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Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives
How do you want to live?
Are you living a life you love—or just getting by?
Many people today are searching for more joy, meaning, and fulfillment in their lives. LIFE Entrepreneurs shares the inspiring stories of people who didn’t settle for just okay. Instead, they intentionally designed lives of purpose, passion, and adventure.
Through the book, you’ll discover:
✅ What’s most important to you
✅ Your vision of the good life
✅ A framework for creating an extraordinary life, with actionable approaches
• “Pick up this book and read it. It might change your life.” -Stephen R. Covey
• “…one of the most inspiring and unique books I have come across in a long time.” -Warren Bennis
• “I highly recommend it.” -Howard Schultz
• “…this book belongs on the nightstand of every thoughtful businessperson in America.” -Daniel Pink
• “At last, a powerful guide to integrating life, work, purpose, and work-life balance…. A great gift.” -Frances Hesselbein
• (The authors) “address the central issue of every emerging leader, ‘How can I design my life to be both fulfilling and significant?’… a must-read for all of us to use on our own journeys.” -Bill George
• “…provocative reading for all those committed to creating a life of significance and meaning.” -Wendy Kopp
• “This book is true, smart, honest, hopeful, and helpful…. Buy this book, read it, and then do it!” -Alan M. Webber
• “A great road map for anyone who is looking to find success and fulfillment doing what they are passionate about.” -Steve Ells, Chipotle
The Entrepreneurial Spirit—Applied to Your Life.
In LIFE Entrepreneurs, Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek offer fresh stories and strategies for creating an extraordinary life. “LIFE entrepreneurs” are ordinary people who intentionally craft their lives through distinctively entrepreneurial behavior—and, in so doing, create lives of success and significance. (You don’t have to be a business entrepreneur to be a LIFE entrepreneur.)
Drawing on revealing interviews with 55 people from all walks of life, the authors provide vivid examples, frameworks, and strategies for helping you boost your quality of life.
Live boldly.
Blaze your own path.
LIFE Entrepreneurs tells the stories of people who have reinvented themselves and infused their life and work with energy, impact, and fulfillment. It is a clarion call for integrating your life and work with purpose and passion.
Ordinary people creating extraordinary lives.
Mavericks in the art of living.
People taking their lives back.
Are you living a life you love—or just getting by?
Many people today are searching for more joy, meaning, and fulfillment in their lives. LIFE Entrepreneurs shares the inspiring stories of people who didn’t settle for just okay. Instead, they intentionally designed lives of purpose, passion, and adventure.
Through the book, you’ll discover:
✅ What’s most important to you
✅ Your vision of the good life
✅ A framework for creating an extraordinary life, with actionable approaches
• “Pick up this book and read it. It might change your life.” -Stephen R. Covey
• “…one of the most inspiring and unique books I have come across in a long time.” -Warren Bennis
• “I highly recommend it.” -Howard Schultz
• “…this book belongs on the nightstand of every thoughtful businessperson in America.” -Daniel Pink
• “At last, a powerful guide to integrating life, work, purpose, and work-life balance…. A great gift.” -Frances Hesselbein
• (The authors) “address the central issue of every emerging leader, ‘How can I design my life to be both fulfilling and significant?’… a must-read for all of us to use on our own journeys.” -Bill George
• “…provocative reading for all those committed to creating a life of significance and meaning.” -Wendy Kopp
• “This book is true, smart, honest, hopeful, and helpful…. Buy this book, read it, and then do it!” -Alan M. Webber
• “A great road map for anyone who is looking to find success and fulfillment doing what they are passionate about.” -Steve Ells, Chipotle
The Entrepreneurial Spirit—Applied to Your Life.
In LIFE Entrepreneurs, Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek offer fresh stories and strategies for creating an extraordinary life. “LIFE entrepreneurs” are ordinary people who intentionally craft their lives through distinctively entrepreneurial behavior—and, in so doing, create lives of success and significance. (You don’t have to be a business entrepreneur to be a LIFE entrepreneur.)
Drawing on revealing interviews with 55 people from all walks of life, the authors provide vivid examples, frameworks, and strategies for helping you boost your quality of life.
