How Will You Measure Your Life?
My review of How Will You Measure Your Life?, by Clayton Christensen.
Only a few applicable ideas, not a must-read. The book is worth reading again when having children, there are nice pieces of advice regarding parenthood.
TL;DR
- A deep knowledge of what you want in life is essential to be happy.
- "When you have found what makes you tick, apply a deliberate strategy. If not, keep an emergent strategy."
- Look for hygiene AND motivation factors in your job.
- Talk to your child as if they were an adult to increase their cognitive development.
Notes
Hygiene factors VS motivation factors
"The opposite of job dissatisfaction is not job satisfaction, but rather the absence of job dissatisfaction.
Hygiene factors are what need to be fulfilled so that you are not miserable at work.
- Status
- Compensation
- Job security
- Work conditions
- Company policies
- Supervisory practices
Motivation factors are what you need to thrive at work.
- Challenging work
- Recognition
- Responsibility
- Personal growth
This explains how you can hate and love your job at the same time: offering a good salary is enough to prevent people from hating their job, but not enough to have them love it.
Talk seriously to your child
The number of spoken words to a child has a strong correlation between the number of words they hear in their first thirty months and their performance on vocabulary and comprehension tests as they go older.
"Business language" (i.e. simple and direct) with your child has limited effects on cognitive development: "Time for a nap", "Finish your milk", etc...
In contrast, there is a strong effect on cognitive development when parents engage in face-to-face, speaking in fully adult, sophisticated language.