Tag: MBA

A job I would like to do

Today I am asked what’s a job I would like to do for just one day?

I got my first job as a teenager, and I’ve pretty much been employed ever since, except for a few years when I was going to college full time under a grant. I still remember the first week at my first job. I hated everything about it. My feet were killing me from being on them all day. I remember going home and asking my mom, is this all there is to life? Just getting up every day and going into a job to earn a paycheck? She said, I guess so. That’s what everyone does. I said to myself that very first week, this place isn’t for me. I’m getting out of here as soon as I possibly can. Years later, I was still there doing the 8 to 5 thing, and barely paying the bills on my meager paycheck. Luckily, I didn’t have too many bills back then and there was family around, or I would have starved to death.

That’s my experience with jobs, so I’m leaning toward there being no job I would like to do for a day. What I would like to do is have no job and still get by, but unfortunately, you have to pay someone to stay alive in this world, which requires a steady source of income. Also, if there was a job I liked doing, I’d probably want to do it everyday, not just for one day. All this considered, there used to be a kind of job I sort of liked.

A few years ago, when I was earning my MBA, I started a corporation for fun, just to figure out how it all worked. I had a plan to launch a hosting business using it. The real fun part though, at least for me, was studying how to set up and run a corporation. It dramatically improved my knowledge of how businesses operated. Unfortunately, the business didn’t take off, so I’ve been filing annual tax paperwork on a company that I will eventually shutdown.

The real objective of this whole endeavor, and maybe even why I pursued an MBA, is because I wanted a particular type of job. I wanted to be a business owner. When you own a business, at first it’s a lot of hard work, but eventually, if it works as planned, you find yourself the CEO of a lucrative company. At that point, your income mostly comes from leadership and exercising your stock options.

Being a CEO seemed like a dream job to me back then, but it never panned out. The thing I learned is you really have to have an incredible product or service to sell, preferably a unique one, so that you can have the first mover advantage. Otherwise, you are going to find yourself in a flooded and highly competitive market.

During this discovery process, I realized the real reason I liked the CEO job, and decided there were other similar jobs. I liked the CEO job because it had the potential of allowing you to exit the rat race. Basically, it is a property ownership job. You invest time and money into a business, it eventually pays it’s own bills, and you start receiving an income from your investment.

Fortunately, there are other jobs based on the property ownership idea, and pretty much all of them are attractive to me. This is another reason why being an author calls to me so strongly. A book is basically a type of property. You own the copyright to it, and every time someone buys a copy, you get some of that purchase in royalties. It’s basically like a kind of mini business. Unfortunately, the book has to sell to a lot of people, and keep selling for years to come. Of course, you can always churn out new books with all the free time you have living off the royalties, but the books really have to be a hit to keep going.

The short answer is, the job I want to do most is property ownership. It is the only true way of escaping the dreaded rat race, so you can actually experience life and start doing your own thing.

What job would you like to do most? What was your first job like? Have you ever started a business? Do you desire to be an author? What other property based incomes can you think of? Do you have experience creating passive income streams? Do you have any advice on how to escape the rat race? What’s the key to living the good life? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

Political elections

Today’s question is do I vote in political elections?

For most of my life, I don’t think I could have told you the differences between the political parties. I also only had a vague idea of what a liberal, conservative, or libertarian actually were. Similarly, ideas like communism, socialism, and capitalism didn’t mean much to me. I was perhaps naïve, but also fairly happy.

Growing up, I lived in a farming community, so it had a lot of democrats. I’m not sure why, but maybe democrats helped farmers back in the day. I know one American president was known to be a peanut farmer. Or maybe, it was because small time farmers had trouble making ends meet and needed subsidizing, which the democrats supported more than republicans. I think the famous free government cheese distribution was actually a stockpile of cheese generated from subsidizing dairy farmers. They over produced as a result, so the government decided to give it away before it spoiled. Don’t quote me on any of this though. I’m definitely not a political expert.

