“If you don’t know what you’d be willing to die for, you don’t know why you are living either”
I found Clayton Christensen’s graduation address to the 2010 class of Harvard Business School (HBS) amid one of the many piles of papers that cover my floor. I have no idea how it got there.
Christensen was an obvious choice for graduation speaker: a professor at the business school; author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, considered one of the most influential business books of all time; and a former successful CEO.
But none of those was the primary reason the class invited him. They also knew he was one of the most religious faculty members — a devout Mormon — who had spent much time considering the question: What constitutes a good life?
The class members had applied to business school during a roaring economy, with prospects of riches before them, only to have the bubble burst in 2008, shortly after their entry. They asked Christensen to address the application of his business principles to success in life, rather than to success in business. His graduation speech, titled “How to Measure Your Life,” was the result, and it subsequently became a full-length book.
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