The 4 Circles of Dharma

Most people spend their whole lives trying to win a game they were never meant to play. They chase someone else's idea of success and wonder why it never feels right.

You can win your own dharma and stop playing the game you can't win, which is living someone else's dharma. Most of the time we're trying to play the wrong game, and that's why we feel something's always wrong with us.

Some signs of not living your dharma are boredom, stress, a sense of pointlessness, dissatisfaction, drifting from one thing to another. If you read that and felt a small ouch, you are not broken. It usually means your real work is still waiting to be named.

So here is the map. Four circles. Four questions. Where all four overlap is your dharma, or as I call it in my book, your path with a heart.

Circle 1, your passion. Who are you? What are you passionate about? In the end, if you don't do what's true to your heart, you will not be able to sustain it. Your path with a heart must feel good to your heart. Otherwise, even if everything else is perfect, you'll still be miserable.

Circle 2, your skills. What are you uniquely gifted at doing? You have been blessed with talents and skills. They are a gift from the Divine. What are they, and how can you use them? Here is the best clue, one a teacher gave me years ago in India. You're on the right track when someone comes up to you and says thank you, that was so helpful, and you don't feel like you really did anything.

Circle 3, whom you serve. Whom are you here to serve? What types of people can you help the most? You can't serve everyone in the world, it's simply not possible. So whom are you uniquely designed to help? Usually it is whoever is standing where you were standing a few years ago.

Circle 4, their needs and desires. What do those people actually need? What is keeping them up at night? What problems do they urgently want solved, and what are you going to do about it?

I want to be honest about why I labour this circle. I spent years under the impression that if all I did was meditate, it would take care of every other part of my life. Seven years later I was not doing what I loved, I was in debt, I could not buy the things I wanted, and I was not living where I wanted. And being in that state sabotaged the meditation too. Consciousness is not a substitute for a livelihood.

Circle four is the circle that decides whether you earn a living from your dharma, so let me be plain about how paying actually works. People have needs. When a need goes unfulfilled it becomes a problem. And we cannot tolerate an unfulfilled need for long, so we are willing to invest time, energy and money in fixing it. That is the whole of it. People pay to solve problems.

So by helping others get what they want, you get what you want. Business is really about putting your own selfishness to one side, temporarily focusing on somebody else's, and receiving your own needs as the consequence. If you get this right, success becomes very easy. If you get it wrong, you can do an enormous amount of work, become frustrated, and end up broke.

What you are building towards is an offer that is completely clear to the right people and likely to be profitable, so you can sustainably live your dharma. Not just feel good about yourself — actually be sustained, so you can do what you love and get paid for it.

Once you've found the way those four fit together, you'll be living your most effective, happy life. And if you're ever confused about whether you're on the right path, ask two questions. Does this path spark joy? Am I being of service to others in a real way?

Then one honest test. Could you do this for ten or more years? People excitedly pitch me an idea, and then go quiet when I ask that question. If the honest answer is no, it is not your dharma. If it is yes, you are onto something real.

One last thing, and then the paper is yours. The map and the scaffolding are two different things. Most people finish this exercise holding a clear answer and no idea what to build around it — no method for sitting with someone, no shape for an offer, nothing to hold it all together. That gap is completely normal. It is simply the next thing to learn, and it is learnable.