Omar Usman – 3 Lessons From How Will You Measure Your Life Clayton Christensen

Omar Usman
AI: Summary ©
In this YouTube video, Omar Osman discusses how to measure one's life and create a positive environment. He gives three lessons from the book How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen: Why are we here, how do we know we're making a difference, and what is meaningful work? He emphasizes the importance of finding a job that challenges one's values and provides a system in place to protect relationships. He also gives advice on how to handle personal decisions and avoid compromise on one's values.
AI: Transcript ©
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Hey, guys. Omar Osman here. Welcome to my

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new YouTube channel. On this channel, I'm going

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to be doing book reviews, but not in

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the traditional way. I'll be doing 3 lessons

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that I've learned from a book in 3

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minutes.

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Today, we're talking about How Will You Measure

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Your Life by Clayton Christensen.

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The basic premise of this book is why

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are we here, and how do we know

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we're making a difference? He split the book

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up into 3 sections, career, relationships, and what

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he calls get out of jail free. Now

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in the first section about careers,

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he talks about why we take certain careers

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or why we go into a certain job.

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And one of the main traps that we

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fall into is taking a job for money.

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And he outlines the fact that money is

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actually a hygiene factor. So So it's an

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environmental factor. It's like what kind of office

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you have, what kind of chair you sit

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in. You know, these types of things, he

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puts money into that category. The problem that

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we have is that we'll take a job

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because of the salary, because of the money,

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and then our lifestyle expands to fill that

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type of income, and then we're stuck. We're

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trapped, and we can't get out. So he

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says we should be looking for more meaningful

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indicators

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as to a job that we'll like. And

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for that, he identifies what meaningful work is.

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So meaningful work is to look at, do

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you agree with the vision? Do you agree

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with the mission? Are you doing work that

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challenges you? Are you doing work that makes

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you think, that makes you feel fulfilled?

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Look for that as the primary motivator. You

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can't ignore the hygiene factors, but make sure

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the underlying theme is something meaningful, something challenging,

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and then look at the money and the

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other things. In the second section, she talks

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about relationships.

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And in relationships, she talks specifically about high

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achievers.

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See, high achievers,

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they tend to do what brings them the

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most benefit with their immediate action. And so

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for a lot of people, that means that

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they end up sacrificing their relationships,

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specifically their family life. Because on a day

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to day basis, things seem okay. Things are

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going fine. There hasn't been a big catastrophe,

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but then, eventually, after 5 years, 10 years,

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or 20 years, things fall apart, and it's

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hard to pinpoint exactly what happened. And he

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says you have to be sure to take

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care of your relationships because at the end

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of your life, that's what you'll value the

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most, is your family and your friends. And

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so one tip that he gives that stood

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out to me was he said, you know,

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have a setup, have a system in place

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that protects the balance of your relationships. For

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example,

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give your spouse

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veto power over your calendar. That's a very

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easy to way to make sure that you

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keep your relationships

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and your career in the proper balance. In

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the 3rd section, he talks it's called Get

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Out of Jill Free, but this section is

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about marginal and full thinking, and this is

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probably one of the biggest takeaways

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that people who have read this book have.

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He gives the example of Blockbuster and Netflix.

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When Netflix first started, they were challenging Blockbuster,

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and Blockbuster looked at it and they said,

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the margins that they're making, the money that

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they're making on these DVD rentals

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it's just not enough to entice us to

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do it. And if we were to do

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it and we were to double down on

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this business model, it would mean that we

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would put our physical stores out of business,

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so there's really no incentive for us to

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do this. We know how that story ended.

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Netflix ended up putting Blockbuster completely out of

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business. And so Christensen says that you have

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to, you know, you have to have an

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an agile mentality,

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that if we were starting from scratch, what

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would we be what would we do? And

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don't be afraid to go down that route.

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But he goes one step further,

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and that is that he applies this marginal

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and full thinking to our personal lives. And

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he says a lot of times we make

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decisions and we'll say things like, you know,

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it's not gonna hurt just this one time,

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or I can do it one time. I

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can do it just this, you know, just

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this time, and there won't be any consequences.

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He says over time, those add up, and

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we don't realize how big the consequences are

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going to be. So even in your personal

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life, make sure that you have a full

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mentality, that you're paying attention to what you're

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doing, and you don't compromise on your values.

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Hope you enjoyed the video. We've got more

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book reviews coming. Make sure you hit subscribe

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and hit the like button. Thanks.

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