Chanelle Nibbelink
A New Formula for Happiness
Ten years after resigning from his job and starting over, Samir Wagle, MBA ’95, reflects on his journey of self-actualization.
- By
- May 14, 2025
- Career Change
“Growing up in the Bay Area as a child of immigrants, I always heard that the formula for happiness was work hard, do well, and make sure people like you,” reflects Samir Wagle, MBA ’95, on his traditional suburban upbringing. “So I went to college, joined Deloitte, and then worked in the restaurant and retail industries.” He eventually held leadership positions at Protein Bar & Kitchen, Boudin Bakery, Chipotle, and McDonald’s. But nearly two decades into his professional journey, Wagle realized that the search for external success hadn’t brought him internal or personal fulfillment.
“It was an astonishingly unimaginative career path,” he observes. “By that point, I’d also gotten married and checked all the boxes in business and life that I thought I was supposed to check along the way. But I still wasn’t happy. It felt like something was missing.”
In 2014, a facilitator at a corporate workshop asked him a couple of pointed questions that prompted him to do some soul-searching. “She said: ‘What if being happy required you to have all the conversations with people you’ve been avoiding,’” he recalls. “‘And to resolve all your broken relationships by either truly committing to fixing them or consciously ending them, and to stop any habits that don’t serve you?’ And I remember sitting there and realizing that my formula, which was basically ‘I need more stuff to be happy,’ wasn’t working. So I decided to listen to her and make a meaningful change.”
Six months later, after extensive mentoring and leadership coaching, he went back to his then-wife and told her the marriage wasn’t working. He started a dialogue with her that led both to realize they weren’t in love. “It wasn’t the easiest conversation to have at the time, but now we can both look back and see how splitting up was the right thing to do for both of us. And then I resigned from my job.”
Naturally, Wagle says, his parents were more than a little concerned about his dramatic changes. “I had no job, was in the process of getting divorced, and—to their mind—was playing around,” he says. “They were convinced I was going to do the Indian version of Leaving Las Vegas or something—that I was throwing my whole life away. But I needed to consciously and clearly break the patterns that my life had previously been following.”
A year into his journey, Wagle stopped drinking. “I realized that while there were times that I drank from joy, it was also one of my primary escape routes—the drink I needed at the end of a long day, or the feeling that I had to have lots of wine to make a party successful. Quite simply, it was one of the habits that didn’t serve me.”
He took professional development courses and went on silent retreats, including one that lasted three weeks. And he made a point to learn about all manner of subjects as he strove to become a more well-rounded individual and shift his mindset to derive happiness from internal rather than external sources.
“I realized that I wanted every dimension in my life to be in alignment with who I wanted to ultimately be as a person.”
— Samir Wagle
As part of that process, Wagle crafted a personal mission statement: to help people work at the intersection of their skill set and their passion. “I watched what happened when a leader found that nexus. Performance was higher and stress was lower.” He describes what it feels like at the team level. “Remember the 2016–17 NBA season, when Kevin Durant joined Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson on the Golden State Warriors? Those guys were laughing like this was a pickup game at the local gym. And they were winning championships. That’s the type of business I wanted to create.”
But that, he knew, takes time and resources. “As I described my vision to search firms, they said they didn’t have the kind of role I was looking for. When I talked to other CEOs in my network, they told me they wanted a high-performance team. But they didn’t have the framework, and very often didn’t have the time.”
That led him to set up 11:11 Partners, a leadership development and coaching firm. The name comes from a specific time on a clock that has special significance in numerology, Wagle says, explaining that “if you are frequently seeing 11:11 on a clock face, it means that the fates have aligned for you to follow your destiny.
“We give leadership teams a language and framework so they can communicate more effectively and solve problems faster. This also allows them to modify roles as needed. As teams grow, we help them find executives who fit their culture and onboard them effectively. All of this helps teams navigate growth successfully and with lower turnover.”
But while his day-to-day work is close to his heart, he’s equally proud of the effect that his embrace of greater mindfulness and more purposeful decision-making has had on his own personal growth.
“As I was going through this journey, back in 2014, my son came in one time after I’d gotten off a call and said, ‘Daddy, I’m going into the first grade, and that means I’m a real student now,’” Wagle recalls. “And I realized as he said that that I wasn’t present for my son as he was growing up. Sure, I was there at his games and I went to his swim lessons—but I wasn’t truly present or the type of person I wanted to be with him. It was part of why I changed my career trajectory: I realized that I wanted every dimension in my life to be in alignment with who I wanted to ultimately be as a person.”
Despite the long and at times painful path to self-actualization, Wagle says the journey has been worth the effort. “Fast-forward a decade, and where am I today?” he asks. “I have a great relationship with my son. I met and married an amazing woman. I have a really healthy relationship with my co-parent. And I’ve created a business that really reflects who I am—and changes people’s lives.”