Author David Cooperrider suggests in his book Appreciative Inquiry, ‘Human systems grow in the direction of what they persistently ask questions about, and this propensity is strongest and most sustainable when the means and ends of inquiry are positively correlated.

That said, there are three prevalent sources of fuel for the inner fire across the vastly different lives in the study. In addition to love of the doing, the two others are:

Extend Out/Circle Back: This is a continuous dynamic process of extending yourself— growing, learning, experimenting, expanding capabilities, discovering new encodings— while simultaneously drawing upon encodings discovered and capabilities developed earlier in life.

I’ve noted how this research profoundly changed me and what I think about how life works. And one of the most significant transformations is my appreciation for the inevitable fog of life. Fog, I came to understand, is a common human experience, even for people who otherwise seem to have great clarity about what to make of their lives. And if episodes of fog enveloped even people in this study, none of us should judge ourselves harshly when we wake up one day to find ourselves befuddled and confused in the fog.

Extending out feeds the inner fire by animating the human yearning for growth, learning, discovery, and challenge; it activates the joy of self-development, capturing the youthful energy that comes from starting anew. Extending out can reveal previously hidden encodings; a continuous process of discovery that feeds the inner fire. (Wow, that’s exciting— I never knew I had that inside me!) Circle back also acts as a source of reinvigoration, but in a different way. Circling back reframes big bright encodings discovered long ago, which also feeds the inner fire. To circle back by tapping encodings discovered earlier in life is like refueling for the next phase if extending out.

I seem to have at least as much energy at 67 as I had at 37, perhaps even more. I need less sleep. I feel on the balls of my feet, tilted forward. I can't wait to get up before 5 a.m. and throw myself into each day. The inner fire burns brighter than ever. There are multiple elements that feed into this, including the sheer good luck of health to this point in my life. But now I see that one huge element has to do with this very project being an invigorating fusion of Extend Out/Circle Back. By taking on an entirely new subject at this stage of life, shifting from studying what makes great companies tick to studying people and what makes their lives tick, I’m clearly extending out. At the same time, I’m also circling back, returning to encoded operating modes I discovered years ago, particularly my penchant for doing big research projects, going from chaos to concept, and then writing and teaching what I learn. I’m incredibly energized by discovering entirely new elements of myself in doing this project and by how the study itself has changed me in such profound ways. I’m equally energized by circling back to activate and reactivate interests and encodings I’d discovered long ago.