That's me on the left being very serious.

Have you ever had a dream that you realized, but it didn't turn out quite the way you planned? Maybe it was a career, a marriage, a relationship, or a school program?

These things often happen when we don't understand our needs. We think or we hope that we're one kind of person, when in fact, we're a different kind of person. This is perfectly understandable. Most of us weren't raised to know what makes us happy. A lot of us, like me, go for something that looks good on the outside first, and then crawl bewildered out of the wreckage wondering what the hell happened, and try to find happiness from there.

Realizing my Dream, Almost

Back in September of 1991 I was fulfilling my dream of being a worldwide pop star as half the duo Bounce The Ocean. Our record company had dropped about half a million on our cd and we were poised to take over the world. Very exciting.

In my hometown of Seattle the busses were decorated with our images. When I walked into a Fred Meyer store I was greeted with pictures of us. I heard us on the radio while driving. I could find our cds in the record stores I frequented. My aunt in Massachussets was hearing us on her radio station too. We had a huge cd launch party at the historic Edgewater Inn. A huge banner saying, "Have you heard Bounce The Ocean?" was flown over 60,000 people at Husky Stadium.

We had just finished our CD with producers Glen Ballard and Michael Omartian who were responsible for songs by people like Michael Jackson, Cher, Wilson Phillips, and Amy Grant that were currently worldwide hits. These people were millionaires so it seemed logical that's where we were heading.

This was not a good time to realize I was in the wrong career. But that's what happened.

It was a trip to see myself on city busses while being severely depressed.

What Went Wrong?

My duo buddy and I were good songwriters and singers with a unique sound. We worked hard to get where we were. However, the quality of my motivations set me up for failure. Although I did enjoy writing songs and singing I was doing it in ways that weren't sustainable, and that caught up to me about the time our CD was released.

The fact is that I was running scared. In retrospect, I realize I felt like my whole self worth was riding on whether Bounce The Ocean was a big success or not.

In addition, I realized that I was an introvert in an extrovert's job. We had to meet a lot of people, do a lot of small talk, and take a lot of pictures. So much was focused on our external image that I became incredibly drained. By the time our CD was released I just wanted to hide in my basement and wait until all the attention went away.

Adding to this, the songs on our CD, many of which I had written for girlfriends in college, were starting to feel less authentic for me. I found myself feeling constantly depressed and anxious.

That's me (in the red) in 1991.

In an odd showing of grace, two historically significant rock albums came out of Seattle within a month of our own: Pearl Jam 10 and Nirvana's Nevermind. Seattle became the grunge capital of the world and Bounce The Ocean's melodic harmony laden pop became a victim of epically bad timing. I quit the music business in the next year and committed myself to learning what my new life direction would be.

The Road Home

Somewhat ironically, I found work helping others find good job matches. I found I enjoyed helping people make meaningful changes in their lives. This work also created a space where I could evaluate what my ultimate career might be. Within a couple of years I became an expert on careers, and wrote a job guide that Al Gore included in his National Performance Review. Over the next 15 years I learned to meditate, participated in spiritual retreats whenever I could, and focused on personal growth. I joined men's groups, went to therapy, and filled my book shelf with self-help books. My career flourished in many ways but inner happiness was still elusive.

Enlightenment!

In 2004 I found the inner happiness I was seeking when I somewhat accidentally encountered a relic of the original Buddha. To explain briefly, a Buddhist nun gave me a blessing by placing a small cylindrical object on my head. I didn't know at the time that there was a chunk of the original Buddha within it. I could feel an incredibly peaceful presence emanate down from the crown of my head into my heart. I felt truly ecstatic and at peace. The amazing sense of oneness lasted about a day.

In my quest to experience that profound oneness again I attended an Enlightenment Intensive. It worked. After attending multiple 3 day Enlightenment Intensives over several years I learned how to run them. At this point, it was fairly easy for me to get into that place of profound connection and unity that I had experienced with the Buddha relic. I wanted to give this experience to others.

The problem was I didn't feel suited to running Enlightenment Intensives. They were highly structured 16 hour/day workshops. The idea of running Enlightenment Intensives for the rest of my life felt heavy. In 2010 I found out about the personal gnostic intensive developed by Zivorad Slavinsky in Serbia. I have been giving these intensives to people in 1 on 1 sessions since then with profound results.

Strengths!

Experiences of enlightenment result in a profound sense of connection and wellbeing. They help you take this life a little less seriously because you know it's an illusion, kind of like playing a video game. Life is, in fact, virtual reality. It's not THE reality. Yet, here we are playing the game of life in human form. Playing to your strengths keeps you grounded here on earth and helps you with the strategic and tactical matters of life. It's a perfect complement to enlightenment practices.

I had to figure this out on my own. In the years I worked solely on enlightenment I struggled greatly in between those expansive experiences of connection and belonging because I was ignoring my personality altogether. I wrote about this in my article about the spiritual bypass. Once I learned my strengths and how to implement them I was much happier in my normal every day life.

Starting in 2012 my business partner and I developed the Find Your Spark program which includes our Motivational Strengths assessment. This is the best strengths assessment I know of because it emphasizes action and implementation.

Takeaways

For over three decades I've been practicing the art of helping people live better lives in one way or another. I've helped people from all walks of life have enlightenment experiences and learn how to implement their strengths. I've learned I can make a big difference doing this work.

• As it concerns personal growth, connection of one kind or another is always the solution. It may look like a connection to our strengths, our grief, the Divine, to nature, or another person. When we connect we grow.
• We're all biologically hardwired to feel shame so we can survive in social groups. When this survival mechanism is appreciated for what it is, it can become a powerful ally in our growth process.
• Spirituality aimed toward escaping the pain of life doesn't actually work. It backfires. Pain is something to embrace and move through, and it often takes time.
• We are here to learn how to embrace this life, ourselves, and others without reserve. When we do so we are free to move forward into our next adventure and experience the kind of success that matters most.
• We are each held in the loving embrace of eternity whether we feel it or not, and whether we believe it or not. This something that must be experienced directly, just as we need to travel to the ocean or actually see and feel snow in order to know what it is.

My mission is to help you realize the depth and breadth of your connection with everyone and everything and the resources that exist within you. I do this so you might spend the rest of your days in a place of joy-filled awe and doing those things that bring meaning, happiness and success into your life.