There is merit in aiming high, because if you only make it three-quarters of the way to your goal, you’re still overjoyed at how much you’ve accomplished. But do not aim so high—do not quest for the unattainable—if failure to become Batwoman or Wonder Man would crush your will to continue.
Seek greatness on your own terms.
Fulfilling Life’s Purpose
Lee Holland had a “sit-down job,” something her family envied.
Living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, she came from poverty and was one of the few to finish high school and the first to go to college. She worked in a small cubicle as a customer-service representative for a major health-insurance company, which was seen as a big step up from working in fast food or doing manual labor. But her life felt unfulfilled, like she was going through the motions. Lee felt destined for more. All that was missing was the drive to figure out her purpose in life and then to chase it.
The drive arrived in fall 2007.
She took a call from a man who worked at a carpet mill in rural south-eastern United States. He was calling because his young son had been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. The man was so relieved because he had just been recalled to work after a layoff and had medical insurance again.
Unfortunately, Lee had to tell the man his policy had a “preexisting-condition clause,” and any new diagnosis in the first year was not covered. This was prior to the Affordable Care Act, when the law changed, requiring policies to not have such restrictions for children.
Lee wanted to help. She had previous experience working for a state Medicaid contractor and saw a chance to get the boy coverage. She called the Medicaid office and was told they would cover the child, but only after they received a denial explanation from the insurance company Lee worked for. Prior to her company being able to issue such a denial they needed to send the boy to a pediatric oncologist. The problem was, the only such specialist within one hundred miles of the client refused to see the boy unless they knew they’d receive payment. Her company wouldn’t cover them. Medicaid wouldn’t guarantee payment until they received a denial explanation from her company. It was a catch-22: her company couldn’t provide denial until the boy saw a pediatric oncologist, but the oncologist wouldn’t see the boy unless payment was guaranteed.
But she’d done her job. In fact, she’d already gone above and beyond. Company policy was to end the call and move on to the next customer.
“At that moment, something in me broke,” Lee Holland told me.
Not caring that it was against the rules, she blocked calls on her phone and walked into her manager’s office. “I told him he could fire me at the end of the day, but I was going to get that child on Medicaid and in to see a pediatric oncologist.” Her manager replied with, “Do what you have to do.”
It required several phone calls, a discussion with her company’s legal department, and signing of privacy release forms, but she got the boy approved for Medicaid and scheduled to see an oncologist by the end of the day.
It was all buildup. After her shift, Lee’s life-changing moment came in the parking lot as she walked to her car.
It was a gray November day; a light drizzle fell. Then a question popped into her head: What are you doing working in customer service when you can help people like this? There was a sudden snap decision to change careers. It came so fast, she didn’t even break stride as she closed the final steps to her car. “I didn’t know what it was yet. It was just between me and the universe that I was going to do something. I felt I had potential to help people through the chaotic mass of the American health-care system.” The realization, Lee said, was like a dislocated bone suddenly popping back into its joint.
“I had instant drive to do it,” she told me.
The moment she got home she logged on to her computer to look at what education programs she would need. Thirty-six years old and possessing a degree in cultural anthropology, she began by upgrading her science and math courses at a community college. There were many challenges over the next decade, but for Holland, there was never any doubt she was going to make a difference in the world. She recently graduated with a doctorate in pharmacology and a master’s degree in public health, and has accepted a research fellowship in D.C. that ensures pharmaceutical quality for Medicare and Medicaid recipients. She has won prestigious grants, awards, and scholarships, conducted important research, delivered numerous presentations, and mentored other students.
At first, Lee was leery of pursuing a doctorate as part of this new path in life, because it was a four-year commitment and she was already in her forties at that point. But a friend explained the time would pass anyway, and in four years she’d be four years older either with or without the degree, and her mind was made up. “There were a lot of challenges in between,” Lee said. If one path didn’t work out, she had to find another. “Even though I had suddenly become singular in my determination, I had to be flexible about the way I did it.”
And it all changed in that parking lot in 2007. “Since then I’ve met so many amazing people. My social life exploded. I got to travel the world.” She also met her husband and has been married for eight years.
“Now I feel like I’m really fulfilling my life’s purpose.”
Tuning In to Being Turned On
In the introduction, I discussed the “magic moment” and how you might need to meet it partway by engaging in traditional methods of behavior change for a while and hoping epiphany strikes somewhere along the way. It’s also important to not let the magic moment pass you by. This is your final task for chapter 1: I want you to envision what it’s like to seek the magic moment.
Lee Holland might have missed hers. It wasn’t anything jarring like a sudden pregnancy announcement. She had done her job and could have ended the call, but in her mind, there was an opportunity to really help, to make a difference on that one day. She was somehow attuned to that opportunity, and it primed her brain for that epiphany in the parking lot.
Imagine what it’s like to be attuned.
Now that you know a life-changing epiphany can come from anywhere, it’s important to be able to recognize it. Yes, it is powerful; usually so much so that there is no denying the experience. But perhaps it needs a nudge. Perhaps it doesn’t take place in a microsecond, but over several seconds. So instead of squashing down the beginnings of overwhelming emotion because you’re too cool for that, imagine what it’s like to embrace the feeling, explore it, and let it flow.
Because in the first second or two you could lose it by ignoring the sensation or even crushing it. Society conditions us to not show too much emotion, but screw that. You must feel this experience and feel it deeply. This book is about learning how to experience something so powerful it changes you down to the bone marrow. I want you to experiment with breaking with your conditioning and seek.
Seek meaning from your sudden insight.
Too often we tune out, seeking constant entertainment to distract from what our unconscious is trying to tell us. Break from that and examine these moments when the brain goes off on a tangent and, rather than try to snap out of it, explore it. Feed that sensation some fuel.
What kind of fuel? The kind that understands that, as humans, we seek experiences that allow us to be comfortable, and by attuning yourself to a life-changing insight, you must be willing to get uncomfortable. Lee had that comfortable sit-down job her family envied, and she knew that rejecting it to chase opportunity would involve struggle.
“One does not become fully human painlessly.”
These