In a world where success is often measured by material wealth and external achievements, the pursuit of inner fulfillment can sometimes be overshadowed. Many people find themselves caught in a relentless chase for more—more money, more recognition, more possessions—believing that these things will bring lasting happiness.

However, true fulfillment transcends these external markers and is found in a deeper, more personal journey.

This article delves into the essence of inner fulfillment, offering insights into how we can achieve a profound sense of inner joy – true “joie de vivre” – that isn’t dependent on material success.

Drawing inspiration from my transformative story, we explore how inner contentment can be discovered through a spiritual awakening and a shift in perspective.

Inner fulfillment: a simple definition

Inner fulfillment is a profound sense of inner joy and rapture that arises from within, independent of external achievements or material possessions. It’s a deep-seated feeling of completeness and happiness that isn’t swayed by the highs and lows of life.

What does finding fulfillment feel like?

Inner fulfillment is a sense of deeper purpose, joy, and “joie de vivre” (aka the joy of being alive) that comes from aligning with your true self and values. Fulfillment often brings a sense of contentment, tranquility, and a connection to something greater than oneself. It’s a frequency that has its wellspring deep within that then ripples outward and profoundly affects how people “experience” and “perceive” us.

How to find fulfillment?

1. Practice Gratitude

Gratitude is a powerful tool for cultivating inner fulfillment. By regularly acknowledging and appreciating the positives in your life, you shift your focus from what’s lacking to what’s present. This shift in perspective fosters a deeper sense of contentment and joy.

2. Embrace Self-Compassion

Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a close friend or loved one. Self-compassion helps you to accept and embrace your imperfections, reducing the pressure to be perfect and allowing you to find peace within yourself.

3. Pursue Meaningful Goals

Set goals that align with your core values and passions, rather than merely chasing external markers of success which the world might have informed you to chase (i.e. extrinsically motivated goals). Pursuing meaningful intrinsicallyEnlightenment motivated goals provides a sense of purpose and fulfillment that transcends material achievements.

4. Cultivate Spiritual Practices

Engage in spiritual practices that resonate with you, whether it’s meditation, prayer, or mindfulness or anything that gives you joy and excites you. That can also be working out, cooking, playing or listening to music, spending time with friends, or just being in nature. These practices can help you connect with your inner self and cultivate a sense of peace and fulfillment.

5. Follow Your Highest Bliss

We are each endowed with our own unique set of talents, gifts, and superpowers which is not to say those don’t need to be refined or mastered through devoting ourselves to the mastery of these unique qualities. But, within the flawless design and intelligence of Life itself, you can rest assured these unique qualities you possess are perfectly aligned with what would realize your highest bliss in life. This might not be what the world informs you that you should do or pursue, but they always align with your intrinsically motivated dreams and desires. So, when we muster up the spiritual courage and fortitude to set aside our extrinsically motivated dreams and desires – those imposed on us by the world around us – and start following the breadcrumbs of our highest excitement and bliss, then we’re setting in motion the big wheels of the universe to come to our aid.

The initial steps might just be baby steps and perhaps we have to keep another job for a little while to keep our bills paid; yet, and earnest pursuit of our greatest excitement and highest bliss will inevitably set us on the path of realizing what are truly our dreams and desires for this lifetime as a lived experience.

Bliss is both a compass guide and the engine that fuel us to move forward as bliss is the kindle that lights our passion and passion is what inspires us to move forward towards our dreams and desires.

Do not attach fulfillment to material possessions

My journey exemplifies the shift from material success to inner fulfillment. I was a tennis pro for a while, then ended up in the States where I went to night school and I got into real estate and I was a ferocious competitor and I worked my way up eventually making very good money. Then I went to GE and I climbed the corporate ladder and made it to the top 1% of GE by age 35. I was living the American dream. I was like this guy that everybody applauded. I have a lot of masculine energy and a natural leader as I have a potent alpha energy presence, all of which I used to my benefit chasing this American dream and pursuing material gain. But the alpha that goes out of harmony with Life itself can create a lot of carnage in his/her life. He (or she) might look successful on the outside, but he (or she) likely has a trail of debris behind him. And I was like that.

