March 2025

Purposeful Aging–Still Growing and Giving

03/24/2025 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

People today are living much longer, yet we still have the old narrative about aging as decline. We need a new narrative focused on purposeful aging. Excerpts from my conversation with best-selling author, Richard Leider, in the wake of the publication of the 4th edition of The Power of Purpose: To Grow and to Give for Life, with David Shapiro.*

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Gregg Vanourek:

Richard, I’ve always been fascinated by your Inventure Expeditions, where you’ve taken groups of people to Tanzania. Tell me about them.

Richard Leider:

I started in 1983. I was on the board of Outward Bound. We climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for them. I fell in love with Tanzania. It wasn’t just the animals; it was the people and the place.

I started to go back and lead my own trips there in 1985, and I led them every year until COVID hit. I’m planning on going back. My co-leader, who runs a safari company there, and I are looking at what we’re going to do next.

Sitting around the fire with elders over there for decades, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be an elder and what it takes to survive. The hunter-gatherers I sit around the fire with have survived for 75,000-plus years. How? It’s not through competition and outwitting and outmuscling the other tribes. It’s through sharing, through purpose—and what they do as elders sitting around the fire.

The wisest of the elders sits the closest to the fire. What that means to me is that they have the wisdom to help younger people figure out how to make a difference and how to survive and thrive in the future.

Gregg:

It sounds like there’s a real ethic there of connecting across generations and of elders being honored and sharing wisdom in ways that many of us have lost in this society, where we have more mobile lives, and many narratives about aging that are negative.

You wrote about this in your last book, Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Old? The Path of Purposeful Aging, with David Shapiro. It’s an excellent book. What else can people in modern societies learn from the Maasai tribe and other things you’ve learned from your time in the Serengeti?

Richard:

I’m a faculty member of the Modern Elder Academy, which Chip Conley created in Baja, Mexico and in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Chip said, What we really need are “menterns”: people who are both mentors and interns. I love that concept.

A mentor is somebody who can give something to younger people. And an intern is a learner. So, wise elders don’t just sit around the fire and pontificate. They’re also learners.

The future belongs to the learners, not the knowers.

I consider myself to be a learner. I know stuff and I can share what I know. But even more than that, I’m a learner. I’m learning all the time. I’m learning from you. You and I have shared ideas together, and we’ve learned from each other. I can mentor you, and you can mentor me. And I can learn from you, and you’re going to learn from me. It’s that combination, I think, that’s required right now in this world.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Gregg:

You and I are both very interested in the good life. We’ve talked about this before. In college, I took a philosophy and religion course called “Theories of the Good Life.” We studied it, and I wrote my own essay on what my view of the good life is. And my other philosophy professor encouraged me to live the big questions of life.

I think it was in your book, Repacking Your Bags, where you and David Shapiro gave a powerful definition of the good life: “living in the in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work, on purpose.” Something like that. Can you say a little bit more about the place equation: living in the place you belong? How does place show up in a good life?

Richard:

Place is where you live. Many people move to a warmer place because of the weather. And it’s great for a period of time. But what they really wanted was relationships, work, and purpose. We want health and money.

I talk about the three Ms. When you look at the good life, if you step back from it, there’s money, medicine, and meaning.

Many people have enough money and enough medicine, by which I mean health, to live a good life. But there’s a drag there. They’re unhappy, or they’re depressed, and it’s often because they don’t have enough of the third M, meaning.

Money, medicine, and meaning are fundamental to the good life. My co-author, David Shapiro, is a philosophy professor. We studied Aristotle, Plato, and others, and we looked at the good life from that period of time to now. That’s how we came up with the four factors of place, people, right work, and purpose as the things that are most essential.

Gregg:

There are so many great thought leaders in this space. Viktor Frankl. William Damon. I want to ask you about Emily Esfahani-Smith and her book, The Power of Meaning. It’s a beautiful book. She says that part of that meaning equation is not only purpose but also storytelling and coherence: as we reflect on our life, we see the patterns that give us a sense of meaning in our lives. Do you think that’s a part of the equation here too?