Live boldly.
Blaze your own path.
LIFE Entrepreneurs tells the stories of people who have reinvented themselves and infused their life and work with energy, impact, and fulfillment. It is a clarion call for integrating your life and work with purpose and passion.
Ordinary people creating extraordinary lives.
Mavericks in the art of living.
People taking their lives back.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published March 7, 2008
21 people are currently reading
291 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
January 29, 2011
I was assigned this book for a fellowship in D.C. where we workshop our ambitions and develop a plan to make it happen.
Overall, any life manual that helps the reader get motivated and methodical about how to achieve their highest potential is a good thing. This book was fine in terms of providing a roadmap to personal success.
What irked me about it was the consistent spin that framed my generation as a collection of nimble, inspired seekers unafraid to hop from job to job as we seek our our individual path. The fact is that my generation has come of age during the utter decline of labor and the uncontested rise of corporate capitalism. Workers have been reduced to mere commodified cogs in the employ of heartless transnational corporations who have no allegiance to any country (let alone community).
Focusing on a few captains of industry who've made it work (often with the unmentioned benefit of first class educations, high powered social networks, and lives of privilege), tells an all-too-rosy story of success in America. Modern day Horatio Algiers can still make it through pluck and luck, but the fact is that if you're born poor in America, you'll more than likely stay poor. If you're born rich, you'll likely stay that way unless you're bereft of individual drive.
Overall, any life manual that helps the reader get motivated and methodical about how to achieve their highest potential is a good thing. This book was fine in terms of providing a roadmap to personal success.
What irked me about it was the consistent spin that framed my generation as a collection of nimble, inspired seekers unafraid to hop from job to job as we seek our our individual path. The fact is that my generation has come of age during the utter decline of labor and the uncontested rise of corporate capitalism. Workers have been reduced to mere commodified cogs in the employ of heartless transnational corporations who have no allegiance to any country (let alone community).
Focusing on a few captains of industry who've made it work (often with the unmentioned benefit of first class educations, high powered social networks, and lives of privilege), tells an all-too-rosy story of success in America. Modern day Horatio Algiers can still make it through pluck and luck, but the fact is that if you're born poor in America, you'll more than likely stay poor. If you're born rich, you'll likely stay that way unless you're bereft of individual drive.
September 25, 2008
Surprisingly interesting and fluid, "Life Entrepreneurs" is more narrative than a typical business book. The essence of the book is that with focus and timely effort, you can create a well-balanced and purposeful life for yourself. A few striking quotes:
"'A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a writer must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.'" - Abraham Maslow
“'Follow your bliss.'” – mythologist Joseph Campbell
“'Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.'” – Howard Thurman , American author & civil rights leader
"'A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a writer must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.'" - Abraham Maslow
“'Follow your bliss.'” – mythologist Joseph Campbell
“'Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.'” – Howard Thurman , American author & civil rights leader
October 4, 2025
Life Entrepreneurs is a book about much more than career or business. It’s about treating your entire life as a creative, intentional venture—where you are both the architect and the actor.
Gergen and Vanourek guide readers through seven steps that form the heart of the “life entrepreneur’s path.” It begins with the deep inward work of discovering core identity—understanding our authentic values and purpose—before moving outward to awakening to opportunity, envisioning a future worth pursuing, and developing goals and strategies to bridge the gap between vision and reality. The journey continues with the importance of building healthy support systems, the courage to take action and make a difference, and finally embracing renewal and reinvention, ensuring we never stop evolving.
What makes the book stand out is its blend of inspiration and practicality. The authors don’t just lay out steps; they offer principles for how to walk them: authentic integrity, deep awareness, breakthrough innovation, purposeful spontaneity, courage, adaptive persistence, and a pervasive ethic of service. These qualities anchor the entrepreneurial spirit not in profit or prestige, but in contribution and meaning.
The prose is accessible and encouraging, with stories and examples that ground the ideas in everyday life. Rather than presenting “extraordinary living” as something reserved for the few, the book frames it as a possibility open to anyone willing to cultivate awareness, courage, and creativity.
