Pick Your Gummy Bear
An Invitation to Embrace the Unknown
From muddy football fields in Belgium to a dot-com start-up in New York, from the heights of the Tibetan Plateau to the stillness of a meditation hall in Kyoto, Johan Depraetere's journey has been shaped not by caution but by moments of daring. He imagined these choices as reaching into a bag of gummy bears and pulling out the rare green ones: dramatic, bold, life-changing. Others were like picking a yellow gummy bear: quieter, softer. Yet each choice, whatever its colour, opened doors to possibility and growth.
Through twelve vivid, personal and honest stories, Johan shows how both subtle whispers and bold leaps pushed him beyond comfort and into a fuller, unbounded life - the thrill of stepping past the familiar. This is an invitation to recognise the inflection points in your own journey: the moments when comfort pulls one way and curiosity beckons another.
Pick Your Gummy Bear is your companion for those crossroads in life, when you pause and ask: Which gummy bear will I choose?
For discussion guides, reflection questions, author photos and resources: www.johandepraetere.com/resources
Book club questions for Pick Your Gummy Bear by Johan Depraetere
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
The book opens with the 99.9% / 0.1% distinction. Looking at your own life, can you identify two or three choices that belong to the 0.1 per cent, the ones that actually changed the shape of your life?
Green gummy bears are bold and visible; yellow ones are quiet and compounding. Which type has shaped your life more, and which do you find harder to notice?
Johan describes his inner critic as the voice that must be quieted to hear the genuine signal beneath. How does your inner critic tend to show up at crossroads moments, and what, if anything, has helped you manage it?
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Create My ClubThe concept of the balcony and the dance floor runs through the book. How often do you step onto the balcony of your own life, and what tends to pull you back to the dance floor?
Peter is described as an enabler, someone who created the conditions for others to take risks by having gone first. Who has been an enabler in your life, and are they aware of it?
Johan emphasises accepting the consequences of gummy bear choices , including the ones that don't work out. How do you relate to the idea that failure carries its own form of growth?
A vivir que son dos días, to live, which is two days. What is your personal equivalent of this phrase? What is the belief or compass that reminds you of what actually matters?
The book ends with Peter's death and his wedding inscription: 'Every moment is perfect, even this beautiful stain.' What does that phrase mean to you?
The closing question of the entire book is simply: Why not? What gummy bear, green or yellow, have you been carrying but not yet eaten?
Johan describes himself as a work in progress. After reading the book, what is one thing about your own bag of gummy bears that you see differently?
Pick Your Gummy Bear Book Club Questions PDF
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