Spirituality for the Ambitious

I’ve always loved this quote attributed to the Native-American medicine man Sun Bear: “If your spirituality doesn’t grow corn, I’m not interested.”  

Are you ready to own your own deepest powers and to grow corn? Too many of us let our intelligence block our higher intelligence, a nonlinear agent of awe. Because true spirituality isn’t navel-gazing or magical thinking. Spiritual transformation is taking responsibility for the direction of your life: embodying your light, unleashing your gifts, and shucking limitations like corn husks. If you want to get ahead in life, get out of your head. Dive into a vibrant love and a connection to more than you know.

Of course, it’s a crazy irony that I’m a spiritual teacher and coach of any kind. I’m a New York City girl, and snarky eye-rolling was more my love language than chakra balancing. I never consciously wanted to be a sacred guide or sacred anything, much less a decades-long teacher of A Course in Miracles. Nope. I was raised an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, New York, and achievement was my religion. In my family, becoming a doctor or lawyer was better than seeing the Virgin Mary.

Yet like many spiritual seekers, I entered the door of awakening through pain. First, I’d done what I was “supposed to do.” I graduated from Harvard Law School and worked on the partnership track for an elite law firm. But I had always dreamed of being a writer, not a lawyer. I had abandoned this longing to “stay safe.” But I felt haunted despite “success,” stumbling on the surface, hollow in my bones. Depression settled in me like a stagnant pond. That’s when I left law, because there are times in life when the most rational thing you will ever do is run toward the unknown.  

I left more than a job. I left a paradigm of reality. I left the only world I knew to search for meaning and magic. That’s when I started exploring Buddhism, New Thought, A Course in Miracles, and everything else that came my way. I needed to find a new kind of oxygen. And I did. 

I found a path to trusting myself, trusting the voice of love within me instead of the voice of fear. I found a way to realize my full potential, externally and internally. And my new tools and perspectives helped me more than my old ideas of “making it.”  

And now these many years later, my greatest joy is in helping others become “bridge people,” living fully in this world but not of it. We embrace our maverick sensibilities. We shine with peace in our solar plexus and step out into life on fire with our gifts and contributions. It’s a new way of living and succeeding.  

So, I offer you five ways to be realized instead of realistic … and to unlock your greatest path to success. 

1. Unlock a New You

My spirituality helped me realize that I was not the small, inadequate being I imagined myself to be. Instead, I began to feel connected to generous energy and as though I might be supported and elevated.  

In the past, I thought my natural desires would be unproductive. I had no idea that my desires were portals to my higher self. When I began to write, and later to speak and coach, I felt larger than I’d ever felt. I flipped a switch and experienced a strength I knew would take me all the way. In my latest book, Learning to Trust Yourself, I explain, “You can become your own secret weapon and shaman. You can step out of the spell. You can own the potency of your focus. Your circumstances don’t have to change. Yet you can alter your entire experience.”

My old identity was based on my ego, an insistent guide of fear. I needed control, needed to figure everything out before I’d dare a thing. I had to know how. I had to know now. I felt no freedom to explore, play, or uncover secret capacities. A Course in Miracles teaches, “If you are trusting in your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful.” But you are not alone. You are connected to Universal Inspiration. Live your life in cocreation. When you follow what you love, you discover who you are.

“No one knows what’s possible for you, including you. Being ‘realistic’ is limiting yourself to what you think is real. The world is evolving, atoms repositioning and spinning like whirling dervishes. There is no static reality.”

2. Calm Is Better Rocket Fuel Than Frenzy

Back in the day, I thought you had to crank it out fast—burn the midnight oil and get more, more, more done. Shadows under my eyes? A badge of honor. Always freaked out and rushed? I was “responsible” and dedicated to success. Serenity seemed like passivity, laziness, or the result of pharmaceuticals.  

Yet calm is the frequency of Spirit. When you act from inner knowing, you can pivot and adapt. You’re like a kung fu master, never rattled or overthrown. I had always believed if I got everything done, then I’d feel calm. But I am learning that when I’m calm, I get my priorities done—and with creative ingenuity. 

