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competing against luck

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what customers hire is not the product

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you think a customer walks into the store

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to buy a milkshake

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but what he actually walks away with

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might be a less boring commute

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might be not being hungry by ten in the morning

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or even a chance to be a good dad

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if you only stare at the milkshake

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you will study flavor cup price and ingredients

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you will gather a group of milkshake lovers

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and ask them if they prefer it sweeter or thicker

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then you write down every opinion carefully

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and make a milkshake that is better in every way

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and sales may not move at all

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the problem is not that you did not do well enough

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the problem is

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that from the very beginning

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you identified the wrong competitor

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hello

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everyone

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I am Leo Wang

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today we keep using Buddhism to take apart economics

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last episode we talked about Hayek

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and we saw

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once a person takes the blueprint in his mind as the world outside

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even good intentions can grow into control

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this episode we switch to a book about innovation

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Clayton Christensen and several coauthors

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wrote competing against luck

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the question this book keeps asking is

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why do some innovations cost so much

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and still end up left to fate

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while some products do not look impressive at all

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yet customers hold on to them tightly

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the luck in the title

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is not about fortune telling

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what the author means is

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if a company does not know why customers make their choices

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then whether a new product succeeds

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is a lot like gambling on luck

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you can collect a lot of data

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you can run a lot of interviews

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you can even use age income and region

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to sort your users perfectly

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but in the end you still do not know

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why at that particular moment

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he reached out and picked up your product

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the answer Christensen gives

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let me compress it into one sentence

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customers are not buying a product

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they are in a specific situation

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hiring a solution

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to push their life forward a little

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hiring here

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does not mean actually signing a contract

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it is a way of looking at things

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a person wants to move from where he is now

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to a more satisfying state

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and something is stuck in between

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so he brings in a product a service

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or even a habit to do the job

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if it does the job well

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he hires it again next time

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if it does not

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he fires it

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this sounds like marketing

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but the truly powerful part

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is that it redefines competition

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you think movie theaters only compete with movie theaters

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but they also compete with scrolling short videos at home

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you think a restaurant only competes with the one next door

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but it also competes with noodles at home rice balls at the convenience store

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and even with just skipping the meal

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very often

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the strongest rival is not another brand at all

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it is doing nothing making do

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or sticking with the clumsy method you have used for ten years

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the most famous story in the book

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is the milkshake story

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a fast food chain wanted to sell more milkshakes

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it asked customers what they liked

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and changed the product accordingly

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but nothing much happened

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later the researchers changed the question

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they stopped asking

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what makes a better milkshake

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and instead stood in the store and watched

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who bought milkshakes and when

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where they took them afterward

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and what else they bought

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they found

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that the people buying milkshakes in the morning

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were mostly driving to work alone

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with a long and boring drive ahead

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they needed something to keep them company

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ideally something they could hold in one hand

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that would not spill easily

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and would not be finished in one bite

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it also had to hold them over until almost noon

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the milkshake happened to be good at that job

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by category

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its competitors are of course other drinks

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but from the job point of view

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a banana is gone too fast

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a bagel is dry

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and spreading cream cheese while driving is awkward

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doughnuts and the like make your hands messy

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the milkshake may not be the healthiest

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nor the most complex in flavor

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but during that commute

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it does the job better than many seemingly unrelated things

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in the afternoon

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the same milkshake may be hired for a completely different job

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a parent walks in with a child

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the child wants a milkshake

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the parent says yes

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it is an easy way to show love

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and a little bit of time together

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at this moment

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if the milkshake is too thick

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the child takes forever to finish it

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and the parent gets impatient

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the very feature that made it great in the morning

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can become a flaw in the afternoon

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you see

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the product did not change

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the job changed

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once the job changes

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what counts as good

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changes with it

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this is the sharpest cut in the book

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the traditional view likes to fix people in place

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this is a young customer

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that is a high income customer

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this one has a sweet tooth

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that one cares about health

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but the same person

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rushing in the morning with a kid in the afternoon feeling low at night

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will hire completely different things

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age does not tell you where he is stuck right now

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income does not tell you where he wants to push his life

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the book also has a housing case

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an unnamed home developer in the Detroit area

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sold condos to people getting ready to downsize

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and had revised the show units based on focus group feedback

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plenty of people came to look

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but few actually made up their minds

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on the surface

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they were picking a more suitable home

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but digging further revealed

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that what many of them could not get past

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was not the specs of the house

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it was the act of moving itself

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the clue that kept showing up in interviews

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was the old dining table

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on birthdays

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the family had blown out candles around it

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on holidays

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everyone had sat here for the reunion dinner