Richard:

Absolutely. I ask people, What’s your narrative? I co-created the Life Reimagined Institute at AARP. We looked at, What’s the narrative on aging, and how do we change it? Because in 1900, people died when they lived to age 47. Now the fastest growing cohort in the U.S. is 85 and over, and people are living well beyond that. So, people are living 20, 30, 40 years longer than they did in the past. What’s the narrative for that? Is it just about playing golf, going fishing, traveling, or being with your grandkids? It’s not. There needs to be a new narrative.

Gregg:

My new body of work is focused on the common traps of living: What are the things that inhibit our happiness, our quality of life, our fulfillment? You’ve written about a “default life.” What’s a default life, and how is it negatively affecting us?

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Richard:

I love that question. The default life is basically what I grew up with, and it goes like this:

Learn, earn, adjourn.

My Dad died at 68, two years after retiring. He had enough money and enough medicine, but I’m not sure he felt he had enough meaning. He worked for the same organization for 40 years, and he retired after that. He was an immigrant, and he had his struggles. He did okay, but then he didn’t, and he died. My mother lived another 10 years to age 78.

Dr. Becca Levy at Yale did a massive study that showed that people who had a positive view of aging live 7.5 years longer than people with a negative view of it. A negative view is like, Oh, this sucks. This is terrible. It’s all about decline.

So, what’s your narrative about aging? Do you think it’s possible that it could be a happier time of life? Or do you see it as a negative? Well, it has to do with health, has to do with place, has to do with people.

Gregg:

What are some other common traps of living that inhibit people’s happiness, quality of life, or fulfillment?

Richard:

The other thing is isolation. It’s fatal. It’s this notion that I can do it myself. I can do it alone, I’m cool, I’ve got it together. Going it alone is an incredibly bad idea. It’s a big trap. How do we get out of that trap?

I’m 80, and my wife is 77. We have a lot of friends and neighbors who are no longer growing and giving. If they’re not growing and giving and they’re not curious, we come home from dinner with them and go, What was that all about? They didn’t ask any questions. They weren’t curious and weren’t growing. They seem to be trapped in the rearview mirror.

I write about the rearview mirror versus the windshield. The windshield is 100 times bigger than the rearview mirror. How do people get out of the trap of the rearview mirror, just looking at the past and how they grew up? How do they let go of that? And how do they focus on the windshield, on what’s right in front of them and where they can go?

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Gregg:

It makes me think, Richard, that some people are postponing the things that they really want to do. They’re deferring their dreams. And some people are thinking it’s too late to do the things they really want to do.

Richard:

Well, it’s never too late to make a difference in the lives of others. It drives me nuts when people just talk about their bucket list. I have bucket lists. I have things I want to do, but that’s not all my life’s all about.

What’s my life all about? It’s about purpose: Why are we here? What’s the point of this exercise called life? We’re here for a reason.

You get to decide, What’s the point? Why are you here, and why are you leading? What I know unequivocally is that why you lead determines how well you lead. Why you live determines how well you live. I know this from 50 years of study.

Gregg:

The subtitle of your new book, the fourth edition of The Power of Purpose, is “To Grow and to Give for Life.” I’m a big believer in growing and learning and developing. I’m just all in for that. It’s changed my life. It fills me with energy and inspiration.

And I see in you, Richard, an example of that. Here you are not “adjourning.” You’re not only giving but also growing. You’re learning, you’re writing new books, you’re updating your thinking, you’re talking to people. And I see the life it brings to you.

So, I just want to honor you, and thank you for that, for the impact you’re having on people, including deeply on me. Is there anything else you want to say about this?

Richard:

What does growing really mean? Growing means curiosity, being curious about self, about others, about the world, and not just knowing.

