This seems like a bunch of self-help guru BS.

This is true:

Freedom is making money when you feel like making money. And when you don’t feel like making money, the way you have invested the money you do have helps take the pressure off.

but for almost everyone it is not actionable. Almost everyone needs at least a biweekly paycheck or they will lose their residences and accrue massive interest that will make them even more financially precarious.

Yes, life is a lot better when you don’t have to worry about money. I love being about to tell the owner of the company I work for, “I will keep working here as long as it is fun.” He asked me to come work for him, I was retired and I told him I did not need the money. He told me his plans and how it would be fun and we would make jobs for all our friends.

I don’t know who reads your stuff but you have fans who seem to lap it up.

It seems they are a bunch of corporate wage slaves who would love to give it up. We work 4 day weeks and have flexible hours but I would like to kick some butt of those who abuse it to the detriment of our mission.

We are a team and we depend on each other.

Your self-worth, BS. Your value, your worth is dependent on your contribution. We rarely have performance reviews, we don’t have KPI’s. We do have some slackers who get counseling. Guess what the biggest cause for counseling is? Behaviors that demotivate and denigrate coworkers.

Determining your own self-worth is delusional. That is like a participation trophy. People who think they are too good for some task need to wake up. I walk that talk too, I am Chief Engineer but I package samples or carry stock to the machine shop or hand wrenches to the mechanics.

I guess, if you are suggesting that people focus less on climbing the corporate ladder and look for something rewarding for its results not your position then you should just say that.

I have always loved my line of work even when I hated some of my tasks or work hours or such. If you are not mission driven but are career focused, you suck. I worked for 30 years on our nations space programs, retired and went back to work for a New Space Company. I like working better than retirement and I don’t need the money.

The first 20 years of my career, the pay and benefits were very important to my family and I was a slave to company health benefits, pretty much I could not say no to tasking or work hours. I got huge benefits from the on the job education from mentors and corporate training including a UCLA short course on Cryogenic Engineering.

For years I was a Principal Investigator for Corporate Independent Research and Development some times with more than a million dollars in annual budget.

Real work is not about freedom it is about a dream job. The dream job is about a mission, a purpose, a goal.

It is not about the corner office or mahogany desk or freebies. It is about being able to make a difference. It is about make the world a better place. It is about learning and growing and teaching and mentoring. It is about pushing mankind forward and bringing along the next generation to continue the mission.

I don’t know about self-worth but I know that with this attitude I find my self-esteem at a very high level.

You are what you do, not where you are on the corporate org chart.

Friday I made a pitch deck for our plan to cut tensile samples out of a pathfinder cryogenic propellant tank for space launch vehicle upper stage. I also took a section of that tank that was cut out and sectioned it with a bandsaw too have a picture for my pitch deck.

Does you company make the planet better or worse? Are you helpful to the cause of goodness or just along for the ride? Is you aspiration to climb the corporate ladder or to make the world a better place?

I have more than 10 weeks of unused vacation not because I fear for my job if I am not warming my desk but because I would rather be at work than on the beach. On the beach the sun burns your skin and the sand get up in your business. Just kidding I have spent plenty of time on the beach. I have always lived near the beach but now I have missions that are more interesting than leisure. When I retired (voluntary lay-off), along with my severance I got paid for more than 10 weeks of unused vacation. When you have your dream job vacations are a huge distraction. You might ask why I volunteered for the lay-off. It was me or one of my coworkers. I was already vested in our pension, had a nice 401k and was the oldest. The others were younger and not so well set financially. Leadership would probably have picked me anyway, I was the older white male and the others were more diverse and younger. The pending layoffs had made the work environment toxic anyway with backstabbing and showboating. I was glad it be getting out, it was the end of the Space Shuttle Program. I am also glad it set me up for a job in the New Commercial Space Industry.

Hey, there are nuggets in your story but it reads like self-help BS. I know that that stuff sells but it seems to lack heart. Seems almost pro forma. Not very original. Not very actionable

TEK