Aug. 1, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
03:52
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| So when you go see a movie, right? | |
| I went to go see Superman because I'm a sucker for Superman movies, God help me, because of Clark Kent as played by Christopher Reese back in the day. | |
| I love that movie. | |
| So in the movie or Godzilla movies or whatever, there's the star, right? | |
| Whether it's Godzilla or Clark Kent or Superman or something like that. | |
| And then there's a whole bunch of people running and screaming in the background, right? | |
| The city's getting wrecked and they're all running down the street. | |
| You've seen those kinds of movies, right? | |
| Right. | |
| You have, right? | |
| Okay. | |
| So if you are the movie producer, is it easier to replace one of the extras or to replace the star? | |
| Yeah, the extras, who cares, right? | |
| It's just some guy in the background. | |
| And, you know, if he stumbles and falls and breaks his ankle or whatever, you just say, you know, get me another extra and put him in the same hat. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| When the company is bigger, it will have multiple stars. | |
| So be one of those stars. | |
| What I'm saying is, don't be a back. | |
| Yeah, you don't be a background. | |
| Go ahead. | |
| There'll be so many stars that at least one of them will be disposable eventually. | |
| There'll be so many stars that you can. | |
| Okay, so you're a yes-but guy. | |
| So let me ask you, let me ask you this. | |
| If the company wants to cut its employees, is it better to be a star or one of the extras? | |
| The star. | |
| So why are you fighting me on this? | |
| Well, there'll be so many stars that even. | |
| Is it better to be a star or an extra? | |
| It's better to be a star. | |
| So be a star. | |
| Does that mean you're invulnerable? | |
| No. | |
| Even Superman has kryptonite if the entire country Or if the entire company goes completely tits up and run style. | |
| But even then, if you have, you have to keep documentation, right? | |
| This is really, really, really important. | |
| Your boss isn't going to know how productive you are. | |
| You need to document it. | |
| You need to document it and you need to tell him, right? | |
| I finished this. | |
| You said it was booked to take a week. | |
| I did it in a day. | |
| Just wanted to let you know for when my performance review comes around. | |
| Keep stuff documented. | |
| Now, the great thing about that is, let's say the entire company, for some reason, fires all of its stars, keeps all the extras, fires all of its stars. | |
| You have the documentation to prove to some new employer that you're a star. | |
| So aim to be massively productive. | |
| Of course, it doesn't make you bulletproof, but I mean, nobody's bulletproof, but it gives you your best chance for having leverage in the company. | |
| You still need contingency. | |
| I'm sorry? | |
| You still need contingency for in case it goes bad. | |
| What do you mean? | |
| Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. | |
| The documentation is contingency. | |
| For in case you get fired, you have proof that you're doing really well. | |
| Well, no, it's not. | |
| And I said, it's not just contingency, it's also... | |
| It's useful for that. | |
| But primarily, you want to keep documentation so that you can sit down with your boss and say, well, on this project, it was booked to take a week. | |
| It took me a day. | |
| This was supposed to take two weeks. | |
| It took me only one week. | |
| And you keep them informed about these things going forward. | |
| And so you have to make your boss, like, do not hide your light under a bushel as an engineer or anyone. | |
| You have to let your boss know how valuable you are on a continual basis. | |
| And that way you have leverage over him because if he doesn't even know how productive you are, then it's going to be very tough to have leverage with him. | |
| And that gives you negotiation leverage, right, when it comes to raises or what you want to do. | |
| Because I'll tell you, man, I mean, as a manager, I knew exactly who the stars were and I would do anything for them. | |
| I would do anything to keep them. | |
| And I would like obsessively ask them, you know, every couple of weeks, hey, are you happy? | |
| Are you enjoying what you're doing? | |
| Is there anything I could do differently? | |
| Anything you want to change? |
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