She was a child, newly arrived in a country that did not know her name, living apart from her family because no single household could take six people at once. They had fled Cuba with nothing. The family scattered, and M. Teresa Lawrence was left in the particular silence that settles over a young heart when the adults around it have no good explanation for why the world works the way it does. She did what children do. She told herself stories.
What she could not have known then is that those stories were not a wound. They were a gift. They were the seed of everything that came after.
Today, Lawrence is the founder and executive director of The Trueness Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose work spans book donations, leadership education, and an annual celebration that has grown into the largest gathering of people dressed as butterflies anywhere on earth. She is also the curator and lead author of Wings of Purpose: How Vision and Intention Propel Success, a collaborative anthology bringing together 21 thought leaders, founders, coaches, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs to answer one of the questions that matters most: What does it mean to truly live with purpose?
The answer, for Lawrence, always begins in the same place. Inside.
“You can’t share something you don’t have,” she said. “Everybody talks about world peace all the time. But how do you reach peace if you don’t have inner peace? The whole mission of the Trueness Project is to get people to live in their trueness.”
That mission did not arrive fully formed. It evolved the way real purpose tends to, not through a single moment of clarity, but through a series of unexpected openings that kept nudging Lawrence toward something larger than she had planned.
She had written a children’s book called Gloriousness, and she believed that was her calling. The book, drawn from her own childhood experience, teaches young readers that the story they choose to tell about what happens to them holds more power than the events themselves. She intended to give the book away, to speak about the power of storytelling, and to call that her purpose. It felt right. It felt true. It felt, she admits, manageable.
Then she traveled to Kenya for a keynote speakers tour. A journalist asked her what she believed should be taught in schools. She answered from the heart, drawing on the principles of leadership and the work of Napoleon Hill, the tools that transform how people see themselves and what they believe is possible. That response went viral across Africa. Her phone did not stop ringing. People wanted her to come back and teach. The divine, as Lawrence understands it, had already decided where she was going next.
Her answer was clear and it was simple. Leadership should be taught in schools.
“You think your purpose is one thing,” she said, “and then a higher power gives you a sign. It pushed me from giving out books, which was easy, to doing something I have never done that could potentially change the lives of everyone.”
What emerged from that moment was The Trueness Project in its full form, and at the center of it, the Grand Butterfly Gathering. The butterfly was not a casual metaphor. Lawrence sees in it the honest truth of the human experience, the cycles of transformation, the seasons of not-knowing, the emergence that only becomes possible after everything a person thought they were has been left behind in the cocoon.
“We all transform as butterflies,” she said. “You thought something was your purpose, and then you end up doing something else entirely. The Trueness Project is all about finding your inner truth, your true purpose, and that may change over time.”
Each June, on the last Saturday of the month, the Grand Butterfly Gathering takes place, both live in one location and virtually across the world. This year, that day is June 27, and the gathering will be held in person at downtown Jackson, Wyoming, with participants joining from every corner of the globe. Registration is open at butterflymarch.com. Participants are invited to dress in butterfly costumes, to gather, to celebrate, and to pray, not in a distant or formal sense, but in the most intimate one. To pray for themselves. To become the most peaceful, whole, and purposeful version of who they are.
“If we all find inner peace,” Lawrence said, “we will have world peace. And it just takes one butterfly at a time.”
New this year is the Worldwide Canine Flutter, a joyful addition for participants who want to include their dogs in the celebration. Butterfly wings for pets, photos submitted to the gathering, and the simple, genuine joy of coming together for something that matters.
“The world could use more joy,” Lawrence said. “You will always remember the time you fluttered with a group of strangers. All those strangers will become friends and laugh about that moment for the rest of their lives.”
The gathering and the nonprofit are inseparable from the annual theme each year seems to carry forward. The first book was Wings of Change. In the second year, rather than another anthology, The Trueness Project launched a documentary called Giving Wings to a Movement, because some stories are too big for the page alone. This year’s volume, Wings of Purpose, pulls together 21 personal journeys that are raw, honest, and deeply human, exploring what purpose actually is, how it is found, and what it asks of a person once it arrives.
Lawrence describes three currents running through the collection. The first is peace, not as an abstraction, but as a practice, something each person must choose, sometimes by letting go of the relationships, obligations, and beliefs that no longer belong to them. The second is mental health, addressed by authors who have known profound loss, including the death of a child, and who returned from that loss with a conviction that no one should face their darkest moments in isolation. The third is art, the recognition that creative expression is not indulgence but a direct path to purpose, one of the most honest ways a person can show the world who they truly are.
“When you read this anthology, you will sit there and say, ‘She did it. He did it. I can’t believe they overcame that. What am I doing here, sitting?'” Lawrence said. “And all it takes is one step. For some people, it might be just getting out of bed. For others, it might mean traveling the world and forming a peace movement.”
She believes books give differently each time a reader returns, because the reader is different, and The Trueness Project distributes books Lawrence considers essential to that growth, including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, recently translated into Arabic for distribution across the Middle East. She reads it herself every year, and every year it gives her something new.
“Your interpretation of leadership today may not be the interpretation of leadership tomorrow,” she said. “All of these books, including Wings of Purpose, will change as you evolve.”
Ask her what she wants people to take away from all of it, from the nonprofit, the book, the butterflies, the decades of work, and she does not hesitate.
“Know that you are beautiful,” she said. “The more you love on yourself, the more the world will love on you. And if we all felt that way, we would have a magical world. Truly.”
That message has not changed since a child sat alone in a new country and decided to believe that her story was not over. It has only grown wings.
To learn more about The Trueness Project, visit truenessproject.org. To register for the June 27 Grand Butterfly Gathering, visit butterflymarch.com. Wings of Purpose is available for pre-order on Amazon.
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