FAOLAN
SUGARMAN
LASH

At 19 years old, I found myself sitting on the monkey bars at my college campus panicking. This thought kept coming into my head: “Why am I alive?” Over an over again it came to me, and over and over again I didn’t have a good answer. All I knew was that I’d been doing what I’d been told to do, what I thought would make people happy, what society expected me to do… what I should do. In that moment, I realized that I wasn’t happy with my life. “If this is it, what’s the point?” That was the thought that got me started.

About a month later I was lying in my hammock finishing a book called The Happiness of Pursuit about how humans go on big quests to find fulfillment. I sobbed as I finished it. In every way, I was living a life that had been built for me, not BY ME. I walked from that hammock to quit my job, withdraw from school, and buy a ticked to Southeast Asia.

In 2020, I started working as a coach to help other people discover their true paths, and leave behind their shoulds. In 2021, I wrote my first book “Why Live?”.

In 2022, I set off on a global trip to answer the question:
“How do I make the most of life?”.

I searched for answers at the lunch tables of Parisian brasseries and the midnight dance floors of the Costa Rican jungle. I looked in the grand parks and museums of London and the star-filled nights of dreams in coastal Morocco. I played music in the crowded alleys of Sevilla and danced naked on rooftops in the pouring summer rains of Florida. I paraglided from mountain tops in Rio de Janeiro and Scuba Dived in the cenotes of Tulum.

My path has been eclectic, like it’s being written by the hand of a mad God, vindictive in his wildness and gracious in his forgiving tune.

What I’ve discovered is that all these cool adventures left me lacking. I tried to live up to the visions I’d seen on social media, see the sights, do the experiences… And it was joyful, but still, I felt empty.

Here’s the answer I found: Making the most of life isn’t only about doing amazing things or even giving our gifts to the world, it’s about relationships. Our relationships are the most important part of true fulfillment.

And especially, community. We are village creatures. We were built for belonging to tribes. Today, we are more disconnected from community than we’ve ever been in the history of humans. We live isolated lives through our screens and in our boxes. This needs to change. We need to learn how to connect again.

To this end, I’m collaborating to build the future of co-living, co-playing, and co-creating. Collaboration is the future. More info to come.

With love and in service,
Faolan