The Big Five for Life by John Strelecky is an inspiring and motivational book that encourages readers to pursue their life goals and passions. Through his personal stories and experiences, Strelecky guides readers in their pursuit of the Big Five for life - connections, contributions, adventures, learning, and fun. For UX Designers, this book is a must-read. It helps readers identify what they want to pursue in life and inspires them to take action, enabling them to achieve their goals. Strelecky's powerful stories about connections, contributions and adventures will help readers gain confidence in themselves and inspire them to strive for their life goals. If you are a UX designer who wants to lead a life of intentional purpose, The Big Five for Life is the perfect read for you. Additionally, Strelecky has other books that could be of interest to UX Designers, such as The Why Cafe and The Cafe At The Edge of The World.
•The Big Five for Life by John Strelecky helps readers to uncover their true purpose in life and design a life plan tailored to those goals and values.
•It encourages readers to follow a five-step process to identify the five most important things they would like to achieve in life, and it serves as a roadmap to stay on track and make progress toward those objectives.
•As a UX designer, reading this book can help you to focus on the most meaningful and important goals you have in life, develop a comprehensive plan to achieve them and have the resilience to stay committed to your journey.
•It gives you the opportunity to connect to yourself, decide where you want to direct your energy and prioritize activities that are aligned to your vision.
•Similar books which may be of interest are Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, and Deep Work by Cal Newport.
✏️ Highlights
In hundreds of history books and countless museums around the world, you can learn about leaders. Most of what you will learn is how to be a bad one
“Hey,” I replied, and smiled. It was one of the women who had recommended the hike I’d just taken. “Thanks for the great tip about that hike. It was spectacular.” I
The café was crowded with other backpackers and even a few local residents. It never ceases to amaze me, I thought. Not that long ago the Internet didn’t even exist, and now you can instantly communicate with people all over the world.
That had happened to me one time as a kid. I’d gotten up, taken a shower, gotten dressed, and gone downstairs only to realize it was the weekend and I didn’t have to go to school.
The average human in the United States lives around 28,500 days, or about seventy-eight years.
His answer sort of surprised me. “I’ve never really thought of it in days before,” I replied. “It seems shorter for some reason when you think of it in days versus years.” “Yes, it does. It makes it more real.” “Okay, so the average life is 28,500 days
If eighty percent of our time was at a job we didn’t like, then eighty percent of the museum would be dedicated to showing us unhappily spending our time at a job we didn’t like.
“If we loved the outdoors, or spending time with our kids or friends, or celebrating life with our significant other, but only spent two percent of our life fueling those loves, then no matter how hard we wished it to be different, only two percent of our museum would be dedicated to that. Maybe there would be just a few pictures in a frame at the end of a long hallway.
Our legacy would be based not on how we dreamed of living, but how we actually lived. “Imagine if heaven, or the afterlife, or however you think of what life is like after we die, actually consists of us being the tour guide for our own museum—for all of eternity.”
Since you don’t work for him, do you work with him?” “I do. A few times each year. I have a lot of flexibility in my schedule. And, actually, just so you know, working with Thomas isn’t really work.” “Excuse me? You don’t work?” She smiled. “No wonder people think he’s such a great leader.” “Nope, it’s not like that.” “But you just said . . .” “I know. It sounds complex but it’s actually pretty simple. That’s another thing that makes Thomas such a great leader. He makes leadership simple.”
When he created his first company, he wrote down his philosophy on leadership and on creating a successful organization.
Over the years it was turned into audio, and now video.” “Cool.” I smiled. “Wait till you watch it.” I pushed play and in a moment Thomas’s image came on the screen. He smiled, and although Sonia was wearing the headphones, when he started to speak, I could hear the faint sound of his voice. “Hello, everyone, my name is Thomas Derale. I’m touched you are taking time out of your life to watch this. I hope what I’m about to share with you inspires you in some way. It has been a powerful piece of my life ever since it came to me many years ago. “Before I began my first company, I spent quite a lot of time thinking about what I wanted the company to be like and who I wanted to be as a leader. I also gave a lot of thought to how I could narrow down my philosophy of leadership into something easy for others to understand and easy for me to explain.