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the kids had done their homework leaning on it

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selling the old house

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is not just changing an address

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it feels like admitting

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that a chapter of life is over

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no matter how beautiful the new condo is

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it cannot handle that goodbye for them

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the developer thought it was selling houses

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but customers needed help getting through a less painful life transition

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so

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the improvement that actually worked

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was not adding one more feature to the house

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it was reducing the friction of moving

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helping customers deal with old belongings and arrange the move

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making that transition bearable

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what customers hired

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was not steel and concrete

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it was a way to walk from an old life into a new one

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at this point

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let us bring in the Buddhist microscope

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let me be clear first

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the Buddhist reading that follows

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is not a conclusion Christensen wrote in the book

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nor am I saying this business theory came from Buddhism

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the author was solving an innovation problem

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we are just standing on the steps he built

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and looking one step further into how the mind is structured

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step one

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we borrow dependent origination to look at situation and conditions

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then we borrow the other dependent nature from Yogacara

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to see how experience arises from causes and conditions

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the two are related

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but they cannot be equated

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a job is not a fixed need hidden inside the customer's head

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just waiting for a company to dig it out

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it is triggered and revealed in a specific situation

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morning time pressure a long drive an empty stomach

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plus having only one free hand

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when these conditions come together

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the milkshake becomes the answer

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when the conditions change

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the solution the customer picks may change too

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the other dependent nature in Yogacara

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means experience and cognition arise from many causes and conditions

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here we only borrow it to remind ourselves

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not to talk about product value apart from the situation

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there is no good product apart from its situation

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just as there is no good seed apart from soil sunlight and season

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take the best winter coat from the north to a tropical beach

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and fine craftsmanship alone

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will not keep it a good thing

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good and bad are not properties welded inside an object

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they are results that arise out of relationships

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the job works the same way

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it does not come only from one person's desire

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it also comes from his time space relationships memories and pressures

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sometimes customers cannot even explain it themselves

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you ask him what he wants

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and he answers with products he has already seen

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he says he wants a cheaper house a tastier milkshake

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or faster software

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but these answers are often only the surface

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what he really cannot get past

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might be a stretch of boredom

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might be a farewell

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or a moment of fearing to be looked down on

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step two

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is the imagined nature

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we talked about it last episode

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the mind loves to freeze flowing relationships into fixed things

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and then treat its own labels as reality

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this is especially common in business

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a company says

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I am in the milkshake business

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so my rivals are other milkshakes

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I am in the housing business

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so my job is to build better houses

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I am in the newspaper business

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so my competitor is another newspaper

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these categories are of course useful

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without labels

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the warehouse would not know how to stock the shelves

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and accounting would not know how to keep the books

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but the trouble is

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it is easy to slide from using labels

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to believing labels

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a label was only meant to be a map

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but it ends up becoming a wall

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inside the wall people study competing products every day

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while the old habit outside that is actually taking their customers

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goes completely unnoticed

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a power drill belongs to the tool category

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but is a hole in the wall what the customer really wants

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ask one step further

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maybe he wants to hang a family photo

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ask one more step

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maybe he wants the place he just moved into

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to finally feel a little like home

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the company stares at rotation speed

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the customer is thinking about belonging

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both sides are serious

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but they are not even standing in the same world

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the most hidden part of the imagined nature

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is that it takes your own way of organizing

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as the way customers live

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the company splits departments by product

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so it assumes customers live by product too

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but no customer wakes up thinking

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today I will contribute revenue to the beverage industry

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he only feels

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I am going to be late

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the drive is boring

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and I will be hungry by ten

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step three

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is no self nature and emptiness

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no self no self nature and emptiness are closely related

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but they cannot simply be treated as one concept

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many people hear emptiness

279
00:09:41,555 --> 00:09:44,205
and think it denies the value of the product

280
00:09:44,515 --> 00:09:45,526
quite the opposite

281
00:09:45,754 --> 00:09:46,834
emptiness says

282
00:09:46,834 --> 00:09:51,126
nothing has a fixed unchanging identity apart from relationships

283
00:09:51,675 --> 00:09:53,434
precisely because there is no fixed identity

284
00:09:53,435 --> 00:09:57,246
it can play different roles in different relationships

