Suggestions for a good life from Jim Collins, a leading business thinker.
- Build a personal board of directors. Don’t populate thos board based on accomplishment, but on character and values you want to emulate.
- Turn off your electronics–not for others but for yourself. Down time and white space gives you time to think. You need the quiet to think.
- Work on your three circles. What are you passionate about? What are you genetically coded for? What could you do that would be useful to society? Study yourself like a bug. Get input from others around you.
- What is your questions-to-statements ratio? Can you double it, so you are asking way more questions than making statements?
- Suppose you wake up tomorrow to learn that you suddently have $20M and that you only have 10 years to live. What would you stop doing immediately? Maybe you should stop doing that anyway.
- Start your stop doing list. Be clear about what to stop doing.
- Unplug everything that’s just a distraction.
- Find something that you have so much passion for that you will be able to endure the pain to make something great.
- Take the time to clarify your personal values.
- Prepare to live a life where at 65 you feel that you are only 1/3 through the work.