Life Lessons from Star Trek
Steve Pavlina:
One idea I learned from this episode is that you don’t have to pick the obvious strategy when going through life. Much of the world is designed around the expectation that you’ll choose the obvious strategy. For example, you’re expected to get a job and earn a salary from it. That’s what most people do. However, having a job is one the most difficult ways to make money, mainly because you have to trade so much of your time for cash, most of which you spend anyway. It’s the obvious strategy, so it also attracts the greatest amount of competition and becomes a highly inefficient way to make money in the long run. It only took me six months of working as an employee to figure out that it wasn’t for me, so early in my 20s I dropped this strategy and decided to try something different. Instead of trying to earn money by having a salary, I decided to earn money by starting a business.
Related Posts
Comments
Leave a Reply
Prefer not to say on November 4th, 2005 at 12:27 am
It is not an accident that I kept a pencil mug with the Borg insignia during the seven years I worked in the House of Representatives.
Jose Antonio Morales on November 4th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
Like an addition to the post I would like to share my experience.
I’m also the kind of person that likes the risk; I also have my own business.
But I discovered that this is not for all. Some personalities can give the best of themselves if they are secured by a good contract and a good salary. To try to push them to the “own business idea” could be harmful.
I’ve learnt that the strategy is very important but more important is the energy to plan it and execute it. There are always dozens of possibilities and strategies, but if the energy is positive normally the results are positive as well. And that is the practice needed to get experience and “fine tune� the strategies to get the best results each time.
Best regards,
Jose Antonio Morales
Keith Casey on November 4th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
There’s also another benefit from starting your own business… employees/subcontractors. Sure, there’s some extra paperwork, but as long as you have billable work, you can actually make money while they’re working too.
Simply amazing. I’m up to 4 now.
Dave on November 8th, 2005 at 5:22 am
Had never really thought about it like that before!
boohoo on February 24th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
What!! When I was working through college I worked for three small buisnesses. All of the owners were hardworking smart people, but they all worked 60-70 hours 6-7 days a week. They are earned 6 figures or slightly less but they worked a lot to get it. They also had no degrees. After I got my BA and MBA in 5 years total, I was earning 10,000 less than my last boss my second year out of my MBA, but only working 5 days a week and 40-45 hours. I think people should wok for someone early in thier career so they can actually offer sevices or products based on corporate experience. You have to know something before you can offer something for sale and make a lot of money rather than just a higher standard of living.
On a side note I thought Star Trek promoted people not working or not doing things they were not interested in. Afterall how can you end poverty and want without eliminating the need for salaried labor.
Mark on July 25th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Star Trek Lessons? Comeon! Let’s do another kirk/spock movie. I was emailing William Shatner for years with an idea for a “Wrath of Kahn II” movie. All they had to do was have a Klingon fleet warp back in time to obtain the genesis and Kahn and warp back into future, and the whole story would unfold. Spock can explain away Kirk’s death somehow.