Work gives us the means to create the physical safety upon which our lives depend. Work feeds and shelters us and those we love. Work can give us meaning. But work can also be a means of our suffering. By understanding what’s truly happening all around us, the ways our core belief systems influence our everyday experience, we can extract meaning from the suffering, coax the lotus from the mud, as the Buddhists teach. But this will happen only if we use those challenges that the calls to leadership make on us, not only to grow up but also help us discover our why.

Success and money—and even more important, the busyness needed to create those—became proof of my worth as a human.

At the end of the rafting trip, we were lifted from the bottom of the canyon by helicopter. Two hours later, I sat at McCarran Airport, stunned by the incessant ding, ding, ding of slot machines, cascading coins, and dreams of a better life. I’d left the canyon, but the canyon never left me.

When her pillar-of-the-community father left the family (no doubt in pursuit of his own love, safety, and belonging), she took on the burden of caring for her mother and brother. Yet another hallmark of the entrepreneur; yet another instance of premature promotion into adulthood.

The morning after my husband asked me that question, I had a sort of epiphany. I realized that I already had enough money to take a risk. What was holding me back was not financial security; it was plain fear that I might not be good at what I thought I’d be happy doing. I concluded that I might as well change now because I was dying to do something else and it would not get any easier with time. The next day—a year and a half ago—I quit.