As people age, they want to remain relevant, even though they don’t know how to say that. And they want to be visible. They want to have a voice in matters. And that comes not just from age or position or role. It comes from curiosity.

The founder of TED, Richard Saul Wurman, said that the core of TED is curiosity. It was founded based on, What are you really curious about? What do you want to know more about? What do you want to connect with? I think choice, curiosity, courage: those are the three Cs that represent what we’ve talked about here today.

Choice: What are your choices?
Curiosity: What are you curious about?
Courage: What are you courageous enough to make a move on?

* Video conversation between Gregg Vanourek and Richard Leider via Zoom, recorded, transcribed by Otter.ai, and then edited by Gregg.

Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter.

Richard Leider is an internationally best-selling author, coach, and keynote speaker who’s widely viewed as a thought leader of the global purpose movement. His work is featured regularly in many media sources, including PBS and NPR. He is the founder of Inventure—The Purpose Company, a firm created to guide people to live, work, and lead on purpose.

Gregg’s Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment so you can discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work, then act accordingly
Passions Probe to help you find the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

Postscript: Inspirations on Purposeful Aging

“Retire from your job but never from meaningful projects. If you want to live a long life, you need eustress, that is, a deep sense of meaning and of contribution to worthy projects and causes, particularly, your intergenerational family.” -Stephen R. Covey, educator and author
“Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life. It has given me me.” -Anne Lamott, writer
“Here’s a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.” -Richard Bach, writer
“Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.” -David Bowie, musician
“The old … should… have their physical labors reduced; their mental activities should be actually increased. They should endeavor, too, by means of their counsel and practical wisdom to be of as much service as possible to their friends and to the young, and above all to the state.” -Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman philosopher and statesman
“There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.” -Zora Neale Hurston, author, anthropologist, and filmmaker
“Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age…. To my own surprise I burst out with hot conviction.” -Florida Scott-Maxwell, Jungian analyst

“Wholly unprepared, they embark upon the second half of life…. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”
-Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst

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The Spiritual Side of Purpose

03/24/202503/17/2025 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

How are purpose and spirituality related? How about calling? Excerpts from my conversation on purpose and spirituality with best-selling author, Richard Leider, in the wake of the publication of the 4th edition of The Power of Purpose: To Grow and to Give for Life, with David Shapiro.*

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Gregg Vanourek:

Richard, I want to ask you about defining moments or phases of your life that have been purposeful. What’s your personal experience with purposeful living?

Richard Leider:

Well, I think we’ve all had fortuitous encounters with people in our life who have made a difference in some way, who have awakened us. In 1968, I spent a week with Viktor Frankl, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning. He was in three different Nazi concentration camps. He was a world-renowned thinker at the time with Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and others. Frankl he was writing about logotherapy, about meaning and purpose in life—that we’re here for a reason.

In the concentration camp, he would get up in the morning and give others what I call a “small p” purpose action: a kind word, a hug, a crust of bread, hope for the future. Out of that came Man’s Search for Meaning.

At that point, I was trained as a counseling psychologist, but I said, This message needs to go somewhere. I’m going to do what I can with it. It was a fortuitous encounter. I didn’t have any money, and I was the youngest person in the room. But I was there for a reason, I think. And here we are today.

So, think about your fortuitous encounters. You’ve had your own, I know, with your father, with others, who are wellsprings of wisdom we can learn from.

Gregg:

You’re one of them in my life, Richard. I think part of that story is being awake and alert. These fortuitous encounters may come to us, but if we’re not ready, if we’re not willing to take action and follow up, then they’re lost.

And here we are with the redemption of suffering. The most unimaginable evil and cruelty in the world, and yet Dr. Frankl turns that into Man’s Search for Meaning and logotherapy.

Richard, you wrote a book called Something to Live For. Frankl had this idea during the darkest days of the Holocaust, being away from his family, of: I have something I want to share with the world. It helps him survive and also be part of the community of fellow prisoners, helping each other survive.

