Is there one universal meaning of life, or a purpose we each get to choose and create for ourselves? In this profound conversation with author James Bailey, we explore the answers he gathered from asking 100 people—from Jane Goodall to Holocaust survivors—the biggest question of all. We dive into the difference between meaning and purpose, how our definition evolves through life’s challenges, and the powerful choice we all have to find hope, spread love, and assign a beautiful meaning to our own existence.

Have questions about The Angel Membership or Angel Reiki School?
Book a free Discovery Call with Julie: https://calendly.com/juliejancius/discovery-call

Angel Reiki School (Online)
Starts the 1st of every month
Learn from anywhere: https://theangelmedium.com/get-certified

Book a 1-on-1 Angel Reading With Julie
Connect with your angels and loved ones in Heaven: https://theangelmedium.com/readings

Want a Free Reading?
We’re selecting 50+ volunteers for free readings at the in-person Angel Reiki School.
Leave a 5-star review of the podcast and copy/paste it here for a chance to win: https://theangelmedium.com/contact

Episode Highlights:

• The concept that we can assign meaning to our lives by finding a personal purpose, much like investing meaning into a game.

• How people who have faced immense trauma often emerge with a profound appreciation for life’s simple pleasures and the present moment.

• The insight that life’s meaning is not static, but evolves as we grow and experience different chapters of our lives.

Connect with Julie:
https://theangelmedium.com/ | https://www.instagram.com/angelpodcast/

---

TRANSCRIPT:

[Julie Jancius] (0:00 – 1:56)

Hello friends, welcome to the Angels and Awakening podcast. I’m your host, Julie Jancis. If you love this podcast, please be our angel.

Ask a friend to listen, subscribe, rate us 5 stars, leave a positive review, and share a screenshot of this podcast on your Facebook or Instagram stories. So my dad passed away in 2015. We weren’t talking and it took a month for his family to track me down.

Before I ever knew he was gone, I started hearing from him in heaven. It consumed me. How is communication with the other side even possible?

I left my corporate gig, studied with spiritual teachers on every coast, and worked with my angels to figure out the answers. Today, my mission is teaching you how to raise your vibration, shift your thoughts, trust your intuition, develop your unique spiritual gifts, and connect with your loved ones and angels on the other side. Friends, when you have these tools, life really does become heaven on earth.

Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Angels and Awakening podcast. I’m your host and author, Julie Jancis.

I have a counterpart, Sarah, who helps me get people on the podcast. We get together quarterly. I saw James Bailey’s book come up, The Meaning of Life, and I thought this was the coolest concept, probably so divinely inspired, where you reached out to 100 people, famous people who’ve done a lot of living, and you asked them about The Meaning of Life.

James, I am so excited to have you on the show to talk about your new book, The Meaning of Life. Thank you for spending some time with us.

[James Bailey] (1:57 – 1:59)

Thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure.

[Julie Jancius] (1:59 – 2:02)

So where did this idea come from?

[James Bailey] (2:02 – 2:23)

Yeah. So this kind of project started about 10 years ago now. I just graduated from university, and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in my life.

I think it’s quite common, certainly in the UK. I’m not sure about the US, but certainly here, we all seem to leave university, spend a lot of money, and then really don’t know what direction we’re going in.

[Julie Jancius] (2:24 – 2:28)

We do that even in our 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s. Yes.

[James Bailey] (2:29 – 4:04)

Yeah. And you spend a lot more money going to university there. So yes, I left and didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I got a graduate job and didn’t enjoy it. It lasted six months. And kind of lots of other things happened to me at this point.

My granddad had died just before this. And that was kind of like my first kind of close real experience of someone dying. And I had like the typical kind of heartbreak story as well, failed romance.

And like all these factors kind of combined into this, I don’t know, this perfect storm, where I ended up living in my granddad’s old caravan on the south coast of England. And just googling what is the meaning of life as I was trying to, trying to work out myself. And among many other unusual links, I found this article about a philosopher from the States called Will Durant.

And in the early 1930s, after the Great Depression, he’d written to 100 well known people of the time then asking what they think is the meaning of life. And I thought, well, that’s an interesting idea. I downloaded the book, it’s on Kindle.

And there’s still some like, you know, recognizable names, Gandhi’s in there, for example. And I thought, I wonder what people think now. I wonder if it’s changed.

