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Hello friend,

I just got back from a couple of weeks in Europe. Half of it was work—keynotes, workshops, the blur of business travel. But the other half… the other half was something I can only call a pilgrimage. A long-awaited walk. A soul-led “yes” that had been echoing inside me for years.

I finally walked the Camino de Santiago.

If you’ve never heard of the Camino, it’s a legendary walking pilgrimage across northern Spain. For over a thousand years, people from around the world have made their way along its trails, sometimes walking hundreds of kilometers. There are books, documentaries, and even a Martin Sheen movie (The Way) about it.

But for me, the seed was planted by a film about a father and son walking and reconnecting after cancer. That story stayed with me for years.

The full Camino is about 600 kilometers and takes over a month to complete. For a long time, I imagined walking it with my kids once they were old enough—spending a month unplugged, moving across sacred land, just talking and being together.

But this year, with work already bringing me to Europe, I felt something stirring in my bones. I needed a marker. A ritual. Something symbolic to mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. I hadn’t done anything for my soul in a long time.

So I said yes—not to the full Camino, but to the final 100 kilometers, from Sarria to Santiago. Just enough to get the official certificate. I booked my trains and hostels, borrowed a friend’s backpack and sleeping bag, and did a little prep research—by which I mean I asked ChatGPT what to pack. Then I marched over to REI and obediently bought everything it recommended. ChatGPT, apparently, thought I was trekking through a monsoon. I was absurdly overprepared—for rain, for snow, for the apocalypse. Naturally, it was hot and dry every single day.

And then… I forgot about it. Life got loud again. Deadlines, deliverables, survival mode. The Camino faded into the background of my to-do list.

It didn’t hit me until I actually arrived. Until my feet touched the dirt, my phone lost signal, and the road stretched out in front of me.

But here’s the thing about pilgrimages: they don’t begin when you start walking. They begin the moment you say yes. That’s when the curriculum kicks in. The undoing. The invitation. The slow, invisible rewire of everything you thought you were walking toward.

Pre-Camino: Life as a Classroom

I’ve always believed life is one big curriculum. Not random. Not chaotic. A designed unfolding—lesson after lesson. Sometimes we ace the test. Sometimes we repeat it.
Marriage? Course.
Parenting? Course.
Business, heartbreak, waking up from fear—every one a course.

When I booked the Camino, it was like a new semester began. And the assignments came fast.

I was deep in the creation of my Not Enough workshop in Venice Beach. I thought I was building it for others, but in truth, I was building it for myself—for the version of me I hadn’t met yet. The one who would soon be walking across northern Spain.

At the same time, I was preparing two major sessions for a legal leadership team in Germany. Officially, they were about Influence—but beneath the surface, they were about something deeper: reducing conflict, softening walls, moving from fear to love.

Everywhere I turned, the same message kept emerging:

How do we shift from fear to love?

This image below kept coming to me: a fork in the road.
The Left Road is fear, limitation, and old loops.
The Right Road is love, faith, and growth.
The Left Road curves endlessly in on itself.
The Right Road points toward what’s possible.

​

This visual above wasn’t just a slide in my PowerPoint—it became the headliner, the heartbeat, the holy mantra of every presentation I gave in both Germany and Venice Beach. Everything was built around this fork in the road. Left or right. Fear or love.

In my rehearsals, I circled back to it like a chant. I’d say it in the shower. I’d whisper it while walking. I’d run it out loud during dry runs, again and again: “Left road or Right Road.” That phrase echoed through my home like a prayer.

Over the course of a month, I must have pulled up that slide hundreds of times—said those words a thousand. It was no longer just part of the presentation. It was the presentation. It had been baked into my body. Into my breath. Into my being.

And then, as if to echo the words I’d been chanting for weeks, life delivered a living metaphor of love herself—her name was Iris.

We matched on a dating app in the whirlwind weeks before I left for Europe. We never met in person—my calendar was too full, the timing off—but something rare unfolded. From the very first exchange, there was intensity, sweetness, and an eerie sense of familiarity. She quickly became my “almost-girlfriend.”

