From Reflection to Direction: How Whole-Person Insights Redirected One Career Path

There are moments in life when everything appears to be moving forward — the career, the opportunities, the next logical step.

And yet, beneath the surface, a quieter question begins to form:

Is this truly where I’m meant to be?

For Ed Lubowicki, that question didn’t arrive all at once. It emerged gradually, shaped by years of high performance, a background in athletics, and a growing curiosity about how people find meaning in their work long after the applause fades.

His introduction to tru® came through a connection within LAND (Life After Notre Dame), a nonprofit community supporting former athletes navigating life beyond sport. Initially, Ed wasn’t looking for a personal breakthrough. He was exploring whether tru® could serve as a useful assessment in his own coaching practice.

What he found instead was a mirror — one that invited him to look backward before deciding where to go next.

The Power of Looking Deeply at Your Best Moments

Ed describes the experience simply:

“It’s about evaluating the times in your life where you were at your best — and getting really detailed about the environment and variables that helped those moments unfold.”

Through the process of identifying peak experiences, he began to see patterns he hadn’t fully recognized before — the environments where he felt most alive, the work that felt natural, and the deeper motivations that had quietly shaped his journey to that point.

The work wasn’t theoretical. It felt personal.

Completing his truSelf Portrait led him to reflect on the idea of Ikigai — the intersection of what you enjoy, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.

And in that reflection, something shifted.

He realized that, despite outward success, he had been allowing life to happen to him rather than intentionally steering where he wanted to go.

Making Insight Real

For Ed, the turning point wasn’t just insight — it was action.

Building his My Path Forward helped him translate reflection into experimentation. Instead of simply defining his strengths, he began testing ways to intentionally create more peak experiences in everyday life.

“A lot of assessments focus on defining words,” he explains. “My Path Forward helped me experiment with how to make more peak experiences happen in the environments I’m in.”

Those experiments led him to take meaningful steps toward change. He enrolled in a master’s program at Penn. He began building a coaching practice focused on helping others navigate transition and purpose.

At the time, it felt like exploration — something evolving alongside his role at a global professional services firm.

Then, life accelerated the process.

When the Door Opens

After a sabbatical focused on earning a graduate degree, Ed returned to his corporate role expecting to pick up where he left off. Instead, he learned that his position had been eliminated.

What could have felt like disruption became clarity.

The reflection he had already done through tru® helped him interpret the moment differently — not as an ending, but as an invitation to fully step into the work he had been quietly building.

Rather than searching for the next corporate role, he chose to follow the direction that had been emerging all along.

He started his own company. He continued his graduate studies. And he committed to a mission centered on helping others find alignment and meaning in their own journeys.

Today, he describes the feeling with quiet confidence:

“I really feel like my train is on the right tracks.”

A Different Relationship with Work — and with Himself

The impact of the experience extends far beyond career decisions.

Ed now approaches daily life with a deeper sense of reflection — pausing to evaluate whether experiences are energizing or aligned with his values. When faced with ambiguity, he draws on peak-experience visualization to ground himself and reconnect with confidence.

More than anything, the process reshaped how he sees his past — not as a collection of disconnected chapters, but as a source of insight guiding what comes next.

Technology Guided by Human Connection

Ed is also clear that the journey wasn’t just about a platform. Having a mentor throughout the process played a powerful role.

“Having someone who could fill in details through conversation was instrumental — not just in understanding tru® for myself, but in how I show up for conversations in my own life.”

That blend of structured reflection and human guidance helped transform insight into lasting change — and continues to influence how Ed works with others today. He plans to become a tru Certified Coach in the weeks ahead to bring this positive impact to his clients.

A Story Still Being Written

Ed’s story isn’t about abandoning one path for another overnight. It’s about rediscovering direction through reflection — and having the courage to follow it when the opportunity appears.

Through tru®, he didn’t simply gain answers. He gained a framework for listening more closely to what energizes him — and for building a life aligned with that truth.

Because sometimes the most meaningful shifts don’t begin with a plan.

They begin with a moment of honest reflection… and the willingness to take the next step forward.

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