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Today I will continue with discussion to Steve Pavlina’s article „10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job“. Let’s take the next arguments from Steve.

4. Too many mouth to feed

Employees are usually taxed heavier than businessman. If you own your company then it gives you many options for tax deductions reducing the amount of money you will have to pay to the state. In addition, when you are an employee then you have to earn profits for your company. If you are working in your own company then you will keep the profits. An employee you will get only a fraction of the income you generate.

While all this is true and for many people these are good reasons for having their own business, there are some drawbacks of it. While you have to pay more taxes as an employee, you do not have to bother yourself with the bookkeeping. It is not so difficult, but for some people it is the reason why they prefer to be wage earners.

Managing a business is even more difficult thing to do. If you are a part of a big team then you can earn money even if you are not doing so great job. If your performance is below average then you will be clearly better off as an employee. You will not earn much, buy still get something to cover your expenses.

5. Way too risky

Steve claims that employment is too risky as you can get fired easily. You will not have control over your company. If the management is making silly decisions that will drive the company into bankruptcy then you really cannot do much about it. In the ongoing economic and financial crises so many people have lost their jobs and it really feels that employment is not as safe as it was before.

It is true that employment relationships are not so stable anymore. Those times are over when you could work the whole life in one organization. Getting fired is part of our lives. Still, if you are a good employee then the chances of you getting fired are lower (although Steve is right that things are not completely under your control).

If you are an employee than you can get fired if you are a businessman then you can go into bankruptcy. Although the outcome will depend more on you when you are an entrepreneur the consequences of it may be more favorable to an employee. If you will get fired you will receive unemployment insurance and you can find a new job. Most people who get fired will not remain unemployed for the rest of their life.

6. Having an evil bovine master

The word boss comes from the Dutch word baas, which historically means master. Steve argues that you can avoid unpleasant people when doing business, but you cannot avoid your boss even if you hate him.

Still, even if you are a businessman then you may still have to deal with people you do not like. You can encounter them every where. It is true that you can choose your business partners, but it is also true that you can choose your boss. If you do not like your boss, then you can get a new job.

7. Begging for money

If you are an employee then you will have to ask from your boss for a raise. It is true that employees, who do not fight for their wages are often underpaid. So there will be always a debate with your boss about your pay and you can view it as begging.

If you are a businessman then you have to earn profits on your own and you will not have to negotiate about them. This is absolutely true. In addition the possibilities for earning more are much bigger as a businessman. Still, flexible and performance based pay systems are more and more used, which allow earning higher wages for employees with out begging from the boss.

kristjan Business bankruptcy, Business, job, profits, wage earners

Dr. Frey with Micro Fa micro chip, which protects against radiation from mobile phones

Every day I am getting more and more involved in business activities. Besides this blog and speed reading course, I run two companies. One of them Dream Capital Ltd. is an investment and insurance broker company and MICRIM  is selling health products.

In a previous post I have discussed how speed reading has helped me to defend my PhD thesis. Today I am going to share my thoughts about how does it help me to do business better.

First of all I would point out that if I had not taken up speed reading then I would probably had not got involved in business. I was a 100% academic and working at the university provided a nice and stable career with decent income. Learning to speed read somehow opened my eyes and showed me that there is more inside me. While I was quite a bright student in high school then at the university I was really not giving my best. I studied economics, but I did not aim at the business career. I wanted to be a politician instead. But soon I realized that I did not like politics and after I graduated MA studies I was out of ideas what to do with my life. Then I was offered a position at the university and at the same time I entered a PhD program. From that on I saw my life as a scientist and I did not believe that I was capable of having a business career.

But after I learned to speed read I started seeing the academic life slow and unproductive. Suddenly I wanted to do something more practical, efficient and I wanted to make more money too. Then I started teaching speed reading classes as self-employed in addition to holding a position at the university. From that point on I was doing business and afterwards I started my other projects.