We messaged constantly. She was often the first person I’d talk to in the morning and the last at night. Voice notes, calls, silly photos, long reflections—we were building something in real time, even if time zones and oceans separated us.

While I was walking the Camino, she was walking beside me in my pocket. A kind of virtual love affair that felt as real as anything. We made plans to meet when I got back, already imagining what it might feel like to finally be in the same room.

Between the nonstop prep for my Venice workshop, the custom keynote and training in Germany, a whirlwind new romance, and the chaos of international travel—planes, trains, no sleep, lost reservations, jet lag, missed connections—I was already in the thick of something.

By the time I got to Europe, I was running on fumes.

And then, in Madrid, I lost my passport. Police stations. Embassies. Panic. I was so exhausted I thought I might pass out.

I didn’t realize it then, but life was already preparing me—softening me, humbling me, initiating me. I hadn’t taken a single step on the Camino yet, but the pilgrimage had already begun.

Later, I’d meet other pilgrims who said the same thing—how the chaos before the trail is part of the trail. How life often unravels just before the walk begins. It’s the Camino’s way of clearing the path.

During the Camino: Death, Arrows, and Moments of Truth

I landed in Sarria, Spain—scattered, exhausted, and sleepless, still spinning from the chaos of the past few weeks. I laced up my boots, hoisted my pack, and started walking.

Not ten minutes in, the Camino greeted me not with a sunrise, but with a cemetery.

The first thing I passed: rows of gravestones. Quiet. Still. Sacred.

In that instant, something snapped awake in me—not a breaking, but a waking. The Camino grabbed me by the collar and whispered, “Pay attention. This pilgrimage begins with a death.”

Not the death of someone else.
The death of me.

The version of me that arrived on that flight—the overworking, over-proving, over-functioning self.
The one afraid.

I knew: this walk was going to be a birth.

From then on, I was in a kind of dream.

The Camino is hard to describe. Every few kilometers, the land shifts—apple orchards, dense forests, crumbling highways, golden farmland, mountaintops, medieval towns.

And always, the yellow arrows.

They guide you toward Santiago like a quiet chorus.
Every arrow says the same thing:

Keep going. Trust.

One day, about 20 kilometers in, I was walking alone through the countryside—fatigue in my body, but something deeper stirring. The morning had been uneventful: just me, my thoughts, and the sound of gravel underfoot.

But then, without realizing it, I looked down and noticed I was on a paved road.
Smooth. Easy. Unmistakably intentional.

Moments later, a yellow arrow appeared—one of the many that guide pilgrims to Santiago, spray-painted onto stones, walls, and trees. I’d passed dozens already.

But this one hit different.

Paved road. Arrow. Road. Arrow.

It clicked.
I laughed out loud.

Wait—am I literally walking the Right Road?

The metaphor I’d been teaching—on slides, in workshops, in legal boardrooms, on stage in Venice Beach—it was no longer a metaphor.
It was under my feet.

I had spent a month preaching about the fork in the road, about fear versus love.
And now I was literally walking a path with arrows painted on it, pointing the way forward.

Then a question dropped in like lightning:
​What does “Camino de Santiago” actually mean?

I’d never stopped to ask. I don’t speak Spanish. I’d just flown across the world and started walking, like so many do. But something in me needed to know.

So I pulled out my phone, standing there in the middle of the road, and Googled it.

I froze.

Holy f*ck.

Was I inside my own PowerPoint?

Had I spent weeks creating slides for others—or had I actually been preparing my own sermon?
My own medicine?

Right there on that quiet stretch of road, I stood still. Stunned.
The road, the arrows, the meaning, the timing—it all collapsed in on itself.

Not in a confusing way.
In a divine one.

The teacher had become the student.
I was no longer pointing to the Right Road.
​I was walking it.

And not just walking it.
​Guided on it.

Everything—the sleepless nights building my deck, the repetition of ‘Left Road or Right Road,’ the airport chaos, the lost passport—it had all been a warm-up.

It had all been preparing me for this moment.