Finally, one evening I was sitting in my home office and looking at the pictures on my walls, and it hit me. "Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a traveler. When I was young, I loved to get on my bike and ride to places I’d never been. I’d wander the woods near my house and explore trails and creek beds and collect tadpoles. . . . I never gave too much thought to why I did those things. I just liked them, so whenever possible, I did them. “As I grew up
Finally, one evening I was sitting in my home office and looking at the pictures on my walls, and it hit me. "Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a traveler. When I was young, I loved to get on my bike and ride to places I’d never been. I’d wander the woods near my house and explore trails and creek beds and collect tadpoles. . . . I never gave too much thought to why I did those things. I just liked them, so whenever possible, I did them. “As I grew up, I dreamed of seeing the world. Although I buried that dream for a while, eventually I uncovered it and have now traveled to many places around the globe. “That day, when I looked at the pictures on my walls—pictures of my wife and me in different locations around the world—and I thought about my childhood adventures, I realized I’ve always viewed life as a journey. Whether we like it or not, from the day we are born, until the day we die, our lives are always going somewhere, and we are always doing something. “I have a friend who owns a tiny little café out in what he refers to as ‘the middle of the middle of nowhere.’ And he shared with me one time the importance of finding one’s own personal Purpose For Existing, or PFE as he likes to refer to it. It’s our own answer for the reason why we’re here, why we were born . . . why we exist. That was a powerful experience for me and one I never forgot. I liked the image of each individual person having a reason why they are alive, a purpose for their existence.
instead of having a personal Purpose For Existing I tried to fulfill on Saturdays, Sundays, and when I felt energetic enough after a day at work. And then have a completely different corporate PFE I worked toward for long hours during the week.
Why not create and lead a company where the company’s Purpose For Existing was aligned with my own Purpose For Existing? “If my PFE was the point on the horizon I wanted my life to be heading for—the destination for my journey—then it made sense to start a company whose Purpose For Existing was that same point on the horizon. Or at least a point in the same direction.
“I made a related decision regarding who I’d bring into my company. I wanted people who were not only intelligent and capable, but who were also driven.
I don’t have people who work for me. We are all working together toward a common purpose. We are fellow travelers helping each other journey towards a similar point on the horizon. When I succeed, they benefit. When they succeed, I benefit.
—the opportunity to get paid for doing what fulfills you, what provides you with a true sense of purpose as it relates to your own personal Purpose For Existing. Then you layer on top of that the most successful business models that exist.”
“Where does Thomas come up with these ideas?” “One of the things I learned early on from Thomas—one of the simple things he does that makes him a great leader—is he is constantly learning.
When he sees something he likes at another company, he implements it in his own. A lot of the great things he’s done are his ideas. A lot of them are borrowed.
He decided since the people in his companies were on a common journey together, it made more sense for people to think of themselves and each other not as employees, but as fellow travelers.”
Thomas’s favorite quotes is from a character in a book who says, ‘If we say the same words often enough, even our mind starts to believe they are true.’ His take is, why not say something positive—versus average, or even worse, negative.
“I don’t know of anyone who draws a positive reaction from the word employee. At best it creates an average emotional response. But a traveler on a journey? That’s something people view in a positive way.
Words are powerful things that either support us or obstruct us.
“All the hard profits are tied up in the people things. They’re not separate, and they’re definitely not soft.
What are the costs each time someone leaves AverageCo and a new person has to be brought in?”
once we start looking for a job, and especially once we’ve locked up another job, everything pretty much goes on cruise control. I’d say it’s a downward sliding number as the person gets closer to leaving, but someone who is quitting a job they don’t like is probably operating at an average of around fifty percent productivity for the last three months before they leave.”
how about when a new person starts? How productive are they for their first three months?” “Well, again, it probably isn’t a steady number and it depends on the complexity of the job. This one probably starts pretty low and then rises a lot by the end of the third month. I’d say a fifty percent productivity average is probably right for this as well.”
the more closely aligned someone’s Purpose For Existing is to an organization’s Purpose For Existing, the more likely they are to stick around. And the more closely aligned their responsibilities are to both their PFE and Big Five for Life, which I’ll explain in a minute, the more productive they are and the more likely they are to stick around. “The total net effect is since his people stay longer and are more productive, Thomas’s company’s profits are higher.
joint study was done by Cornell University and the Gevity Institute in which they looked at the results of over three hundred businesses. They looked at three main components. “The first was employee fit. Did companies hire someone because their skills matched the tasks the job required, or did they hire someone because they would be a good fit with the company’s values and culture?” “That sounds similar to what you’ve described about Thomas’s policy of a Purpose For Existing fit,” Sonia remarked. I nodded. “It is. The second component the study looked at was leadership and management tactics. Did the leaders closely monitor all aspects of people’s jobs, or did they give them flexibility to get the job done in the way they thought was best? Although you and I haven’t talked about it, Thomas has always created a culture where good people are hired in and then given the flexibility to find the best ways to achieve success. His belief is if you have to watch people to make sure they’re doing what needs to be done, then you’ve got the wrong people.” “And the third component?” Sonia asked. “The third was on how companies acquired and retained employees, which is very relevant to the math you and I just completed. They looked to see if the companies motivated people through salaries and other financial drivers, or did they create an atmosphere where people felt like they were part of something? If I remember right, they used the term a ‘familylike work environment.’” “That
“When companies that (a) hired not on job fit, but on how a person would fit with the company’s culture, (b) didn’t micromanage, but instead gave people greater autonomy and let them manage themselves, and (c) motivated not through money, but by creating the ‘familylike’ environment, were compared to companies that did the opposite of those three . . .” I paused for dramatic effect. Sonia looked at me and laughed again. “Yes?” “They had twenty-two percent higher sales growth, twenty-three percent higher profit growth, and sixty-seven percent lower employee attrition.” Sonia picked up the piece of paper where we had crafted our example. “That’s right in line with what we calculated,” she said. “Uh-huh. And you were the one who supplied the key statistic about productivity. You must have been right-on with your answers to those initial productivity questions.”
