This book was a good overall read. I wasn’t riveted, and I didn’t get a zillion practical takeaways, but I felt motivated after reading to find a good balance between work and life. I think their call to find the “Sustainable Edge” is a good one, in that if you can build your business to a good point of growth you can then have a life too. It’s no doubt the authors have had a ton of success and that’s evident by their own personal business growth along with the importance they place on their families and enjoying life’s passions as well.
Let’s dive into the good, the bad, and the great.
The Good
The Sustainable Edge does a good job at sharing that there is a balance you have to strike between work and life. This is of particular interest to me as I find it one of the most difficult balance issues. Their direction in the book is to share that 15% annual growth is the key, and if you can do that you’ll have time to do other things in life you enjoy.
They also share insight to the fact that mixing work and pleasure is okay and I agree. If you can find a work you love to do with people you enjoy spending time with, you are well on your way. They don’t share much (at least that I can remember) in the form of practical ways to accomplish this, other than to share that this needs to be your goal.
That being said, I didn’t do the question items in the back, so I might be more to blame than the authors. I just didn’t find the questions intriguing enough to spend my time on them. The questions were a little bit too business direct and I couldn’t find an easy way to apply them to my life.
The Bad
There were far too many workshop like questions in the book. I’m all for questioning, but when it seems like most of the book is filled with specific business related questions I lose interest fast. The entire last fifth of the book is filled with repeat questions that were already in the book earlier. I didn’t want to do them the first time and I definitely don’t want to do them now.
One final pet peeve note: the formatting of the question pages looks terrible on the Kindle. It’s obvious they didn’t check this through. What works for paperback doesn’t always transfer over to the digital edition.
The Great
The great comes in the form of one simple exercise. As I shared in the bad, too many questions, exercises, and journal type entries in a book can kill it for me. But one good one can make the book and this happened here.
They asked you to answer the prompt: “The Things I Value Most in Life Are’ and then fill out a table that asked for the value, the rank in your life, and the % of time you spend doing it.
It was eye opening for me to get this out on paper and see where it is I currently spend my time. I then took it a step further and did a journal entry for the question “What do I want to spend my time doing” and answered similar questions and ranking on what I want my life to look like.
I appreciated the good prompt and the learning and insight it gave on my own thoughts, priorities and desires.
You can pick up the book on Amazon here.
Enjoy and best of luck in all of your entrepreneurial endeavors.
-Jordan
Rating Out of 100
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