Flourish

A ground-breaking exploration of the groups and relationships that create well-being and success for everyone - and what we can learn from them

We all want to flourish. We want to create harmony, well-being and joy in our lives and those around us. The question is, how?

Daniel Coyle has spent the last six years researching and visiting 'holistic hotbeds'- groups, teams, businesses, and communities which have, accidentally or on purpose, created deep, thriving relationships that generate high levels of shared success and well-being. From a small town in Vermont that has produced 11 Olympians over the past 40 years - where most of the Olympians return to live and work after their athletic careers are over - to a Michigan deli that accidentally grew into a $70 million business. And from a grassroots organization in an impoverished Kenyan settlement that has produced Ivy League students, to a successful multi-billion dollar company that functions like an extended family.

Coyle discovered that all these groups flourish using three skills, which form the three parts of this book. In Skill 1 - The Surrendering - we'll learn about our brain's holistic-awareness system and how to use it to create connection and belonging. In Skill 2 - The Unleashing - we'll learn how creating small instabilities can ignite energy, ownership, and self-organizing action toward a shared horizon. In Skill 3 - The Deep Fun - we'll learn how audacious experiments can generate new versions of yourself and your group.

The overarching idea is that flourishing is created by a matrix of quiet but powerful group interactions that create interdependence, energy and growth. Flourishing isn't a puzzle you solve alone; it's a set of living relationships that generate the shared capability to shape your future, together.