I finished this book in January 2025. I recommend this book 3/10.
Why you should read this book:
This book was written by the famous author of "The Inventor's Dilemma" and Harvard professor Clayton Christensen after he had survived the same cancer that took his dad's life. As a professor, the question, "How will you measure your life" had been a topic in his final class at each semester. This book is what he learned from debating this with students for many years.
Get your copy here.
🚀 The book in three sentences
When thinking about success, don't just think about your career. Your home life also needs to be in order.
You should think about success as a whole package of life.
What "job" does my spouse need me to do? Can help ensure you are not missing the obvious.
✍️ My favorite quotes
Thomas Jefferson said, " The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family."
📝 My notes and thoughts
P15. That's the hallmark of a good theory: it dispenses its advice in "if-then" statements.
P39. If done well, management is among the most noble of professions. You are in a position where you have eight or ten hours every day from every person who works for you. You have the opportunity to frame each person's work so that, at the end of every day, your employees will go home feeling like Diana felt on her good day: living a life filled with motivators. I realized that if the theory of motivation applies to me, then I need to be sure that those who work for me have the motivators, too.
P56. When a promising new idea emerges, financial projections should, of course, be made. But instead of pretending these are accurate, acknowledge that, at this point, they are really rough. Since everybody knows that numbers have to look good for management to green-light any project, you don't go through the charade of implicitly encouraging teams to manipulate the number to look as strong as possible. Instead, ask the project teams to compile a list of all the assumptions that have been made in those initial projections. Then ask them: "Which of these assumptions need to prove true in order for us to realistically expect that these numbers will materialize?" The assumptions on this list should be rank-ordered by importance and uncertainty. At the top of the list should be the assumptions that are most important and least certain, while the bottom of the list should be those that are least important and most certain. Only after you understand the relative importance of all the underlying assumptions should you green-light the team—but not in the way that most companies tend to do. Instead, find a way to quickly and with as little expense as possible test the validity of the most important assumptions. Once the company understands whether the initial important assumptions are likely to prove true, it can make a much better decision about whether to invest in this project or not.
P57. Before you take a job, carefully list what things others are going to need to do or to deliver in order for you to successfully achieve what you hope to do. Ask yourself: "What are the assumptions that have to prove true in order for me to be able to succeed in this assignment?" List them. Are they within your control? Equally important, ask yourself what assumptions have to prove true for you to be happy in the choice you are contemplating. Are you basing your position on extrinsic or intrinsic motivators? Why do you think this is going to be something you enjoy doing? What evidence do you have? Every time you consider a career move, keep thinking about the most important assumptions that have to prove true and how you can swiftly and inexpensively test if they are valid. Make sure you are being realistic about the path ahead of you.
P77. Thomas Jefferson said, " The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family."
P112. If you work to understand what job you are being hired to do, both professionally and in your personal life, the payoff will be enormous. In fact, it is here that this theory yields the most insight, simply because one of the most important jobs you'll ever be hired to do is to be a spouse. Getting this right, I believe, is critical to sustaining a happy marriage.
P119. It's natural to want the people you love to be happy. What can often be difficult is understanding what your role is in that. Thinking about your relationships from the perspective of the job to be done is the best way to understand what's important to the people who mean the most to you. It allows you to develop true empathy. Asking yourself, "What job does my spouse most need me to do?" gives you the ability to think about it in the right unit of analysis. When you approach your relationships from this perspective, the answer will become much more clear than they would be simply speculating about what might be the right thing to do. But you have to go beyond understanding what job your spouse needs you to do. You have to do that job. You'll have to devote your time and energy to the effort, be willing to suppress your own priorities and desires and focus on doing what is required to make the other person happy. Nor should we be timed in giving our children and our spouses the same opportunities to give of themselves to others. You might think this approach would actually cause resentment in relationships because one person is so clearly giving up something for the other. But I have found that it has the opposite effect. In sacrificing for something worthwhile, you deeply strengthen your commitment to it.
P148 Instead of setting out on what most people thought would be the "right," prestigious stepping-stone jobs to get here; he asked himself: "What are all the experiences and problems that I have to learn about and master so that what comes out at the other end is somebody who is ready and capable of becoming a successful CEO?"
P197. I have tried to define the purpose of my life, and I have helped quite a few friends and former students do this for themselves. Understanding the three parts composing the purpose of life—a likeness, a commitment, and a metric—is the most reliable way I know to define for yourself what your purpose is and to live it in your life every day.
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