A library organised by the question it helps with.

18 resources

• Book

  The Element / Finding Your Element

  Sir Ken Robinson

  The clearest account of what happens when natural aptitude meets the right environment — and why so many capable people are judged in the wrong one.

  Used in: Find your superpower

• Book

  Working Identity

  Herminia Ibarra

  Most relevant if the evidence points somewhere your current career doesn't go. People act their way into a new direction rather than thinking their way into one.

  Used in: Find your superpower · Find your purpose · Build your story · What do you want to be known for?

• Course

  Stanford Life Design / Odyssey Planning

  Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Stanford Life Design Lab

  Useful if your abilities look portable but you cannot picture a life other than the one you already have.

  Used in: Find your superpower · Find your purpose · Build your story

• Article

  CliftonStrengths

  Gallup

  Worth treating as an additional data point, not a definitive answer. Compare it with the evidence you gathered rather than letting it replace it.

  Used in: Find your superpower

• Book

  The Second Mountain

  David Brooks

  Useful where achievement versus contribution, or a changing definition of success, has emerged.

  Used in: Find your purpose

• Talk

  Why Some of Us Don't Have One True Calling

  Emilie Wapnick, TED

  Useful where you have several strong interests and feel pressure to choose one identity.

  Used in: Find your purpose

• Book

  Reinventing You

  Dorie Clark

  Useful when professional repositioning is the point — how reputation actually changes, and how long it takes.

  Used in: Build your story · What do you want to be known for?

• Talk

  The Danger of a Single Story

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, TED

  Useful where one aspect of your identity has become the dominant story through which you, or everybody else, understands you.

  Used in: Build your story

• Book

  Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

  Al Ries & Jack Trout

  For the idea that positioning ultimately exists in other people's minds.

  Used in: What do you want to be known for?

• Book

  Obviously Awesome

  April Dunford

  A product-positioning methodology, but useful here for thinking about alternatives, differentiation, value, audience and category.

  Used in: What do you want to be known for?

• Podcast

  WorkLife: The Case Against Personal Branding

  Adam Grant

  An important counterargument: contribution and genuine relationships matter more than manufacturing an image.

  Used in: What do you want to be known for?

• Book

  Designing Your Life

  Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

  For exploring several possible lives and testing them rather than assuming there is one perfect future waiting to be discovered.

  Used in: What do you actually want?

• Book

  Four Thousand Weeks

  Oliver Burkeman

  For the uncomfortable but useful reality that time is finite and choosing one thing necessarily means not choosing countless others.

  Used in: What do you actually want?

• Book

  The Good Life

  Robert Waldinger & Marc Schulz

  For the long-running Harvard research into relationships and what appears to contribute to a good life.

  Used in: What do you actually want?

• Book

  Die With Zero

  Bill Perkins

  For thinking differently about money, time, health and experiences across different stages of life.

  Used in: What do you actually want?

• Book

  Essentialism

  Greg McKeown

  For choice, priorities and accepting that meaningful decisions contain trade-offs.

  Used in: What do you actually want?

• Podcast

  Know Thyself: How to Find the Meaning of Your Life

  Arthur Brooks

  On meaning, happiness and the danger of using achievement as the only scoreboard.

  Used in: What do you actually want?

• Article

  What happens if we do nothing?

  Mark Eve

  Inaction is a decision. It is simply one that never gets minuted, costed or reviewed.

  Used in: What do you actually want?

Start with the exercise instead

The wider archive — 23 essays by Mark Eve on business, markets and decision-making — lives in Thinking.