I wonder if people now would have advice which could help me. So that’s really where the idea came from. And 10 years on, I’ve got some answers.

[Julie Jancius] (4:05 – 4:42)

I love this. You know, it’s just so fun to dive in and to ask the big questions. I don’t see much point in asking the smaller questions.

We all want to know these things. So you interviewed or you sent this off to Jane Goodall. And Jane Goodall recently passed this summer.

They had a Netflix special over here about her and thought that was just so eye opening. Um, I don’t know if you watched that. But I just wondered if she said anything different in there than the letter or what?

[James Bailey] (4:42 – 6:36)

I haven’t seen that. I haven’t seen that documentary. But yeah, she was, she was one of probably my favorites.

People who responded. It took me a few years to get her to write back. We kind of exchanged.

So I wrote a letter to her. And at the time, she wrote a lovely letter back saying she was busy. She was jetting off, I don’t know, to Tanzania or some far off place.

But you know, she would get back to it when she could. So like, fast forward a year, I tried again, fast forward two years. Anyway, I eventually got her to respond.

And she sent me this lovely email. We’ve kind of, it was very nice. What’s kind of been nice about this project is not just the responses, but the interactions I’ve had with these people and kind of became like email pen pals with Jane, which is lovely.

And it was kind of, I think we all kind of shook that she died. I know she was in her 90s. But she seemed to be so full of life.

And in her response, which she actually updated just before the book came out, one of the lines says, you know, she still thought she had many years left to give and So yeah, it was kind of a shock, really. But yeah, she just in her letter, she kind of talks about, she wrote a lovely long letter talking about her history and kind of how she got into the conservation world and chimpanzees and, and how kind of she thinks life is about trying to obviously save the planet, improve the planet. But it was a very optimistic note, I think, many environmentalists or people involved in environment can be a bit downbeat on the world today and kind of a bit, a bit depressive about the state of the world, whereas she was very full of optimism saying, actually, yes, things aren’t great.

But we’ve got fantastic scientists, we’ve got fantastic young people who can actually change the planet. Yeah, so she was very full of optimism.

[Julie Jancius] (6:37 – 6:46)

Yeah. I wonder, what was your kind of definition of the meaning of life when you got started? And how did it change through all of these letters?

[James Bailey] (6:49 – 7:56)

Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s the big question is, have I found the meaning myself? I mean, I think at the time, I obviously I had no idea, I was very lost. I don’t think I was just looking for the meaning of life.

I was looking for a purpose as well. And I think some of the contributors did write about that. And there’s a slight difference between meaning and purpose.

A couple of my favorite letters, one was by Hilary Mantel, the great author, another from Astro Teller, who’s the CEO of Google X, two very different, one scientist and one author, but both talk about how you make there may not be a greater meaning, but you can find a purpose in life. And by finding that purpose, it gives your life meaning, which I think is quite an interesting concept that, you know, we can kind of, it was Astro who kind of compared it to a soccer game and said, if you’re playing or watching soccer, there’s no actual meaning, you know, it doesn’t really matter who wins, but you invest a meaning into it, you know, because you care, it has a meaning. So I thought that was interesting.

[Julie Jancius] (7:58 – 7:59)

So interesting.

[James Bailey] (7:59 – 8:25)

I think every letter which arrived kind of changed my perspective in some ways. And I think maybe that’s a slight problem is sometimes you can look too much into something and it’s like, oh, what do I think now? I don’t know.

I think people, the kind of feedback I’ve got from other people who’ve read the letters is everyone kind of relates more to different letters. And I think maybe that tells you what you think your meaning or purpose is.

[Julie Jancius] (8:25 – 8:31)

What do you mean that they relate more like everybody who reads it or everybody who writes?

[James Bailey] (8:32 – 9:00)

Yeah, so everyone who reads the book, everyone who reads the letters. So like, for me, I love to travel. So like anyone who writes about travel and adventure and exploration, I think, oh, yeah, this is really important to me.

But other people kind of, you know, see different sides and they might say, oh, the scientists or the artists or the psychologists, whoever.

[Julie Jancius] (9:01 – 10:37)

This is just fascinating to me because I see consciousness as having layers on the other side. And a lot of people talk about heaven as having different layers on the other side. And I believe that there is a space where all consciousness is one.

