How Will You Measure Your Life?

February 8, 2012

On a recommendation from a dear friend I recently began reading The Harvard Business review.  That’s right, a guy with an aircraft cleaning business and an economics degree from Radford University is reading the HBR.  I can tell you, there are some amazing articles in this publication and this one struck me at the core.

Here is part of the story, this link will give you the entire article.

http://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life/ar/1

Harvard Business School’s graduating class asked HBS professor Clayton Christensen to address them—but not on how to apply his principles and thinking to their post-Harvard Business School careers. The students wanted to know how to apply them to their personal lives.

This is an excerpt from Clayton:

On the last day of class, I ask my students to answer three questions:

 1.    How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?

2.    How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?

3.    How can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

(I would make number 3, How can I be sure that I have enduring health)

In my opinion, for most of us the last would not apply, but as Clayton explained, two of the students from his Rhodes scholar class had done jail time, one was Jeffrey skilling from Enron.

The point is this.  We make life entirely too difficult on ourselves.  If we just focused on these three core areas, life would be pretty good.

1.             Happy Spouse and Family

2.             Happy Fulfilling Career

3.             Good Health

Enjoy the rest of the week and share this with anyone who might enjoy the insight.