I Lived on Autopilot for 40 Years. That’s Why I Built the Purpose Alignment Lab (PAL)

When was the last time you woke up genuinely excited about your day? Not just fine. Not just okay. Truly alive, like your life had direction and meaning.

If you're struggling to answer that, I understand. I spent 40 years going through the motions myself.

Stanley's Question

I want to start with someone I once knew. His name was Stanley, a family friend. I visited him when he was 92. He had worked for the government for 30 years and retired at 60. Thirty years working, thirty+ years retired.

He told me the first few years of retirement were exciting. They went on a few trips and visited friends they hadn’t met for years. Then, he and his wife ran out of places to go. He spent most of his time in his apartment, reading history and ancient texts. He showed me his book cases in his apartment. The collection was impressive.

Then he said something I have never forgotten:

“If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have started something. A small business. A part-time teaching gig or something.”

He loved literature and had always wanted to teach, to pass on what he knew to a younger generation. He never did.

Stanley passed away at 94. Thirty-four years in retirement, never quite living the life he was made for.

I've been sitting with his story ever since.

What would you do with 34 years?

The Autopilot Years

I grew up in Hong Kong and moved to Canada at 29. I completed my degrees, got married, raised four children, and built a career in IT project management. By every measure the world hands you as a scorecard, I was succeeding. We bought 2 cars, upgraded to a bigger house, went on vacations.

But underneath it, I was on autopilot. Wake up, work, perform, repeat. You get the promotion, feel good for a week, and then it's just Tuesday again.
Psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill.
If you recognize that feeling, you are not broken and you are not ungrateful. You are simply living someone else's definition of the good life.

The Burning Bush

At 42, that quiet voice got loud enough that I finally stopped and listened. While working full-time in IT, I enrolled in a master’s program in counselling, studying part-time for four years, with the goal of becoming a psychotherapist.

Around the same time, my church ran a program built on the question from Rick Warren’s best-selling book Purpose-Driven Life, “What on earth am I here for?”

Through that exercise, I wrote my first life purpose statement:

“To inspire, equip, and mobilize people to live life to the fullest.”

I wrote a book. I gave a TEDx talk. For the first time, I felt my life had a distinct purpose, and I was walking in the right direction.

Living My Calling: TEDx, Speaking, a Book on Reimagining Your Retirement

The Crash, and the Survival

Then something happened I did not see coming. A personal trauma hit during my years as a full-time psychotherapist. I won't describe it in detail here, but I will tell you what it did. Everything I had built, the purpose, the mission, the clarity, went blank. I could no longer show up in my counselling chair. I had to quit the work I believed I was called to do.

A Decision

I was stuck, completely frozen in burnout. I reached a point where I did not want to be here anymore. But I made one decision. I would do my best to put the pieces back together, even though at that point I had no idea how.

I went back to IT to survive; I needed a paycheck. I landed a good job that lasted three years. Then the company relocated, and I wasn't ready to move. I was lucky to land a new remote job. But three months later I was fired. Two terminations, back-to-back, at 63.

I sat down with my life purpose statement and reflected on my life work: Ten years after publishing a book that had sold fewer than 100 copies. My purpose felt half-lived, maybe less. I was ready to burn the paper it was written on.

But then I thought about Stanley. Thirty-four years of drift. And I asked myself: is that where I'm headed, or is there still something left to do?

The Turn

I chose to keep going. At 65, I took a job on the other side of the country, 4,300 kilometres from everything familiar, from Ontario to Squamish, British Columbia. I drove toward mountains I had never seen, and something about their scale and stillness reminded me the world is larger than my worst moment.

At 66, while working full-time, I completed my PhD in Human Relationships, researching the connection between simple living and human flourishing. At 67, when many people I know were booking overseas trips, I gave up a cruise vacation and invested in becoming a certified Meaning and Purpose Trainer instead.

From Toronto to Squamish_PhD in Human Relationship

I had finally understood what Stanley had been trying to teach me all along. It is not enough to find your purpose. You must build a life around it, deliberately and intentionally, before the years run out.

Why the Purpose Alignment Lab Exists

Every part of that journey, the autopilot years, the burning bush, the crash, the double termination at 63, the turn at 65, shaped what I now call the Purpose Alignment Lab.

Meaning & Purpose Trainer and Purpose Alignment Lab (PAL)

I built it because I know what it costs to live without a clear direction, and I know what it takes to find one again after everything falls apart. I didn't want anyone else to spend three decades wondering what might have been, the way Stanley did. I wanted a space where people could do the work I had to do alone, but with structure, support, and evidence-based tools, so they wouldn't have to wait for a crisis to ask the question that matters most.

You are not behind. You are not too late. You are not broken.

You are significant. Your life is worthwhile and it makes sense. You have a purpose that’s worth marching toward.

That quiet voice asking, is this really it, is not a problem. It's your North Star, calling you home.

Your most meaningful chapter is still ahead.

I Lived on Autopilot for 40 Years