And then in 2008, the financial crisis hit the world and GE. I wound down my business unit and I bought a stranded asset and then I was a business owner myself and made even more money. Then, in 2015, I sold most of my business and by this time I had all the money I had ever wanted and I reached the proverbial mountain peak: I had all the money, the dreamhouse, fancy cars and toys, expensive watches, and the beautiful wife and perfect family. I had it all. I had everything I thought that was going to make me happy. I had all the outside material trappings and yet I was completely disillusioned on the inside. I felt completely lost and disoriented as I followed the recipe the world informed me to follow except the joy and happiness I was promised was illusive. Later, I would come to realize that I had experienced a spontaneous spiritual awakening, but at the time I was just lost and depressed. In fact, truth be told, I was completely disillusioned and felt empty inside. I had sold my soul to the system and I couldn’t respect the man I saw in the mirror as I know what he had done to accumulate all this material gain. I knew deep down this man swam with the sharks and became a shark himself. In his way up the mountain, he got seduced and eventually lost in power, money, greed, and cold-heartedness.

And then my whole life started coming apart and unravel, slowly at first but then it picked up speed as the universe stripped me naked of all my material gains. And eventually I went through a divorce, I had a hurricane wipe out a business, and I had all this “bad luck.” Bad luck between apostrophes as all these things would prove to be gifts wrapped in sandpaper as I call them these days. Yet, this fall from grace was real. I lost almost all these trappings as the universe brought me to my knees. When the dust settled and the cataclysm was complete, I started to rebuild and reinvent my life and eventually I memorialized this whole grand life experience in my first book, Never Enoughitis.

The road to enlightenment

I definitely wasn’t enlightened overnight and would even argue none of us ever are, we’re all merely on the path to enlightenment. But as my life was falling apart, I started to really delve into spirituality and studying ancient wisdom traditions, the great philosophy schools, and esoteric teachings like Hermeticism, Gnosticism, and the Kabbala. And I just had this sense that there’s got to be something else. Because this – just chasing worldly success – can’t be the purpose of life, even though you might win in this game. The path to enlightenment starts in earnest when we open ourselves up to the existential questions in life like “who am I” and “what is this reality.”

This journey is one of growing and evolving beyond the limited understanding we had about ourselves and the world around us. In ancient Greece, the maxim “Know Thyself” points at this as the primary purpose of philosophy which is why it was adorned above the entrance of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Of course, a philosopher is a “lover of wisdom” as in Greek “philo” means “lover” and “sophia” means “wisdom.”

So, how do we become a philosopher?

First, we must become a scholar and start to learn and study, thereby accumulating information and knowledge. The philosopher then starts interpreting this expanded knowledge base, synthesize it and eventually alchemize it into applied wisdom which is to say embodied wisdom. Slowly but surely, a blueprint of reality starts revealing itself to the philosopher and my case it revealed to me there’s a flawless design of life that is centered around the intelligence of Life itself. This intelligence is divine in nature and we may call that God, Creator, Source, Great Spirit, Yahweh, Allah, Most High, Infinite Intelligence, Universal Mind, or even the Quantum Field as it’s referred to in quantum physics. Words are just linguistic labels, it doesn’t matter what we call it but to keep my writing religion-neutral I often refer to it as Infinite Intelligence.

This journey of enlightenment – which I refer to as The Luminous Path to take the pretense of enlightenment out of it – has many different milestones. Yet, one of the most pivotal milestones, in my humble opinion, and where the journey starts truly in earnest is the realization that nothing is being done to us – instead, everything is happening for us.

The second big step we must take is to embrace 100% responsibility and 100% accountability for everything that’s within our reality.

All the good, bad, ugly, and sublime serves its purpose and was in some manner – whether consciously or unconsciously – created and thereby invited in by our soul. We must step into this because the moment you say “it was done unto me” you have abdicated all your power. Within the perception (and, everything is only a perception) it was done to me, we render ourselves powerless. You are no longer the creator of your own life, the writer of your own story, and the director of the movie you experience as your reality.

