How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen

This book was given to Logan by Poppy. He never read it and my book club chose it for our February book. So I read it and discussed it with Logan :) It has little paragraph summaries at the end of every chapter so he might just read those real quick to get the main ideas.

 It was a bit rough training my brain to read a non fiction book. The first section is all about business and uses business terms and ideas. I got through and it started getting good! I love analogies and this entire book is one big analogy. How you have a successful career/business are the same things that will give you a happy and successful life. The first section was about finding happiness in your career. I discussed with Logan his job and work atmosphere and he found it very enlightening. I tried to connect it to my "career" as stay at home mom and it was a stretch at times, but it worked.

The second section was about finding happiness in your relationships. We have to invest in relationships early on so we can get the returns when we need it most. I loved his ideas about raising kids. We need to teach them how to process things and situations to help them grow and be successful people, rather than just give them "stuff". We need to stop outsourcing our childrens education on hard work to other people. He mostly meant not letting our children do things like clean the house or mow the lawn but paying someone else to do it. The most important thing he talked about was culture. He first talked about the culture of a business, what is allowed and what is expected of employees and employer. Then he said that we need to create a culture in our home or one will create on its own. Figure out the basic principles you want your children to have or emulate. Then you live your life and create or foster experiences that will teach those values. For him one value was to work hard, so he always had a kid in the yard with him when he needed to mow. I think this is really important. If we don't create a culture that we approve of and work towards, a negative or lazy or even rude and damaging culture could materialize.

The last section was about living a life of integrity. It was short and to the point. Don't lie and always keep your promises. Just once will never be just once.

Maisie Dobbs

I just read this book for book club. I really really enjoyed reading this book. So well written and in the middle section reminded me of Downton Abbey. Clean and a great read. It kept you second guessing until the climax!