A Map for Finding Direction and Purpose in Life (Again and Again)
Jim Collins discusses his book 'What to Make of a Life,' drawing on a decade of research to explain the cyclical nature of life through recurring periods of fog, cliff events, and the process of finding meaningful work. He introduces the concept of 'coming into frame' — aligning innate encodings with actual work — and outlines three key elements: discovering your encodings, flipping the arrow of money, and focusing your inner fire. The conversation also covers simplex stepping through fog, the role of luck, and how meaningful work can continue well into old age.
Summary
In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, Brett McKay interviews Jim Collins about his latest book, 'What to Make of a Life,' which applies the same research-driven approach Collins used in works like 'Good to Great' to the question of how individuals find meaning and direction across an entire life. Collins explains that the project was seeded by three personal experiences: realizing his father could never truly be a father figure, witnessing his wife Joanne's devastating end to her career as a world champion Ironman athlete, and being inspired by mentor John Gardner's work on self-renewal.
Collins and his team of 28 researchers spent 10 years studying individuals from all walks of life — athletes, writers, scientists, politicians, musicians, and more — to identify patterns in how people navigate life's major transitions. The central framework Collins develops is the concept of being 'in frame,' which means aligning one's innate 'encodings' — durable, intrinsic capacities and interests — with what one actually does in life. He illustrates this with the story of John Glenn, whose encodings for flying only came into frame after a chance notice on a physics department bulletin board offered to fund pilot training, transforming him from a directionless student into one of history's greatest astronauts.
Collins argues that everyone must answer the question 'What to make of a life?' at least three times: during the fog of youth, after a cliff event that radically changes one's circumstances, and again as one moves through midlife into later decades. Cliff events can be predictable (an athlete's career ending, retirement) or completely unexpected (the sudden death of a spouse, illness). After cliff events, people typically enter a period of 'fog' — disorientation, confusion, and uncertainty — which Collins emphasizes is not a character defect but a normal and universal experience, even among people who go on to live remarkable lives.
To navigate out of fog, Collins describes a strategy called 'simplex stepping': rather than making a bold, sweeping leap (which can throw a person off another cliff) or standing still, individuals take the single best next step available to them, then reassess and take another. This iterative, low-stakes approach allows people to gradually discover new encodings and find their next frame without needing a clear vision of the destination.
Fully being 'in frame' requires three elements working together: discovering your encodings, flipping the arrow of money (making money the fuel for meaningful work rather than the goal of work), and focusing your inner fire in a sustained, hedgehog-like way on one big thing at a time. Collins details 12 different ways people in the study funded their work, from spousal support and cross-funding (like Robert Plant laying tarmac while launching his music career) to building flywheels where doing meaningful work generates resources to do more of it. Toni Morrison edited full-time while writing on the side; Philip Glass worked as a plumber in New York City.
Collins also discusses the inevitability of the 'stress and drudgery tax' — the reality that even people doing work they love face difficulty, resistance, and tedium. I.M. Pei, for example, had people spitting at his feet in Paris during the Louvre Pyramid project despite being in his 70s and at the peak of his career. Collins finds this universal nature of the drudgery tax to be a source of relief rather than discouragement.
The conversation turns to luck, where Collins explains that successful people don't receive more good luck than others — what differentiates them is their 'return on luck,' a concept developed with co-author Morten Hansen. When luck events arrive, high-performing individuals extract more value from them. Collins identifies three types of luck: what luck (circumstantial), who luck (the people who intersect your life), and zeit luck (being in the right historical moment).
Finally, Collins challenges the assumption that meaningful creative and professional contribution necessarily peaks in youth. He cites Benjamin Franklin (53% of his major biography pages occur after age 60), Toni Morrison (published 'Beloved' at 56 and 'Jazz' in her early 60s), I.M. Pei (designed the Louvre Pyramid in his 70s), and Robert Plant (Grammy nominations mostly in his 50s and 60s) as evidence that the most spectacular chapters of a life can come well past the midpoint. Collins argues that multiple frames are possible throughout a life, that earlier frames do not have to overshadow later ones, and that entirely new encodings can come into frame as one ages.
Key Insights
- Collins argues that everyone must answer the question 'What to make of a life?' at least three times — during the fog of youth, after a cliff event that radically disrupts one's circumstances, and again as one moves through midlife into later decades — making the life journey inherently cyclical rather than linear.
- Collins found through his research that people going through fog after cliff events are best served by 'simplex stepping' — taking only the single best next visible step rather than making a bold leap or standing still — because leaping blindly through fog risks throwing a person off another cliff entirely.
- Collins and co-author Morten Hansen found that more successful entrepreneurs and companies did not receive more good luck or fewer bad luck events than their less successful counterparts; what differentiated them was their 'return on luck' — extracting more value from the luck events they did receive.
- Collins argues that a person can have multiple distinct frames across a lifetime — using Alan Page as an example, who was so encoded for football that he became the first defensive player named NFL MVP, yet then discovered an entirely different and equally fire-filled frame as a Minnesota Supreme Court Justice, demonstrating that the encodings for law had always been present but simply weren't called upon during his football years.
- Collins contends that even people who are fully in frame and deeply love their work never escape what he calls the 'stress and drudgery tax,' citing I.M. Pei in his 70s having people spit at his feet in Paris over the Louvre Pyramid and still losing sleep over design problems — arguing that this universality should be a source of relief rather than a sign that something is wrong.
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