I just finished going though Donald Miller’s new book Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life. I was exposed to the book while listening to the radio. Dave Ramsey had Donald on his show and gave him a short interview discussing the book. The hook that got me interested was when Donald said something like the following (I am paraphrasing):
Many people feel like they are sitting in the movie theater of their life watching a blank screen. The story of their childhood is over, the story of their college years are over, the story of finding love and having kids are over and now they don’t have a story to live into.
If you would like to hear the interview here is the link: https://youtu.be/W58tn7-agOE it is 41 min 30 seconds into the show. As Donald says he is attempting to take what Viktor Frankl discusses in his work Man’s Search for Meaning and distill it down to something less esoteric. He discusses logo therapy and provides actionable steps to move his readers along.
Having spent a good deal of time trying to nail down mission statements and organizational focus I can really appreciate the angle he is taking. If you have ever written a personal mission statement or tried to identify a direction for a company you know how surprisingly difficult it can be to put this into words. I believe the tools Donald provides will be a great help for anyone that has wrestled with this.
Re-framing the idea to read as a story is amazing. As an engineer in my early years I hated the idea of marketing. I still hate the idea of playing into people’s emotions but I have come to appreciate that separating people from emotion is not possible. Decisions are made on emotion not logic. I don’t care who you are you can never fully separate yourself from emotion to the point that a purely objective decision is made.
So, if you are having trouble finding meaning in your day to day or can’t quite nail down your personal mission give this book a go.
