2006年的一天，在哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）开创了著名创业课程的霍华德·史蒂文森教授在哈佛校园中走路时突发严重心脏病。幸运的是，他倒下的地方附近就有一栋大楼备有心脏除颤器（整个哈佛校园只有两栋建筑备有除颤器），而且恰好有一个人知道如何使用除颤器，还把除颤器拿到了他身旁。不仅如此，那一天正好有一辆邮政速递车驶过附近，而且两英里外就有一家非常好的医院。于是，这位66岁的教授在鬼门关走了一遭又回来了。一位医生说，“这种事发生的几率只有百分之一”。

    后来，朋友埃里克·辛诺威到医院看望他时，问他这一生中有过什么遗憾。除了摔倒时弄脏了最喜欢的运动衫，史蒂文森说，“一点（遗憾）也没有”。作为咨询公司Axcess Worldwide的创始人兼CEO，以及史蒂文森突发心脏病时的哈佛筹款人，这一事件让辛诺威意识到他差点错过了一个巨大的机会。多年以来，史蒂文森和辛诺威曾无数次畅谈生活、事业、家庭和创业；如果不是2006年这一天史蒂文森从鬼门关转了回来，辛诺威或许再也没有机会感谢这位长者曾经给他的种种金玉良言，也不再会有机会把他的想法记录下来，造福于人。

    这就是辛诺威（与美林·米德合著）的新书《霍华德的礼物》（Howard's Gift）的由来，发人深省。这就像是写给MBA学生的《相约星期二》（Tuesdays With Morrie）。这本书的长处在于，它不像很多这一类的大部头书那样试图灌输过于简单或浅显易见的建议，而是通过深入的对话，探讨真实职场问题和追求令人满意事业的不同途径，史蒂文森称之为“一生的工作”。

平衡工作与生活有很多层面

    辛诺威写道，史蒂文森对于“平衡工作与生活”这个套话很不满意，认为它太过简单化了。他将生活比作像是“走在奥运会赛场的平衡木上，手里抛着鸡蛋、网球和尖刀。”他说，我们至少都有7种生活：家庭生活、社交生活、精神生活、肉体生活、物质生活、业余生活和职业生活。

    史蒂文森认为，我们大多数人都试图在所有领域都获得A+——这样的追求固然好，但却不可避免地会让人耗尽精力。正如书中引用一位企业家的话称：“每天早晨我醒来时，就会想今天我会让谁失望。”生活是动态的，人们总是在不断地作出抉择，在7种生活中寻找妥协和平衡。史蒂文森说，关键是要经常在人生的不同阶段，思考哪些生活具有更高的优先性，然后随着境遇转变，调整重点。

    要想知道在这7种生活中将重点放在哪里，必须要搞明白在人生的不同阶段，什么对你是最重要的。有一次，辛诺威和史蒂文森谈起了一位成功的企业家朋友，这位朋友已经卖掉了自己的公司，拿到了一大笔钱。他实现了工作、家庭和高尔夫运动的平衡，可以做任何他想做的事情——但他仍感到茫然若失。

    Howard Stevenson,a professor who started the now-legendary entrepreneurship program at the Harvard Business School, was walking through Harvard's campus one day when he suffered a massive heart attack. Luck had it that he fell to the ground near one of only two university buildings that had a defibrillator and that someone who knew how to use it just happened to be there to bring it to his side. Not only that, an EMS vehicle that day was driving nearby and an excellent hospital was only two miles away. The 66-year old survived -- as one doctor put it: "a one-out-of-100 chance."

    When a friend, Eric Sinoway, visited the professor in the hospital, he asked him whether he had regretted anything in his life. Besides ruining his favorite sports coat during his fall, Stevenson said "not a one." This made Sinoway, the founder and CEO of the consulting firm Axcess Worldwide and, at the time of Stevenson's heart attack, a fundraiser at Harvard, realize that he had almost missed a huge opportunity. Over the years, Stevenson and Sinoway had spent hours talking about life, careers, family, and entrepreneurship; if Stevenson hadn't made it on that fateful day in 2006, Sinoway would have missed a chance not only to thank the older man for all his sage advice but also to record his ideas so others could benefit.

