Introduction

In hindsight, I had plenty of wake-up calls, plenty of signs that my moral compass had lost its magnetic north. I just hadn’t listened.

One red flag came when I was having dinner with two brothers I had met in Colombia. Both men were connected with the US embassy. I suspected the older brother, Gustavo, worked with the secret service, though I never conclusively confirmed that suspicion.

We were eating at Salto del Angel, a prominent restaurant in a busy section of town about a block from my apartment. During the course of our meal, I asked Gustavo about a recent high-profile “liquidation” that had occurred in front of Salto del Angel. He described in almost too much detail how liquidations like this are executed with flawless choreography.

“When they’re done in a busy area like this, it’s to make a statement,” Gustavo said. “Some businessmen get trapped in the nets of the mafia, and they don’t realize it until it’s too late.”

Gustavo spoke more freely than he ever had, and I hung on his every word. The stories all had a grim undertone. The coldhearted violence he described was straight out of a suspense thriller. It seemed unreal.

“There are still dangerous places in Colombia,” Gustavo said. “There are people you don’t want to get involved with. You don’t want to go on their turf.”

Gustavo’s tone had changed, and I sensed he was trying to tell me something. I had recently started evaluating a project in the port of Buenaventura, the largest Colombian port on the Pacific Ocean, and a notorious hotbed of the cocaine export trade. Lord knows how Gustavo even knew about my new project; then again, he was in the business of knowing things.

Gustavo continued. “Sometimes businessmen get swept up into their web. If these people need something from you or want you to go away, they have their own ways of taking care of it, and they’re not going to hire a lawyer. These people don’t play by the same rules you and I do.”

That night, Gustavo’s words fell on deaf ears. I was blinded by my relentless pursuit of more and bigger. Within a few weeks, however, the message that I was encroaching on dangerous turf became loud and clear. A group of bad actors started to show their muscle and unleashed a host of scare tactics on me that, to this day, I don’t discuss with people. But the intimidations were bone-chilling. I started looking over my shoulder everywhere I went: as I walked to my armored car, as I pulled into the garage, as I took the elevator to my apartment.

After weeks of living in this traumatized state, I couldn’t take it anymore. I finagled my way out of the project and, shortly thereafter, sold my various business interests in Colombia. Despite making millions on this sale and despite already being a multimillionaire from years of business accomplishments, I returned to Miami feeling empty and disillusioned. On the outside, I was a great success—I had achieved all the worldly things I thought would make me happy—but inside, I was a broken man. At home, I was brought face-to-face with my crumbling marriage, which only sank me deeper into my black hole of sorrow and despair. I was a lost soul.

Landing at rock bottom doesn’t happen overnight—especially when rock bottom is this deep. It’s the final station on a slow path of wrong turns and poor decisions guided by an egoic mind gone awry.

A Very Lucky Guy

My story starts 5,500 miles from Colombia in a beautiful country called the Netherlands. I was born on the right side of the tracks and grew up about thirty minutes outside Amsterdam in a quaint, idyllic village surrounded by gorgeous forests and wide-open farmland. In the 1970s and 80s, the Netherlands was a prosperous, safe place, and I enjoyed incredible freedoms in my childhood. From the age of five or six, I rode my bike everywhere: to school, to friends’ houses, to play sports—you name it. My father was a successful executive, my mother owned her own store, and I was the youngest of three boys, so I was given a lot of leeway.

At age eighteen, I left home to attend college in Amsterdam and took full advantage of my newfound freedom. I partied like a rock star, cut class (I think I made it to four classes that first year), and did a lot of things that will ensure I never get elected to public office.

Toward the end of my first year, I fell madly in love with a girl who was a much more dedicated student. Perhaps I cleaned up my act to wow her—or maybe it happened by osmosis—but the end result was that I got more serious about school and managed to obtain an associate’s degree in economics and political science.

At the end of my third year of college, my thirst for adventure kicked in, and I was off to Australia, leaving behind a fizzled romance and an unfinished bachelor’s degree. For the next year, I backpacked from Sydney to Perth, skippered a yacht around the Whitsunday lslands, drove a passenger bus in Hervey Bay, and had stints as a construction worker, banana picker, and bartender. It was epic.

After Australia, I flew to Los Angeles, bought a motorcycle, and drove across the country. Over the next few years, I tried to break into the professional tennis circuit, but alas, I was a day late and a dollar short. Pursuing this boyhood dream brought me a lot of great stories, but I was never able to truly break through.

At age twenty-five, I finally landed in Atlanta, where I got a job in real estate starting at seven bucks an hour. I thrived in that arena, and within three years, I was making six figures. I also attended night school at Georgia State University, graduating summa cum laude with a BBA in real estate. From there, I was accepted to Columbia Business School in New York City, and fueled (or blinded) by ambition and excitement, I charged ahead and started my MBA program in January 2001.

While starting my new life in Atlanta, I fell in love with a smart and captivating trial lawyer. Not long after, we married and embarked on a rollercoaster relationship. She was equally ambitious and had no desire to sit for the New York bar or sideline her career while I pursued my MBA, and by the time I graduated, it was clear to both of us that our paths had already separated. By June of 2002, I was newly single and about to kick off my postgraduate career at GE, one of America’s most venerable blue chip companies.

Which brings us to the true beginning of this tale of pure love, driving ambition, glorious success, ruthless failure, and dark depression—and the journey within that brought me the happiness and peace I had been seeking all along.

Memoir-Help

I started writing this book as self-therapy, as medicine to get me through some of the most painful moments and deepest lows of my life. I wrote it to heal myself from overwhelming heartbreak, anxiety, and despair so intense at times, I couldn’t breathe.

As I wrote, however, I realized this book could serve a greater purpose. I’m not the only person to follow ambition, seek success, pursue money, and chase happiness in external things only to find that those things—more and more money, fancy cars, big houses, luxury vacations, even having the perfect family—never give you lasting fulfillment once you have them. I’m not the only person to feel empty, stuck, lost, crushed by disillusionment, and constantly wondering, “Is this all there is?” And I’m not the only person to numb the hollow, empty feeling with myriad distractions.

The truth is, to varying degrees, we all suffer from what I call never enoughitis: we seek, succeed, accomplish, earn, pursue, and accumulate, but it’s never enough to satisfy our deepest longings and give us true happiness. So we get a better job to make more money and buy more toys and a bigger house and go on more exotic vacations—but it’s never enough. We try numbing the pain with exercise, hobbies, partying, sex, porn, alcohol, painkillers, and maybe even an affair.

But it’s never fucking enough.

As I learned, never enoughitis cannot be healed through external things; the answer lies within. Finding the fulfillment, peace, and happiness we all seek requires a fundamental shift in our awareness and consciousness. We need to transform the way we see ourselves and the world, as well as the way in which we live and move in that world. Curing never enoughitis is ultimately about making a fundamental shift from living a life of greed to living a life of grace. It’s the shift from self-interest to service to others, from fear and lack to love and abundance, from being played by the game to being a game changer, from chasing nothingness to creating impact fueled by a deep sense of purpose. The good news is this powerful transformation is readily available to everyone.

I am not the same person I was five years ago. Through my spiritual journey—a relentless soul-search for the truth coupled with intensive therapy, healing old wounds, deep introspection, and new daily choices—I have been able to leave my past in the past,...