While gardening at Esalen Institute, I met a renegade stock broker from NYC who had recently quit his job and started living the life he’d  always dreamed.  Esalen is a retreat center nestled into the crags of Big Sur, California.  Beautiful lush gardens, rows of vegetables and flowers, stand out against the looming hulk of the mountains and the violence of the Pacific coast.  Locals mock its hippie values, and the rich clientele.  It is a place where people come to relax in a spa overlooking stunning sunsets, and to learn about alternative medicines, thought, and lifestyles. So I was not completely surprised to meet Marc (not his real name).

A desk job with a huge salary drove him crazy. It was next in the progression of expectations that Marc had achieved. He went to the best college, graduated with honors, and made the logical next move–to corporate America. Staring…