I felt the presence of something larger.
Gentle. Intelligent. Holding me.

This wasn’t just a pilgrimage across Spain.
This was a pilgrimage back to myself.

That night, in an albergue dorm, I barely slept.

My daughter had warned me,
“Daddy, you’re too big for those bunk beds. You’re not going to sleep well.”
She was right.

At 4 a.m., in pitch black, I got up and started walking with just my phone flashlight.
Soon, a guy with a headlamp and serious gear passed me.

“How the hell can you see in the dark?” he joked.

I laughed, but his words echoed.

How do we see in the dark?​
​How do we find clarity in fear, love in limitation?

And then the signs started coming.

It was like stepping into an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Everywhere I turned, messages appeared—spray-painted on crumbling stone walls, scribbled on waymarkers, whispered by strangers walking ahead. None of them were meant for me, and yet… every single one was.

It felt like the trail had come alive. Like the whole landscape was speaking in some kind of divine call-and-response only I could hear.

One message would echo the last, finishing its sentence:

“How do you see in the dark?”
“Keep walking.”
“Trust.”
“Surrender.”
“You are loved.”

A symphony, composed through graffiti and road signs and passing remarks. Each note building on the last.

The Camino was teaching me.
Sentence by sentence.
Clue by clue.

I wasn’t just on the path.
​The path was on me.

And then I saw a question spray-painted on a wall:
​How do you know if someone loves you?

It stopped me.

I didn’t even realize I was answering it until a reply began to form in my mind.

I kept walking—uphill now, breath short, legs aching. Behind me, the valley was still wrapped in fog, quiet and unmoving, like a sea of silence I had just emerged from. Ahead, the sky was erupting in light. The sun was rising behind the trees, casting golden beams across the path, as if breaking through from another world.

It was glorious—like set designers had crafted the scene specifically for what was about to unfold. The timing, the view, the question—it was all too precise to be random.

And then something inside me cracked.

As I tried to answer the question—how do you know if someone loves you?—the words came fast, like they weren’t mine:

Because they’re there.​
​Because they don’t leave.​
​Because they love you even when you can’t feel it.​
​Even when you’re pushing them away.​
​Even when you forget.

And in that moment, something landed in me with thunderous clarity:
​I have never allowed myself to feel loved by God.

Not in all my years of seeking.
Not through psychedelics, or prayer, or breathwork, or books.

I believed in God.
I talked to God.
I taught about God.
​But I had never let God’s love in.

Not once.

I hadn’t felt held. I’d felt tested. Measured. Sometimes even punished.
If I was being honest—I hadn’t felt loved at all. I’d felt judged.

I had lived like I was constantly being evaluated. Refined. Corrected.
Maybe even left behind.

But never, ever held.

And it hit me like a flood.

It wasn’t that God hadn’t been loving me.
It was that I hadn’t let it in.

And in that instant, the pain of a lifetime began to surface.

I saw my struggles—not just the recent ones, but all of them.
The failed relationships. The money anxiety. The creative blocks. The ache of isolation I could never quite shake.

And I saw them for what they truly were—not problems. Not punishments. Not failures.

They were symptoms.​
​Symptoms of a deeper pattern:​
I had been blocking love.

Not because I didn’t want it.
But because I didn’t feel worthy of it.

And suddenly, everything made sense.

Of course money hadn’t flowed—it’s just another form of love.
Of course relationships hadn’t lasted—I didn’t know how to let love stay.​
And of course I’d been teaching these messages so fiercely, so urgently.

Because I was trying to get the message into me.

I wasn’t just guiding others toward the Right Road.
I was desperately trying to walk it myself.

Halfway up that mountain, I fell to my knees.

And I started sobbing—deep, shaking sobs. Not from sadness, but from recognition. From returning. From remembering something I didn’t even know I had forgotten.

And through the tears, I whispered aloud—to the morning sky, to the trees, to the fog, to God:

“I see now. You’ve been loving me this whole time.
I just haven’t let you in.
I’m so sorry.
I’m so sorry.”

And for the first time in my life, I let it in.