A few years ago, I ended up being friends with a couple people who would be considered very political. One of them identified as a libertarian, and the other was probably somewhere between libertarian and conservative. They were both republicans. This was also about the time I was gaining my masters in business, so I studied quite a bit about capitalism and how it works. This period of time caused me to sort though a lot of ideas I had about politics. I even voted in a couple of election.

I don’t listen to the news. If the whole world is coming to an end, I’ll just be out there mowing my lawn like nothing is happening.

I eventually moved away from my libertarian friends and lost touch, and also finished all my grad studies. After that, I kind of reverted back to my non-political self. A friend of mine, which I’ve written about before, once described her view of politics. She said, I don’t listen to the news. If the whole world is coming to an end, I’ll just be out there mowing my lawn like nothing is happening. I remembered her telling me this because it reminded me of myself for most of my life. I simply didn’t know or care too much about politics or what was on the news, and now, I honestly regret that I ever discovered anything about it.

When I was taking my political science courses, they gave me a definition of politics. It was something like, politics decides who gets what, when, where, and how. This kind of always disturbed me. The problem is who controls politics? This statement is basically saying that someone sitting in an office somewhere is able to just up and say, hey you, from now on you are going to work without getting any pay, we’ll take all of that for us. My view is that politics shouldn’t be in the picture. You work, you get paid, and then you decide where you want to spend it. End of story. Putting anyone in the middle of all of that is the definition of corruption, at least in my opinion. I know that this view in itself is political, so I’m still trapped by politics.

Too many people have an opinion about what to do with other people’s money, but really, they should only be concerned about their own money.

If I try any other route, it seems like theft to me. For instance, suppose I say, all fast food restaurant workers have to dedicate 20% of their pay to health programs designed to undo the health issues they are causing with their fattening food. Would this be fair? I’m taking their small paycheck and slicing it up even more. Is their hard earned money actually mine to claim? Because I over eat, do I deserve to take some of their money to fix my health problems? I think it’s my problem that I overeat, not theirs. Unfortunately, through politics, anything is possible, simply because someone is in the middle of everyone’s business. Basically, too many people have an opinion about what to do with other people’s money, but really, they should only be concerned about their own money.

On one last note, many of the people who run for office are actually career politicians. Convincing people to vote for them is actually their job. A lot of people from different political parties actually went to school together. Sometimes they go to events together. What you are seeing in the media is likely orchestrated. Once they get into office, they may have more personal goals in mind. It may come as a surprise to you, but many of them just do it for the money. I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but politicians are probably not hero material.

Anyway, I tend to not post anything political, and even this post is too political for me, simply because politics divides people. To answer the question, I generally avoid political news, and shutter a little when I know a big election is coming, and of course, that’s happening this year, at least in the country where I live.

Do you vote in political elections? Are you a highly political person? What’s your experience with politics? Have you ever run for office? Do you follow political news? What political party are you affiliate with? Do you think politics is divisive? Can political elections get out of hand? Do you dread election years? No judgements here! I would love to hear from you in the comments. Please remember to like, share, and subscribe!

Alternative career paths I have considered.

There was one career path I really considered at one point. It was that of entrepreneur. Basically, I wanted to start my own software company. It is actually one of the reasons I currently have an MBA. I have seen countless software companies pop up over the years, and they just keep coming, many rising to incredible levels of income. It sometimes seems like software is the only thing companies actually do these days.

I did manage to actually create a private corporation for the purpose of launching the company, but it eventually became all too clear that I wasn’t going to be able to turn it into a lucrative business. The lesson I learned the hard way was that you have to focus on the product first and foremost. No product, no sales, no business. It was, however, an excellent learning opportunity for me, because I now know exactly how to set up and run a C corporation in my state without any help from a lawyer.

I basically spent so much time preparing for this career that I didn’t have any left to spend on developing amazing software products. In my defense, I did have a pretty full schedule with all the life things going on, plus a fulltime job and grad school, so it’s really no wonder that it didn’t take off as planned. I did manage to learn enough about business to realize that it’s really the leadership part that I like the most, and definitely not the accounting and taxes.

