Book review - Life on Purpose

Purpose. Motivation. Why. Mission Statement. Driving Force. There are lots of ways of labelling it but they all amount to very much the same thing.

"What is the reason behind everything that you do?"

Numerous books have either been entirely dedicated to this theme or have touched upon it to varying extents. So I wasn't necessarily expecting to get much new insight from Dr Victor Strecher's book "Life on Purpose" and only chose to download it because a quote from the author was mentioned in another recent book. However it would be fair to say that I was wrong and I have both thoroughly enjoyed Life on Purpose and feel it has greatly deepened my insight into this topic.

Dr Strecher is an American practising Doctor who also spends a lot of time lecturing in universities about finding purpose. He presents a lot of the science behind the importance of this and intertwines this with experiences in his own life which are very hard hitting. Be warned that caution will be needed if you are going to be listening to this as an audiobook while driving as it can be very emotional at time.


The book opens with the author explaining how his daughter (Julia) was gravely ill as a newborn baby, pushing medical science at the time by having a heart transplant when only a few months old. At various points he picks up her story explaining that she then defied science again at 10 years old when that heart failed repeatedly and her family was informed that she would be effectively brain dead. They prepared for her passing and were just about to turn off life support when miraculously she recovered with seemingly no ill effects so then had another new heart and continued to live a full life. Another 10 years later and Julia then died in her sleep while she was on holiday with the family. Dr Strecher explains how he applied the knowledge developed over many years of researching and teaching this topic to give his daughter a full life and to then to recover from such a tragic loss to enable him to continue helping others around him.

The second half of the book gives details on practical ways to facilitate you living your purpose whatever that may be. He uses the acronym SPACE, which relates to
Sleep
Presence (often call mindfulness)
Activity
Creativity
Eating

At the same time as listening to Life on Purpose I have also been reading a book called "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin which explains the life and lessons learned by the author who transitioned from world a class chess player as a teenager to world class martial artist in just a few years. I will be posting a review of that in the coming days but it has been fascinating to see the parallels in these two books that ostensibly shouldn't really have much in common but really do. More of that soon. For now, if you would like a copy of Life on Purpose see here: https://amzn.to/2HN1wn0