The Earned Life is about long-term fulfilment and regret minimisation. Goldsmith believes that these come from living a life in which day-to-day decisions and efforts align with an overarching purpose – where our actions build towards ambitions (goals) that are consistent with our aspirations (who we want to be).

There are valuable concepts in this book. A few that stood out were:

• The “Every Breath” paradigm: every breath is a new you, who should be unburdened by previous mistakes and ready to achieve new things.
• Action, Ambition and Aspiration: a reminder that it requires an active effort to intertwine these.
• Eating the marshmallow: sometimes you have to eat the marshmallow (in the context of the marshmallow experiment).
• Success factors: motivation, ability, understanding, confidence, support, and a receptive market.
• Life Plan Review: a procedure for ensuring that your day-to-day actions are aligned with your ambitions and aspirations.

I also enjoyed the thought exercises at the end of each chapter. Even simple questions like “Who are your heroes” were quite thought-provoking in the context of the book. If someone is your hero, are your actions and ambitions consistent with your aspiration to be like that hero?

But while the book has been helpful for me (I’m even adopting some of the processes like the LPR), I’d struggle to call it a good book. It’s vague, full of cliches, and often lacks a clear flow. This is not helped by the constant injection of loosely-related anecdotes (the author is a CEO coach… which is generally not encouraging) and the “motivational speaker” vibes. I think How Will You Measure Your Life is overall a better read on the regret-minimisation front, but The Earned Life does give reasonable practical protocols.

Key ideas

• The Earned Life
  • A life in which our decisions and efforts align with the overarching purpose.
  • Requires defining our own purpose, making it a habit.
• “Every Breath Paradigm” – in every breath, you are somebody new.
  • “Presume not that I am the thing that I was. —Henry V”
  • This mindset allows you to be kind to yourself, since past mistakes were made by another you.
  • Likewise, you can’t rest on your laurels – those were the achievements of somebody else.
• Referent groups (Roosevelt Thomas):
  • Each of us feels emotionally/intellectually connected to a specific tribe of the population, e.g. religion, political party.
  • People measure themselves against the referent group – they want to be respected by their referent group.
• Success factors:
  • Motivation: the internal animus to do things
  • Ability: aptitude and skills
  • Understanding: knowing where you should be deploying your ability
  • Confidence: the belief that you can succeed. This is a power-up on top of the other factors.
  • Support
  • A receptive market: “When a great team meets a lousy market, market wins” – Marc Andreesen
• Building blocks of discipline:
  • Compliance: if there is some external rule it’s generally easier to be disciplined
  • Accountability: meeting expectations we set for ourselves. Public accountability is better.
  • Follow-up
  • Measurement
• Action, Ambition, Aspiration:
  • Actions: day-to-day actions
  • Ambition: the goals we want to achieve
  • Aspiration: who we want to become. This transcends individual goals.
  • These are independent variables: we need to make them work together.

Exercises

• Two Letters. Write two letters to yourself.
  • Letter One: a letter to past you expressing gratitude for specific acts of creativity, hard work, or discipline that have improved your current life.
  • Letter Two: a letter to future you, explaining the investment you are making now to benefit future you.
• Heroes: make a list of heroes, and write down one-world descriptors of what makes them so admirable.
• History of help: make a list of your proudest achievements. Who would you include in a thank you speech?

Highlights

• Core premise
• Creating your own life
• Life Plan Review
• Exercises
• Success
• Misc