In hundreds of history books and countless museums around the world, you can learn about leaders. Most of what you will learn is how to be a bad one
“Hey,” I replied, and smiled. It was one of the women who had recommended the hike I’d just taken. “Thanks for the great tip about that hike. It was spectacular.” I
The café was crowded with other backpackers and even a few local residents. It never ceases to amaze me, I thought. Not that long ago the Internet didn’t even exist, and now you can instantly communicate with people all over the world.
That had happened to me one time as a kid. I’d gotten up, taken a shower, gotten dressed, and gone downstairs only to realize it was the weekend and I didn’t have to go to school.
The average human in the United States lives around 28,500 days, or about seventy-eight years.
His answer sort of surprised me. “I’ve never really thought of it in days before,” I replied. “It seems shorter for some reason when you think of it in days versus years.” “Yes, it does. It makes it more real.” “Okay, so the average life is 28,500 days
If eighty percent of our time was at a job we didn’t like, then eighty percent of the museum would be dedicated to showing us unhappily spending our time at a job we didn’t like.
“If we loved the outdoors, or spending time with our kids or friends, or celebrating life with our significant other, but only spent two percent of our life fueling those loves, then no matter how hard we wished it to be different, only two percent of our museum would be dedicated to that. Maybe there would be just a few pictures in a frame at the end of a long hallway.
Our legacy would be based not on how we dreamed of living, but how we actually lived. “Imagine if heaven, or the afterlife, or however you think of what life is like after we die, actually consists of us being the tour guide for our own museum—for all of eternity.”
Since you don’t work for him, do you work with him?” “I do. A few times each year. I have a lot of flexibility in my schedule. And, actually, just so you know, working with Thomas isn’t really work.” “Excuse me? You don’t work?” She smiled. “No wonder people think he’s such a great leader.” “Nope, it’s not like that.” “But you just said . . .” “I know. It sounds complex but it’s actually pretty simple. That’s another thing that makes Thomas such a great leader. He makes leadership simple.”
When he created his first company, he wrote down his philosophy on leadership and on creating a successful organization.
Over the years it was turned into audio, and now video.” “Cool.” I smiled. “Wait till you watch it.” I pushed play and in a moment Thomas’s image came on the screen. He smiled, and although Sonia was wearing the headphones, when he started to speak, I could hear the faint sound of his voice. “Hello, everyone, my name is Thomas Derale. I’m touched you are taking time out of your life to watch this. I hope what I’m about to share with you inspires you in some way. It has been a powerful piece of my life ever since it came to me many years ago. “Before I began my first company, I spent quite a lot of time thinking about what I wanted the company to be like and who I wanted to be as a leader. I also gave a lot of thought to how I could narrow down my philosophy of leadership into something easy for others to understand and easy for me to explain.
Finally, one evening I was sitting in my home office and looking at the pictures on my walls, and it hit me. "Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a traveler. When I was young, I loved to get on my bike and ride to places I’d never been. I’d wander the woods near my house and explore trails and creek beds and collect tadpoles. . . . I never gave too much thought to why I did those things. I just liked them, so whenever possible, I did them. “As I grew up
Finally, one evening I was sitting in my home office and looking at the pictures on my walls, and it hit me. "Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a traveler. When I was young, I loved to get on my bike and ride to places I’d never been. I’d wander the woods near my house and explore trails and creek beds and collect tadpoles. . . . I never gave too much thought to why I did those things. I just liked them, so whenever possible, I did them. “As I grew up, I dreamed of seeing the world. Although I buried that dream for a while, eventually I uncovered it and have now traveled to many places around the globe. “That day, when I looked at the pictures on my walls—pictures of my wife and me in different locations around the world—and I thought about my childhood adventures, I realized I’ve always viewed life as a journey. Whether we like it or not, from the day we are born, until the day we die, our lives are always going somewhere, and we are always doing something. “I have a friend who owns a tiny little café out in what he refers to as ‘the middle of the middle of nowhere.’ And he shared with me one time the importance of finding one’s own personal Purpose For Existing, or PFE as he likes to refer to it. It’s our own answer for the reason why we’re here, why we were born . . . why we exist. That was a powerful experience for me and one I never forgot. I liked the image of each individual person having a reason why they are alive, a purpose for their existence.
instead of having a personal Purpose For Existing I tried to fulfill on Saturdays, Sundays, and when I felt energetic enough after a day at work. And then have a completely different corporate PFE I worked toward for long hours during the week.
