How Will You Measure Your Life?

By: Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth

Narrated by: Jeff Woodman

Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

In 2010, world-renowned innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen gave a powerful speech to the Harvard Business School's graduating class. Drawing upon his business research, he offered a series of guidelines for finding meaning and happiness in life. He used examples from his own experiences to explain how high achievers can all too often fall into traps that lead to unhappiness.

The speech was memorable not only because it was deeply revealing but also because it came at a time of intense personal reflection: Christensen had just overcome the same type of cancer that had taken his father's life. As Christensen struggled with the disease, the question "How do you measure your life?" became more urgent and poignant, and he began to share his insights more widely with family, friends, and students.

In this groundbreaking book, Christensen puts forth a series of questions: How can I be sure that I'll find satisfaction in my career? How can I be sure that my personal relationships become enduring sources of happiness? How can I avoid compromising my integrity - and stay out of jail? Using lessons from some of the world's greatest businesses, he provides incredible insights into these challenging questions.

How Will You Measure Your Life? is full of inspiration and wisdom, and will help students, midcareer professionals, and parents alike forge their own paths to fulfillment.

©2012 Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishers

Does not actually explain how to measure you're life

Most of this book is about explaining traditional business management and applying it to family management. Only the last chapter talks about measuring your life, and it's mostly applicable to christians, particularly white male managers with christian families from middle to upper class backgrounds. The author does not seem to have had a very challenging life, having had tremendous advantages, and also seems unaware of his privilege, instead attributing his success to his management techniques and religious beliefs.

Common Sense, yet inspiring and eye-opening

Any additional comments?

Clayton Christensen is THE guy when it comes to innovative thinking. He was the most influential management expert in 2011. THIS is the book that perhaps has defined his path. The nuggets of gold within this text are both earth-shatteringly simplistic and amazingly insightful. You will not leave this book without at least ten excellent ways to improve what you're doing on a daily basis. It's not a self help book, it's an introspective tome with huge insight.

Must Read!

Cliche title, I know. But it couldn't be more true. Everyone should read How You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen. A fascinating and unique approach to self-help. For extremely logical people, like me, I connected with it on so many levels! And learned something about business theory as well!

sadly, a flawed strategy

Clay Christensen, a leading business thinker of our time, missed the boat here, by a wide margin. After a terrific intro, the book ends up being a summary of Christensen's business research with instructions on how folks can use it to help them chart a course in life. Weaved throughout are bits of Christensen's memoir. I think the failure here was publishing a book that was part business, part self-help and part memoir. Separately, the three would be terrific. Combined, it just doesn't work.

Must Read!

Cliche title, I know. But it couldn't be more true. Everyone should read How You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen. A fascinating and unique approach to self-help. For extremely logical people, like me, I connected with it on so many levels! And learned something about business theory as well!

great for young business people or parents.

couldn't put it down. something I'll read again. wished I had reread it years ago.

Christensen is a role model in all aspects of life

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Christensen is awesome! He is a great teacher, author, speaker, husband, father, and man of God. I have a strong appreciation for how he weaves his professional and personal life together into a powerful call to action. Read or listen to his other books, too!

Review

Would you listen to How Will You Measure Your Life? again? Why?

I would definitely listen to this book again. For those who are wondering about work/life balance and are interested in the case study method, this is an excellent book. Professor Christensen does a great job of communicating his class into book form.

Clayton's General Theory of Life

Any additional comments?

Clay Christensen's work culminates in generalization of the principals he first described in his book The Innovator's Solution. This time his focus moves from disruptive business models to the application of the "Job to be done" theory on a personal level. Narration is illustrated with some of the same business case studies used in his previous books, but is tied back to the personal level by stories and experiences from Clay's own life.

I have always admired the motto: "There's nothing more practical then a good theory." This book certainly delivers an excellent lens to look at your life and gives you good grip to steer it where you want to. Highly recommended!

Excellent and insightful!

This book didn't amazing job of combining examples from the business world to the deep situations and concerns of our lives. These business model examples provided a very clear way to see strategies for improving career, relationships, and parenting.

Thought provoking listen

Overall, a nice short book that encourages one to assess their priorities. However, it offers a few interesting ideas rather than a game changer.

I'm an atheist and generally dislike any religious lines. This book has some but nothing really bothering. A bit ironic though that such an intellectual author is so religious.

Must read for anyone that wants to live a meaningful life

This book has changed my life.

As a young man starting out in career, this book has really helped me put things into perspective.

I think without it I would have gotten caught up in the same traps that catch out the uninitiated.

Upon really thinking about my life's purpose, I now have the right mindset and metrics to go through life, free of worry, anxiety or comparison to others - free to pursue my unique truth.

Thank you Klayton.

Interesting approach but too religious

I like the idea of applying business strategy theory to one's own life, but the book got a bit preachy and religious at certain points. Plus if you don't have children you can skip about a third of the book. This book could have been quite a bit better I feel

Misleading Title

This is a book about business performance with some commentary on adapting that to your life.

Candid life insight with business edge

Highly recommend it at any point in your life.

Great point of view with various angles, models and more ... Work, Life, marriage, children ... Even religion at end!

Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and experience.

JP

overly religious self help book

Started off well, hard to finish as author pushes religion down reader's throat. Author very much sees life as morally black or white. Making room for the grey is moral bankruptcy in his view. I think life is more complex than what the Religious Right makes it out to be.

Just read it...

Excellent book to get your perspective and think so about your purpose. Didn't expect to hear something that I would think about, and it made sense.

Couldn’t engage

Found this book such a slow pace, a little bit dragging on.. hard to relate to and keep my attention, literally had to stop at chapter 2 before I even managed to give it a proper chance.., really monotonous and unfortunately too booooring

Easily the best book i’ve ever encountered

The theories and priorities highlighted in the book are a real eye opener.

I think most people, no matter where they’re in life, would find this book useful.

Be deliberate and be emergent

- Good intentions are not enough. You have to allocate resources.
- If we ask the right questions, the answers are generally easy to get.
- Important decisions are never marked with a neon warning sign.
- Self-esteem doesn't come from abundent rerources, but rather from achieving something important when it's hard to do.

- It often happens that we pick our career for the wrong reasons, and then we settle for those. Too many of us, who start down the path of compromise, will never make it back

- Be deliberate, have a plan; at the same time, be emergent and open to the unexpected.
- Options for stategies spring from 2 very different sources: anticipated opportunities (the ones you forsee and choose to pursue) for a deliberate strategy, and a cocktails of problems and opportunities that emerges while trying to implement the first one.

- Parents should ask themselves: has my child developed the skill to develop new skills?
- By sheltering children by the problems that arise in life, we inadvertently denied this generation the ability to build the processes and the priorities it needs to succeed.
- The greatest gifts to our kids come not from what we did, but rather from what we didn't do for them.
- You can tell the health of a company culture (or a family's) by asking: when faced with a choice on how to do something, did the employees (or the children) make the decision the culture wanted them to make? And is the feedback that they received consistent with that?