I think that’s what we refer to as God, universe, source, where everything, every particle of everything, everywhere is all one in some place. And I think when people are trying to make decisions in life, they’re really going into that place of all possibilities where all things are possible for them. And I find that a lot of people get stuck on that because there’s so many possibilities and we have so many different interests and things that bring us joy and things that we want to do, that it’s hard to just pick one and to run with it.

And so I’m kind of bridging that concept with what you’re saying here in that, I think actually just even coming into this conversation today, I came in with the notion that the meaning of life is just one thing. Like let’s all find the gold at the end of the rainbow. Like there’s just a one, one thing that it is.

But what’s so fascinating is you’re so right. And I don’t know why that’s never even occurred to me before that there are so many different meanings for life. Everybody has their own meaning.

[James Bailey] (10:38 – 12:00)

There’s kind of a lot to unpack with this. It’s almost, I feel the opportunities we have, it’s almost a blessing and a curse in some way. I think that was very much how I found myself at the start of this project.

And throughout school and university, you’re on one path. Most people are on a path and you go through a set of exams. And I think when you leave university, that’s the first time in your life really that there’s all these different paths.

And it’s that pressure, which path do you take? And I think historically, I think maybe this has changed now, but historically people would set up a one path and they’d go into one career and they do that for 40, 50 years. They marry someone who lived close to them.

And I think, I think now we have many different careers. There’s many different options of people to meet. And I think that’s great in some way, but it also, I think is very confusing and there’s so many options.

So I think that’s an interesting concept as well. But certainly in terms of meaning, yeah, I think you can find meaning in different ways. And I think some of my other favorite letters are people who are referred to, there’s not one meaning, there’s not even one life we lead, but we lead many different lives in our lifetime.

So you’re kind of constantly reinventing yourself throughout your life now, which is again, interesting, interesting concept.

[Julie Jancius] (12:01 – 12:17)

It really is. And I know that there has to be letters that you got that really surprised you or shocked you that shifted your perspective. What were some of those bigger aha moments and who did those come from?

[James Bailey] (12:18 – 14:06)

I think the biggest surprise in general were the ones where you have a preconceived idea about someone. And I think we all do that, you know, in general life, you kind of see someone you think they have a certain idea. And obviously with celebrities or famous people, you kind of expect an answer.

And there are plenty of people I wrote to thinking I kind of already knew their answer. And then their letter came back and I was like, oh, well, they’ve not actually mentioned, you know, their career, for example, which I thought was, there’s someone in here who’s a scientist, and she spent her whole life doing this study of children, young people. It’s like the biggest study in Europe.

And her answer didn’t mention this study once. And I was like, okay, for me, that’s I thought this would be important to you. But that’s clearly just your job.

And actually, it’s your family or your friends or, you know, your loved ones, which are important, which I think is interesting. The other general thing, I think, which really surprised me was how open people were. You know, I’m a complete stranger, sending a letter, asking a kind of ridiculously absurd big question.

And all these people took time, not just to write back, but certainly them to open up and share kind of huge life events or very personal stories. And in some places, it kind of felt that they were almost sharing these stories for the first time, or almost some kind of cathartic method for them to actually write and share these stories, which I thought was just kind of, I don’t know, again, interesting about how as humans, you know, we’re very happy to share. And I think that like kind of human connection is a nice part of this project.

[Julie Jancius] (14:07 – 16:35)

Billion percent. You had mentioned before how in the 1950s, 1960s, people will work a job for a long period of time, marry somebody close to them. And I wonder if over time, as you’ve studied this, you said that you wrote kind of books in the past that were similar versus today, if the priorities have changed in life, where maybe it was more career driven in the past, but people are choosing more of a deliberate life.

My husband and I went to a counselor for a time that would say, you know, he wrote a book and it was very hard on his relationship with his wife, because it took so much time away from them being together. And he knew that he could write more books, but he didn’t want to put the relationship at risk. So he chose not to, because he really wanted that time in life with his wife and his children.

Did you see anything like that or no? I’m so grateful to those who keep this show going through your support. Get three certifications in one and start your own business.

When you take the Angel Reiki School online or in person, you get both for the price of one when you register. The Angel Reiki School is in person this November and January. My angel membership gives you the ability to work with your personal angels and your heavenly loved ones every day to hear your own angel messages.

Sign up for the annual option today and receive a free one hour reading with me to feel closer than ever to your angels. I’m doing readings again out of my house and on Zoom. It’s $144 for a half an hour reading or $288 for an hour.

