Debug Yourself

Something Needs to Change If you find yourself here, reading this book, you’ve realized that something needs to change. Perhaps you’re looking to live with more purpose, to prevent or overcome burnout, to feel more like yourself, or find more peace and joy in your career or personal life. You might not be sure what needs to change, let alone how. Or maybe it feels like everything needs to change. If you’re feeling like the world is broken, you’re definitely not alone. Sometimes it feels like humanity is going backwards, that we’re not learning what we need to learn, and the world keeps getting weirder as a result. The feeling of stress and strain is all around us—magnified by the ever-increasing pace of change. The impact on us as individuals, and the strain we see on our friends, families, communities, businesses, systems, governments, and the world can be depressing and exhausting. And, we all know that we can’t just go back to the way things were “before,” whatever that even means. Fortunately, despite much evidence to the contrary, the world isn’t broken. We are not broken. We can change. We can create an environment where people can live and work with purpose, balance, and abundance. We can be healthy, joyful, and kind. I know we can. But, we need to heal and start showing up differently, individually and collectively. We need a new way of being. And that starts with each of us. Personally, my journey of healing and transformation was unplanned, unstructured, and kicked off by an intense period of scorching burnout. Life stuff, health stuff, work stuff—you name it! I knew something needed to change for me, but I didn’t know what or how. I eventually found the clarity, well-being, and wholeness I was looking for, but not easily. It was a process, as they say. My hope is that, by sharing what I’ve learned, my journey inspires and expedites yours. Wisdom. It’s Not Working. Speaking of journeys, over the course of mine it became clear to me that there is literally a world of wisdom out there we could be using WAY more to our advantage—from new and disruptive ideas to ancient wisdom that stands the test of time. The question that kept coming up for me was: If there’s a world of wisdom out there, why isn’t it working? We’ve all heard inspiring truths. We’ve had our hearts touched and our minds ignited by groundbreaking ideas. We agree. We believe. We try all the things. It works. We forget. We try again, better. We forget again. Just me? Right, I didn’t think so. We could be in a golden age—right now. The wisdom is there. Take a moment and think of all the TED Talks, all the pivotal books, everything you’ve learned from thought leaders who heard the call to adventure and shared their wisdom. Think of thousands of years of wisdom shared and practiced by indigenous cultures and healers throughout the world. Think of the poets and artists that inspire you. Think of all the technological and scientific breakthroughs in the last decade alone. And, the innovation keeps coming. Why aren’t some of the greatest ideas and innovations in personal and professional growth truly catching on the way they could? The wisdom is here. The potential is here. And with AI, all the wisdom of the world can be served up for us on a freakishly disturbing silver platter. Why aren’t we dramatically changing the world for the better? To be honest, the overwhelming amount of wisdom out there, and the extent to which it is not working, made me want to scrap writing this book… several times. But there’s a truth that I couldn’t shake: we can shape a new reality. It’s possible. People can love their work and their life. We can live authentically and be happy, healthy, and prosperous. We can lead with love. Inclusion, diversity, and equity can become the natural order of things rather than political firestorms. We can be and grow great leaders. We can run and support ethical, sustainable businesses. We can have peace, clean air and water, sustainable energy, and access and opportunity for all humanity. This isn’t just optimism. We have the wisdom. It exists in the world. But, how do we do it? Knowing isn’t enough. Wanting change isn’t enough. Ideas are not enough. Innovation isn’t enough. Access isn’t enough. Only action is real. To change the world, we need to activate and scale the wisdom of the world. And we do that by starting with ourselves. The political pendulum will continue to swing from one end of the spectrum to the other, undoing and redoing, making changes without really changing anything for people. Why? Because we’re not addressing the root of the problem. Real change starts at the individual level. Something needs to change, and it’s us, all of us, individually. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel Personally, my burnout recovery and return to well-being didn’t come without a lot of introspection, experimentation, and hard work. But most of that hard work was not rooted in a corporate wellness program, leadership development training, or traditional therapy. Don’t get me wrong, these resources are valuable and helpful for many people, but I needed something different. The healing approach and tools that worked for me were inspired by my hippie upbringing, combined with what I learned from leading transformational change professionally. Although most of my career has been in corporate leadership, I didn’t start out on the executive trajectory. I actually had a “classic” hippie childhood, with my mother’s genuine peace, love, and happiness vibe and my father existing more in the sex, drugs, and rock and roll camp. One of the upsides of my wild bohemian upbringing was an early introduction to different cultures, philosophies, and ways of being. While working in the corporate world for more than 25 years, I spent my personal time studying yoga, ayurveda, reiki, Buddhist teachings, and…