About Paul Kedrosky
|
| Dr. Kedrosky is currently the Executive Director of the William J. von Liebig Center in San Diego, California. Using an innovative seed capital program, the Center catalyzes the commercialization of technologies from the internationally-ranked University of California, San Diego. Dr. Kedrosky is also a venture investor with Ventures West, Canada's largest institutional venture capital firm, where he is most active in consumer technologies and software. He is currently on the board of Marqui Corporation, a marketing automation software company. |
Recent Article:
Self-Help: How a Ph.D. and Three-Pin Juggling Can Save Your Life
- For more on Paul Kedrosky visit paul.kedrosky.com
For some non-apparent (at least to me) reason, I get a lot of emails of the what-should-I-do-with-my-life sort. People seemingly think that, given a few professional and personal facts from a stranger, I can tell them how to proceed in their careers. I usally beg off politely, pointing out the impossibility of answering the question, even when you know the person well.
This morning, however, I realized there is another answer. When I think back to the many things I enjoy doing, and the eclectic mix of things I do for what passes for a living, most of them can be be traced back to my long-ago Ph.D.
No, it's not that doing a Ph.D. was such a wonderful creativity-unleashing exercise, one that filled my mind with limitless possibilities and prospects. Far from it. I actually found it a fairly mundane and bureaucratic bit of business, more a question of cranking out a sufficiently lengthy document to the satisfaction of your thesis committee.
Instead, what I found out when doing my thesis -- and something I noticed in pretty much everyone I knew who at least started one -- was that you mostly discovered what else you were interested in. Why? Because pretty much anything else is more absorbing than writing a 400-page Ph.D. thesis.
In my case I discovered I was interested in quantitative finance, journalism and media, juggling (balls and especially pins), sky-diving, mountain-biking, hiking, Iran-Contra, marathon running, snow climbing, Franz Kafka, Rainer Marie Rilke, etc. All of those obsessions sprung unbidden onto my calendar when I should have been working on my Ph.D. thesis instead.
I saw something similar happen in other people I knew then (and know now), with people discovering pen collecting, acting, novel-writing, ultra-marathons, orienteering, and pretty much anything else you might imagine.
It turns out, it seems, that doing a Ph.D. (even if you drop out, which I generally recommend) is a great way to discover what you want in life, albeit it will likely have little to do with the Ph.D. itself.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Related Articles |
|
Struggling With Juggling
|
| |
Are you juggling too many things at once and are you finding it a real struggle not to let any of the balls drop? How can you cope without letting everything go?
|
You Can Juggle a Franchise and a Family
|
| |
Juggling work and family is very easy with franchising, as the franchisor helps the franchisees with many things. Still, try to maintain a separate timing for business and family affairs.
|
Self-Help: How a Ph.D. and Three-Pin Juggling Can Save Your Life
|
| |
For some non-apparent (at least to me) reason, I get a lot of emails of the what-should-I-do-with-my-life sort. People seemingly think that, given a few professional and personal facts from a stranger, I can tell th...
|
What would the perfect business day look like?
|
| |
Most days small business owners are juggling all the stuff that comes at them all day, either planned or self-inflicted, with a somewhat unsystematic, gut level kind of approach. I know I do that - sometimes it work...
|
Who Comes First: The Customer or the Customer?
|
| |
Handling multiple customers is a juggling act that requires people handling skills. You don't want to offend or lose either customer, but by faltering in your juggling you run the risk of losing one or the other, or...
|
|
|
More
Paul Kedrosky


|
|