Or book me to do your readings at your next party worldwide. The Angel Reiki School membership readings and parties are all booked online at theangelmedium.com. Thank you again for supporting my work and the work of the angels.

Now let’s get back to the show.

[James Bailey] (16:38 – 17:33)

Yeah, I think again there’s a few examples. There’s Henry Marsh, he’s one of the top neurosurgeons in the UK and his letter talks about how obviously he had a very fabled career but actually he’s gardening which means the most to him now, at his age now. And it’s kind of, yeah, and again lots of people talked about how their answer would have been different 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Yeah, I think I suppose we’re continuously learning and changing. You know, you asked a few minutes ago about my idea and I think my idea of the meaning of life would be very different when I started this than now. I don’t know if I have the answer but I certainly am in a different place in my life and I think I have different priorities and things are more or less important to me than they would have been when I was 22, 23.

So yeah.

[Julie Jancius] (17:34 – 17:44)

Yeah, and so sorry if I didn’t let you answer. Did you have that answer? Like what was your definition to the meaning of life before and now?

[James Bailey] (17:47 – 18:46)

I mean I think then, I think after university you’re very career focused. I think it’s very much you’re put on this kind of path and it’s, you know, unless you get a great job and you earn a certain amount of money and, you know, you grew up thinking you’re going to achieve whatever you want to achieve and, you know, you could be prime minister or president or a football player or whatever and then when that kind of reality hits and that’s probably quite unlikely for most people and then it’s kind of trying to reinvent yourself and I think now 10 years on I think, you know, for me meaning is more about experiences and seeing the world and, you know, so many people in the book talk about small pleasures and I think that’s quite a crucial thing. I think back then you’re kind of thinking very big picture and everything’s got to be about salary or career title and even 10 years on now I’m like, oh actually just the small pleasures are kind of worth appreciating more.

[Julie Jancius] (18:47 – 18:55)

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Are there a couple of entries that you could share with us, read for us?

[James Bailey] (18:56 – 20:07)

Yes, this is, I mentioned this earlier, this is from Hilary Mantel who’s, who was a fantastic author. She wrote this lovely handwritten letter to me. It was quite funny actually getting lots of letters back.

Some of them I couldn’t actually tell who they were from for quite a while with their handwriting like the way they signed their name but fortunately she had lovely handwriting. So she said, I’ve had your letter for a fortnight. I had to think about it a bit.

You used two terms interchangeably, meaning and purpose. I don’t think they’re the same. I’m not sure life has a meaning in the abstract but it can have a definite purpose if you decide so and the carrying through, the effort to realise the purpose makes the meaning for you.

It’s like alchemy. The alchemists were on a futile quest we think. There wasn’t a philosopher’s stone and they couldn’t make gold but after many years of patience exercised, the alchemist saw he developed tenacity, vision, patience, hope, precision, a range of subtle virtues.

He had the spiritual gold and he understood his life in the light of it. Meaning had emerged. With very best wishes for your future.

[Julie Jancius] (20:09 – 20:12)

Wow, that writing is just gorgeous.

[James Bailey] (20:14 – 20:17)

Yes, it’s such a nice way of putting it, isn’t it?

[Julie Jancius] (20:18 – 20:19)

Yes, yes.

[James Bailey] (20:19 – 20:45)

As I said, it depends really. I think you can see patterns in the careers. Certainly some of the scientists were a bit more hesitant to give a response.

This is actually the first reply I got back. This is from Professor Robert Winston. He’s an esteemed scientist in the UK.

He was one of the pioneers of IVF.

[Julie Jancius] (20:46 – 20:46)

Wow.

[James Bailey] (20:47 – 21:52)

So picture me, setting up on this project, kind of writing these letters hoping to receive positivity. This is his response. I really do not understand what you mean by the meaning of life.

To my mind, life is a four-letter word that has a meaning, which is quite specific. But to talk about it in this kind of way argues some existential or philosophical meaning, which I have to admit, I find somewhat pointless. I don’t know why the meaning of life or human life would be different from that of a whale or an ant or indeed an oak tree.

I don’t think that it is such a meaning. What I do believe, though, is that once we’re alive, we are responsible for everybody and everything which happens on the planet. But I have no idea whether that is the meaning of life.

So slightly less clear on what it is, but I think in some ways these answers kind of also made me realise that it doesn’t matter what you do or who you are, that we’re all in this kind of mud all together.