Besides giving me the attitude of being fast and efficient speed reading itself allows me to save a lot of time on reading. In business you have less time for making decisions than in academic career and you need to find and work through right information fast. The number of emails I receive every day must have at least tripled in last 2 years. I need to read more reports, internal documents than before. If I were a slow reader then it would be very difficult to handle this.

I use a lot more internet resources due to my business activities. I browse more websites, read more blogs and company resources. For doing business you have to know what is going around at the market and what are you competitors doing.

Being an entrepreneur means that you have to continuously educate yourself. The world is changing fast and you just have to keep up with it. Therefore you have to read a lot. It is especially important for me as a beginner entrepreneur as I have to gain knowledge in management and marketing. In my academic career I was oriented towards economic theory and therefore I did not have much interest in management or marketing. But for being a practical businessman you have to be familiar with these subjects So I think I have to read even more than an ordinary businessman as I have to work more on my weaknesses.

While I have to read a lot for business, reading texts alone will earn no money. There are many other activities which take up my time. If I were a slow reader I would end up with working for 12 or 14 hours a day. It would generate lots of stress and I would burn out sooner or later. I definitely do not want that. So I just have to read faster to save time. Speed reading gives me a possibility to have time for resting and leisure activities.

kristjan Business, Speed Reading academic career, academic life, blogs, Business, business career, doing business, speed reading, speed reading course

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In today’s world most people are living fast lives. We all tend to be in a constant hurry. We want to do more things but tend to run out of time. Alternatively we may feel that our energy levels are too low to keep going and we start procrastinating. Nevertheless most of us want to achieve more with less time.

And that is the point where time management will help us. We learn how to set goals, prioritize tasks, make weekly and daily schedules, how to communicate and act fast. It is all about getting more things done. If you ask someone to describe an excellent time manger, then most people will point out that he/she is very rational, always busy and has excellent career progress.

Still, not all people prefer to live a fast life. In contrast to the business of the present world there has been created so called slow moment, which promotes living slow life. It is s a cultural shift toward slowing down life’s pace. It started as a protest against opening a McDonald’s restaurant in 1999 in Rome. In the beginning the aim of the movement was to resist eating fast-food, but soon it spread into the other areas of life such as travelling, reading, parenting, etc.

The followers of slow movement promote downshifting. Downshifting is simplifying your life and accepting to earn less income for working less hours and having more leisure time. At the same time they seek for non traditional leisure activities as they find that much of the leisure time of ordinary people is spent on obligations for purpose such as keeping you fit, community work, building social networks etc.

It has gained popularity all over the world. Some of my colleagues at the university are participating in the local groups. These people tend to see themselves as opponents to me, who teachers people to be efficient and manage their time.

But is there really a contradiction between managing your time and slow life style. Basically everyone is managing their time regardless he/she recognizes it or what kind of priorities he/she has. Although most people do not get it, time management is about spending your time in the way you like it the most. It is about finding time to achieve your goals. And it is really about YOUR GOALS. You are the one who decides what you want to do with your life. And from that point onwards it is about finding the best ways of doing it and allocating your time.

Time management does not mean that you have to live a fast life. The reason people who consciously manage their time live the life at fast speed is because the want to achieve career success and to do it fast. They want to earn more money, buy a better car and home, and travel to foreign countries, play golf and so on. It is their choice. We may argue that it is the matter of our culture and role models in our society. Rich people are heroes for many of us and so people want to follow them. But it is their choice.

At the same time you can apply time management for working fewer hours, having more time together with your friends and so on. Time management actually makes you to think about your aims and what is the purpose of your life. Time management does not mean that you should aim at earning more money, becoming a member of parliament or developing a perfect body. It does not mean that you should drive a car instead of a bicycle, that you should eat-fast food instead of cooking a meal yourself or even that you should buy food from the shop instead of growing it by yourself. Actually many people, who participate in my time management courses are seeking more for getting more leisure time than earning more money.

It is all the question of preferences. What do you want to do with your life? People are different and so are their preferences. It is your choice if you want to earn lots of money to drive a Ferrari or you want to work less and ride a bicycle.

kristjan time management Business, goals, slow life, time management