The love.

Not as a concept.
But as a wave.​
As warmth.​
As light.​
As something far beyond understanding that still made perfect sense.

I laid down in the grass.
The valley below opened like a dream.
The fog lifted.
Sunlight spilled across the field.

And I just lay there—blissed out—tears still falling.
Not from pain.
But from awe.

And then a pilgrim came by.

He stopped. Looked at me.

And said,
​“Can I take your picture? You’re having a moment.”

He took my phone, snapped a photo, handed it back.
Then he looked into my eyes—no small talk, no explanation. Just presence.

And said,
​“You’re having a moment of truth, aren’t you?”

I looked at him and said,
​“Yes. Yes, I am.”

He just nodded. Smiled. Walked on.

But it wasn’t just him.
It was the Camino.
It was the last breadcrumb.
It was the voice of God, speaking through a fellow traveler, stamping the moment:

This is truth.​
​You’ve arrived.​
Not at a destination—
​But at remembrance.

And I lay there, heart cracked wide open,
knowing something had changed forever.

Something shifted. The next day, I felt lighter. Open. People talked to me, smiled at me. For the first time, I wasn’t repelling love—I was a vessel for it.

And as if to reflect that shift, the Camino changed too. What had been a quiet, introspective walk suddenly became a very social journey. It’s amazing how quickly the world opens… when you do.

That morning, I was “adopted” by a group of gay Christian pilgrims from Orlando. They were walking together as part of a spiritual travel group. As I passed them, I overheard one of them making fun of how unfashionable my walking stick was—clearly assuming I didn’t speak English. I called them out. We all laughed. And from that moment on, I was part of their crew.

One of them was Joseph, who shared his remarkable story. He’d lived most of his life as a closeted gay man—married to a woman, raising four kids, suffering quietly under the weight of an ultra-Christian community that left no room for truth. He told me how he’d reached a breaking point, no longer wanting to live a lie. And then, almost miraculously, he met a friend at the gym—now his partner, who was walking beside us that day. That friendship gave him permission to be honest. To be free. To finally allow love and joy back into his life.

The next day, I walked nearly 30 kilometers with Jordan, a linguistics professor from Bulgaria now teaching in Sweden. The day flew by—we barely noticed the distance—because we spent the whole time talking about life, love, death, communism, guilt, God, and the nature of meaning itself. He told me how he feels he let down his son, how he wishes he’d been a better father. He spoke of his parents—true believers in communism—whose spirits were broken when the dream collapsed. Now in his early sixties, he’s facing his own mortality, and this pilgrimage was his way of walking through that reckoning.

These kinds of conversations don’t happen in the grind of everyday life. But out there, with no performance, no noise, just two humans moving through the world—it’s all there. Honesty. Vulnerability. Depth.

This is what becomes possible when you start letting love in.

Friend after friend. Conversation after conversation. Healing after healing.

When you let love in, people start opening up. The small talk fades. And suddenly, the conversations aren’t about the weather anymore.

They’re about the experience of being human.

As the days went on, it became clear: this wasn’t just a new chapter.

This was a whole new volume.

This pilgrimage didn’t just begin with a death—it was the death of Volume One: the first 47 years of my life.

The volume of the Left Road. Of fear. Of striving. Of teaching from the wound.

And I had mastered it.

But now?

I wasn’t just pointing at the Right Road.

I was walking it.

Living it.

What Do I Want to Leave Behind?

On the final days of the Camino, that question became crystal clear.

I reflected on every fear-based decision I had made in Volume One—every choice rooted in lack. All the times I ran from love. All the times I chose chaos, conflict, or shame over truth.

And each time one surfaced, I picked up a rock.

At every altar, at every yellow arrow, I placed that rock down and whispered:

I leave this here. I no longer carry this with me.

And from that place—cleared out and emptied—I asked:

What do I want to create now?

A life of love. Of possibility. Of abundance.

A life of connection, kindness, intimacy, and honesty.

Not a perfect life.

A truthful one.

By the time I reached Santiago, I was limping. My feet were swollen and blistered.

