How Will You Measure Your Life?

It is sad to hear the loss of Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen last month at the age of 67. If you have been in the business world for some time, chances are you have read The Innovator’s Dilemma, the seminal book on disruptive innovation by Dr. Christensen which fundamentally transformed how a generation of business leaders think about innovation since its original publication in 1997.

What is probably lesser know, but certainly no less impactful, is his book based on his reflection, life lesson, and his teachings at HBS, “How will you measure your life?”

The book was finished at a time when Dr. Christensen had just overcome the same type of cancer that had taken his father's life. As he 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.

Humans have been pondering the reason for our existence for thousands of years, a question that people often go through an entire life without ever resolving or even getting closer to an satisfactory answer.

Many might default to measuring lives by the obvious things, such as number of people they manage, number of awards, number of places travelled, or dollars accumulated in a bank. But here is what Dr. Christensen said in a 2016 interview:

“When I pass on and have my interview with God, he is not going to say, ‘Oh my gosh, Clay Christensen, you were a famous professor at HBS. He’s going to say…‘Can we just talk about the individual people you helped become better people?…Can we talk about what you did to help [your children] become wonderful people?’”

The book asked three basic questions but dug deep into the fundamental meaning of the purpose of our life, especially life in the fast paced modern world:

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?

The book also included the example of Jeffrey K Skilling, classmate of Dr. Christensen at Harvard Business School, who certainly led a very successful life by many measures and rose to become the Enron CEO, before spending 12 years in prison for his role in masterminding one of most notorious corporate fraud cases in American history.

Dr. Christensen’s advice is simple but profound. "Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success."

Are you striving so hard to find success that you’re playing the world’s game rather than fulfilling your core desires? Do you ponder the differences between success and significance? And in the end how would you measure your life?

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