Calm isn’t lack of excitement. It’s the presence of self-energy. Science emphasizes that less stress leads to better health and sustained productivity. There will always be those who think you’re wasting your time meditating or praying. But don’t worry, you will probably outlive them in every way.

3. Chase the Gold Instead of the Green

Ambition can goad you into focusing on dollars or fame to feel like you’ve made it. Yet love and purpose grant you stamina, nirvana, mastery, and that vibe that cash can’t touch or buy. When you’re aligned, you’re a wonder-worker and magnet. To paraphrase the Tao Te Ching, be whole and let everything come to you.  

Old-school ambition prioritizes numbers. But energy is a better metric. Numbers aren’t frequencies. Numbers measure what has been, but not what is possible right now. As a career/success coach, I always ask, “What gives you energy?” That’s where you will find your gold. Energy expands energy.  

Don’t wait for gilded opportunities. Share your talents everywhere. Why wait to get happy and free? Your light is needed. Activating your gifts empowers you. The more you follow your desires, the more you will be guided to your next level. 

4. Your Way Is Off the Map—and Off the Charts

The life you’re born for might not be obvious to you. You might not fit into a cultural box or title on LinkedIn. You may have thought you needed to change who you are—to seize the brass ring. But a spiritual path attunes you to your deeper truth. You have your dreams for a reason. There is an original genius within you, a code of instruction. You don’t need to know the steps. Moved from within, you will move mountains.  

I often teach students, “You can’t plan an inspired life.” Don’t waste time looking for a map. Look for your fire. If you stay present, and “follow your breadcrumbs,” they will lead to unimaginable outcomes. It’s okay if you can’t see your way. This isn’t a path of thinking or analyzing. It’s a path of feeling and knowing.

Your ego might think you’re not getting anywhere. Yet you are breaking free of conventional conditioning and following a light that is miraculous. We are transforming our reality from the inside out. It’s worth every second. 

5. Honor Your Inspiration Instead of Your Assumptions

Without awareness or faith, you are living in a world of presumptions and concrete walls. Yet you are free and made of wonder. The mind can limit your awareness of your powers, but it cannot limit your powers. 

Most of us are bumbling around assuming we have limits that might not be true. As I committed to listening to my inner wisdom instead of cultural indoctrination, I ditched cynicism. I stopped insisting I knew what was possible. That didn’t mean I was in denial. It means I stepped out of denial. I questioned the validity of my own blocks. I came to understand that thoughts are not facts, even if someone else told me they were facts. Spiritual teacher Eckert Tolle says, “At the heart of the new consciousness lies the transcendence of thought, the newfound ability of … realizing a dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought.” 

Following that “vast self,” I have pursued my dreams of writing, speaking, and coaching in unorthodox ways. I sometimes doubted the path, because I still hoped to get ahead. Yet as I learned to trust my deeper listening, I sprung forward in unusual ways.  

For example, when I wrote my first book, This Time I Dance! I ignored the guidelines for commercial success and followed my inner guidance by deciding to self-publish. Then the book was discovered by someone who brought it to someone high up in Penguin Random House. That editor bought the book and every book I’ve written since. I could share a gazillion favorable synchronicities. They were not coincidences. No one has that many coincidences.

It’s been terrifying and exhilarating to go rogue and abandon established norms. It’s also been imperative.  

No one knows what’s possible for you, including you. Being “realistic” is limiting yourself to what you think is real. The world is evolving, atoms repositioning and spinning like whirling dervishes. There is no static reality.  

I had always thought I needed to be “practical”—and that meant living within the limits I learned from others. But now I am more interested in awakening to my own truth. I’m still grounded, logical, and ambitious. It’s just that I’ve come to see that it’s more practical to be magical. Actually, it’s just more practical to be natural. 

This article appeared in the January/February 2026 issue of Spirituality & Health^®: A Unity Publication. Subscribe now.