[Julie Jancius] (21:52 – 21:53)

Yeah.

[James Bailey] (21:53 – 22:12)

You know, this is someone who’s really incredibly intelligent, who knows far more than I do about lots of things, but equally he doesn’t know. And I think in some ways there’s kind of a bit of a reassurance in the not knowing. I’m equally as blind to what the reality is.

[Julie Jancius] (22:15 – 22:56)

This is so deep. I feel like you could read one of these a day and just like marinate on it all day long. They’re just so deep and so beautiful.

And here you have that gentleman that you were just talking about and a founder who created IVF, which is responsible for just bringing so much love and life into so many people’s lives. I mean, like what a miraculous angel of a human being he is. And you’re right that he doesn’t totally know what the meaning of life is.

Wow. This is so deep, James.

[James Bailey] (22:57 – 24:39)

Yeah. And I think that’s the thing. I think, you know, obviously the premise of this was to write to well-known people, but I think it’s interesting that these people we do put on a pedestal for whatever reason, you know, they’re in the same situation.

You know, they might be earning a lot more money than we are, or they might have a fancy title, but they’re equally going through the same things and the same kind of conundrums in life. Yeah. And the number one, which kind of really touched me was I wrote to a Paralympian.

He won gold at London 2012 Olympics, and he couldn’t write back due to his disability, so we spoke on the phone. And his response was kind of very much like most athletes kind of. That’s right.

Most athletes spend their whole life concentrating on winning a medal at the Olympics, the Paralympics. But really, that’s not what they’re going to be remembered for in 10, 20, 50 years time. You know, if I said to you who won gold in a certain event at X Olympics, most people are unlikely to know.

And he said, once he realized that, he kind of changed the way he looked at life. And unfortunately, he’s now, you know, he’s had cancer for the last 10 years. And he said, it seems like he’s facing death.

He realized, actually, it’s not winning the Olympic gold medal that’s important, but it’s, you know, waking up every morning, looking at the sunrise and looking at the sunset in kind of just being in the moment and not living for the future, not living for the past, just actually being in the present, which I think we’re all probably guilty of kind of forgetting to do quite often.

[Julie Jancius] (24:40 – 26:43)

Which is really, really fascinating. It brings me to two different thoughts. You know, when we were talking earlier, in the 1990s, there was a show called A&E biography that was on cable TV.

And my mom used to turn it on every single evening, because there would be reruns. And you would just see a celebrity, an author, a scientist, to your point, or somebody that you really, really admired. And you just learn about who they were before they became this person.

And there is this, I don’t know if it’s like a whimsy that’s always been in me, or an idealization of life within myself. Maybe it was just me going through a lot, moving around a ton as a kid, and not having a feeling of safety and security. So I would look at people who were successful, and I would think, okay, you know, like, how did they get to that point?

Because maybe if they figured out how to do life, and I figure out how to do life, which is really why I created this podcast, then I can figure out how to not come into challenge, how to not do things wrong. I think that was a big fear of mine always is like, well, I don’t want to make a decision because I don’t want to get it wrong and mess things up. But then you watch all of these biographies, and I still just adore watching biographies, because you constantly see where the person ran up against challenge after challenge after challenge after challenge.

And it didn’t mean that they were bad or wrong. It didn’t mean that they were doing anything wrong. I think it’s just life is bumping up against different things.

Do you watch a lot of biographies yourself? Do you know what I mean?

[James Bailey] (26:44 – 28:42)

Yeah, no, 100%. I think on that point, I think actually my favorite chapter in the book, so we’ve kind of in the book, we’ve grouped into like different kind of professions and categories. But there’s a chapter in the book, which we’ve entitled Survivors.

And these people aren’t necessarily famous, but they’re people who’ve been through some really bad situations in life. So we have like survivor of 9-11, survivor of the 7-7 London bombings, someone who was in the Holocaust. I’m certainly not saying anyone wants to go through these situations, obviously the opposite.

But it’s amazing reading their letters, that people have been through these situations, how they see life differently. And it’s like almost, it’s almost the people have been through the most difficult things actually embrace life the most or learn to appreciate life the most. You know, another person in the book is, he’s an escapologist.

I think he was on America’s Got Talent actually. And the stunt went wrong when he was on the show and he was paralyzed afterwards. And I kind of thought, you know, would he be really bitter about what happened and kind of, you know, obviously he’s, he lost his career and his whole life change.