For readers seeking to align who they are with what they do—and to make a genuine difference along the way—Life Entrepreneurs provides both a compass and a map. It’s a thoughtful, energizing read that invites you not just to think differently, but to live differently.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Highly recommended for anyone interested in personal growth, meaningful work, and designing a life of authenticity and impact.
Gergen and Vanourek guide readers through seven steps that form the heart of the “life entrepreneur’s path.” It begins with the deep inward work of discovering core identity—understanding our authentic values and purpose—before moving outward to awakening to opportunity, envisioning a future worth pursuing, and developing goals and strategies to bridge the gap between vision and reality. The journey continues with the importance of building healthy support systems, the courage to take action and make a difference, and finally embracing renewal and reinvention, ensuring we never stop evolving.
What makes the book stand out is its blend of inspiration and practicality. The authors don’t just lay out steps; they offer principles for how to walk them: authentic integrity, deep awareness, breakthrough innovation, purposeful spontaneity, courage, adaptive persistence, and a pervasive ethic of service. These qualities anchor the entrepreneurial spirit not in profit or prestige, but in contribution and meaning.
The prose is accessible and encouraging, with stories and examples that ground the ideas in everyday life. Rather than presenting “extraordinary living” as something reserved for the few, the book frames it as a possibility open to anyone willing to cultivate awareness, courage, and creativity.
For readers seeking to align who they are with what they do—and to make a genuine difference along the way—Life Entrepreneurs provides both a compass and a map. It’s a thoughtful, energizing read that invites you not just to think differently, but to live differently.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Highly recommended for anyone interested in personal growth, meaningful work, and designing a life of authenticity and impact.
January 13, 2019
This book was timely and wildly life-changing. It's not that I'm going to go start my own business tomorrow. That would be silly. The "strategies and stories of integrating life, work, and purpose" hit hard for someone who has compartmentalized work and life for so long. I feel liberated from the tethers of too much structure at a point in my life that it finally needed to change. So good.
5-Star: Everyone should read this.
4-Star: Everyone in this specific field should read this.
3-Star: This was a decent read for the specific field, but there are better options.
2-Star: It got me to the end of the book, so there is that.
1-Star: It was bad enough that I didn't finish it.
5-Star: Everyone should read this.
4-Star: Everyone in this specific field should read this.
3-Star: This was a decent read for the specific field, but there are better options.
2-Star: It got me to the end of the book, so there is that.
1-Star: It was bad enough that I didn't finish it.
December 6, 2017
Read for a non profit leadearship course.
April 21, 2021
This book did not resonate with me at all which is weird because I'm very into this topic.
January 17, 2016
I was assigned this book for a leadership training I'm doing, and I both liked it and disliked it. The stories of the people who they interviewed seemed very condensed and fairy-tale-ized--while people had struggles, they always had happy endings, and they always managed to balance hard work with their personal lives. I suppose for the inspo genre this is the kind of stories they would select. It also seemed to lionize a lot of very corporate aspirations as "socially conscious", and it didn't point out the role of privilege in the successes of many of the entrepreneurs. Again, it's all about "self-made" people, which I resist as a concept.
I did appreciate just taking time to think about what kind of work I want to be doing, and thinking about how people take control of their own schedules. Like these entrepreneurs, I would like to be able to carve out a work-life balance outside of the conventional, and that is focused on social change. Read the book for some reflection on those ideas.
I did appreciate just taking time to think about what kind of work I want to be doing, and thinking about how people take control of their own schedules. Like these entrepreneurs, I would like to be able to carve out a work-life balance outside of the conventional, and that is focused on social change. Read the book for some reflection on those ideas.
to-read-if
August 28, 2014Three reviewers, and their reviews, intrigued me enough to begin this:
"Pick up this book and read it. It might change your life." - Stephen R. Covey, author of some favorites
"Gergen and Vanourek have done a spectacular job shining a light on a new approach to professional success and personal fulfillment… Belongs on the nightstand of every thoughtful business person in America." - Daniel H. Pink, author of some other favorites
"This book is true, smart, honest, hopeful, and helpful. Here's the good news: entrepreneurship isn't just a way of making a living — it's a way of life. Buy this book, read it, and then do it!" - Alan M. Webber, co-founding editor, Fast Company magazine
Life Entrepreneurs. Deep Intrapreneurs?
