Brian Whetten is an ex-Silicon Valley founder turned coach. What interested me is that he’s dedicated his engineer’s mind to a systematic study of what works in the spiritual and self-help world. Our conversation was highly conceptual, but also unbelievably dense with insights. As a result, we decided to split the conversation up into two parts. Part 1 will discuss the diagnosis of the problem. Part 2 will explicitly discuss tools and strategies to avoid the major pitfalls.