Integrating tools into measuring what matters most

A personal paradox in the quest for meaning & a viable solution?

The activity to determine whether one has lived a life of fulfilment, meaning, and purpose is fundamentally complex and hard to interpret by individuals. From a managerial point-of-view, by incorporating quantitative variables, such as the number of lives touched or aggregate capital/private wealth generated, can provide a sense of utility but this remains a minuscule portion of the entire landscape of life. Throughout a volatile existence, the methodologies that people will use to measure their lives will continue to redefine themselves as new experiences and obstacles are encountered. No perfect solution exists to this invariable paradox. From a mathematical perspective, an asymptote to ever-expanding goals and ambitions continues to persevere with no real end in sight. The pursuit for personal contentment and intrinsic perfection can be a rewarding journey or self-destructive. We have the ability to choose which path we select, one of humility and internal validation (high-level of self-esteem) or never-ending competition and extrinsic validation. Maybe a combination of the two is optimal? Then again, this is primarily just a hypothesis.

As a college student at the University of Michigan, I’ve been quite privileged to enrol in courses that have shaped my thoughts and reinforced how much fun proactive learning can truly be. One class in particular, Corporate Strategy, has provided a platform to immerse myself in a case-based approach to conceptualizing dynamic problems across industries and further introduced the works of Clayton Christensen, an icon within the broader field of strategy. Unsurprisingly, he too, has applied his popular models of disruption and innovation to measuring life. A deeply religious man, Christensen asserts that “a life without purpose can become hollow” and I couldn’t agree more with his notion [Christensen, 4]. As individuals, we possess finite lifespans (in other words, death is inevitable but some major breakthrough occurring in longevity would be utterly ground-breaking; Laura Deming, I wish you the best), and therefore, we need to be emphatic about how we allocate our time, energy, and deteriorating brainpower. We could attempt to incorporate Pareto Optimality functions to determine which 20% of ventures will provide 80% of the desired results. Yet, when faced with an atypical dilemma, our strategy models can go berserk. Observing well-curated talks by Chamath Palihapitiya and Vinod Khosla, venture capitalists that I admire and respect, one life characteristic becomes quite apparent: the integration of an instrument such as a ‘moral compass’ is necessary [Stanford Graduate School of Business]. The tool itself provides its users with the bandwidth to govern decision-making based upon sound and personal principles such as ‘an inclination to create economic prosperity for marginalized groups’. The input of particular standards into the compass can establish powerful variations and ultimately, this plays a significant role in forming our unique personalities. To this day, I continue to experiment with the data that I feed my compass. As my finance professor would say: ‘garbage in, garbage out (GIGO)’ can have unanticipated results, and so, we must choose carefully.

In order to construct a fine-tuned culture of cooperation with oneself and in larger settings, the employment of ‘power tools’ (coercion, threats, punishments, and so on) can sometimes be advantageous [Christensen, 5]. For example, prohibiting oneself from dining out at a fancy restaurant if the condition of going to the gym four times a week is unmet or coercing early-employees at a startup in order to avoid minor distractions in the tumultuous journey to build a multi-billion-dollar business (in a friendly and gentle way, of course). As Christensen reveals, some of his former Harvard Business School (HBS) classmates ended up divorced, estranged from their children, or totally unhappy, which can be deemed a result of failing to think about purpose and developing culture. These negative sunk costs can be detrimental but should not be completely ignored in our next steps. Apart from general economic wisdom, we have to draw imperative lessons from other disciplines too. This could be philosophy, biology, or even art. Life is tricky and each individual case deserves its own inspection, however, perhaps we can agree, as Frederick Herzberg says: “the powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements” [Christensen, 2]. On that note, remaining humble and holding others in high regard, despite their differing backgrounds and individual circumstances, is important. Imagine being a clever graduate from an elite school. It is entirely possible that “the vast-majority of people you’ll interact with on a day-to-day basis may not be smarter than you. And if your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited” [Christensen, 6].

My path towards becoming a builder of all sorts has had its own hiccups; short and long-term. Nonetheless, by embracing particular yardsticks, a moral compass, and a clearly described culture, I’ve come to measure what matters to me the most. I’m locked in. Understanding that life can be occasionally viewed in scorecard terms, from what school you attended to your full-time employer, you must not lose vision of what you deeply care about. If you do, try reverting back to your unique equilibrium as a rational economist would say. Life is complicated but it doesn’t have to be if one lives it with purpose and meaning.

That’s all for now — Shray J.

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