your mishmerit statement. And be it's it gives you kind of this clarity. What we hear from people is that it they're like, wow, this is I've never been able to describe myself and my calling in such a clear, concise way. And um, even to the point where, even after I took eight months to do this, I I had a certain amount of clarity. But when I now run that through this software, it's even much more refined than I could have even written out over that time. So the idea was to give people the opportunity to obviously go through this process that come out of the other end, not in eight months, but in potentially hours, right? Um going through and writing down.

Practical Steps To Discover Purpose

SPEAKER_01 11:26

So that's so cool. It's just so needed. I mean, I I just because just even a lot of people we have on this show and of of all walks of life, all seasons, I I find people are really trying to figure out their purpose. They so a lot of us just feel like, you know, are are we walking in our God-given purpose? And um you know, how do we do that? Now, um this this this app, Purpose Quest, which which y'all released, sounds like a you know great way, great way to help people with that. Um what else do you would you say to anybody listening out there that you know advice that you have for those listening that you know are trying to figure this out?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Um well we we live in a very unique time right now because um if you look, there was a there's actually a Forbes article, I believe it was in May of last year, just talking about how the most searched terms, like of you know, what people are using AI to search for and what people are Googling, right? You can kind of see from the beginning of COVID to now, it there's this increasing search history of purpose, like people looking for their purpose using using AI to try to help them figure that out. And so, yeah, I mean, and it's more than ever, like it's an ever-increasing number, which means there's more people seeking purpose now. I mean, even if you look back 20 25 years ago with what I mentioned with Rick Warren, the purpose-driven life, I mean, I I can't remember the number of copies sold. It was ridiculous, like something like a hundred million copies. I don't know the exact numbers. Yeah. And then you have modern like writers like um, you know, Simon Seneck, secular writers that are dealing with why, right? And so this is, I believe, it's just something that, you know, there's never been a better opportunity to not only discover who you are, but also how do you walk that out, you know, and that's what we've really trying to help people out is not just you know, help them discover this, but how do you practically take action to accomplish it? So I would just encourage people, I mean, take the time, answer the questions. You have to get quiet, you know, take take your time. You know, you can go through this process, it saves your answers. You can do it over, you know, kind of get I like recommend get quiet in the morning and just when you hear those questions, just answer the first thing that comes to you because a lot of times what you know, you can go try to write pages and pages, but the reality is even the shortest description is going to bring a lot of accuracy to what what we're talking about here. So I just encourage people take the time. It it don't don't you don't need to take eight months. You go through and take uh just take a few hours and spend some time answering these deep questions, do some self-reflection, and uh yeah, I hope you'll hope they'll be surprised by what they hear and blessed.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Folks were visiting with Paul Paul Marcelino and he is the founder of Purpose Quest, which is the name is so good, which is uh it's an app that's you know on the all the app store and different places where you get app where you can go through a a series of questions and and essentially what it does is help you craft your your mission statement and your you know your purpose. Um and then it also does it's more than that to tell us a little bit more what it does.

Manifesto And Personalized Daily Devotionals

Biblical Purpose Statements That Guide

SPEAKER_00 14:50

So once you have those items, we also generate a manifesto for you, which is really like a one-page document that you can read in the morning and just it's something that aligns you. I recommend for people to yeah, take a look at this every morning and part, make it part of your morning routine because as you read that statement about who God said you are, right? And you it you you just it aligns you first thing to sort of this this higher calling, right? This divine divine calling, the divine charge, like the Mishmerit that he's put on us, it aligns you. And then uh what we do is we're able to then generate from those daily devotionals that encourage you to walk that out. So you actually get every day you log in, you'll see a new devotional there. We cover a wide array of different themes, but it's all very personalized to you. So it's pulling out you know information from the answers you gave, obviously, and it's it's writing out a devotional that will specifically talk and encourage you about your calling and how and encourage you to walk it out that day. So yeah, it's really a daily process of resetting and uh right right, taking it before the Lord and um and uh aligning the morning. And then yeah, it's amazing. I mean, here's the thing like the benefit of it, I've I've seen since I've made this shift in alignment that it's not it's not a it's this isn't difficult for me. It doesn't feel like work, right? Like this is who I am. And when you align with and rips with something that's so resonating to who you are, it's as if uh the the Lord really, I mean, miraculously, I'm gonna say, uh brings the resources, all the resources, the people, the finances, whatever it may be, he begins, you you just as you're putting that out there and and you're you're saying, you know, um, this is who uh God has called me to be, and you're actually out there doing that, it's just it's almost like a magnet to attract everything you need. I mean, the Lord protects your call and he enables your call. Um, I actually brought, I just want to read a couple statements. So if you go in the Bible and you think about like who are the characters that you know really touch you, I just wonder, I have I I have a lot of these, but I'm gonna read like sort of a condensed statement of who these biblical characters were. So Noah, his Misher was to preserve righteousness in humanity through obedience in the midst of judgment. That was what he did in his life, that's what he accomplished. Um, David to establish worship, unify Israel, and model the heart of a shepherd king, right? It just strikes differently. And so when you can have a statement about this, let's obviously we can talk, we need to talk about Jesus, uh, which uh is who we all look up to. Yes. What did he do? He came to fulfill the law, reveal the father, redeem mankind, and establish the eternal kingdom, right? So when you can have like a clarity of a statement like that about you and you live that out every day, I'm telling you, uh miracles happen and the resources are drawn to you.

