How Will You Measure Your Life?

by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon

Review Type

The Gist

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  1. Make sure you stick to your purpose, despite all the temptations and tests, sticking to our values makes us lead better lives with integrity.

  2. It’s better to do the important things yourself with your own hands. When we outsource, we are giving others ownership over our selves and lose our identity.

  3. Don’t thing about marginal costs because in the end, we will all pay the full price.

Impressions

How I Discovered It

It was featured on Ali Abdaal’s list of favorite 2020 books.

Who Should Read It?

I think this book is especially geared towards hound parents or people thinking about becoming parents. A lot of the book features anecdotes of the author and his children, or stories on how the author’s friends raised their own kids.

How the Book Changed Me

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My Top 3 Quotes

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The starting point for our journey is a discussion of priorities. These are, in effect, your core decision-making criteria: what’s most important to you in your career? The problem is that what we think matters most in our jobs often does not align with what will really make us happy.

How can I be sure that I will be successful and happy in my career? My relationships with my spouse, my children, and my extended family and close friends become an enduring source of happiness? I live a life of integrity—and stay out of jail?

How can I be sure that I will be successful and happy in my career? My relationships with my spouse, my children, and my extended family and close friends become an enduring source of happiness? I live a life of integrity—and stay out of jail?

Reflections

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I really enjoyed the author’s parenting advice. The author pulls anecdotes from his own childhood to highlight critical values like self-reliance, loving work, and sticking to values. I hope to instill these lessons into my own children inshaAllah.

The author also does a wonderful job thing in both life and business examples. The point he makes on marginal costs and how Netflix overcomes the Blockbuster Goliath illustrates an important life lesson: we should prioritize the full cost (I.e., think long term) over the short term losses we can incur through marginal costs.

Beyond that, I really appreciate how the author emphasizes his point on integrity. We should choose to live our lives, to compose our daily routines, and to make challenging choices based on firm principles at our core. These principles are our moral compasses, and by abiding by them, we lead our lives with integrity. These foundational pillars look different to many people. In the author’s case, he frequently cites his strong Christian beliefs; for me, I am a practicing Muslimah and derive most of my choices and habits from my faith. The important thing is that we should all have guiding principles that serve as our north stars. When we are lost or feel conflicted, reminding ourselves that we have a firm set of established beliefs helps comfort us and assure us of our choices.

There’s one anecdote in the book where the author references how he chooses to miss the final championship basketball game because he chooses to stick to his Sabbath practices. That’s some serious commitment, yet this highlights how principled the author chooses to live his life. Even if his choice seems trivial in the big picture, our life is measured not necessarily by the pivotal moments and big decisions we make. It’s a compounding sum of small choices we make on a daily basis.

Business Life Advice