Richard Leider:

And the Foreword to that book was written by Richard Bolles. He said, I had this dream that I had a conversation with God that I wanted to go to Earth and do something. And God being a loving God said, Well, you need something to do and give while you’re there, so I’m going to give you some gifts to give while you’re there.

Richard wakes up from his dream, and he can’t remember the gifts that God gave him. But he said, All of us have gifts. We have to figure them out ourselves, because no one gave us the manual.

So, my work has really been about discerning, What are those gifts, and how do we give them in ways that are about a “purpose and a paycheck”? We need to have a purpose, but we also need to make a living. Look at our vocation and our livelihoods as well as our dreams and other things. I think that, a lot of times, people get off-kilter because they don’t know what their gifts, passions, and values are.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Gregg:

Different people have varying conceptualizations and practices when it comes to spirituality. For some, it’s a faith tradition and worship. For others, more of a spiritual outlook or way of being. How do you think about purpose and spirituality? Is spirituality part of the equation of purpose and good living?

Richard:

A while back, I took a year off and went to the seminary for a year to study purpose and world religions, and I found that every religion that I studied basically had the same point of view, and that was: The reason you’re here is to serve. I think serving is central to every faith.

The bottom line is, You’re here for a reason, and that’s to serve. And at the end of your life, when you die, you either did that or you didn’t.

“Is purpose spiritual? Yes! …. Purpose is spiritual wisdom embodied….
Unlocking our purpose is ultimately a spiritual path.”
-Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4^th edition

Gregg:

It sounds like that implies part of the journey of living is the journey of self-discovery, of asking, Who am I? What’s my place in the world? What are my gifts, my calling? And then, if there’s a calling, it implies something or someone doing the calling or placing a purpose within you.

Richard:

Well, the call is a felt sense, whether it comes from God up above or it comes from within. The call is people feel like they’re here for a reason, and it comes in different ways, often through a crisis. I’ve interviewed people over the age of 65, as you know, for decades, and asked them if they could live their life over again, what would they do differently? There’s three things that always come up, and that is, if I could live my life over again, I would be more reflective about what matters in life. When are you reflective? It’s usually in a crisis: I get cancer, I get a divorce, I get fired, and then I have to step back and look at what really matters.

Secondly, if they live their life over again, what’s authentic? They want to live authentic lives. People say over and over again, I did what my parents wanted, or what my parents would pay for in terms of my education. And I ask, Well, what really matters? And they’ll say, Work and love. I want to do work that fits who I am, and I want to be in relationships that who fit who I am.

And third, mattering matters. I’ll go to my grave saying this. It’ll probably be on my tombstone. Mattering matters. 100% of the people have said, I want my life to matter somehow. I want to leave my footprint. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It could be just with my family, just with my church, just with my synagogue or temple. But I don’t want to die without some sort of dent.

And so that’s what purpose is all about. Mattering, ultimately, matters. But we all want to do it our own way. In our book, The Power of Purpose, we’re just saying, check it out. Do your homework. Don’t blow it off.

* Video conversation between Gregg Vanourek and Richard Leider via Zoom, recorded, transcribed by Otter.ai, and then edited by Gregg.

Gregg’s Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Strengths Search to help you identify your core strengths and determine how to use them more in your life and work

