Maine Career Development Association brought Gregg in for our conference May 2017 and he was our best speaker in years, maybe of all ~12 years we have been chartered. I was fortunate to pick him up at the airport and a few of us went out to dinner with him.
Vital Signs is a reflection of much of his current thinking. This is deep. Very thoughtful. Even historical. And at times a reflection of Gregg’s own pursuit of passion in life. The biggest difference in this book from Callings is that Callings was about work and this one is more about life. (Again, Gregg is a Boomer and going thru this thinking himself right now).
His chapters are thick and filled with lots of research from his first chapter on how humans have a natural tendency to enjoy “wonder” in our lives (having a passionate curiosity) , to further chapters on why / how searching for novelty has helped us as humans, and on to our need for wilderness in our lives. He goes back in time and supports his arguments from the monkeys coming out of the trees to the evolution to humans.
I love how in his talk at MCDA he said that “passion comes and goes” throughout our lives. To think we need to find 1 passion to then live with for the rest of our lives is just shy of absurd. Passion can be cultivated but it is so much about living in the moment…not planning it.
This is a book that requires much thinking. I wonder if it could have been done in half the 466 pages but I do appreciate how he brought in some much research and took that BIG picture view of humans and our pursuit for happiness, purpose, and passion in our lives.
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