Why not create and lead a company where the company’s Purpose For Existing was aligned with my own Purpose For Existing? “If my PFE was the point on the horizon I wanted my life to be heading for—the destination for my journey—then it made sense to start a company whose Purpose For Existing was that same point on the horizon. Or at least a point in the same direction.
“I made a related decision regarding who I’d bring into my company. I wanted people who were not only intelligent and capable, but who were also driven.
I don’t have people who work for me. We are all working together toward a common purpose. We are fellow travelers helping each other journey towards a similar point on the horizon. When I succeed, they benefit. When they succeed, I benefit.
—the opportunity to get paid for doing what fulfills you, what provides you with a true sense of purpose as it relates to your own personal Purpose For Existing. Then you layer on top of that the most successful business models that exist.”
“Where does Thomas come up with these ideas?” “One of the things I learned early on from Thomas—one of the simple things he does that makes him a great leader—is he is constantly learning.
When he sees something he likes at another company, he implements it in his own. A lot of the great things he’s done are his ideas. A lot of them are borrowed.
He decided since the people in his companies were on a common journey together, it made more sense for people to think of themselves and each other not as employees, but as fellow travelers.”
Thomas’s favorite quotes is from a character in a book who says, ‘If we say the same words often enough, even our mind starts to believe they are true.’ His take is, why not say something positive—versus average, or even worse, negative.
“I don’t know of anyone who draws a positive reaction from the word employee. At best it creates an average emotional response. But a traveler on a journey? That’s something people view in a positive way.
Words are powerful things that either support us or obstruct us.
“All the hard profits are tied up in the people things. They’re not separate, and they’re definitely not soft.
What are the costs each time someone leaves AverageCo and a new person has to be brought in?”
once we start looking for a job, and especially once we’ve locked up another job, everything pretty much goes on cruise control. I’d say it’s a downward sliding number as the person gets closer to leaving, but someone who is quitting a job they don’t like is probably operating at an average of around fifty percent productivity for the last three months before they leave.”
how about when a new person starts? How productive are they for their first three months?” “Well, again, it probably isn’t a steady number and it depends on the complexity of the job. This one probably starts pretty low and then rises a lot by the end of the third month. I’d say a fifty percent productivity average is probably right for this as well.”
the more closely aligned someone’s Purpose For Existing is to an organization’s Purpose For Existing, the more likely they are to stick around. And the more closely aligned their responsibilities are to both their PFE and Big Five for Life, which I’ll explain in a minute, the more productive they are and the more likely they are to stick around. “The total net effect is since his people stay longer and are more productive, Thomas’s company’s profits are higher.
joint study was done by Cornell University and the Gevity Institute in which they looked at the results of over three hundred businesses. They looked at three main components. “The first was employee fit. Did companies hire someone because their skills matched the tasks the job required, or did they hire someone because they would be a good fit with the company’s values and culture?” “That sounds similar to what you’ve described about Thomas’s policy of a Purpose For Existing fit,” Sonia remarked. I nodded. “It is. The second component the study looked at was leadership and management tactics. Did the leaders closely monitor all aspects of people’s jobs, or did they give them flexibility to get the job done in the way they thought was best? Although you and I haven’t talked about it, Thomas has always created a culture where good people are hired in and then given the flexibility to find the best ways to achieve success. His belief is if you have to watch people to make sure they’re doing what needs to be done, then you’ve got the wrong people.” “And the third component?” Sonia asked. “The third was on how companies acquired and retained employees, which is very relevant to the math you and I just completed. They looked to see if the companies motivated people through salaries and other financial drivers, or did they create an atmosphere where people felt like they were part of something? If I remember right, they used the term a ‘familylike work environment.’” “That
“When companies that (a) hired not on job fit, but on how a person would fit with the company’s culture, (b) didn’t micromanage, but instead gave people greater autonomy and let them manage themselves, and (c) motivated not through money, but by creating the ‘familylike’ environment, were compared to companies that did the opposite of those three . . .” I paused for dramatic effect. Sonia looked at me and laughed again. “Yes?” “They had twenty-two percent higher sales growth, twenty-three percent higher profit growth, and sixty-seven percent lower employee attrition.” Sonia picked up the piece of paper where we had crafted our example. “That’s right in line with what we calculated,” she said. “Uh-huh. And you were the one who supplied the key statistic about productivity. You must have been right-on with your answers to those initial productivity questions.”