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose and Spirituality

“I believe that we are put on this earth to live our soul’s purpose. To me, that means using our unique gifts and talents to make a positive impact in the world and help create the world we want to see…. We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our JOY.” -Jack Canfield, author
“You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments—whether to your religion, to an ethical order as you conceive it, to your life’s work, to loved ones, to your fellow humans.” -John W. Gardner, author and civic activist
“Everyone has a calling, which is the small, unsettling voice from deep within our souls, an inner urge, which hounds us to live out our purpose in a certain way. A calling is a concern of the spirit. Since a calling implies that someone calls, my belief is that the caller is God.” -Dave Wondra, executive coach
“I believe there’s a calling for all of us. I know that every human being has value and purpose. The real work of our lives is to become aware. And awakened. To answer the call.” -Oprah Winfrey, teacher, author, and entrepreneur
“Purpose is the recognition of the presence of the sacred within us and the choice of work that is consistent with that presence. Purpose defines our contribution to life. It may find expression through family, community, relationship, work, and spiritual activities.” -Richard Leider, author
“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” -Isaiah 55:10-11 NIV
Spirituality is “recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.” -Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
“Earlier in my life, I thought the things that mattered were the things that you could see, like your car, your house, your wealth, your property, your office. But as I’ve grown older I’ve become convinced that the things that matter most are the things that you can’t see–the love you share with others, your inner purpose, your comfort with who you are.” -Jimmy Carter
“The deepest desire of our hearts is for union with God. God created us for union with himself: This is the original purpose of our lives.” -Brennan Manning, author
“We have not come into the world to be numbered; we have been created for a purpose; for great things: to love and be loved.” -Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.” -Proverbs 20:5

“God is the one who can tell us the reason for our existence, our place in the scheme of things, our real identity.
It is an identity we can’t discover for ourselves and that others can’t discover for us.
How we have chased around the world for answers to this riddle, looked in the eyes of others for some hint, some clue, hunted in the worlds of pleasure and experience and self-fulfillment for some glimpse, some revelation, some wisdom, some authority to tell us our right name and our true destination.
But there was, and is, only One who can tell us this: The Lord Himself. And he wants to tell us, he has made us to know our reason for being and to be led by it. But it is a secret he will entrust to us only when we ask, and then in His own way and His own time. He will whisper it not in the mad rush and fever of our striving and our fierce determination to become someone, but rather when we are content to put our rest in him, to put ourselves in his keeping, into his hands. Most delightfully of all, it is a secret he will tell us slowly and sweetly, when we are willing to spend time with him.” -Emily Griffin, Clinging

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Unlock Your Purpose–3 Key Elements

03/24/202503/04/2025 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

Knowing and living your purpose is hard for many. It helps to break it down to the three key elements of purpose. Excerpts from my conversation with best-selling author, Richard Leider.*

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Gregg Vanourek:

Richard, you have something you call the “napkin test.” You’ve written that calling, which you sometimes use as a synonym for purpose, is a function of your gifts and your passions and your values:

G + P + V = C

“’Finding your purpose’ is misleading, however, because it’s not something we have to go out and ‘find.’ Rather, purpose is revealed when we turn within and unlock it. We’ve already got it—even if we haven’t clarified it yet! But how do you unlock it? By looking in the most essential places—our individual gifts, passions, and values….
Combining our gifts with our passions and values reveals to us purpose.”
-Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4^th edition

What if someone comes to you and says, I don’t have any gifts, or, I don’t have any passions? Say a bit more about how you’d respond to that person who’s really struggling and just doesn’t see it.

Richard Leider:

I call it the “Got-a-minute school of coaching,” because people say, Got a minute? Can you tell me what I should do with the rest of my life?

I say, Take out a napkin and write down your gifts, passions, and values. And let’s talk about that after you do some work on it.

I’ve interviewed thousands of people over five decades of life. There’s not one person I’ve ever interviewed who doesn’t ultimately own their gifts. They say, Yeah, I really enjoy that, I love that, I’m good at that. So, a gift is the first thing in the formula.

Gregg:

How do you define a gift?

Richard:

A gift has four characteristics:

First, it’s something you love to do.
Second, your hand turns to it naturally. Others observe you doing it effortlessly and superbly.
Third, you can’t remember learning it. When asked how you learned it, you might say, I don’t know. I don’t have a degree in that, but I just do it effortlessly and well.
Fourth, you say, I love learning more about it and hanging out with people interested in it.

Ask someone, What’s your gift? Ask what they love to do. They come up with it automatically. They know there’s something there.