285
00:09:58,293 --> 00:09:59,524
is a milkshake not a milkshake

286
00:10:00,134 --> 00:10:00,985
of course it is

287
00:10:01,374 --> 00:10:03,024
but it is not only a milkshake

288
00:10:03,453 --> 00:10:04,325
for someone rushing to work

289
00:10:04,573 --> 00:10:06,225
it is company for a stretch of time

290
00:10:06,614 --> 00:10:07,245
for a child

291
00:10:07,494 --> 00:10:08,544
it is a reward

292
00:10:08,734 --> 00:10:09,625
for a parent

293
00:10:09,654 --> 00:10:12,264
it is an easy chance to show love

294
00:10:12,693 --> 00:10:15,024
a new condo is not just a house either

295
00:10:15,333 --> 00:10:17,465
it might be the start of an easier retirement

296
00:10:17,654 --> 00:10:20,384
or an unbearable farewell

297
00:10:20,933 --> 00:10:24,825
a product has no essence hiding inside that holds true forever

298
00:10:25,254 --> 00:10:25,884
what it is

299
00:10:26,254 --> 00:10:28,424
depends on the relationships it enters

300
00:10:29,231 --> 00:10:31,082
this is genuinely uncomfortable for companies

301
00:10:31,432 --> 00:10:33,883
because they spent years building an identity

302
00:10:34,351 --> 00:10:35,302
I make cameras

303
00:10:35,751 --> 00:10:37,123
I run taxis

304
00:10:37,152 --> 00:10:38,403
I do education

305
00:10:38,792 --> 00:10:40,102
identity brings order

306
00:10:40,591 --> 00:10:41,923
and it also brings blind spots

307
00:10:42,432 --> 00:10:44,523
once you grip who I am too tightly

308
00:10:44,711 --> 00:10:47,682
it is hard to see customers hiring something else

309
00:10:47,912 --> 00:10:50,082
to do the job that used to be yours

310
00:10:50,593 --> 00:10:52,325
but here we have to be especially careful

311
00:10:52,553 --> 00:10:54,245
applying emptiness to business

312
00:10:54,274 --> 00:10:57,085
does not mean understanding dependent origination will make you rich

313
00:10:57,474 --> 00:11:00,564
and business success certainly does not prove that someone is wiser

314
00:11:00,913 --> 00:11:05,485
the market also has cost timing resources execution and chance

315
00:11:05,673 --> 00:11:08,644
and plenty of methods that are not noble but work very well

316
00:11:08,953 --> 00:11:11,005
Buddhism is not a sales playbook

317
00:11:11,154 --> 00:11:13,404
and sales are not a report card for awakening

318
00:11:13,673 --> 00:11:15,684
we are only using this book to see

319
00:11:15,793 --> 00:11:17,312
how clinging to a fixed identity

320
00:11:17,313 --> 00:11:19,644
can hide the real relationships

321
00:11:20,351 --> 00:11:21,145
and also

322
00:11:21,145 --> 00:11:24,636
the job framework itself must not become a new dogma

323
00:11:25,025 --> 00:11:26,717
if we start believing

324
00:11:26,746 --> 00:11:30,396
that behind every choice there is exactly one clear job

325
00:11:30,466 --> 00:11:33,036
and that finding it lets you control the customer

326
00:11:33,185 --> 00:11:36,036
then we are back to that master blueprint from last episode

327
00:11:36,665 --> 00:11:40,837
real people often want several contradictory things at once

328
00:11:41,385 --> 00:11:42,016
they want to save money

329
00:11:42,385 --> 00:11:43,437
and they want to look respectable

330
00:11:43,866 --> 00:11:44,496
they want to change

331
00:11:44,826 --> 00:11:45,917
and they fear goodbyes

332
00:11:46,505 --> 00:11:47,136
they want independence

333
00:11:47,425 --> 00:11:48,957
and they hate giving up being taken care of

334
00:11:49,385 --> 00:11:51,225
the reason he says out loud today

335
00:11:51,226 --> 00:11:52,957
is not necessarily the whole reason

336
00:11:53,502 --> 00:11:54,203
so

337
00:11:54,203 --> 00:11:57,375
understanding the job is not sticking a fancier label on people

338
00:11:57,443 --> 00:11:59,574
it is staying patient with the situation

339
00:11:59,924 --> 00:12:00,595
it is not announcing

340
00:12:00,924 --> 00:12:02,643
I already see through why you buy

341
00:12:02,644 --> 00:12:03,314
it is admitting

342
00:12:03,563 --> 00:12:04,722
that I still need to look

343
00:12:04,723 --> 00:12:06,855
at what you were actually facing

344
00:12:07,083 --> 00:12:10,414
this is what I respect most about Christensen

345
00:12:10,563 --> 00:12:13,414
he did not describe innovation as a flash of genius

346
00:12:13,483 --> 00:12:15,403
he asked companies to put down their narcissism

347
00:12:15,404 --> 00:12:18,334
and look at the real dilemmas in customers lives

