For almost as long as I can remember...
... I’ve been obsessed with living my best life. I had cancer (Stage 3 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) as a kid and that got me thinking about deeper, more meaningful questions… questions like
- Why am I here?
- What’s the purpose of life? And of my life?
- How much power and influence does the mind have on the body? What about our spirit?
I gravitated to philosophy, psychology and self help books. I participated in life education courses, and spiritual development retreats.
After college, I worked as a Management Consultant at Gallup. And while I was there, two MAJOR things happened, leading me to where I am now.
#1 Gallup published the first major study on quality of life.
It was the most substantial and most comprehensive research (to date) on what it meant to live a thriving life.
And I was fascinated. Finally there was research to prove that when people are fulfilled in life, everything gets better - companies are better off, cities are better off, and countries too. And I realized that maximizing wellbeing should be the end goal of everything that we do. This is why we are alive… to live a great life. And I felt that wellbeing should be measured as often as GDP, profit, unemployment - and every other metric that society is run by.
#2 I met Deepak Chopra
While at Gallup, I was introduced to one of Gallup’s Senior Scientists, Dr. Deepak Chopra. I didn’t know much about him at the time other than I loved that he believed in wellbeing and the mind/body connection as much as I did. I was assigned to be his liaison for the wellbeing research. I was only 23 at the time, and since then, Deepak and I have done a lot of work together. We launched a live course called Corporate Wellbeing & the Soul of Leadership to help people realize that wellbeing needs to start with the leaders of society. It needs to be a priority.
After Gallup, I spent a significant amount of time traveling the world.
I wanted to see what life looked like around the world - for myself. I wanted to see more of the developing world especially. I wanted to see what secrets they had about living a great life. I wanted to understand more cultures first hand. I did a lot of wandering by myself and had a lot of conversations with many strangers. I went to Kenya, El Salvador, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Turkey, Croatia, Italy, Germany, London, and Hong Kong.
