3 tips for living the vital life, rather than the vanilla life

Gordon Mackenzie, author of Orbiting the Giant Hairball, inspired many people to revitalise their creativity whilst working with corporations. He believed it was vital to retain the juiciness of life. If you don’t watch out, he said, life can become like one of the peaches you find in supermarkets. From the outside it looks perfect. When taking a bite, however, the peach tastes like concrete. People work best when they generate their creative juices. This comes from living the vital life, rather than the vanilla life. Let’s explore how to make this happen.

* You can recognise what it means to live the vital life.

Start by describing what the vital life is for you. One person wrote: “The vital life for me is: doing creative work, cooking fresh food, listening to Van Morrison, mountain biking, skiing, walking by the sea, meeting friends, getting enough sleep and driving with the roof down.”

Gordon Mackenzie encouraged people to stay fresh. Spending 30 years working for the Hallmark Card Company, he managed to ‘orbit’ successfully around the ‘hairball’ of organisational bureaucracy without getting strangled. He wanted people to continue to explore. One chapter consists of just one sentence: “Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s licence.” Explorers know what it means. How can you keep your senses alive? Try completing the following sentence.

The vital life for me is:

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* You can avoid living the vanilla life.

One person said: “The vanilla life for me is: sitting in boring meetings, staying in soulless hotels, hotel food, spending more than 3 nights a week away from home, listening to ‘observer critics’, flying on business trips, spending a day without music.” What is the vanilla life for you? How can you avoid some of these experiences? Try completing the following sentence.

The vanilla life for me is:

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* You can live the vital life in the future.

“I am fed-up with plain vanilla,” said one person, “Now and again I want to add a bit of tutti-frutti.” Sounds exciting and, providing it doesn’t hurt anybody, extremely encouraging. Try completing the following sentence.

The things I can do to live the vital life in the future are:

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Gordon Mackenzie died in 1999, soon after the publication of ‘Hairball’. He urged people to continue gaining enriching experiences. The final two sentences of his book are: “If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.” Gordon created his masterpiece and lived a vital life. He certainly wasn't vanilla.