What’s an alternative career path that you considered? Did you ever dream of starting your own company? What’s your idea of a dream career? Do you have a business background? Do you like doing accounting and taxes? Let us know in the comments, and please remember to like, share, and subscribe!

Three jobs I’d consider if money didn’t matter.

I do sometimes wish I had chosen a different career path, but none of them called to me at the time, and opportunity didn’t knock either. I chose this one because computer programming was really interesting to me when I was young, though it did take me quite a while to break into the career path.

I also don’t know that money is the main reason for being at my current job. It pays pretty well, but the real reason I stick to it is the pension. I don’t want to starve out in my retirement years, and I’ve seen too many people do that. I also don’t trust the market due to societal instability and political involvement. Having a steady income is important to me. I do have money invested though, including two IRAs and a 457(b) account, but those are mainly as a backup plan.

I also don’t really like the idea of having another job. A job means someone else sets the schedule and direction. It also means that in the end, most of the money is going to go to them. That’s just how business works. Hire people, pay them a lot less than you are making, then reap the rewards of their labor.

All this considered, I’d like to have a job where I set the schedule, made all the important decisions, and received most of the income from the enterprise. Below are a few careers I think might allow some of that flexibility.

  1. Writer. If money were no issue, I could put all my creativity to work authoring new books or other works. I might set a schedule, but it would be based on my creative mind, which doesn’t wake up until after lunch. Being able to stay up late would be perfect for me. That’s my favorite time to write things because the world is so quiet. I also think this career would be very satisfying once you get off the ground.
  2. Photography and Film. I think I would enjoy a career related to photography and film. Beauty is all around us, and capturing it in just the right shot or video has always fascinated me. I don’t know this would pay much money, but chasing down beautiful objects and capturing them at just the right moment and angle would be fun. I have always been fascinated by what beauty actually is. It’s hard to define.
  3. Entrepreneur. I’ve thought about this job quiet a few times. It wouldn’t be an easy job, but it has the potential to be very rewarding once the company you start is up and running. It’s one of the main reasons I pursued an MBA. I wanted to know all the ins-and-outs of how a business is run from the ground up. The only problem I had was I couldn’t come up with a product or service that I thought would really sell.

Here’s a few runners up: therapist, bar owner, captain on a yacht, restaurant owner, app developer, private investor, real estate owner, travel blogger.

Would you enjoy any of these jobs? What jobs would you pursue if money were not an issue? What do you think the world would be like if money couldn’t influence decisions? Tell us in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

What am I good at?

I’m not sure I’m good at anything really.

I used to be good at taking classes. I graduated summa cum laude with two bachelor degrees (double major) and went on to complete a master’s degree. My degrees are in technology and business fields, so I suppose I could hold my own in those areas. I could probably set up a business and run it technically speaking, but I’m not sure what it would be.

I was also a full stack web developer at one point, working in a LAMP environment mostly. I learned a variety of programming languages along the way, including C, C++, Perl, PHP, Javascript, HTML, SQL, Bash, etc. In relation to that, I was also a Linux system administrator for a number of years, so I can manage things like Apache, MySQL, Postfix, etc.

I once even created my own personal Linux distro from scratch, compiling everything from source code. It included everything from the kernel and shell all the way up to the desktop level (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc.). That was an interesting project. I completely automated the build process also, so I could compile the entire operating system by issuing one command, and it created intermediate packages along the way that could be installed separately.

All this consumed a lot of time that I will never get back unfortunately, but I guess it led me to where I am now. I don’t know there was any easier way to get here.

I also remember someone once told me that I have a personality that is like a can opener. They explained that I am good at getting someone to open up about things that they normally wouldn’t talk about. I admit that happens a lot. I think I am just a good listener and people feel comfortable enough to just let it all come out. It’s definitely lead to some interesting conversations. Deep down inside, I think a lot of people have something on their chest, but they can’t really find someone who wants to hear about it.

Do you have anything you would like to get off your chest? What is your special skill? Don’t forget to like an subscribe.