I Traveled the World To Find My Purpose - Here's What I Learned
“Enlightened” in Mt. Koya Japan - Feb 2018
By many accounts, I had a very successful career as a TV writer-producer:The Colbert Report, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Madam Secretary.
By my own account: it was not working for me.
Even after 10+ years in my field, I was filled with anxiety - found it really hard to connect with the purpose of it all. Though I worked mostly on political shows, I had no idea the difference I was making. The only real feedback was the odd Twitter shout out (and hater) or my peers telling me they’d once binged a show I wrote for when very sick. As I approached the age of 35, this did not feel like enough to show St. Peter when we met at the Pearly Gates.
Finding my purpose mattered to me. I needed a method that worked.
So in a dramatic move mostly reserved for the characters I wrote for — I turned down another 3 year deal at Madam Secretary, which was then a Top 10 Network show to travel. This was unheard of as a TV writer. It was security, validation, a huge paycheck but for me, it wasn’t enough. I packed my house, left my community and took to the road in search of my purpose.
I looked everywhere - an Indian ashram, the canals of Copenhagen, the bottom of Bali's oceans. I journaled. I did yoga. I meditated. I danced under a full moon to the beat of a banging drum. Fell in love. Almost sold a TV show in Sweden. You know, your typical Eat Pray Love Scenario.
It was an invigorating journey with a kickass Instagram but internally meandering. I can’t say I was totally lost... I was paying attention to the diffuse signs Out There. This grand purpose felt close but still elusive... like trying to catch the quicksilver of a fish with your hand.
Like many women - I kept going, hoping that at some point I’d reach an AHA moment.
It did not arrive.
About to walk into 10 days of silent meditation in Northern India…
Here’s a piece of advice from everything I learned over that journey and the years before - the reason the Stamp Your Passport to Freedom Method did not altogether work:
I concentrated on what I didn’t want in my life. And that became my way of life.
Anytime I tried to articulate what I wanted it was all about NOT doing what I did before. Learning what I DID NOT want in life helped with the process of elimination, but, man... after a few decades, thousands of miles traveled and a MASSIVE carbon footprint, it was exhausting.
But it’s what we're taught as kids --
"Don't run into the road!"
"Don't eat with your hands!"
"Don't be like your mother..."
Rarely: "Hey, what do you want?" "What really interests you?" “What do you want to leave behind?”
Concentrating on what we don't want in life becomes our way of life and no matter how many places I went, people I met, jobs I tried, I never found the "one." Until I came home from my year of wandering and entered a Neuro Linguistic Programming Coaching program in freaking NorCal (in the same state as my home in LA!). And there it was. A method to figure out what I wanted.
And it was so freaking simple.
Clarity arrived when someone finally took the time to ask:
"What do you want?"
"No, really. Define it. It’s safe. What does it look like? Feel like? Sound like?"
“What do you mean exactly when you say ‘a good job?’ What do you mean by ‘good?’”
And then: they shut up, listened and kept asking you to define each term — what’s a good relationship? A good salary? What’s being happy at work for you? And on and on.
This is so stupid simple but it really works, even if you’re not a word nerd. And over time I refined & refined & refined what the words I was speaking meant to me: what a good job would be for me. I still do it to this day! At the time, it led me to merge my TV writing & storytelling skills with coaching & consulting methods to make up a rad new job where I help mid-career women name & articulate their brand story so they can grow the confidence & skills they need to gain high impact leadership roles.
Still though - how many people can you count on for completely detached reflection & distillation of your hopes and dreams? Who are just here to listen, without forcing their point of view?
Without that presence you're reduced to doing what we do: working it out alone in your head, mulling it over in the wee hours of the night, dialoguing with your past selves, then morning comes and you're unleashed to externalize your twisted logic in weird ways like--
Trolling LinkedIn, FB, & Insta for how other high achieving women live their #bestlife
Pie in the sky thoughts such as... "I don't know - grad school??"
Googling: 'what to do next' and find there's 1,000,000 entries
Bouncing from job to job
Maybe you engaged a friend, who told you how to get what you want from their own experience. Maybe your partner was gracious... at first but is not into spending the few hours they have with your strategizing. And your dog... well, he'd probably like you to be a dog walker. Hidden agendas everywhere!
If you’re anything like I was, you were in your head and contemplating massive action and who knows, it may be even be in the right direction - I hope that it is. I just wished I’d had a way to have a frank conversation with someone whom I trusted to ask the right questions. If someone had asked me about what I wanted - leaving a huge impact, putting women in leadership roles, building a thriving business - maybe I’d still have gone on the trip anyway but instead of putting the pressure of the cosmos on it and all the ugly crying that led to, it could have just been a great trip to Hong Kong!
That’s just me, though. I like a definitive answer.
Whatever, your path. Bon voyage! Send me a postcard/or drop me an email along the way by emailing ac@acelecrtic.co