Every once in a while, a book comes along that becomes an instant, inexplicable necessity in the life of any leader who wants to make a positive impact. This year, it’s The Earned Life by Marshall Goldsmith.
"I’ve learned it’s never too late to reflect because as long as you’re breathing, you have more time. But it’s never too early either—and early is better. (...) Reflect on the life you’re shaping for yourself and make choices based on that reflection."
— Marshall Goldsmith
Marshall Goldsmith shared his key learnings for living an earned life. Some demands that this will require are:
Live your own life, not someone else's version of it.
Commit yourself to "earning" every day. Make it a habit.
Attach your earning moments to something greater than mere personal ambition.
What does "Earned" mean to you?
Here are some highlights that I made from this book:
We are living an earned life when the choices, risks, and efforts we make in each moment align with an overarching purpose in our lives, regardless of the eventual outcome.
The only iteration of you that matters is the present you who has just taken a breath.
Recapturing a sense of fulfillment cannot be accomplished by wallowing in memories of who we were and what we accomplished. It can be earned only by the person we are in the moment at hand.
We don't feel regret because we tried and failed; we regret not trying.
Even when we know what we want, we don't always know how to follow our dreams.
Our default response in life is not to experience meaning or happiness. Our default response is to experience inertia.
The most reliable predictor of what you'll be doing five minutes from now is what you're doing now. (...) This short-term principle also applies in the long term. The most reliable predictor of who you'll be five years from now is who you are now.
As the great journalist Herbert Bayard Swope (winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for Reporting in 1917) said, “I can’t give you a surefire formula for success. But I can give you a formula for failure: Try to please everybody all the time.”
To live any life, you have to make choices. To achieve an earned life, you have to make choices with an expanded sense of scale, discipline, and sacrifice.
This is a book that is worth reading from start to end.