The Purpose Playbook: Design Your Life Around What Matters Most

This book sets out to help readers find their purpose, and then help them develop a lifestyle that will keep them “on purpose” (i.e. live their lives in line with their individual purposes). It acknowledges that we are all different, and hence our purposes will be different. The chapters are divided into three main parts: the first tries to define “purpose”, the second focuses on finding one’s purpose, and the third explores living on purpose. The narrative is easy to read, and some chapters have exercises that are supposed to help readers discover their own purpose.

Like other books of this genre, this one draws primarily from anecdotal evidence. In this case, most of the examples come from the author’s life experiences. The narrative acknowledges that all of our purposes are different, but does not adequately show that following the path outlined will work for all readers. The introduction states that the methodology used in this book has been adopted from that used to help organizations articulate their purposes. Individual and organization purposes have several differences. An overall methodology that works for organizations may not work for individuals (who change more frequently and have a richer array of qualities and ambitions than do organizations). While the book is an easy and interesting read, it does not adequately make the case that its methodology will work for all readers.