    That was the genesis of Howard's Gift, Sinoway's new, thought-provoking book (written with Merrill Meadow). Think of it as Tuesdays With Morrie for MBAs. The strength of this book is that it doesn't try to hit you over the head with over-simplified or obvious advice, like so many other tomes in this genre. Instead, you follow in-depth conversations that delve into real-life career issues and use them to subtly examine different ways to achieve a satisfying path -- pursuing what Stevenson calls your "life's work."

Adding a few additional layers to work-life balance

    Stevenson, writes Sinoway, scowls at the term "work-life balance," arguing that it's much too simplistic. He likens one's life to "juggling an egg, a tennis ball and a knife while walking on a balance beam -- at the Olympics." He says we all struggle to live at least seven lives: the family self, the social self, the spiritual self, the physical self, the material self, the avocational self, and the career self.

    Most of us, Stevenson argues, try to get an A+ in each of these categories -- a noble pursuit, but one that inevitably leads to burnout. As one entrepreneur quoted in the book said, "I wake up every morning wondering who I'm going to disappoint today." Life is a dynamic process where one is constantly making choices and compromises among those seven selves. The trick, Stevenson says, is to constantly assess which groups take priority at different points of your life, and then shift the emphasis as your situation changes.

    To know where to place the emphasis among your seven selves, you have to figure out what's important to you at various stages of life. At one point, Sinoway tells Stevenson about a friend of his, a successful entrepreneur who had sold his company for a large sum of money. He had managed to lead a life where he balanced work, family, and his golf game, and was at a point where he could do anything he desired -- but he still felt lost.

    史蒂文森说，他和其他很多人犯的错误是，“他们陷入了误区，不妨问问自己一些最简单的问题，比如‘今天我想要的东西真的和去年想要的是一样的吗？5年前我接受这份工作的理由如今还存在吗？’”这位不开心的企业家最后想清了一点，他并不想做什么新的事情。真正让他有成就感的是他一直以来做的事情：供养家庭。因此，他将更多重心转到了“职业生活”，创立了一家新的公司。

思考你会留下些什么

    史蒂文森表示，思考如何平衡7种生活的另一种方式是，不妨想想百年之后你的人生将被如何看待。你会留下些什么？史蒂文森说，人们总是会找一位导师，试图复制他们的职业。他认为，这样的道路注定失败。“不管别人的想法多么有吸引力，也不能完全真正地成为你自己的想法。你留下来的东西应该是你自己的，”史蒂文森说。他建议，比较好的方式是以榜样的想法为出发点，推动自己深入思考，什么真正有意义？什么真正令人满意？

    找到让你满意的东西后，还要经常留意史蒂文森称之为“拐点”的时刻，及时转向新的方向。为了说明这一点，辛诺威举了一个例子：中层管理者米歇尔的老板在一次重组中被解雇了。米歇尔表示，她感觉前途渺茫，不知道自己将来在部门中的新角色是什么。她已经在这家公司工作了10年，希望能有一个最好的结果。

    史蒂文森说，她在浪费一个绝佳的上升机会。他的建议：她需要争取和管理层对话，给出她对部门重组以及自身新职能的建议。也许她会遭到回绝，但藉此至少也能对个人的职业和前景多一些了解。如果成功，她将立即获得一份精彩的新工作。

最具挑战的部分：坦诚面对自己。

    人们常犯的另一个错误，史蒂文森称之为“在单人纸牌游戏中作弊”。史蒂文森在哈佛商学院曾经带过一名叫詹姆斯的学生，后来进入了房地产投资信托公司工作，但他对工作并不满意。这个人很聪明，也是办公室里工作最努力的一个，但却没能晋升到下一个级别。

    The mistake he and many other people make, Stevenson says, is that "they fall into the trap of not asking simple questions, like, 'Do I really want the same things today that I wanted last year? Are the reasons I took this job five years ago still valid now?'" The disgruntled entrepreneur eventually figured out that he didn't really want to do anything new. What really gave him fulfillment was what he had been doing before: providing for his family. So he shifted more emphasis to his "career self" and started a new company.

