I don’t know where to start this post. There are so many places to start at, but none of them feel right. John Strelecky’s The Big Five For Life is a book I would love to carry around all day and gift it to people. Just give one away every single day.
Only a few books can be said to have moved me so much and provoked so many, long lasting thoughts, and ideas.
What The Big Five for Life is all about
Imagine a day, a week, a year in which you do what you love. You spend your time on things you deeply care about. On problems you want to solve, on sports you enjoy, and you spend your time with people that you love. It can be anything. What matters is that you care about it. Imagine that.
Imagine how much you could accomplish if you love what you are doing. Or how much you would enjoy your day spending your time on something you like.
Imagine a life dedicated to only things you enjoy.
The Big Five: Lion, Rhino, Leopard, Elephant and Buffalo
That is what The Big Five for Life is about. It is about aligning your life and work goals. And its outcome is what I described above: a day spent on things you enjoy. Imagine how much you can accomplish if you love what you do. Going to work with an enormous amount of passion holds the opportunity of truly remarkable outcomes.
The Big Five originate from the five most difficult animals to hunt in Africa: lions, rhinos, leopards, elephant and buffalo.
But for John Strelecky they mean something different. They represent what you want to accomplish in your life. In essence, The Big Five is a fancy word for your goals. But they are the big ones.
The Big Five for Life is not like other personal life-advice books. It provides the reader with lessons and inspirations by telling the story of two friends. One, Joe, is insanely unhappy at his current job. One day he meets Thomas. And Thomas introduces him to a new kind of life approach: Aligning work and life goals.
It might sound very blunt, but it is not. The story of Joe and Thomas is heart-warming, funny and at times, sad. But its lessons are extremely powerful and hit the core of the purpose of this blog.
That is why I would want to gift this book to as many people as possible.
And it also reminded me of another book that I think about from time to time.
The Hedgehog Concept
Jim Collins presented the Hedgehog concept in Good to Great. It stuck with me ever since and when I read The Big Five for Life, it all came back and started making more sense.
The Hedgehog concept describes three characteristics that a company needs to fulfill to go from Good to Great.
First It needs to be able to become the best in the world at what they do. Second, they need to be deeply passionate about what they are doing and lastly need to be able to make a profit from that passion.
How Our Passions Fit In the Hedgehog Concept
You don’t even have to be the best at something or be able to become the best at it. And you don’t have to be able to turn a profit from you passion. Simply start with doing what you care about.
See where you are headed. Many people are afraid of looking for their passions. It seems like too much work. To me, it seems like too much work to not be searching for your passions.
Think about the possible rewards.
You do what you love. Everyday. Every single fucking day. (Remember that even having a job that you love will most likely come with tasks that you don’t enjoy. That’s life. Not everything is perfect, and I think we shouldn’t except every day or week to be perfect)
And The Money?
If you find your passions, the money will come your way.
Think about it this way, if you do not love what you do, do you think you are going to make a lot of money from it?
Even if, what is the price you pay for that? Stress, fatigue, bad relationships, and lost time. Time is unrecoverable. It is a sunk cost. Gone, just like that. And you traded it in for something you don’t even care about. Just to go on that marvelous vacation that you wouldn’t even need if, it wasn’t for the stressful job. Instead, you could be doing something you love, be less stressed, have better relationships and maybe even more money.
Do you think you can become the best at something even you don’t care about it deeply? Maybe, maybe not. Will it be easier though to become the best at something if you care about it deeply? Fuck yeah. A hell of a lot easier. So easy, you won’t even notice.
I know this might all sound very naive. But I truly do not give shit. I just don’t. I will keep looking for my passions and so should you. Your reward will be indescribable awesome. Unbelievable. Which is why it is so hard to put in words what The Big Five for Life is about.
It is also what Mark Manson’s book The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck is about. I highly recommend you give his ideas a chance. They are counterintuitive, but worth thinking about.
Find Your Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Elephant and Buffalo
I kid you not, I am afraid of not being able to make clear how deeply I care about this book and how immensely it impacted me. It describes why I write this blog and what I want to achieve with this blog – not only for myself – but also for you, the reader.
So here it is… In the hope that this book provokes as many thoughts in you as it did in me. And in the hope that you find your Big Five for Life and love what you do.
Enjoy!
Share Your Big Five
Do you already have your Big Five for Life? Please, share them with us. Or tell us about your quest to find them. How are you approaching this difficult task? Leave a comment or write me directly. I am happy to get in contact with you.