"Pick up this book and read it. It might change your life." - Stephen R. Covey, author of some favorites
"Gergen and Vanourek have done a spectacular job shining a light on a new approach to professional success and personal fulfillment… Belongs on the nightstand of every thoughtful business person in America." - Daniel H. Pink, author of some other favorites
"This book is true, smart, honest, hopeful, and helpful. Here's the good news: entrepreneurship isn't just a way of making a living — it's a way of life. Buy this book, read it, and then do it!" - Alan M. Webber, co-founding editor, Fast Company magazine
Life Entrepreneurs. Deep Intrapreneurs?
May 26, 2012
I started off not really liking the book. In fact, while I read it i thought to myself "I should just be doing stuff rather than reading this book!" The book had a weird mix of too many stories that all sounded similar, of people leaving their jobs to pursue a social or creative endeavour. It complemented those stories with a really broad approach to the topics discussed in each chapter.
What I actually liked best in the book was the appendix, which summarized each of the book's chapters. Without all the stories of the same faceless people leaving their jobs, that's I was able to internalize the lessons and enjoy the book.
What I actually liked best in the book was the appendix, which summarized each of the book's chapters. Without all the stories of the same faceless people leaving their jobs, that's I was able to internalize the lessons and enjoy the book.
February 11, 2014
I was sort of assigned this book for a leadership training course I am participating in. Incredibly schmaltzy, bland vanilla self-help/inspiration. A lot of personal stories of success which I generally don't find helpful. In the case of this book, half of those success stories involve the protagonist overcoming whatever by starting their own business or organization--that's the entrepreneurship part, right?
I found that impossible to relate to, myself, but if you're in a fortunate enough position to have easy access to credit/capital, maybe it's your cup of tea.
I found that impossible to relate to, myself, but if you're in a fortunate enough position to have easy access to credit/capital, maybe it's your cup of tea.
October 8, 2012
This was one of the better "popular books" on leadership and work/life balance. It focused on telling a lot of qualitative stories, but the distilled points and activities are very useful. The text is broken down into the following chapters:
1. Discover your core identity
2. Awaken to opportunity
3. Envision the future
4. Develop goals & strategies
5. Build healthy support systems
6. Take action, make a difference
7. Embrace renewal and reinvention
1. Discover your core identity
2. Awaken to opportunity
3. Envision the future
4. Develop goals & strategies
5. Build healthy support systems
6. Take action, make a difference
7. Embrace renewal and reinvention
February 27, 2015
This has dozens of brief case studies of individual entrepreneurs, so there is breadth at the sacrifice of depth. There's some useful concept-diagramming regarding the difference between having "direction" and having the "drive" to do something about it, and between having creative ideas and translating them -- through a reflective process -- into action.
January 29, 2016
Had to read this for a SJ fellowship, Some good info that I didn't know. but n most stories and examples were not very relatable, very white and middle to upper class, many spoonfuls of neo liberalism. Leaves me wondering what books are good for folks wanting to sustain a social justice project or business???
March 27, 2014
This book just came at the right time. Its about the lifestyle of an entrepreneur and how to maintain a healthy approach to it. It definitely helped me reflect on my current approach objectively and hopefully I'll be able to improve it in the coming months.
September 23, 2012
Want to follow your passion and create your own path? This is the book for you--
September 21, 2013
It was okay. Not sure there was anything standout about it.
December 31, 2013
Inspiring for anyone who wants to make a difference in the world combining politics, business, and positive values.
January 2, 2016
I was inspired by this book to think more deeply about how my dreams and values can be incorporated into a fulfilling career.
January 19, 2016
Great book for discovering your path.
September 26, 2016
I really enjoyed the success stories in this book. I think it shows that inspiration for success can come in many different forms.
November 20, 2015
Lots of info packed in for young (20s-30s) entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews