I became an achievement addict at age eleven. Not from my parents—they were libertarian hippy types who "un-schooled" my four siblings and I in the rainy forests of the Pacific Northwest, teaching us to be curious about the process, not obsessed with the product.

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No, my addiction began when I first tasted the seductive allure of praise in public school. My teachers quickly singled me out as a "promising student," grooming me for success in a system that measures worth through achievement. By graduation, the valedictorian medal around my neck felt less like an honor and more like a weight—I couldn't get enough praise to feel worthy.

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Then life shattered everything I thought I knew about success.

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What began as a severe depression ultimately became an initiation into a deeper truth. So began an epic journey into the heart. I hiked the Camino de Santiago (twice!), I studied meditation in India and trekked in Nepal, I sat for hundreds of cumulative days of silent meditation retreat, I became a Buddhist monk, I unbecame a Buddhist monk, I studied yoga in Thailand, and I read everything about the mind and body that I could get my hands on. And so on and so forth.

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Today, my life's work has nothing to do with the engineering labs and calculus classrooms of my formal education. Instead, I'm obsessed with one question:

What allows a person to truly come alive to their full potential?

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Read more about my story here.