The late Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, taught us to “begin with the end in mind.” Visualize your 80th birthday, or your own funeral eulogy, he wrote. What would you want people from several spheres of your life’s journey—workplace, family, community, faith community—to say about you? Wouldn’t you desire them to describe you as a GREAT PERSON. That’s how Wayne Gretzky, known as “The Great One,” described his dad who recently passed away.
Our mission at IHTC is to work with adults to assist us all on our journey to GREATNESS. That is the “end in mind,” which we ourselves, and we trust you, have as a life goal and dream.
So, what does that look like?
The Harvard Grant Men’s Study, now the longest running study of adult development, asked that question. Dr. George E. Vaillant, one of directors of the study, wrote about the metric of greatness that the researchers used, “The Decathlon of Flourishing.”
You can read about it here. We will reference it in future posts.
There is also a great TED talk by the current director of the study.
Bottom line is LOVE AND RELATIONAL CONNECTION. We will explore recent exciting research on that topic in upcoming posts and how the right brain and the vagus nerve play big roles in relational, physical and mental health. And in what the medical literature calls spontaneous remissions.
And of course, that is why Covid is so hard for so many of us. We crave connection.
No one on their deathbed wishes they had spent more time at the office. Or left a bigger estate. Greatness is the relationships that were nurtured in a lifetime. And facing death with peace.
Compassionately,
Great article Henk