The Flourishing Manifesto: Principles for Living an Excellent Life

Welcome to Live well and Flourish, where I help you understand what it means to live a flourishing life.

I'm your host, Craig Van Slyke.

If you're ready to think beyond material and external success, if you're ready to take control of who you are and the kind of life you live, if you're ready to flourish, this is the podcast for you.

You don't achieve an excellent life, you live it.

An excellent life emerges naturally when you create the right conditions, when you act with purpose, embrace virtue, and remain mindful of life's ordinary beauty.

These are some of the insights I've explored over 120plus episodes of live well and Flourish, and now I'm kind of excited to share them in a new form.

The Flourishing Manifesto the Flourishing Manifesto was created while working on a new book I'm writing, Live well and Axioms for Living an Excellent Life.

My plan is to write the book over the next few months, then make it available through Amazon or as a PDF or an ePub document.

I may also release some of the chapters through Live well and Flourish.

Be sure to subscribe or follow to catch these episodes.

You can do that@livewellandflourish.com by the way, you can also sign up for the Live well and Flourish newsletter there.

I decided to write the book because I kind of miss thinking about how to live a flourishing life.

Since putting the podcast on pause, I haven't spent enough time thinking about this.

So I decided to write a book organized around axioms or rules for living a flourishing life of excellence.

Remember, excellence is a journey, not a destination.

The axioms and the practical wisdom they represent can help you on your journey as they have helped me.

After coming up with the axioms, I asked ChatGPT to put them together into an overall philosophy of life.

The Flourishing Manifesto is the result.

I want to be clear.

What follows was written by ChatGPT, not me, but it was based on more than 120 episodes of Live well and Flourish.

I liked what ChatGPT wrote so much that I decided to share it with you.

Although ChatGPT wrote the words you're about to hear, the foundation for the manifesto comes from over 125,000 words of live well and Flourish transcripts.

Even though the words you're about to hear are not mine, the thoughts are all right, here's the Flourishing Manifesto.

Flourishing is not a destination.

It's a way of being in the world.

It's not measured by wealth, status, or fleeting happiness, but by how you live, how you love, and how you grow Flourishing begins with agency.

You are not a passenger.

Your choices define your character.

Every act, however small, is a thread in the fabric of who you are.

Flourishing is guided by virtue.

Courage, justice, kindness and wisdom are not lofty ideals, but daily practices that repeated, become habits, and habits lived become who you are.

Flourishing thrives in the ordinary.

It's found in small wins, quiet acts of kindness, and the between times that most people overlook.

To savor the small is to multiply joy.

Flourishing demands mindfulness and reflection.

Without awareness, life passes unnoticed.

Without reflection, experience remains unshaped.

Together, they turn moments into wisdom.

Flourishing embraces imperfection and impermanence.

Life is unfinished, transient, interconnected.

Beauty lies not in what endures forever, but in what changes, fades, and gives birth to the new.

Flourishing is oriented by purpose, not a rigid plan, but a North star, something to guide, to shape, to steady as you adapt to life's shifting terrain.

And flourishing is reciprocal.

Your growth uplifts others.

Their flourishing enriches yours.

A better world is built.

One kind act, one choice, one moment at a time.

To flourish is to live with virtue, purpose, mindfulness and compassion, practiced daily, embraced humbly in both the grand and the ordinary.

That's the manifesto.

Back to my words.

These principles emerged from years of exploring what it means to live an excellent life through conversations, research and personal experience.

They aren't just philosophical ideals.

They're practical guideposts for daily living.

As I develop these ideas further in my upcoming book, I'll share my thoughts in new episodes of Live well and Flourish.

I'd love for you to join me in this exploration of how we can create the conditions for excellence to emerge naturally in our lives.

What matters most is not just understanding these principles, but living them.

Start small.

Choose one area where you can exercise your agency today.

Practice one virtue mindfully.

Notice one ordinary moment.

That is how flourishing begins.

I produce Live well and Flourish because of my dedication to helping others live excellent lives.

I don't accept sponsorships and I don't want your money.

The only thing I want is to help you and others flourish.

If you've received some value from this episode, please share it with someone that might also benefit from listening.

The best way to do that is to direct them to livewellandflourish.com until next time.