348
00:12:18,804 --> 00:12:21,454
product managers easily fall in love with their own products

349
00:12:21,644 --> 00:12:23,482
founders are quick to believe

350
00:12:23,483 --> 00:12:27,814
that customers come because my tech is advanced my design beautiful my vision great

351
00:12:28,203 --> 00:12:30,694
but customers have no obligation to admire your effort

352
00:12:31,483 --> 00:12:33,454
he is just living his own life

353
00:12:34,709 --> 00:12:34,901
alright

354
00:12:35,229 --> 00:12:36,840
now let us turn the camera back

355
00:12:37,030 --> 00:12:40,241
every one of us is constantly hiring things too

356
00:12:40,790 --> 00:12:41,741
you get home from work

357
00:12:42,069 --> 00:12:43,161
you are not even hungry

358
00:12:43,229 --> 00:12:45,121
but you open the delivery app anyway

359
00:12:45,469 --> 00:12:47,748
maybe what you hired was not food

360
00:12:47,750 --> 00:12:49,001
but a little comfort

361
00:12:49,390 --> 00:12:51,840
you scroll your phone endlessly before bed

362
00:12:51,949 --> 00:12:54,029
maybe what you hired was not information

363
00:12:54,030 --> 00:12:55,440
but an escape from silence

364
00:12:55,829 --> 00:12:58,320
you bought a course you never opened

365
00:12:58,390 --> 00:13:00,560
maybe what you hired was not knowledge

366
00:13:00,630 --> 00:13:03,601
but the feeling that I have already started changing

367
00:13:04,109 --> 00:13:05,800
you argue with someone late into the night

368
00:13:05,829 --> 00:13:07,909
maybe what you hired was not being right

369
00:13:07,910 --> 00:13:10,481
but proof that I was not ignored

370
00:13:10,893 --> 00:13:12,584
the thing itself is not necessarily wrong

371
00:13:12,773 --> 00:13:14,012
what is really worth looking at

372
00:13:14,013 --> 00:13:15,903
is what we hired it to do

373
00:13:16,253 --> 00:13:18,143
some things work very hard

374
00:13:18,253 --> 00:13:20,704
and still push your life in the opposite direction

375
00:13:21,052 --> 00:13:22,704
alcohol gets hired to drown sorrow

376
00:13:22,812 --> 00:13:24,163
and brings new sorrow the next day

377
00:13:24,853 --> 00:13:26,903
anger gets hired to protect dignity

378
00:13:27,013 --> 00:13:29,244
and burns down the relationship it meant to protect

379
00:13:29,853 --> 00:13:32,104
procrastination gets hired to avoid failure

380
00:13:32,212 --> 00:13:34,023
and pulls failure closer and closer

381
00:13:34,392 --> 00:13:37,403
practice is sometimes not firing these things right away

382
00:13:37,552 --> 00:13:39,723
it is first seeing that hiring letter clearly

383
00:13:39,951 --> 00:13:40,462
next time

384
00:13:40,792 --> 00:13:42,523
when your hand reaches for the phone again

385
00:13:42,591 --> 00:13:43,603
pause for a second

386
00:13:43,672 --> 00:13:45,723
notice whether there is a hollow feeling in your chest

387
00:13:45,951 --> 00:13:48,442
and whether your finger is already swiping out of habit

388
00:13:48,672 --> 00:13:49,302
then ask yourself

389
00:13:49,711 --> 00:13:51,582
where am I trying to go from where

390
00:13:51,951 --> 00:13:53,271
am I looking for information

391
00:13:53,272 --> 00:13:55,062
or avoiding the emptiness inside

392
00:13:55,591 --> 00:13:57,223
next time you try to control your child

393
00:13:57,432 --> 00:13:58,523
you can also take a look

394
00:13:58,591 --> 00:13:59,863
I hired this scolding

395
00:14:00,152 --> 00:14:01,630
to help him grow

396
00:14:01,632 --> 00:14:03,582
or to press down my own anxiety for a moment

397
00:14:04,431 --> 00:14:05,763
this question is light

398
00:14:05,951 --> 00:14:08,123
but it may be more powerful than self discipline

399
00:14:08,671 --> 00:14:09,782
because if you only stare at behavior

400
00:14:10,071 --> 00:14:11,522
you end up fighting yourself

401
00:14:11,872 --> 00:14:13,503
seeing the job behind the behavior

402
00:14:13,752 --> 00:14:14,710
is how you finally understand

403
00:14:14,711 --> 00:14:17,162
why that habit refuses to leave

404
00:14:17,591 --> 00:14:18,983
it is not freeloading on you

405
00:14:19,392 --> 00:14:20,802
it is doing a job for you

406
00:14:21,272 --> 00:14:23,643
its method is just out of date

407
00:14:23,877 --> 00:14:24,671
so

408
00:14:24,671 --> 00:14:27,763
change is no longer just gritting your teeth and firing the old solution