But he kind of actually was like, yeah, it was very bad, but I’ve been given a second chance at life. I’m still alive. And, you know, I now actually appreciate that more.

And I think, as you say, like anyone who has to go through bumps, hurdles, you know, however big or small, I think that’s probably what makes a person. And again, I think relating it back to my own journey, you know, I look back in 10 years ago and my struggles then were very trivial in comparison to a lot of these people, but I still had to go through those struggles and difficulties and trying to find my path. And I think that’s what makes me who I am today.

And the same as anyone, you know, I don’t think a smooth sailing life would really benefit anyone in the long run.

[Julie Jancius] (28:42 – 30:34)

For sure. For sure. Although it’s fun to dream.

You know, what’s really been interesting and like driving my attention this year is the people, and this really hadn’t occurred to me, but I really had my focus in on the folks who had opportunities to do really extraordinary things in life and stepped down and had somebody else step in because like we were saying before, they wanted to focus in on family. And there’s also times in my life where I’ve interviewed people who have been through very severe illness. Everything’s going along in their life phenomenally well.

And then just in an instant, you get a diagnosis or something happens and your life is just altered completely. And I’ve started to feel like maybe the meaning of life to me is just to be here, to be in it, to experience it, to exist. And just choosing to continue to exist at some points in my life has been a challenge, but just continuing to like be here, exist.

And I feel like your intuition speaks to you through your joy, that joy is part of our intuition and following what brings us joy, what lights us up related to our work, our family, our purpose, everything, just life, just to explore and to have fun. Yeah.

[James Bailey] (30:35 – 30:56)

I completely agree. And I think the other responses someone wrote was along those lines. And he said something about that each day you’re alive, it’s like rolling a dice and you don’t know what it’s going to bring, but tomorrow could bring anything.

And that’s kind of the excitement of life that you get the chance to roll the dice again and see what happens.

[Julie Jancius] (30:57 – 30:57)

Yeah.

[James Bailey] (30:58 – 31:39)

And yeah, I completely agree that it’s kind of, you know, the whole like carpe diem, seize the day, it’s very difficult when we have families, we have responsibilities, you can’t just say, all right, bye, you know, gonna go and play my money and go to Vegas and gamble away, whatever you want to do. But like, I do think that kind of trying to appreciate and trying to have fun every day and try and do something interesting, try and learn something. I think, you know, despite all the negativity and the many problems we have in the world, the world is still a fantastic place full of amazing people and amazing countries and trying to actually enjoy that, you know, on a daily basis is probably why we’re here.

[Julie Jancius] (31:40 – 31:55)

That’s amazing. Yeah. I think that this might actually air on Thanksgiving.

Um, how much did you see gratitude playing a role as people wrote letters in?

[James Bailey] (31:57 – 33:01)

Yeah, well, I mean, firstly, I was, I certainly showed gratitude and very grateful that people actually write back to me. I think that was the big one. I, as I said, is, you know, for these people to write back to complete unknown.

I was very grateful. Yeah, I think that certainly a theme was love, gratitude, family, friends, all the, all the kind of tropes of Thanksgiving, uh, were kind of demonstrated. You know, I, there’s over a hundred responses.

I don’t think anyone wrote about money or job titles. I think, you know, love and gratitude and appreciating the world and appreciating people and trying to make everything better was certainly a common thread, which ran through most of the answers. Um, I do actually want to send about the original book.

I, I’d like to go back and read it again to see if our, how different the answers are than they were 90 years ago. Um, so I think that’d be interesting to compare a hundred percent.

[Julie Jancius] (33:01 – 33:12)

And, um, you talked a little bit about this, but I think this was somebody else’s story about the Olympics. You carried the torch in the Olympics. How did that come to be?

[James Bailey] (33:14 – 34:28)

Yeah. So I kind of, you know, talking about these health troubles, I had my own when I was 16, 17, I collapsed playing football, playing soccer. Um, and I found out that I had a, uh, a heart problem, basically in layman’s terms, my heart could go 300 beats per minute, which, which isn’t good.

You don’t want that to happen. Um, but very fortunately I was, you know, I survived and I found out why I had, and I had two operations. Unfortunately, lots of the time people find out, you know, when they collapse and it’s too late.

