Meaning Marketplace Book 1: Meaning Basics

By Michael Mitchell

This series of booklets will help you identify, nurture, and create meaning in your life. This series declares that it is meaning that makes the world go around. We dedicate our lives to survival, education, earning a living, passions, entertainment, and the pursuit of chocolate, I mean happiness. Contrary to popular belief, happiness is not the answer to all our ills. A 2013 article in The Atlantic magazine states that, “People who are happy but have little-to-no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity.”
Each booklet identifies a universal meaning making element and then provides several avenues of insight to help you understand and apply it in your life. I start out with an experience from my life, or the life of someone I personally know, that I hope connects me to you in a personal way. I follow up the experience with application ideas and tools for you to consider. Each booklet will conclude with my personal research of the work of scholars and practitioners. By the end of the 16 booklet series, you will possess a broad and deep understanding of meaning making and the tools to apply it in your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Mitchell
• Release date: Feb 8, 2016

Michael Mitchell

I was born in Iowa, the oldest of three siblings. They are smarter, more compassionate, and better looking than me. Our family moved to Southern California when I was nine where I became an Angels baseball fan. I worked on my grandfather’s farm in Iowa every summer until I turned 16. I ran cross country and track in high school and worked at Disneyland my last years of high school. I had wanted to fly since I was three and decided I wanted to go the U.S. Air Force Academy to achieve that dream. I earned my undergraduate degree in International Affairs from the United States Air Force Academy, a Master of Science in Systems Management from the from the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California, a Master of Arts in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in International Business from the International School of Management, Paris, France. A former career Air Force officer and command pilot, I have had a second career in business, academics, and as a writer. My career has spanned the globe—72 countries and counting, where I have had growing opportunities to work with leaders of nations and captains of industry. I have served as the CEO of several companies, a leader of an Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies in the United States two years in a row, a Director of both for profit and non-profit enterprise boards, and as a university professor. I am the author of five books and numerous academic and commercial publications. I am the father of 6 children and grandfather of 7. My wife Vicky and I presently live in the foothills of the California Sierras.

Book preview

The Meaning Marketplace™ Series is a non-fiction work that is informed by Dr. Mitchell’s research and experience. Some of the concepts and theories discussed in this series have found their way into the author’s fictional works. In both forms, the author hopes to edify , not just entertain the reader.

Byblos Media

Newark, Delaware

Copyright © 2016 by Byblos Media. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published in the United States of America

First Edition

Cover design by Kent Bingham

More by this author at www.mike-mitchell.com

More on the Meaning Marketplace at http://www.meaningmarketplace.com/

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PART ONE

Life Application

Introduction

I have designed this series of booklets to help you identify, nurture, and create meaning in your life. Each booklet has two main purposes. First and foremost, each booklet will identify a meaning making element common in all our lives and offer applications for creating and then building up this area to its full potential. Secondly, each booklet will provide a more rigorous foundation of contemporary research and theory of a particular meaning making topic. By the end of the 16 booklet series, the reader will have a valuable breadth and depth of meaning making understanding.

More specifically, it is my personal goal to help you create new meaning where you identify shortfalls. I will get deeper into the subject of meaning and why it is so important later in this introductory booklet, but to start out I want to declare that it is meaning that makes the world go around. We dedicate our lives to education, survival, earning a living, entertainment, and the pursuit of chocolate, I mean, happiness. Contrary to popular belief, happiness is not the answer to all our ills. A 2013 article in The Atlantic magazine states that, People who are happy but have little-to-no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity. My research goes beyond this magazine article and I hope to take you to a healthier place, no matter where you find yourself today.

In each booklet, I start out with an experience from my life, or the life of someone I personally know, that I hope connects me to you in a personal way. This first booklet offers a group of experiences that stimulated my initial thoughts on the subject of meaning. Later in my life, as I considered topics for my PhD dissertation, meaning became a key component in my research and findings.

I follow up the introductory experience with application ideas and tools for you to consider. In this first booklet I propose and answer the questions you might ask: What is meaning? Why is it important? What do I mean by the Meaning Marketplace? Why should I read this series of booklets?

Each booklet will conclude with my personal research of the work of academics, scholars, and practitioners in the area or theme I have presented in part one. Through personal experiences, and rigorous research. I hope to provide more than a surface level offering of this important topic.