What to Make of a Life: Cliffs, Fog, Fire and the Self-Knowledge Imperative

《從優秀到卓越》的國際暢銷書作者吉姆·柯林斯，針對我們生命中反覆面臨的斷崖時刻與轉折點，提供了關於構建——以及重構——生活的變革性啟示。

如何成就一生？ 這是一個我們不只一次掙扎面對的問題：我們如何在世界上找到自己的路？我們如何跨越那些能徹底改變生命的重大事件（即「斷崖」）？我們如何讓內在的火焰長久且持續地燃燒？受強烈好奇心驅使，吉姆·柯林斯投入了十年時間研究這些問題，並細緻地分析了生命從清晰轉向混亂、將我們拋入困惑迷霧中的那些時刻。

他的探索並行追蹤了各種生命故事，將他們在「斷崖」處配對比較，分析其做出的不同選擇與分歧的道路。兩名搖滾樂手面對失去帶來成功的團體後的未來；兩位身陷醜聞的公眾人物必須決定如何重建生活；兩位女權擴張運動者在達成史詩目標後，面臨接下來該做什麼的難題；兩位花式滑冰運動員在奧運生涯結束後尋找新目標。從柯林斯對作家、演員、科學家、領導者及許多他者的廣泛研究中，浮現出一個理解個人生命如何被建立、維持並不斷更新的框架。

藉由檢視這些非凡生命的長遠曲線，柯林斯應對了人生的種種問題。需要具備什麼才能：

• 發現深具成就感的人生角色——一個你天生被「編碼」去擔任的角色——並在第一個角色結束後找到第二個？

• 克服重大斷崖——一個迫使你選擇下一步並要求你重新構思未來歲月的斷裂點？

• 建立個人經濟模式，讓你專注於餵養內在火焰的大事？

• 在感到不確定甚至徹底迷失時導航迷霧，並一步步建立信心？

• 年復一年地建立個人動能，讓你的創意與精力遍布整個生命週期？

• 達成「認識自己」的必要任務，並將自我認知應用於生命的每個階段？

柯林斯首次動人地記錄了自己的故事，揭示這項研究如何從根本上改變了他的思維與情感。這部作品充滿驚喜、以故事驅動、研究深厚且令人振奮。《如何成就一生》（What to Make of a Life）是一本絕無僅有的書，令人信服地展示了豐富充實的人生是我們每個人都觸手可及的。

Jim Collins, international bestselling author of Good to Great, offers transformative lessons on constructing—and reconstructing—a life through the cliff moments and transitions we all will face repeatedly in our lives.

What to make of a life?

It is a question we all wrestle with more than once: How do we find our way in the world? How do we make it past the cliffs, significant events that can radically change a life? How do we keep the inner fire burning bright, long and late? Inspired by relentless curiosity, Jim Collins devoted a decade to studying these questions and to minutely analyzing those moments when life flips from clarity to confusion and casts us into a befuddling fog.

His exploration follows various lives side-by-side, paired together at cliffs, and analyzes the different choices made and divergent paths taken. Two rock musicians confronting a future without the group that had brought them success. Two public figures tainted by scandal having to make decisions about how to rebuild their lives. Two suffragists achieving their epic goal and so left with the puzzle of what to do next. Two figure skaters seeking new purpose when their Olympic careers come to an end. What emerges from Collins’s extensive studies—of writers, actors, scientists, leaders and many others—is a framework for understanding how individual lives can be built, sustained and constantly renewed.

By examining the long arc of these remarkable lives, Collins tackles life’s questions. What does it take to:

• Discover a deeply fulfilling role in life—one that you are naturally ‘encoded’ for—and then to find a second one, if the first one ends?
• Overcome a major cliff—a fracture point that forces choices about what’s next and calls for you to re-envision the years to come?
• Make your personal economics work so that you can focus on one big thing that feeds your inner fire?
• Navigate the fog, when you feel uncertain or even outright lost, and build confidence step by step?
• Build personal momentum decade upon decade, so that your most creative and energetic years are spread across an entire lifetime?
• Achieve the imperative to “Know Thyself” and apply self-knowledge to each phase of life? 

And for the first time, Collins movingly chronicles his own story to reveal how undertaking this project transformed him, changing his thinking and reshaping his emotions in fundamental ways. Surprising, story-driven, deeply researched, and uplifting, What to Make of a Life is a book like no other, convincingly showing how a richly fulfilled life is within reach of us all.