Omar Usman – Permanent Beta 3 Things I Learned from the Book Startup of You Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha

Hey, guys. Omar Osman here. Today, I'm sharing

3 things I learned from The Startup of

You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Kasnoka.

The premise of the book is basically this.

They say companies aren't going to take care

of you for 20 years and let you

build a career and all that like they

used to. Those times are done. So instead,

people need to treat their career like an

entrepreneurial startup and adopt a lot of the

same mindsets that those companies have. So three

things I learned was number 1, have a

permanent beta mindset.

What that means that you have to constantly

be iterating and improving. See a lot of

people

when they have something like 20 years of

experience at work, In the book, they say

that a lot of them is really 1

year of experience

that's been multiplied 20 times. That's a really

scary thought. A permanent beta mindset though means

that you're always iterating. How can I improve?

How can I get better? What's the next

version of myself? And so I'm always looking

at what assets I have, what knowledge do

I have, what skill sets do I have,

my experiences, the people that I know, the

things that I've done, all these different things

accumulate into my skill set. And so I

need to constantly be improving those things, learning

new things, meeting new people, doing all these

different types of things and that brings us

to the second lesson. The second thing I

learned was to invest in yourself

and this is something that I've tried to

take very seriously.

They say that companies will no longer set

you up to actually train and develop and

do all of these things because most people

don't stay in the same job for more

than 3 or 4 or 5 years

and so it's not in their interest to

train you up for something that's going to

be of use 15 20 years down the

line. You've got to take charge of your

own education.

That means investing in classes,

seminars, workshops,

any different way that you can find to

learn, reading books, all these different types of

things constantly be in a mode of improvement,

but also it's not just the mindset. You

have to take the steps and invest in

yourself.

One thing other than just investing in education,

they say you've got to find ways of

investing in meeting people as well. That could

be as simple as taking someone out for

coffee or lunch.

It might also mean that if there's someone

interesting that you want to meet that you

think you can learn from,

fly out and meet them. Have money set

aside to meet interesting people, but invest in

yourself and in your relationships. That brings us

to the third lesson. The third thing that

I learned was to build a professional network.

Now networking, when I hear that word, it

evokes a lot of negative imagery. It's like

all these advices that people give you go

to the rotary club, go to the Chamber

of Commerce, go to networking events and hand

out business cards and meet people that you

don't know. It all sounds very awkward and

inauthentic.

In the book, they say that you have

a natural network

that you don't realize is really your network.

So there's friends, there's acquaintances,

there's people that you've met here and there,

friends of friends, but people that are naturally

within your circle that you can reach out

to and talk to. That's a natural network

that you can have that you can start

to build relationships with people. Now that doesn't

mean just like, oh, that person works there.

They can get me a job at that

company. But no, they say look to build

relationships

with the people in your network. That means

find ways of adding value to them. They'll

add value to you in return and it's

an actual friendship or relationship.

One other thing that comes with building your

network is also making sure that you've put

people that are close to you that have

your best interests at heart

And that means it's not just your network

or friends that you go to for advice,

but it's making sure that you strategically have

5, 6, 7, 8 people that are close

to you that are always thinking in terms

of what's best for you. And you go

to them, you get their advice, you get

their help, and you help your career move

forward. That's the 3 things I learned from

this book. Please make sure you subscribe to

the video. We put up at least one

new video every week. We've got a link

to the book and more resources down below

in the description, so check that out. I'll

see you in the next video.