What to Make of a Life

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE QUESTION

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 analysing those moments when life flips from clarity to confusion and casts us into a befuddling fog.

THE STUDY

His exploration compares various lives side by side, paired together at cliffs, and analyses the different choices made and divergent paths taken.

• Two rock musicians confronting a future without the group that had brought them success.
• Two suffragists achieving their epic goal and then left with the puzzle of what to do next.
• Two public figures tainted by scandal having to make decisions about how to rebuild their lives.
• 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.

THE FINDINGS

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 find 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 reenvision 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
• Minimise the impact of bad luck and ensure the maximum return on good luck?
• 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?
  

THE TRANSFORMATION

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. 'After this study,' writes Collins, 'I will never look at life the same ever again.'

Surprising, story-driven, deeply researched, and uplifting, What to Make of a Life is a book like no other and convincingly shows how a richly fulfilled life is within reach for us all.

© Jim Collins 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026