The Law of Purpose Was Forged in the Dark.

I am not someone who spent a lifetime focused on mental health, nutrition or other valuable educational and degree programs. As with many people in the self-help industry, this is not something I had ever aspired to do. As a matter of fact, it was quite by accident that I discovered my interest in this subject.

While my background is somewhat eclectic and indirect — working in the Clinton White House, running a technology business based in Hong Kong, building a popular consumer product business as an entrepreneur, and the past ten years helping grow a software company from $3mm to $130mm — many changes in my life “helped” me fall into this role.

Over the course of about a year, as I was transitioning out of my senior executive role in the software business, I started focusing my energy on myself and how I could find purpose and reclaim the motivation and passion I had glimpsed during various periods of my life. As I read widely on the subject of “happiness,” I started trying things that made sense to me: exercise, healthy diet, spending focused time in nature.

During this time, I began feeling better but… I felt I was hitting a wall at times, and deep down I knew what that was and that I had to face it. It was time to face a demon that had been lurking in my shadows for many years: alcohol.

I quit, and willpower failed me. But finally I figured out how to change my mentality to stop.

Once I stopped, I met the bigger demon I had been feeding all those years: depression. I never had fathomed the depth and utter hopelessness of depression. At one point I had to make the decision to survive or not. To make this decision, I had to answer the key question as to why I should survive.