We must take responsibility that everything that’s in our life today is here to serve us, it’s here to show us something, it’s here to teach me something. Everything is always happening for our greatest growth, greatest prosperity, and greatest evolution. That doesn’t mean everything is easy, beautiful, pleasant, or even fair. It just means everything is here to serve us and should you choose to embrace that wisdom you’ll inevitably come to see the profound grace in that.

As a successful CEO, I achieved significant external accomplishments but struggled with inner emptiness and dissatisfaction. There was a constant drive to please and to have more, but underneath was a deep sense of not being enough and unworthiness. I felt I had to prove myself to the world to be worthy, respected, or even loveable and from this lack of self-worth was born a deep sense of emptiness as no matter what I accomplished, I could never quite seem to fill that void deep within. My rise to the top in the “game Man plays” (aka worldly success) and the fall from grace I experienced later which then “forced” me unto The Luminous Path of spiritual awakening (aka “the game Spirit Plays) highlighted the contrast between material success and true inner fulfillment. I discovered that fulfillment comes not from external accolades such as fame, fortune, and applause but from inner growth and self-acceptance:

fulfillment isn’t about accumulating more but about embracing and nurturing what’s already within us.

The only limitation is in your mind

Our conscious mind accounts for only about 5% of our brain capacity, while our subconscious mind encompasses about 95%. This imbalance can limit our ability to access deeper sources of fulfillment.

You are a unique puzzle piece in the mosaic of humanity. We are all supposed to be our own unique puzzle piece. And you are here because you’re supposed to be here. There’s something you’re adding to this mosaic of humanity that only you can do. But you do have to step into it. Now, what are some of the things that hold us back? Well, human beings generally need three things:

• they need to be seen
• they need to be heard
• and they need to be loved.

And so many times in our childhood or throughout life we get “programmed” by the world around us with faulty programming which we can easily call malware. It’s due to this enculturated conditioning in the form of our belief systems that we don’t feel seen, heard, or loved as we are not being true to our true Self, we’re merely playing the character we believe the world wants and expects us to be. And then the most cruel thing is we become so identified with this “mask” that we can even see ourselves anymore. All we see is the mask as we become identified with it, and our true Self becomes invisible behind this mask we wear. And so, we no longer listen to the whispers within, we no longer follow our intuition and greatest excitement in life as we’re living our “masked life.” In all of this, what inevitably gets lost is self-love. Simply loving who we are, not for what we have accomplished or how much worldly success we have accumulated but just because being alive we’re a worthy and fully complete human being already. Maybe not perfect, but definitely complete as from the very first breath we take when we’re born there’s nothing we can do or add externally to make us any more complete as a human being. Within this wisdom also rests the spiritual truth of the sanctity of all life. Not just the life you like or approve of, all life without any exceptions.

By becoming aware of and addressing subconscious limitations – our “malware” – we can overcome mental barriers and open ourselves to greater levels of inner fulfillment and deepening our wisdom of the intelligence of life itself. As Joseph Campbell said:

“life is not a problem to be solved; it’s a mystery to be lived. Follow your bliss.”

So it’s imperative to find out, and get really clear, what’s your bliss? What does your most beautiful life look like? And then be radical in not negotiating with your ego. Because your ego is your scared little kid inside of you that is just trembling at the idea of anything it doesn’t know and this will have you held prisoner behind the mask you created to appease the world around you.

There are failures in life but we are not failures

Experiencing failures is a part of life, but they do not define us.

Embracing failures as opportunities for growth rather than as reflections of our worth helps maintain a positive outlook and fosters inner resilience.

Obviously, you’re going to make a great many mistakes in life. We all do. No matter how far you’ve come spiritually, you’re still going to fall on your knees many more times. This is the design of life as this is how we grow and evolve. It’s truly fine, provided only we keep getting up and we keep moving forward. I think seeing ourselves in our wholeness instead of seeing ourselves in our flaws and brokenness is such a powerful opening to becoming who we truly are. Looking at the world and ourselves through this lens, you will find evidence for whatever it is that you believe about yourself and others. If we are to grow and evolve, we must learn to start seeing ourselves as whole: we are all special and nobody is more special than any other.

