Category Archives: Basic Business Concepts

This post deals with strategies you should consider while your career curve is still going up. All of the advice that follows assumes that you are giving your job every thing you have got.

If you read my last post, you might be thinking, "Why is David cheerily laying about with such bleak news? Don’t we have enough trouble coping with waffling managers and impossible deadlines? Why should we be looking forward to old age and reduced circumstances?"

Because you can do something to ensure a more satisfying future.

Gravity does not let up because you ignore it. Neither does the law of supply and demand.   You will stay employed as long as you have skills that are in demand AND IF you are still attuned to the rhythms of the group you work with. No matter how well off you are today, either one of these can go wrong in a relatively short time.

Your hard-earned skills can become expendable in several common scenarios: a takeover occurs, new operating procedures are introduced, the technology you know is replaced, etc., etc.

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I have been visiting a lot of business blogs lately and I am amazed at the panoramic breadth of topics covered. Almost every aspect of business organization, motivation, and leadership is analysed exhaustively. Most business blogs focus on those things that will bring success to an organization. Few target the career aspects or the personal cost of being an employee.

Although Ripples occasionally gets listed as a business blog, my primary intention in discussing business matters is to provide insight on the hidden costs and benefits of working for a living and how to optimize the results for yourself. In the end, the most important thing about your work is whether it actually helps you to live a more meaningful life.

I truly believe that the work opportunities of the future will become both more distributed and more concentrated. There may be many millions working remotely or in small enterprises, but there will be many more laboring at workstations in vast hives at a machine-paced rhythm.

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The magic of blogging is that it introduces you to friends of friends in the most natural way possible. Rosa Say, founder of SAY LEADERSHIP COACHING™ in Hawaii, visited Ripples because of my good friend, Wayne Hurlburt, in Canada. I … Continue reading →

My earlier post on the ideal job was more indirect than usual because I was working it all out as I wrote. I felt good about the insights I gained and was pleased by your responses, but I’d left some essential bits out.

The Wiz Speak blog gave the post an enthusiastic review, for which I am really thankful, but his comments made me realize I needed to provide more detail on what makes an ideal job. Let’s see if this helps.

The overarching purpose: Every job you take should be part of a plan to equip you for full self-employment at some later point in life.

Definition: The ideal jobs are those that prepare you for long-term job security as your own boss.

Now, what kind of job actually does that?

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