Considering your legacy

    Another way to figure out how to balance your seven lives, says Stevenson, is to start thinking about how your life will be perceived after it's over. What's your legacy going to be? Stevenson says people often find a mentor and then try to replicate their careers. This path, he argues, is bound for failure.  "As compelling as another's vision might be, you can't make it wholly, truly yours. A legacy is tailored to fit just one person," Stevenson says.  The better approach, he suggests, is to use a role model's perspectives as a catalyst to promote your own deep thinking about what's truly meaningful and satisfying.

    Once you have found what you think will make you happy, you have to be constantly on the lookout for what Stevenson calls  "inflection points," moments that can catapult you in a new direction. To illustrate, Sinoway uses the example of a middle level executive named Michelle whose boss was fired in a restructuring. She said that she was going to lay low and wait to find out what her new role would be in the department. She had invested 10 years in the company and was hoping for the best.

    Stevenson says she was wasting an excellent opportunity for growth. His advice: she needs to step up to management, and offer her ideas for restructuring the department and her new role in it. She might be rebuffed, but at least it would give her some valuable data about her career and prospects. And if it worked, she'd suddenly have an exciting new job.

The most challenging task of all: Being honest with yourself

    Another common mistake people make is what Stevenson calls "cheating at solitaire." A former Harvard Business School student of Stevenson's named James was frustrated in his job working for a real estate investment trust. He was smart and the hardest working person in the office, but he wasn't rising to the next level.

    史蒂文森称，詹姆斯是在“在单人纸牌游戏中作弊”——好比你在游戏中一直处于优势，但知道自己可能拿不到需要的那最后一张牌，于是就悄悄把它从牌堆里捡了出来。詹姆斯认为自己能成为这家房地产投资信托公司一名出色的项目经理，但他缺乏成为团队领导所需的谈判技巧和情商。他缺少这一张牌，但他不愿承认——他认为他能够赢牌，就算他缺乏升职所需的一项关键技能。后来詹姆斯终于直面自己，转到了一份更适合他的分析性工作，人也不再那么沮丧了。

    由于这些对话是在史蒂文森与辛诺威之间进行的，因此，这本书的不足之处在于，每章的结尾都是辛诺威写的一位成功人士的简短介绍——包括创立MTV和VH1、后来担任美国在线（AOL）总裁的鲍勃·皮特曼，为“美国而教”（Teach for America）的创始人温迪·科普——重点关注他们如何管理自己的事业。问题是记录在册的人早已非富即贵，他们面对的职业选择是我们大多数人所没有的。一旦坐拥百万美金，或者早已在相应领域出类拔萃，这个时候再来思考自己将来要留下些什么、或者做出大胆的新选择自然要容易很多。

    话虽如此，哪怕你只是对现状有一丁点不满，只要听听这样一位从死亡边缘回来的智者侃侃而谈自己的职业领悟和人生经验，就会获得不少启迪。

    译者：杨智

    Stevenson says that James was cheating at solitaire -- that moment when you've been winning the game but know you can't get the one last card you need, so you slip it out from under the pile. James thought he'd be a good project manager at the REIT but he lacked the negotiating skills and emotional intelligence to be a team leader. He was missing that one card but wouldn't admit it -- he thought he could win the game even though he lacked a crucial skill he needed to move up in his job. Once James truthfully confronted this fact about himself, he was able to move into an analytical job better suited to his talents, which ultimately reduced his frustrations.

    As engaging as these conversations between Stevenson and Sinoway are, one drawback to the book is that each chapter ends with a mini profile of successful people written by Sinoway -- including Bob Pittman, who launched MTV and VH1 and later became the president of AOL (AOL); and Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America -- focusing on how they managed their careers. The rub is that those profiled are already either very wealthy or very famous, giving them career options most of us don't have. It's a lot easier to be thinking about your legacy or taking bold new career steps when you're sitting on millions or are at the top of your field.

    With that said, anyone who feels even slightly discontent with the status quo could benefit from career insights and life lessons from a wise man who escaped death.