“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born...and the day you find out why.” -Mark Twain 

On September 25th, Dr. Vic Strecher will deliver a talk to Georgia Tech students and employees about the value of living a purpose-filled life. Dr. Strecher, CEO and Founder of JOOL Health, created the JOOL application to serve as a personal life coach for users to achieve their goals and focus on their purpose. Attendees will have the opportunity to speak with Dr. Strecher before the event begins during a small reception.

Dr. Vic Strecher, a dynamic speaker and award-winning pioneer in the field of behavioral science and professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, lost his nineteen-year-old daughter, Julia, to a rare heart disease that resulted from an infant case of chicken pox. This life event challenged every aspect of Strecher’s personal and professional experience and drove him to an exhaustive search, from ancient philosophy to cutting-edge science, to pinpoint the potential and impact of purpose in our lives. What is it? How can we discover it? And what does the latest research tell us about the importance of how purpose affects our overall health and happiness?

 In 2015, he founded JOOL Health, a digital health solution company with the goal to help individuals achieve a harmonious balance across the four dimensions of life: personal, family, work, and community. Director of Health Behavior, in Health Initiatives, Dr. Tiffiny Hughes-Troutman said, “this talk will provide strong, compelling messages on living life with greater health and happiness and will provide reassurance that self-directed positive change is possible.”

The JOOL application delivers personalized guidance, tips, insights, and science-backed messages to help users discover and maintain their life purpose. Dr. Strecher will discuss how the app works and provide insight into discovering your own authentic meaning in life. Dr. Hughes-Troutman said, “the ability to bounce back from life’s experiences…can help us be happier and more resilient. Purpose in life also helps us reframe stressful situations to deal with them more productively, thereby facilitating recovery from stress and trauma.”

The benefits to discovering your purpose include improved mental health, reduced depressive feelings, improved sleep, greater job satisfaction, and the promotion of diversity and inclusion. Overall, having an end goal to model your actions after helps everything else fall into place. Dr. Strecher puts it best: “Your purpose becomes your inner motivator, turning on the ignition switch in your brain to transcend the noise in your life and focus on what matters most.”

The talk takes place from 12-1 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom and both Georgia Tech students and employees are invited to attend. A reception co-sponsored by Health Initiatives and Dining Services will be held from 11:30 a.m. to noon where attendees can speak with Dr. Stretcher before the talk. For more information on JOOL and the event, see http://healthinitiatives.gatech.edu/jool.