Living a Life of Purpose: Gary Marino and the Million Calorie March

I firmly believe that every human being on this earth has the power to make the world a better place. We all have talents, abilities, strengths, values, and experiences that we can leverage to help others…if, that is, we choose to live with purpose.

I can tell you from experience that it’s easy to get caught up in the momentum of routine; to let others’ expectations determine your choices; to play it safe instead of risking failure or ridicule. That’s largely how I lived my life until I had my happiness breakthrough. But I can also tell you from experience that when you take the risk and proactively design a life that is infused with meaning, you can accomplish more than you ever dreamed possible.

I’m fortunate to know many people who have tapped into their purpose and courageously decided to share their gifts with the world. I’d like to profile two of them on my blog: my good friends Gary Marino (whose story I’ll share today) and John Dowd (who I’ll tell you about in the next post).

I hope that Gary’s and John’s stories will inspire you to take a look at how you too can take your life to a higher level by living more consciously and by paying attention to what fulfills you—and to what the world needs! (As you’ll see, Gary and John are both living purposefully in a BIG way—but be aware that you can have a positive impact on the world whether you touch one life or one million!)

I first met Gary Marino in a professional capacity around 10 years ago, but it didn’t take long for us to become friends. At that time, Gary was a big guy—as he describes it, “one Super Bowl party away from 400 pounds.” Because of his weight, Gary suffered from some serious medical issues. He wanted to regain his health and his life, so he began exercising and eating better. Before long, Gary began shedding pounds (eventually, 150 of them). And somewhere along the way, Gary also found his purpose.

I’ll never forget the day when a much-healthier Gary came to me and told me that he wanted to help others achieve what he had just experienced. He was concerned by the epidemic of obesity in America—especially childhood obesity—and he believed that he could tap into his own experiences to teach others how to navigate health here in the “Land of Plenty.”

To make a long story short, Gary developed the concept of walking from Jacksonville, Florida, to his home city of Boston, Massachusetts (about 1,200 miles), raising awareness and money for childhood obesity along the way. I was incredibly honored to help fund this one-of-a-kind project and was excited to be there in 2004 when the Million Calorie March kicked off live on ABC’s Live! with Regis and Kelly.

Over the next few months, the walk was also featured in USA Today and People magazine and was mentioned by hundreds of other media outlets. In total, it is estimated that the Million Calorie March reached over 70 million people! (Even well-known personalities like Bill Clinton and Steven Tyler are fans!)

But that’s not all. Gary’s original walk ended up being only the “warm-up lap.” His non-profit partnered with Blue Cross and went on to produce three more breathtaking campaigns in Pennsylvania and the Carolinas, as well as over 200 events across the country.

Now Gary’s fight against childhood obesity is a digital campaign, too. Gary continues to educate through our award-winning film: Million Calorie March: The Movie. It chronicles his eventful, humorous, and inspiring walk up the East Coast, and is now available for digital download here. I encourage you to take a look—you’ll see me in the film, and my son, Josh, is the pitcher against the McDonald’s Little League team!

Gary, me, and our friend Howard Rankin (who was featured in the film as a wellness expert) at the 2008 Freddie Awards, where Million Calorie March: The Movie won an award in the area of Diet and Nutrition. This was a huge honor—the Freddies are the medical community’s Oscars!

I’d like to end this blog post with Gary’s own words as he reflects on the journey of living his purpose:

“But the lesson here…and this has nothing to do with health or weight loss…is that none of this happened the way we thought it would. None of it. There were more challenges, obstacles, money issues, and learning curves for this aggressive plan than we ever anticipated. Nothing was easy, and none of these opportunities exactly fell into our laps. We MADE them happen. In the end we learned to expect obstacles, deal with them, and just ‘keep on marching.’ …There’s a lesson there about life in general, don’t you think? Expect obstacles. If it’s worth it, you’ll get around them.”