Falling with Purpose - by Michael Norkus (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

In 1973, a woman walked into a Harvard Square café and sat down at the next table. He reached for her jacket without asking. She stopped him cold.

He was a German student at Harvard Business School, trained to find the pattern beneath any problem. She was an American psychologist who saw through people before they finished their first sentence. He had never been seen so clearly. She had never met someone so determined to know himself - and so far from managing it.

Falling with Purpose moves between their courtship and the world that formed him: postwar Germany, coal dust and factory floors, soccer and jazz, first love, family silence, and the early days of the Boston Consulting Group. It is the story of a man who mastered strategy, built a career, and nearly lost the one thing that made any of it matter.

At its center is a single German word: Durchblick - the ability to see through confusion to what truly matters. Michael Norkus spent decades applying that clarity to markets, companies, and business problems. It took considerably longer to understand that the same clarity, turned inward, leads somewhere simpler - and that love is not a feeling but a choice, made again and again, at real cost.

Part memoir, part love story, part portrait of postwar Germany and the birth of modern business strategy, Falling with Purpose is for readers of Wallace Stegner, Sebastian Junger, and Phil Knight's Shoe Dog - and for anyone who has ever been very good at the wrong things.

The why is love. Not as something solved. As something chosen.

Review Quotes

Fifty-five years ago, I said something to Michael that I promptly forgot. He never did. The story of this book, especially his meeting Andrea in a Cambridge café, would follow from that moment.

Michael has written the story of how that choice was made and what it cost and what it gave.

It is a surprising book - part love story, part strategic memoir, and a case study in what strategy cannot teach.

-Dr. Peter Harf, Chair JAB Holdings, Coty Inc.; Founder DKMS - Delete Blood Cancer

"A magical story about evolving! Falling with Purpose brings postwar Germany vividly to life with rare authenticity. Against that backdrop, Michael traces the growth of a man decoupling from expectations to find himself, not afraid to feel

truly - love for Andrea, without giving up his other ambitions. Bravo!"

-Lore Harp McGovern, Co-Founder, The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT

Falling with Purpose reads so well it is difficult to put down.

What makes this book stand out are its vivid dialogue, and well-observed character studies. Striking is the close connection between emotion and analysis, brilliantly expressed in the title.

It is not only its judiciousness that makes the book stand out, but also the author's unreserved frankness. Durchblick may help reach certain goals, but what ultimately wins in this beautiful story is wisdom - a triumph all the more meaningful for having been gained through pain.

-Barbara Eskin, Book Group Moderator Goethe-Institute

A frank and absorbing story of what success costs and what it cannot buy- with rare insider access to the early days of BCG and the birth of modern business strategy. The tension between a demanding mother and the woman her son chooses drives the book with surprising force. His mother, Gisela, is a complicated, deeply influential charac-

ter, strong-willed and unafraid.

Michael goes from post-war Germany to Havvaad. With a philosophical, curious mind, he follows his heart instead of what's been carved out for him. Soon, he'll enter the early days of the formidable Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Business nonfiction readers will greatly enjoy the circuitous journey Michael takes to find success in his endeavors. The book is peppered with insider intrigue on how businesses work, including a fascinating question of how successful companies (like his father's) can fail despite money and previous success.

Clean, thought-provoking prose that prompts insightful conversations about ambition, purpose, and what matters in life. Philosophy fans will also have plenty to enjoy here. A warmhearted book for the business-minded who just want to find their way with a loving partner by their side.

-Toni Woodruff, Independent Book Review