Um, and it’s, it’s a, you know, so much affects lots of young people. And I don’t think we often associate heart problems with young people, but, you know, there’ve been some, unfortunately, famous examples, professional sportsmen collapsing like that. Um, so yeah, so that happened to me and then I raised money for the charity and got involved in trying to promote the charity and yes, was invited to carry the Olympic torch in London, 2012.

So I did my little bit running, running the torch, very scared that it was going to go out with me. I had to do like two legs. So I was very conscious.

I don’t want to drop the torch, didn’t want the flame to go out. Um, yeah, it was, it was good fun. I’ve still got the torch at home.

[Julie Jancius] (34:28 – 34:53)

I don’t like carry it around still, but, um, you know, one other question that the angels are saying to ask you is life is a series of making decisions too. And what did you learn in this process about choosing, you know, the process of, of really deciding.

[James Bailey] (34:55 – 36:03)

So I think this is something which I’m still trying to kind of process this, but I’m not particularly religious myself and I’m kind of, I don’t know, I’m split on like the whole fate thing, but like, you know, I think the whole like kind of is everything predestined, preordained is very interesting. You know, like did all this have to happen? You know, did I have to go through these things to look for the meaning, which write this book and these books may help other people.

I’ve already received, the book came out a few months ago in the UK and I’ve already received lots of nice messages saying kind of this really helped them. You know, people have kind of been feeling very low or have stuff going on, like this book’s really helped them. You kind of feel, was it kind of some fate that I had to write this to help other people, had to experience this?

Um, so yeah, I don’t know. Like you could overanalyze lots of choices and the choices of who I wrote to the choice of who wrote back the choices, how I live my life. But I don’t know, there’s some kind of, some kind of comfort in the fact that maybe this was all meant to be in some way.

[Julie Jancius] (36:04 – 37:51)

Yeah. I don’t believe that, um, everything was preordained because I believe that we have free will. And I actually had this conversation one time on the side with Neil Donald Walsh, who wrote conversations with God.

But yeah, I don’t believe that everything was like set up in stone. I think that there were big like mile markers. And sometimes we come across those big mile markers in our lives and we’re like, Ooh, okay, this is an important decision to make.

I need to spend some more time on this. And we kind of feel into, do we go left or do we go right? Um, but I think that we’re all just these consciousness, you know, everybody has their own consciousness and each consciousness is evolving and we have to have like our own free will to make these decisions and navigate.

And that as we do in life, um, we’re really, we’re really growing and, uh, and evolving more. Yeah. Tell me, well, let me see.

I’m going to ask my podcast editor to chop that out. Um, that just last start of a question. I loved what you said when you came to, um, that we have to choose our purpose.

We have to choose the meaning we have to, because that’s where life has brought me as well is everything is a choice. You can choose to be pessimistic or you can choose to be optimistic. And at the end of the day, sometimes that is the only choice that we have right there is to choose to be hopeful or, or not.

And, um, that’s a struggle for, for some people. How do you choose to remain hopeful?

[James Bailey] (37:53 – 40:10)

Yeah. I mean, I, I, I certainly think it’s difficult. And again, speaking to some of the, you know, the amazing people in the book, there was, um, so yeah, some of the survivors who have been through these situations and then they choose to be positive.

I had, um, there’s a very famous, uh, uh, army Navy veteran here called Simon Weston, and he suffered horrendous injuries during the Falklands war. And honestly, the phone call I had with him, I’ve never spoken to someone more positive, you know, and he has every reason to be the complete opposite is every reason to feel resentful and negative and kind of, you know, his whole life changed due to this incident and being attacked and, and rather than that, he like, he forgave the person who caused the incident. He’s like, does so much charity work.

He’s full of life. And you kind of think if these people can do it the same as, you know, said some other fantastic people in the book, that the wonderful woman, Susan Pollock, who was in Auschwitz, who’s kind of full of life and, um, the 9-11 survivor, the 7-7 survivor who, you know, if it was me, I don’t know if I could be so positive. I don’t know if, you know, if I suffered these catastrophic injuries, if I went through this trauma, I could remain so positive, but it’s amazing.

These people have been through that and they forgive the people, you know, they move on. And I, as you say, it is a choice we make what, you know, they’ve had these events happen to them. It’s probably not going to help them to spend the rest of their lives being miserable about it as much as maybe, you know, expected they’re choosing to change their outlook and to try and, you know, to be happy and to spread positivity, which will hopefully in turn, you know, mean everyone else is positive and happy.