I looked down at the boots that had carried me through so much pain and death and reckoning.

They were the boots of Volume One.

They had done their job.

But they would not walk with me any further.

So I sat down, took them off, held them in my hands.

Thank you.

And then—I threw them away.

Sitting there before the cathedral, watching the other pilgrims arrive—some who had been walking for over a month—I took it all in. The blisters, the timing, the grief, the synchronicities, the symbols.

It all made perfect sense.

And as I looked at my watch—train to Madrid, flight to Paris, then home to Los Angeles—I realized something.

I wasn’t going home.

I was flying into a new life.

From now on, I won’t just talk about the Right Road.

I will speak from it.

Post-Camino: The Beginning of Volume Two

Back in Los Angeles. Back in my home, my body, my work. But nothing is the same.

It’s a strange thing to write about the beginning of a new book when you’ve only just turned the first page. At the end of a volume, you can see the whole arc. But now? I’m just learning the layout of this new city called Volume Two. Still catching my bearings. But a few things are already clear.

Light reveals everything.​
The very first thing I saw, back home, was my relationship with Iris—the woman I’d felt so connected to before the Camino. Suddenly, what once felt intimate now felt anxious. Because when you walk in the light, you become light—and you illuminate everything around you.

That same question echoed from the hiker’s lips: “How can you see in the dark?”

Well—you can’t. Not on the Left Road.

But on the Right Road, you see everything.

I saw how much fear was running through Iris. How afraid she was of love. How she would lean in, then pull away.

It was the story of all my past relationships.

But this time, I wasn’t confused. I wasn’t trying to save her. I didn’t take it personally.

I just saw: we’re not on the same road.

This relationship was born on the Left Road—chosen from fear, built on old patterns. Now that I was walking in the light, I couldn’t pretend it fit.

So I ended it. With love. With gratitude. With zero blame.

I told her: You were a sacred teacher. You were a part of my Camino. But you can’t walk this next stretch with me.

Honesty is the new default.​
In the past, I spent so much energy protecting my image—hiding, performing, wanting to look good. Now? I just say the truth. Not everything to everyone, but I don’t hide.

There’s an ease now. A gentle openness.

And the more honest I am, the more uneasy some people get.

We don’t trust transparency. We assume openness has a hidden agenda. That authenticity is manipulation.

We’ve normalized fear.

We’ve pathologized love.

So I’ve learned: when I show up in the light, I see who’s still hiding.

Not because I’m better. Just because I’m not hiding anymore.

I see quickly who can walk with me—and who’s not ready yet. I don’t demonize. I don’t cut off. But I no longer audition for people who can’t see me.

Maybe the biggest shift isn’t what I see—but what I trust when I see nothing at all.

When I stepped off the trail, the evidence disappeared.

Clients went quiet. Payments delayed. Leads dried up. Love dissolved. The old momentum vanished. Everything I used to point to—the gigs, the money, the inbox, the mirror—gone.

And if this were Volume One, I would’ve panicked. Because Volume One was built on evidence. On proof. On needing to see it before I could believe it.

That was the Left Road. The road of “I’m okay if…”
If the calendar is full. If the scale says the right number. If the bank account has commas.
If someone loves me.
If the audience claps.

But this?

This is the Right Road. And on the Right Road, there is no “if.”

Trust is not the result. It’s the requirement.
It’s not the reward for having enough evidence.
It’s the refusal to need it.

Volume One was about pointing to the path.
Volume Two is about walking it.

No applause. No spotlight. No safety net. Just an arrow. And a knowing.

Because if I’m going to teach this path—if I’m going to stand in front of rooms and invite others to choose it—I can’t just suspect that it works.
I have to know.
I have to be the proof.

And now I see:
The evidence isn’t gone because I did something wrong.
The evidence is gone because it was blocking my conviction.
I’m not being punished.
I’m being calibrated.

God stripped the old signs away—
So I could stop reading signs, and start trusting truth.
So I could walk forward without seeing.
So I could learn how to see in the dark.

And that… is enough.