I’ve been engaged for many years in helping people (including myself) reach their highest potential. I have now made almost 70 trips around our sun, and the one thing that stands out very clearly is that all of us want our lives to have purpose and meaning. What does it take to reach a state of consciousness that nurtures a life of purpose and meaning? First, in my movie The Shift, and now in the companion book of the same name, I’ve tried to map things out. All of us on this glorious human voyage into adulthood have to make some shifts, or transitions, during the trip. The first shift that we all make takes us from nonbeing to being; from Spirit to form; from the invisible to our corporeal world of things. The next shift is the phase I call Ambition where we take on an ego self that is the opposite of the place of Spirit from which we came. Ego in this context is our false self. These first two shifts are mandatory in the human journey. Unfortunately, for many people, Ambition is often the end of their life story.

But there are two more shifts open to us. We can all choose to make the leap past the second shift of ego-driven ambition. We arrive at the third shift when we realize that we have an option to make a U-turn away from the false self. We can do an about-face and head back to the place of Spirit in a third shift. And then, in the fourth shift, we achieve a life of Meaning and purpose by rededicating our Ambition to the fulfillment of our authentic self. We discover that the laws of the material world do not necessarily apply in the presence of the Meaning that is encouraged by our shift to Source. Manifestations of miracles begin to populate the landscape of life. Meaning is now what defines all the moments of our existence. We can fulfill our greatest calling when we consciously undertake the journey from Ambition to Meaning. We can transform our individual lives and influence the destiny of our sacred planet as well.