Encore Living

Are you winning the game of life based on the rules you learned in school and on the job but not feeling the thrill of victory?

You’re not alone.

Many people feel cheated in midlife despite following society's rules (although you can recognize the false promises of the “pursuit of happiness” at any age).

What’s going on?

You can’t win when you're playing someone else’s.

And you definitely can’t win a game you don’t want to play.

What to do?

It’s time to play your game.

You can find fulfillment, forge meaning, and make a difference in your life’s next chapter by mastering the art of encore living.

What’s “your life’s next chapter?”

It’s the life you live from the inside out when you’re ready to stop searching for external instruction and validation for how to play the game of life.

What is encore living?

• It’s a journey of defining, developing, and delivering the difference only you can make. 

• It’s a life that leverages who you really are, what you’re really good at, and where you really belong.

• Instead of a legacy of money and monuments left behind after you die, it’s a life where you live your legacy through endeavors that matter.

In short, mastering the art of encore living is about playing your game all in and full out.¹ Encore living² cultivates fulfillment by living your life’s next chapter fully. 

If you still need to figure out your game, The Art of Encore Living helps dial it in. 

If you’ve got some idea of your game but seek greater clarity and confidence in navigating your way forward, The Art of Encore Living provides a compass to expedite your wayfinding.

And if you’re lucky enough to have already discerned and embraced your encore life, this guide will provide you with a vocabulary to help you articulate the principles and practices with others to help them do the same. 

The Art of Encore Living continues exploring the three questions I asked readers in the opening of an earlier book, Endeavor: Cultivate Excellence While Making a Difference.³

Those questions are, “What does it mean to be human?” “What does it mean to be happy?” And “How can I be more of both?”

This guide provides insight and inspiration for cultivating purposeful and passionate living by exploring those questions, but the real magic is executing its ideas. 

What got you where you are won’t get you where you want to be.

To make things different, you have to see and do things differently.

And while change may happen over long periods of chronological time,⁴ it happens through purposely living moment to moment.⁵

Resources and exercises are included to inspire you to take intentional action with the principles and practices in this guide.

This guide⁶ helps you hear and heed the call of vocation—the work you’re meant to do now.

Your life is speaking to you because it wants to speak through you.

Let your life speak.

This article is the republished “A Note From the Author” from my handbook, “The Art of Encore Living.” See the links in the footnotes to access additional chapters⁷ or to purchase the complete guide for $1 on Amazon,⁸ or access the entire course for free.⁹