While success is most people’s goal, how they define it varies widely.

A couple of weeks ago Clay Christensen, who pioneered disruption theory and wrote The Innovator’s Dilemma, died.

KG sent me an a16z editorial about his effect on business, but I think the 2010 HBR interview called How Will You Measure Your Life? is much better when it comes to success.

Why?

Because it lays out his business principles tweaked so a person could build a personal culture that would assure happiness.

When the members of the [HBS] class of 2010 entered business school, the economy was strong and their post-graduation ambitions could be limitless. Just a few weeks later, the economy went into a tailspin. They’ve spent the past two years recalibrating their worldview and their definition of success.

In the spring, Harvard Business School’s graduating class asked HBS professor Clay Christensen to address them—but not on how to apply his principles and thinking to their post-HBS careers. The students wanted to know how to apply them to their personal lives.

The students had a front row seat to watch the economy go from hot to frigid, which taught them that careers weren’t everything.

On the last day of class, I ask my students to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent answers to three questions: First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds lighthearted, it’s not. Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.

Three simple questions, but three that few people, let alone MBA students, especially those at Harvard, focus on.

But what kind of life is it, if you are unhappy or have bad relationships with your family or cross the line, when with a little effort and planning you can avoid all three?

While Clay Christensen isn’t a silver life bullet, his thinking and approach come close.

Image credit: By World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland – Leading Through Adversity: Clayton ChristensenUploaded by January, CC BY-SA 2.0

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Surprisingly, it is Millennials who are giving a lot of thought to dying and, in doing so, changing the conversations around it. All I can say is, it’s about time!” I get it. They are dedicated to directing how they live, want to control how they exit and are far more pragmatic about it than previous generations. I’m no Millennial, but over the decades I’ve given a lot of thought to the subject, too.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

What do you think about when you take stock of your life? What do you strive for? What makes you feel successful?

But first…

What I’m about to write is NOT a judgment call—having been brought up in a judgmental family I don’t judge. Sure, I have opinions, we all do, but I don’t judge. The most I can say is “X doesn’t work for me, but Y does.”

Granted, I might recommend Y; I might even argue passionately regarding the merits of Y, but in the end it’s your decision and you need to tweak/modify/change Y to fit your MAP—if you decide you have any interest in it at all—because Y is a product of my MAP and no two MAPs are identical.

Back to taking stock.

Someone once said to me,

“I still have more than half my life left to live… Still, with each birthday I feel the anxiety of wondering if I am living up to my potential. … Often, I can’t wake up from my daydreams of a disciplined and directed life long enough to make that life happen. … I have learned from experience that I need both [self awareness and willingness to change] if I want to be successful in life and leadership.”

I found it sad because the focus seemed to be so personally judgmental and the person set such store on an intangible like ‘leadership’—which, to have any real meaning, needs to be bestowed and substantiated by others.

But that is just me.

I’m substantially older than most of you and have bounced and blundered through life opening doors as the mood moved me.

I’ve made and lost money as well as friends as our lives diverged.

I once read that success is found in what you do for others, but I believe it’s also in what you don’t do and based on both I am enormously successful.

I’ve given a helping hand to hundreds, thus facilitating their ultimate success.

More importantly, I work hard at not hurting anyone by word or deed, advertently or inadvertently.

I doubt that I’m always successful, but I do try like hell.

I do not lie, cheat or steal.

If I were to have a tombstone (which I won’t, since I’m being composted, which is much better than cremation) it would look like this.

Image credit: JJ Chandler (site no longer exists)