But yeah, it’s not always easy to do, is it? It’s, um, I think even on a much more, you know, everyday scale, even with the publishing world, you know, you go through problems and you want to like kind of be miserable about how stuff goes and sales and reviews, but you can’t change anything by being miserable and being down. So, you know, if you can try and be positive, I think that’s obviously a good way to be.

[Julie Jancius] (40:11 – 40:59)

Best words of wisdom, James, forgive, be positive, move forward. And you said also, spread that love, spread that joy into other people’s lives to give them that hope, that positivity. Um, and, uh, I think in that way, we all become these miniature rays of like sunshine where that love just spreads and continues to spread and spread and spread.

Um, James, thank you so much for who you are and the work that you do. You’re incredible. And, um, I can’t wait to see what ideas that you come into next, because you’re just a fabulous writer.

And I hope everybody gets your book. Tell everybody where they can find you and your work.

[James Bailey] (41:00 – 41:10)

Yes. So you can find me, um, on social media on my website is at James Bailey writes, and the book should be available in all good bookstores.

[Julie Jancius] (41:11 – 42:39)

Beautiful. And, uh, the meaning of life by James Bailey, we’ll put the link in the show notes below. Um, great Christmas gift, I think to people who are spiritual.

And I think also to people who aren’t spiritual, because this might get them thinking about their purpose. Um, the, the meaning that they want to assign to their own life, which really is great at every age, because to your point, you know, this is great for college kids, kids in their twenties, people in their thirties, forties, and, and even people that I counsel who are going into retirement, they’re, they’re still changing and they’re finding a new purpose for their lives. And I want to encourage everybody who’s listening to identify what your purpose, your meaning in life is right now.

And if you ask your angels, you ask God and you listen and you, you kind of tune into it. Don’t ever tell yourself that you can’t find it, that you can’t hear it. Um, you assign that meaning, you give it that meaning that you want it to have, and you spread hope.

You spread love into other people’s lives. Um, and, and be that for yourself as well. James, I hope you come on the podcast again in the future.

And just thank you again for being you.

[James Bailey] (42:40 – 42:42)

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been, it’s been great fun.

[Julie Jancius] (42:43 – 46:21)

Wonderful. Friends, I need your help reaching as many people as possible. If you’d like to support this podcast and help us spread more hope to the world, please book a session with me, join my angel membership, or take my angel Reiki school.

What’s the difference? If you’d like to know what messages your angels and loved ones have for you, you’ll want to book a session with me. The angel membership is all about your own personal spiritual healing.

The membership takes you on a spiritual journey that teaches you how to create your own heaven on earth. And the angel Reiki school is for those who want to get certified in mediumship angel messages and energy healing all at once. These are three ways you can help us share a message of hope and love with more people than ever before register for one or all three at the angel medium.com that’s the angel medium.com.

Now let’s pray together as we do. I want you to pray in a way where you feel as though everything you want for yourself and the world has already come true. And you’re giving thanks.

Why? Because this is the best way to manifest. So let’s begin.

God universe source. Thank you. We’re so grateful that you’ve blessed this world with calm and peace for all this calm and peace has spread like ripples soothing the hearts of every soul.

Thank you for opening our hearts to abundance, allowing each of us to live our most authentic life and helping us to create our own heaven on earth. We thank you for the love and deep heart to heart connection that surrounds us every day in our relationships. We thank you for the abundance of health and aliveness.

We feel radiating from every cell and our and our family’s bodies. Thank you for the gift of walking this life with us and guiding us every step of the way through your messages. We hear you through our own intuition and we feel you walking right by our sides and we overflow with gratitude.

Thank you for financial abundance and abundance of opportunities and miracles and blessings and prosperity in every way. We know that you want us to succeed so that we can show others how you want them to succeed too. Thank you for the boundless love, kindness, empathy and compassion that binds us all together.

Thank you for the laughter, fun moments of pure delight that fill us every day, especially today. God universe source. Thank you for blessing us beyond measure and allowing us to use our souls, gifts, talents, skills and abilities to serve the world.

We love you. I love you. And in this we pray.

Amen. Friends, we’re working on some pretty major things over here. And if you wouldn’t mind saying a little prayer that these things come to fruition, if they’re God’s will, we’d so appreciate it.

And please add a little prayer in for any specific thing you need right now to have a beautiful blessed day.