“How do you measure the success of your life? The reason I mention is because we have to aggregate, we have a sense of hierarchy, wealth and so on. The reason that I concluded that God does not employ accountants is that He has an infinite mind. What that means is that He does not need to aggregate up the level of individual people, in order to have a perfect understanding of what is going on in this world.

When I realized that He doesn’t have to aggregate above the level of individual people, then I realized my goodness, when I have my interview with God at the end of my life, He is not going to ask to show Him how high I went in anybody’s org chart or how much money I left behind in the bank when I died but rather he is going to say:

‘Oh, Clay, I put you in those circumstances, can we talk about the individual people whose lives you helped to become better people because you worked with them or they were members of your family or you just met them and they needed your help. Then Clay, then I stuck you in this position, let’s talk about the individual people whose lives you blessed because you used the talents I gave you to help them.’

And I realized that that’s the way that God will measure my life ‘is the individual people whose lives I blessed’.

And that is, it’s actually really important that you succeed at what you are succeeding at. But isn’t going to be the measure of your life. God doesn’t count. He doesn’t aggregate. And He’s just going to assess you on the basis of how well you helped other people be better people.

Well, God bless you and I hope you will be successful in the way that God will measure success.”

Transcript from Clay Christensen at TEDxBoston

Excellence Reporter 2015