Worship Scripture Church And Small Groups

SPEAKER_01 17:55

I'm just reading uh Daniel's is to reveal God's wisdom and power in the midst of a pagan system without compromise. John the Baptist to prepare the way for the Messiah and to call people to repentance. Peter to lead the early church with boldness and model transformation to grace. So these are really cool mismarit statements from these leaders in the Bible. And um wow. Well, this is so cool, and it's just such a timely thing because I I just like I said, so many people include myself, we're we're trying to figure out what you know, what is our purpose, our guy are we in our alignment, you know, in our seasonal life of where God wants us. Um, you know, and it's all seasonal a little bit, you know. I mean different seasons, he he aligns us a little differently, right? But um I I just think this is uh I I was just on a a call the other day with a a bunch of younger folks in their twenties um with a bunch of from all over the country and they were the whole topic of it was trying to figure out their purpose, that they were just a lot of them were lost and felt like they just don't know what's what am I supposed to be doing? Why am I here? So I was actually telling them about you and the the app. I think I'd just come come from y'all's meetings. So I I really think this this is gonna bless a lot of people. Purpose quest and um you know, I know that uh the app and then I know too, you know, y'all, y'all even offer some other things that y'all are gonna do too. I think just even people want to go deeper and get coaching and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Or yeah, you can all you can always go deeper. So we want to help enable people. I mean, really simple, just go to mypurposequest.com and then from there you can kind of yeah, just create your account, go through the process. You can download the apps and the app stores as well, Google and um and Apple. But um no, this is something we all know people that um are in a transition or seeking. I mean, we're you're hearing daily right now about job loss due to maybe AI and all this shifting that's happening right now. I think there's a tremendous opportunity to give people that hope by simply giving them a way to realign their lives right with their purpose, really find out who they're doing. I mean, it's going to, as you do that, it will be the very best thing you can do because it's it's part of our it's this is not something that can be outsourced. You know, we're in business, we're all in business, but we're you can't outsource it to somebody else. This is this is your responsibility to find. We can't delegate this and say, go, go, go, go run my purpose for me.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Figure out your purpose. That's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

We need to embrace who we are, who God's called us to be, and then take daily initiative to walk that out.

Going Deeper With Resources And Closing

SPEAKER_01 20:47

And one thing came to mind too, just we were talking about our purpose and um you know, the book, like the purpose-driven life, is just uh, you know, uh our our greatest purpose of why we were created is to worship God. You know, really that that's God wants us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to have an intimate personal relationship with him and to worship him. And as we talk about our road to redemption, is to read you know this Bible. You know, read the the holy the holy bible every day and this is the instruction manual, this is the greatest uh instruction manual for our life, this is how our Lord speaks to us and then to get into a a church, we can't do this alone. You know, we can't isolate to get into a Christ-centered, Bible believing church and go. You know, go serve, be part of you know a community of believers in the church, and then to get into a small group with with men and women, couples, whatever season we're in, make ourselves vulnerable, you know, um confess our sins, you know, be be vulnerable. And let God work through that small group, you know, to bring healing to us, you know, to whatever season of life we're in. That you know, that that that's what God does. If we will seek Him, then He will help us learn what our purpose is. And these are like great tools that we have, like, you know, with Paul with Purpose Quest, you know, these days with smartphones and all we can get on our app and just start within a matter of minutes really figuring out what what our purpose is, you know, starting that process. It and then it goes on every day from there. But you know, that that's just been great, Paul. Is is there anything else before we go that you wanted to share uh with the audience that just always give people an opportunity to do that?

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah, um, you know, our the the ministry that obviously we spent, I shared about in the beginning that we spent 20 years, I mean, really building uh before moving here to the Emerald Coast. Um, our our slogan for the ministry is unlocking Kingdom Destiny, right? So this is a um when when you think about all of the content and we started producing content in 2007, really astronom. What what kind of is common today, and we were doing it really early. And I think uh we have this, you know, a tremendous amount of information that we've that we've content that we've created on the subject of discovering. So you when you said go deeper, obviously Kurt Landry Ministries is a really a treasure trove of information on this subject specifically of uncovering that destiny. And and really that has played into this app, right? When you talk about the context of all of that information uh being utilized, it's it's all utilized in this app. So it's really grounded in, you know, kind of a deep spiritual, you know, understanding, really simplifying it in a different way. It's not like reading a book where you're trying to pick out the nuggets of information and saying that applies to me, that applies to me. What we try to do is just pull out all of the pieces that align with your specific calling, your why, and that's how we're generating kind of your daily devotionals that you get. So it's really, again, grounded in spiritual principles, taps into sort of the ancient Hebraic wisdom, right, uh, of the Bible, and and then uh brings it to today because you know, life is just repetitive. Things repeat itself over history, and I think we we're in an amazing, this is an amazing opportunity right now to reach people through purpose, right? Spread the net far and wide and then show them the truth. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

So great. Thank you for coming on. This has been awesome, man. It's been awesome, thank you. Yeah, I look forward to doing it again sometime soon. Absolutely. Okay, see you.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

See ya.