I created a tool called Calling Cards. It’s available on Amazon, and it helps people to do a deeper dive into that. Sometimes I use that when I’m working with leadership teams, because people are so starved for that.

Strengths Search

We all have core strengths–the things in which we most excel. Take this self-assessment to determine your core strengths so you can integrate them more into your life and work.

Gregg:

What are passions, the second element?

Richard:

Passions are, What do you want to use your gifts in the service of? What do you really care about? What keeps you up at night? But it’s not about your problems. It’s more about your opportunities. What are you reading and thinking about? What do you care about?

I’m 80, and I wake up early in the morning. The first thing I do is write. What I write about is what I’m thinking about, what I care about, and what I read about. It makes me happy. So, What is it that you care about, that you would love to use your gifts in the service of?

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

Gregg:

And what about values, the third element?

Richard:

Values are about where you do what you do. So many people have a good job, but they don’t like where they’re doing it. It doesn’t fit them.

The number-one knockout factor in most career research is this: I don’t like where I’m working. I don’t like the people. It’s not a good fit for me. The job is good, but the place is not. That’s why so many people would rather do their own thing, something on their own.

Personal Values Exercise

* Video conversation between Gregg Vanourek and Richard Leider via Zoom, recorded, transcribed by Otter.ai, and then edited by Gregg.

Gregg’s Tools for You

Strengths Search to help you identify your core strengths and start using them more in your life and work
Passion Probe to help you find the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Personal Values Exercise

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

“Purpose is already within us waiting to be discovered.” -Richard Leider, author
“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.” -Rumi, 13th century poet
“Your life is an opportunity to give the gifts that your soul wants to give.” -Gary Zukav, author
“I believe that we are put on this earth to live our soul’s purpose. To me, that means using our unique gifts and talents to make a positive impact in the world and help create the world we want to see…. We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our JOY.” -Jack Canfield, author
“Purpose is a presence within us all the time. It is a constant presence in our lives that merely needs to be unlocked via reflection and action.” -Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4^th edition

“If we lack purpose, we lose connection with our true nature and become externally driven, generating discontent or even angst. Because purpose can be so elusive, we often duck the big question and look for ways to bury that discontent, most often through ‘busyness,’ distraction, or worse.”
-Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek,
LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

Article Summary:

Gregg Vanourek:

Richard Leider:

Gregg:

Richard:

The future belongs to the learners, not the knowers.

Take the Traps Test

Gregg:

Richard:

Gregg:

Richard:

Gregg:

Quality of Life Assessment

Richard:

Learn, earn, adjourn.

Gregg:

Richard:

Personal Values Exercise

Gregg:

Richard:

Gregg:

Richard:

Choice: What are your choices? Curiosity: What are you curious about? Courage: What are you courageous enough to make a move on?

Gregg’s Tools for You

Passion Probe

Related Articles & Books

Postscript: Inspirations on Purposeful Aging

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Article Summary:

Gregg Vanourek:

Richard Leider:

Gregg:

Richard Leider:

Take the Traps Test

Gregg:

Richard:

“Is purpose spiritual? Yes! …. Purpose is spiritual wisdom embodied…. Unlocking our purpose is ultimately a spiritual path.” -Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4th edition

Gregg:

Richard:

Gregg’s Tools for You

Quality of Life Assessment

Related Articles & Books

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose and Spirituality

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Article Summary:

Gregg Vanourek:

G + P + V = C

Richard Leider:

Gregg:

Richard:

Strengths Search

Gregg:

Richard:

Passion Probe

Gregg:

Richard:

Personal Values Exercise

Gregg’s Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Related Articles & Books

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Choice: What are your choices?
Curiosity: What are you curious about?
Courage: What are you courageous enough to make a move on?

“Is purpose spiritual? Yes! …. Purpose is spiritual wisdom embodied….
Unlocking our purpose is ultimately a spiritual path.”
-Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4^th edition