life.of.sp0rk

When you were bored in 10th grade history, did you honestly see yourself actually out in the real world hunting for that perfect job to match the shiny new degree on your wall? Yeah, I haven’t made it there yet but so many people struggle to just to find an entry level job.

Last week my friend Michael wrote a great post to his blog Senua about making the job hunt easier on yourself by bridging the gap between high school history and landing that life-time job. (Don’t remember history cause you slept through it like me? Michael gives you a brief refresher course =])

Sometimes in War we see things we don’t normally see. In movies we see people with spirit victor over those who have become well-polished but lack personality. On the other hand, in real life, we see people get stomped just the way we would assume they should. There are five battles that stick out to me as particularly interesting, as they teach humanity a lesson that can be applied every day to our lives.

1. Thermopylae – Spartans vs. Persians
The battle: Even the most qualified, spirited candidates (300) can’t necessarily take on a much larger (1,000,000) army by quantity. With every soldier the Persians had, the chances of having 300 to match Spartan-quality approached 1. Even after that they had hundreds of thousands more meatballs to throw at the Spartans, exhausting them.

What you can learn: Don’t spend all your time honing one skill. You must be a double- or triple-threat to truly succeed. More skills means more areas possible to succeed. Don’t overdo it, though, or you could lose many metaphorical soldiers like the Persians.

2. American Civil War – North vs. South
The war: The north had a lot of resources; the south didn’t. The north had railroads, factories, farms, money, people… And it was far more developed. The south had a lot of land, but it wasn’t used for much. The north won because they amassed resources.

What you can learn: You need a lot of resources to do battle. You’ll need references and contacts to refer you to jobs and open up doors. You’ll need experience and skills to make yourself look good to bosses. You’ll need a little charisma to show it all off. And finally, you’ll need a lot of patience, time, and energy to find a great job for you.

That’s not all: there’s three more left. Go and read the post: “Five Things I’ve Learned from Battles that Apply to Careers” on Senua.

Hope you enjoy!
- Logan