409
00:14:27,912 --> 00:14:30,123
it is finding a more suitable one

410
00:14:30,152 --> 00:14:31,963
to take over the original job

411
00:14:32,351 --> 00:14:34,123
you are not competing with your phone

412
00:14:34,191 --> 00:14:37,003
you are competing with the old way of escaping silence

413
00:14:37,272 --> 00:14:39,123
you are not competing with your temper

414
00:14:39,152 --> 00:14:41,922
you are competing with the old way of protecting yourself

415
00:14:42,591 --> 00:14:44,603
you are not even competing with laziness

416
00:14:44,632 --> 00:14:48,643
you are learning to live with the self that fears failing even after trying

417
00:14:49,210 --> 00:14:51,781
competing against luck asks in business

418
00:14:51,810 --> 00:14:53,980
why do customers hire this product

419
00:14:54,249 --> 00:14:55,969
Buddhism asks one step deeper

420
00:14:55,969 --> 00:14:58,980
that self rushing to push life somewhere

421
00:14:59,090 --> 00:15:01,360
how did it arise out of conditions

422
00:15:01,849 --> 00:15:04,368
if even this self is not fixed

423
00:15:04,369 --> 00:15:05,740
then what we call progress

424
00:15:05,769 --> 00:15:09,320
might sometimes be just rushing from one label to another

425
00:15:09,769 --> 00:15:11,888
from not successful enough to successful

426
00:15:11,889 --> 00:15:13,980
from not good enough to excellent

427
00:15:14,009 --> 00:15:17,421
from being looked down on to finally being recognized

428
00:15:17,570 --> 00:15:19,340
we have hired so many things

429
00:15:19,450 --> 00:15:21,820
thinking they are helping us reach the destination

430
00:15:21,930 --> 00:15:23,248
but some destinations

431
00:15:23,249 --> 00:15:26,340
were drawn by the mind on the spot

432
00:15:26,506 --> 00:15:27,896
products have no fixed identity

433
00:15:28,185 --> 00:15:29,317
and neither do customers

434
00:15:29,466 --> 00:15:30,217
situations change

435
00:15:30,545 --> 00:15:31,597
relationships change

436
00:15:31,705 --> 00:15:33,416
and the self that feels something is missing

437
00:15:33,746 --> 00:15:34,636
is changing too

438
00:15:34,986 --> 00:15:35,997
seeing this layer

439
00:15:36,026 --> 00:15:38,636
does not mean buying nothing and doing nothing

440
00:15:38,705 --> 00:15:39,977
it means a little less autopilot

441
00:15:40,386 --> 00:15:41,957
and one more moment of clarity

442
00:15:42,226 --> 00:15:45,477
Christensen wanted companies to return to the customer's concrete situation

443
00:15:45,545 --> 00:15:47,396
so innovation involves less guessing

444
00:15:47,425 --> 00:15:49,276
and more predictable ground

445
00:15:49,626 --> 00:15:52,396
the way Buddhism helps us stop chasing blindly

446
00:15:52,466 --> 00:15:54,396
is also returning to the present situation

447
00:15:54,585 --> 00:15:56,425
not rushing to define yourself

448
00:15:56,425 --> 00:15:58,556
and not rushing to hire the next answer

449
00:15:58,785 --> 00:16:00,824
look at what is actually missing right now

450
00:16:00,825 --> 00:16:03,077
and how that lack arose

451
00:16:03,192 --> 00:16:04,882
I want to leave a question with you too

452
00:16:05,031 --> 00:16:07,722
something you have bought again and again opened again and again

453
00:16:07,791 --> 00:16:09,882
or simply cannot put down

454
00:16:10,151 --> 00:16:12,262
what job did you hire it to do

455
00:16:12,712 --> 00:16:14,751
did it really push your life forward

456
00:16:14,751 --> 00:16:17,382
or did it just let you avoid the self standing still

457
00:16:18,072 --> 00:16:19,102
and feel free to share

458
00:16:19,432 --> 00:16:20,790
apart from products in the same category

459
00:16:20,791 --> 00:16:23,642
what is the most surprising competitor you have ever seen

460
00:16:23,952 --> 00:16:24,622
I am Leo Wang

461
00:16:24,911 --> 00:16:26,011
see you next episode