Everybody everywhere, by definition, in the moment, always does the best they have available to them in that moment. That includes you and me also. Now, in that moment that might be very unconscious, that might be hurtful, harmful, all those things. And you can have boundaries as you don’t need to be a doormat for others’ unconsciousness when that is harmful or unloving to you. But we can always know by definition that in the moment whatever any person does or says, it’s not wrong. It’s just the best they have accessible in that particular moment. That doesn’t mean it’s their full potential and it doesn’t mean what they’re saying or doing is something we must approve or like. They might very well be playing well below their full potential and doing all sorts of ugly things. But in that moment, that’s the best they got. There’s nobody purposely doing anything less than the best they have. So knowing this, we can also know everything is always in perfect order.

When we can accept that and open up to that in ourselves and in others, we find that judgment can be radically reduced and maybe even eliminated over time. That feeling that we insist it “should” be a different way or that they “should” be or act in a different way. And plus, within any moment, that moment is over already. So the wisest thing we can always do is to stop holding on to it, to stop begrudging it, and to stop being angry about it because “what happened” has already passed. What’s perpetuating it now is you holding on to it and reliving it over and over.

When others aren’t ready for your spiritual awakening

There’s many people that for their own reasons might not be able to support you on this spiritual journey as you venture unto The Luminous Path, so we do need to start cultivating and high threshold of discernment. We must ask the question: who in this stage of my life is supporting, helping, aiding, loving, and contributing to my life in where I am now deciding I desire my life to go? That sometimes means we have to create some distance. And that could be with family members, that could be a divorce, that could be a friendship that has to be put a little further away outside our inner circle, and we can do all of that with great love, care, and respect. Because, the fact is, some people are not ready to grow and evolve with you and they are going to want you to stay the same. So, recognize when it’s necessary to set boundaries and seek support from those who align with your journey.

Surrounding yourself with supportive growth-oriented individuals can enhance your path to fulfillment greatly and enrich you as you share experiences and best practices.

The only thing you’re here to do is perfect your spiritual art

We are each a spiritual Poet whether we know it or not. This human avatar is merely our costume for this lifetime which allows us to drop into the material realm or this life we experience as our reality. Yet, what animates this human avatar is consciousness, a unique fractal of Source (or God, Creator, Great Spirit, Infinite Intelligence, or whichever label you might prefer) which may also call our Soul. Now, this Soul is the actual true Self – who we really are. This human avatar and our Ego or persona is merely the actor through which we live the movie of Life itself. Except, we’re not just the actor, we are also the writer of the screenplay and the director of the movie.

Of course, to realize this we must first awaken from the identification with our human avatar and the thoughts of our Mind which we mistake to be our true Self in our unawakened state. This fundamental realization is what opens us up to the insight that we are in fact just a spiritual Poet who is here to create and frolic around with form, matter, and people through the events and circumstances of our life. And, the work of the Poet is to create art. The most beautiful art he or she has available to them. If the word Poet doesn’t resonate, substitute it with artist, painter, sculptor, or musician as either way their work is to create art. What sort of art?

Spiritual art which is to say the most beautiful version of you.

How do we do this? We add our “art” daily to the canvas of all of Creation and this art gets expressed in what we think, say, and do. Relationships, careers, professions, hobbies, or whatever else we might do, pursue, or engage in during our lifetime are merely the art supplies with which we create the events and circumstances of our life which we experience as our reality. And, this reality will show us what works and what doesn’t work as well as all our flaws and imperfections together with our most exalted qualities. This is how we know where we can still grow and evolve, or in the words of the spiritual Poet where we can still make our art more beautiful. Our life becomes our expression of our spiritual art, this is what it means to step into the shoes of becoming a spiritual Poet above else.

All 8+ billion of us do this daily, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Of course, the more conscious we’re of this, the more consciousness – i.e. awareness – we can bring into our art and the more beautiful and profound our spiritual art becomes.

It’s really just that simple, just not always easy.