The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfilment

This is a great book that provide beside Marchall’s wise a simple but powerfull tool to navigate life

This book was written by a popular and seasoned executive coach and executive educator. It was written during the pandemic. It is written from experience, not theory. As such, it involves Marshall Goldsmith inventorying learnings from his work as an executive coach along with a considerable amount of personal soul searching. Importantly, it is a guide to “taking stock” in a life. It is more philosophical, if I may use that word, but in a practical way. Not a programmatic guide full of checklists. It is different in that way from much of the popular executive coaching literature. We see Marshall Goldsmith here more as a reflective practitioner “taking stock” himself. In brief, this book addresses “what counts in a life” (acting on our deepest aspirations), and in a career (acting on our ambitions). Goldsmith parses those two outlooks. Best case, deep aspirations drive ambitions. The author addresses the process of taking action, what we might think of as personal strategic action, what he calls “earning a life”, in very simple and very practical ways. That said, that terrain is probably more complex than what we see in this very good book. What is distinctive here are the reflective exercises at the end of the chapters as well the author’s own pragmatic and Buddhist like reflections. Of note, see chapter 9, Goldsmith’s “origin story” where he reflects on 7 key learnings that inform his practice. Beyond that insightful chapter, there are many personal “taking stock” reflections which are short and focused and not overdone. They add credibility and gravitas to the book. The book as such goes wide vs deep. No “thick descriptions” and life histories are found here which makes the LPR (life plan review) as outlined in chapter 10 useful but overly simplistic. My sense is the book’s wide focus and its lack of depth is both a strength and a weakness. Goldsmith addresses insightfully the dynamics of aspirations, ambitions, and what counts as full and engaged life and, in turn, addresses how to avoid large “existential regrets”, to use the author’s language. That topic, the topic of “existential regret”, what it is, how it is worked thru, etc, needs more unpacking and more thoughtful discussion. I see that as a large weakness. All in all, not a perfect book but an important book about acting on aspirations. Hopefully, others will follow Marshall Goldsmith’s exemplary personal example and take stock themselves and write in a reflective way on these important topics.

This book is based on the Buddhist wisdom of mindfulness and being in the present. The ‘Every Breath Paradigm’ of Buddha teaches us that we are a countless series of selves, comprising old self and current self and future self, changing from one to the next with every breath we take. If we understand this concept, we can appreciate the concept of impermanence. The focus is on every present moment and thereby on living an earned life when the choices, risks, and effort we make align with an overarching purpose in our lives, regardless of the eventual outcome.The Action-Ambition-Aspiration framework helps us understand how we can align Activities (What we are doing now) with Ambition (What we want to become) and finally reaching our Aspiration (Who we want to become). This is like having a perfect roadmap for our life, with clarity and purpose. Having a clear Purpose drives engagement in all that we do, which improves the odds of Achieving our goals. This provides Meaning to life and creates a fleeting sense of happiness. However, happiness too is impermanent, and we need to repeat this cycle, thus creating a virtuous cycle of earning it.The book outlines some barriers that prevents us from achieving our full potential. 1. Our default response to life is not to experience meaning or happiness. Our default response is to experience Inertia. 2 All of us are programmed in some way by our parents. They shape our beliefs, our social values and even our self-image. Such programming locks us in and blinds us. 3. We are undone by Obligation. We try to please everybody all the time. 4. We suffer from failure of Imagination 5. Our failure to adapt to quickening pace of Change. 6. We are living someone else’s life, in the era of social media that is a smorgasbord of distractions aptly put ‘We are narcotized by Vicarious Living. 7. We do not estimate our Runway (left in our life), and hence either procrastinate with overestimation, or give-up on underestimation.There are 4 enablers that can help us : Compliance (adherence to an external rule), Accountability (our expectations we impose on ourselves), constant follow-up and Measurement are the rules of the game.In order to have a realistic roadmap, Motivation, Ability, Understanding, Confidence along with Support and Marketplace form the solid building blocks. (These are similar to the four circles described in ‘The Heart of Change’ by Hubert Joly: 1. Doing what you love. 2. What you are good at. 3. What you can be paid for. 4. What the world needs.)It is important to understand that no one has achieved success all by oneself. All of us are flawed human beings and we all should be seeking help, explains the author in the excellent chapter ‘The Lost Art of Asking for Help’.This book is a solid guide to start afresh, any stage in life. Every chapter is a delight, with clear concepts, real life cases enriched by the author’s decades of experience in executive coaching. I felt like being in Marshal Goldsmith class once again, blessed, with my memories at Tuck School, Dartmouth.I recommend reading this book, slowly, not more than one chapter at a time. It needs time to understand and reflect. Only then the concepts would sink in, renewing ourselves, every moment, and guiding us in our precious journey of earning our life, reminding us that we are an endless series of old and new versions of ourselves.This brings us back to the basic question: ‘Am I being the person I want to be right now?’This is yet another outstanding book from Marshal Goldsmith.

It takes some reading into the book to find the full description of the "earned" life expression, however it's a concept worth learning about.

An excellent and highly readable guide to how to maximize fulfillment in life."Live your own life, not someone else's version of it," the author's explain, and "the reward of living an earned life is being engaged in the process of constantly earning such a life."The book explores the barriers that hold us back from living the lives we choose, and recommends techniques for surmounting these. These barriers include:- Inertia- Obligations- Failure of Imagination- Failure to adapt to the accelerating pace of change- Vicarious Living (e.g. being fixated on others' social media posts, or apparent success)- Thinking we're too old to be able to live the life we want (or, if we are young, "putting off" living our best life because there seems to be infinite time ahead of us)This book was a pleasure to read, with interesting stories, helpful exercises and very wise advice for anyone wanting to achieve more fulfillment, happiness and impact.