Leela de Souza’s problem has never been a lack of courage to take risks. She's taken many flying leaps in life. Rather, she’s struggling to accept the more grounded motivations that propel ordinary life.

Right out of high school, she turned professional and eventually became a principal ballerina with the renowned Hubbard Street Dance Company in Chicago, and she imprinted on that rush of performing for a packed opera house.

She retired in her mid-20s, and since then has continued to wow people with her evolving story, as she got a degree from the University of Chicago, an MBA from Stanford, was a White House fellow, and then an executive with Burston Marsteller.

But it began to eat at her - where was this story headed? To what end was she gathering these skills of business, policy, critical thinking? Her resume looked awesome, but what had she contributed to the world? She missed the conviction she had when dancing, when she was The Ace of One Thing.

Joining the unemployed when high tech crashed, she realized that she'd been looking for that performance high in her work. In the 90s, a conceit emerged that work should be sorta like entertainment. We crave the rush of Brain Candy, but it’s just that – candy. We’ve used stimulation as a synthetic substitute for other types of gratification that can be ultimately more rewarding and enduring.

The hard year out of work was painful, but it taught her to live without that applause from the audience, and look within for affirmation. She's committed to biotech's mission of saving lives, and started work at Genentech, for which she will help market a drug used to treat lymphoma.

Work shouldn’t just be fun. Work should be like life. Sometimes fun, sometimes moving, and defined by meaningful events.

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