Invitation to join a group to read/apply "Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life"

Firstly, it would be great if you would watch this 3m introduction video from the book authors:

WHAT

A group of people who will read through and do the exercises in the book out loud (with whatever audience each member is comfortable doing that with).

WHY

As of 27 March 2017, I completed my first Working Out Loud Circle. During Week 7, I was doing some off-piste study and came across the book via a Talks at Google talk by one of the authors. I posted about the book in the WOL FB group (https://goo.gl/EAZ9UO).

Interestingly (aka spookily), when I posted it, John (Stepper) said the following on 18 February 2017: "I literally just received this book in the mail yesterday. Coincidence?"

One of the major discoveries for me from the circle is that I want and need to understand, for the first time (!), what it is that will give me most joy in my career and life from now onwards (I am 55 in a few days). I see this book as potentially an ideal vehicle to do that.

I see this as being of value to anyone of any age who is reviewing their life and wondering what next.

WHO

I am looking for some fellow travellers to go on this journey with me.

The prime target audience is those who are considering their current career position and what to do next regardless of age. However, I can also see this material being relevant to coaches, line managers, leaders, learning professionals and so on.

Ideally, these would be people who are familiar with WOL circle values but who have not necessarily (yet) done a full 12-week WOL circle.

I will facilitate but I will be reading the book at the same time as you do so it will be my favourite kind of fearless adventure. I am not, therefore, an expert on this content!

I am happy for 1 or many more people to join me. I have no idea what the likely interest will be.

My expectation is that people would commit to attending the “events”, reading the book and completing the exercises each week. This will possibly be some 2 hours a week "work" (a total guess!).

HOW

A series of 12 (is that the magic number?) weekly 1-hourly "events" to run through our learning from the book and the outputs from the exercises.

I am envisaging the breakdown of the 12 weeks per the list below containing the headings from the book:

1. Welcome, Introduction and Setting the Scene
2. Chapter 1 - Start Where You Are
   • The Health, Work, Play, Love Dashboard
3. Chapter 2 - Building A Compass
   • Work View and Life View
4. Chapter 3 - Wayfinding
   • Good Time Journal
5. Chapter 4 - Getting Unstuck
   • Mindmaps
   • Role/ Job Descriptions
6. Chapter 5 - Design Your Life
   • Odyssey Plans
7. Chapter 6 - Protoyping
   • Life Design Interviews
8. Chapter 7 - How Not To Get a Job
   • Review Job Descriptions
9. Chapter 8 - Designing Your Dream Job and Chapter 9 - Choosing Happiness0
10. Chapter 10 - Failure Immunity
    • Failure Reframe
11. Chapter 11 - Building a Team
    • Life Design Team
12. Conclusion - A Well-Designed Life

This is NOT a WOL circle. BUT as we go along it may be the case that some of the WOL circle exercises are practically useful in applying the book content. As always, I am open to anything that comes to mind through any process that I am a part of.

WHEN

I am taking April 2017 "off" after being #allin for the WOL circle in Q1 so I will be starting this group from the beginning of May with the first call likely to be Monday 8 May 2017 by which time we should have read the relevant section of the book and be ready to discuss it. 

Timing of calls to be agreed when I see who is interested and where you are timezone-wise. My initial preference is Mondays in a slot between 18:30 and 20:00 BST but do not let that put you off expressing interest.

WHERE

The "events" will be online and likely to use Zoom for calls and Slack for discussions within the group.

If you have not used these products before, do not worry. I successfully used both in the circle that has just finished and all 5 of us had not used either tool before. You will get whatever help you need to get up and running.

There are free options on both.

FURTHER INFO ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND THEIR WORLD VIEWS

Since posting about the book earlier in the year, I have discovered that Bill is an existential atheist (I need to look that up!) and Dave is an evangelical Christian (I know what that is, I'm one!).

In a podcast interview, I heard Dave explaining that he has additional content specifically for Christians that he does not make available from the book's web site as he does not want that to be a factor in people deciding to read the book or not and also in deference to his co-author's views.

I intend making this content available to those who want it and it may be of interest, in any case, to all in the group. This content may get discussed if I or others deem any of it particularly helpful.

EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST

If you would like to join me, please reply in the comments in this post or direct message me on Twitter and I will be in touch.

If you have any questions on any of this, please ask.

Looking forward to my next "whirlwind adventure" (I said in best Shrek's Donkey accent!).