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Measure a life by those closest
The questions
The questions are specific. What will the kids say about their dad? What will a wife say about her husband, parents about their child, a brother about his brother? Friends count the same way, since friends are the family you earn.
It's a small group, and the focus on them is intense. Bob Myers has a line that the people who know you best should love you the most.
Where it came from
This answer came from reading Clay Christensen's How Will You Measure Your Life?, and it has stayed the same since. It is the thing he is most confident will never change, and it shapes how he wants to spend his time.
What has the longest study of happiness found?
The Harvard Study of Adult Development began in 1938 with 268 Harvard sophomores and later added 456 men from inner-city Boston. Researchers have followed participants and their families for more than eight decades, collecting medical records and interviews. Director Robert Waldinger has reported that the clearest finding is that the quality of close relationships predicts health and happiness in later life.
How do résumé and eulogy virtues differ?
Columnist David Brooks used the terms in his 2015 book The Road to Character. Résumé virtues are the skills one brings to the marketplace, and eulogy virtues are the qualities mentioned at a funeral, such as kindness and honesty. Brooks drew the distinction from Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's writing about Adam I and Adam II.
How did Christensen apply business theory to life?
Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor known for the theory of disruptive innovation, gave a class talk in 2010 that grew into the 2012 book. He argued that companies drift into strategies based on where resources flow, often toward quick, measurable rewards. Applying the same logic to people, he said, how someone spends time and energy ends up determining the strategy of their life.
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