Book Review Success Built to Last
BOOK REVIEW
SUCCESS BUILT TO LAST: Creating A Life That Matters
By Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson
Summary
Success Built to Last builds on over 200 interviews with highly successful people to discern patterns on how they define success and how they achieved it. The authors spoke to remarkable people that were trimmed down from initial thousand lists to hundreds who were able to sustain success for over a 20 year period. The interviewees were Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer, Grammy, Peabody and Grammy award winners as well as CEOs from small and big companies. The group was comprised of people from diverse industries, interests and gender, and majority was over the age of 40 with 95 being the oldest.
The main idea of the book was that success is the alignment of 3 important elements: Meaning (what you do should matter deeply to you, it is something that you should be passionate about), Thought Style (the highly developed sense of accountability, audacity, passion, and responsible optimism), and Action (finding effective ways to take action). When all these 3 elements are aligned, then success that lasts is achieved as discussed in Chapter 1.
To thoroughly discuss each of these important elements, the authors divided the book into 3 parts. Each part defined each element and included accounts or interviews from the resource persons. In the book, the name ‘Builders’ were given to connote these highly successful people so throughout the reading the regard is constantly encountered. They are the people who came from humble beginnings but became known due to their creativity, thus they are compelled to try and introduce something new. They are simply the people who tried to make a difference and they succeed.
The first element Meaning is discussed in Part I which is comprised of 3 chapters. The following are the brief summary of each chapter in Part I:
Chapter 2 (Love it or Lose it – Passion and the Quest for Meaning), relates a harsh
SUCCESS BUILT TO LAST: Creating A Life That Matters
By Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson
Summary
Success Built to Last builds on over 200 interviews with highly successful people to discern patterns on how they define success and how they achieved it. The authors spoke to remarkable people that were trimmed down from initial thousand lists to hundreds who were able to sustain success for over a 20 year period. The interviewees were Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer, Grammy, Peabody and Grammy award winners as well as CEOs from small and big companies. The group was comprised of people from diverse industries, interests and gender, and majority was over the age of 40 with 95 being the oldest.
The main idea of the book was that success is the alignment of 3 important elements: Meaning (what you do should matter deeply to you, it is something that you should be passionate about), Thought Style (the highly developed sense of accountability, audacity, passion, and responsible optimism), and Action (finding effective ways to take action). When all these 3 elements are aligned, then success that lasts is achieved as discussed in Chapter 1.
To thoroughly discuss each of these important elements, the authors divided the book into 3 parts. Each part defined each element and included accounts or interviews from the resource persons. In the book, the name ‘Builders’ were given to connote these highly successful people so throughout the reading the regard is constantly encountered. They are the people who came from humble beginnings but became known due to their creativity, thus they are compelled to try and introduce something new. They are simply the people who tried to make a difference and they succeed.
The first element Meaning is discussed in Part I which is comprised of 3 chapters. The following are the brief summary of each chapter in Part I:
Chapter 2 (Love it or Lose it – Passion and the Quest for Meaning), relates a harsh