Book #23: How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen

This book really resonated with me. I don't know why I picked it up in the first place, but, like many people, I enjoy inspirational self-help books and this one is on a higher plane than most other "quick fix" self-help books. Christensen (and his co-authors) argue that getting specific suggestions for how to improve our life is not the way to become better; we need to gather theories on what works based on observation and experiences gathered from large sets of data. And that is what he has done with his business work, and he suggests that many of the theories that apply to making a business successful can also be made more specific to us as individuals, which is what he does very successfully in this book. He tries to tailor his advice to three questions, things which he has seen many of his business colleagues and students struggle with over the decades: How can I be sure that:
1. I will be successful and happy in my career?
2. My relationships with people become an enduring source of happiness?
3. I live a life of integrity--and stay out of jail?

All of the chapters have individual theories that he explains how they apply to businesses and also to us as individuals. The first few chapters are about being successful and happy in your career, which are very important but not super applicable to me, so I didn't focus too much on those. But I really liked the chapters about relationships with your family.

• One section that really stuck with me--because it says exactly the same thing that I have been thinking about lately about parenting and why being a stay-at-home mom is so important to me--was when Christensen talked about the problems some companies experience when they outsource one part of their business, and then another, and another. They eventually lose the competencies that they once had and don't have any control over their business any more. He makes a parallel between this issue and outsourcing our parenting to outside activities and other people. So many people these days sign their kids up for numerous activities and their kids basically are doing everything outside of the home (not to mention that they're not doing any WORK inside the home any more). So all of the learning that children are doing is being done with the parents not being involved. And therefore, when they learn, they often learn from people that the parents don't even know--and eventually, all of the children's priorities and values and understanding of the world has come from all outside sources and none of it from the parents themselves. He says, "If you find yourself heading down a path of outsourcing more and more of your role as a parent, you will lose more and more of the precious opportunities to help your kids develop their values--which may be the most important capability of all" (138-139). I have been thinking so much about this lately!! I feel so proud of myself for being on the same wavelength as Clayton Christensen, although he was able to use language to articulate it that I have been struggling with. But the older Dane gets, and the more sponge-like he becomes, the more I realize that this is so true and so important--and I imagine it only becomes more important the older they become (and into teenage-hood). 
• He also makes the point that many people try to build their resume for work by checking boxes off a list--instead of trying to build skills and competencies that will allow them to truly succeed at their goals for the future. This is something we need to work at as parents as well. What skills and capabilities do we want our kids to have? We need to provide experiences and opportunities for them to get the experiences we want them to have--not just things like piano lessons, but experiences with failing something and getting back up again. Or missing a deadline and suffering the consequences. This is our job as their parents, and we can't be fooled by the desire to just build their self-esteem and helping them get good grades and allow them to miss out on the experiences they will need to survive in the real world.
• Christensen describes companies that focus on expressly creating a company culture--which can be so strong that eventually all employees in that company will follow the same procedures just by knowing that this is what we do at this company. Similarly, we should try to deliberately and consciously create our own culture for our family and our children, because then kids will know, "This is the way our family behaves." You need to decide what characteristics you want to encourage in your family, and those elements become your family culture--which will then help you focus on what activities you want to choose as a family, and what goals you have to accomplish. He says, "Make no mistake: a culture happens, whether you want it to or not. The only question is how hard you are going to try to influence it" (169). 

All of these ideas, plus several more about the overall goal from the book in the epilogue, have been very thought-provoking and motivating for me. The thing that really was emphasized to me, and which I know and have thought a lot about in the past, but which is hard to follow through on, is how important it is to be conscious and deliberate about my choices in all aspects of my life. It is so easy to let everything slip when I'm not feeling well or when I'm tired (like when I've been pregnant or with an infant), but since we want to have several more children, I can't just let 10 years slip by without deciding deliberately about how I want to spend my time and what decision we want to make about our life. I hope that I can get Tommy to read this book next so we can have some serious discussions about things and maybe make some overall goals we can work towards together.