Psychology

I discussed the importance of therapy and self-reflection in managing our emotions and improving our lives from the book How to Be Your Own Therapist by Owen O’Kane. Therapy and self-reflection can help us manage our emotions and improve our lives. When someone goes to therapy, they get to bounce ideas off of someone who is objective and can offer a different perspective. It’s beneficial in navigating through difficult emotions and experiences.

It’s particularly interesting how our childhood experiences impact our current emotions and beliefs. Our brains are wired to react quickly to protect us, but sometimes, this reactivity can be overdone, leading to negative emotions and thought patterns. By challenging automatic emotional responses and examining the core beliefs we have developed, we can work towards managing our perfectionism and cultivating kindness towards ourselves.

Understanding your core beliefs is key in helping to address and reshape them. Through self-therapy, you can better understand my past experiences and how they influence current thoughts and behaviors. By reflecting on your life story, acknowledging both positive and negative events, and sharing experiences with a supportive listener, you can reframe your perspectives and find hope for the future.

Ultimately, while self-therapy can be a valuable tool, you can learn that you are the solution to your problems. It requires a commitment to self-reflection, patience, and a willingness to challenge and change your patterns of thinking and reacting. By taking small steps towards self-understanding and embracing the self-therapy process, you can work towards leading a happier, more fulfilling life.

https://www.owenokane.com/the-books/

We explore the topic of regrets and how we can deal with them in a positive and constructive way. One of the key things we discuss is reframing regrets and finding silver linings. Even when things don’t go as planned, there are often positive aspects to be acknowledged. The concept of “at least” moments, can help us shift our perspective and focus on the good in a situation.

Another important strategy is self-compassion. It’s so important that we treat ourselves with the same kindness we would offer a friend. The idea of self-distancing can help us analyze our regrets from a third-person perspective and gain better insights for the future.

So, how can we use our regrets as catalysts for personal growth and improvement? We discuss the value of failure resumes, which serve as inventories of lessons learned from past mistakes. The importance of matching regrets with resolutions and adopting a journey mindset, viewing life as an adventure with ups and downs.

This episode provides you with practical strategies and perspectives to help you navigate and overcome your regrets in a positive and constructive way. Remember, it’s okay to make mistakes, and not everything will go perfectly. Let’s make peace with our regrets and focus on maximizing our important decisions.

https://www.danpink.com/the-power-of-regret/

I discuss the leadership qualities of lesser-known Star Trek captains such as Jonathan Archer, Christopher Pike, and Kathryn Janeway. Each captain faced unique challenges, from navigating new technology to being stranded in a distant galaxy, and had to rely on their leadership skills to succeed. I also praise the character of Worf for his honesty and willingness to take on challenges. The episode ends with a challenge to listeners to consider their own leadership skills in unfamiliar situations.

Transcript

[Music] Have you ever wondered how other Star Trek captains do amazing things and sometimes we forget what great leaders they are.

That’s what we’ll talk about today.

[Music] You can use logic to justify almost anything.

That’s its power and its flaw.

Captain Catherine Janeway.

I realized after the last episode because a friend, Allison at podfeet.

com, mentioned to me what a great leader Catherine Janeway is.

And she brought up some great points about that.

And so I thought I would do a second podcast on other leaders in Star Trek that I didn’t mention last time.

The one thing that you realize about Star Trek, particularly with Captain Kirk and later with Picard and the other series, is that space has been a part of humankind for a long time while these TV series are going on.

So everyone is used to aliens, used to other civilizations, space stations, starships, travel by space, and all the things that had been settled long ago.

And that might make us forget about how Jonathan Archer is a great captain.

He doesn’t do everything perfectly.

He can be weird at times compared to other star captains.

But the thing that you have to know is that he was the first Star Trek commanding officer that was part of the fleet and so everything is new to him.

His father was a famous engineer and he spent most of his time on Earth.

He never met another alien, never been to space, was a flight pilot, and he generally grew up not trusting Vulcans because you could tell that they were not telling Earth people, humans, everything.

They were keeping some things to themselves and there were reasons, good and bad, why that was.

So when it comes to Archer and why he was such a great Star Trek captain is because he had to do everything from scratch.

His chair wasn’t right.

We are used to the majestic captain chair on the various Starship Enterprises, but at this point, his chair wasn’t comfortable.

It wasn’t really suitable for a captain to sit in for as long as they have to sit in it.

They had to figure out what kind of better chair you could have.

That was the least of their problems.

Stuff broke down, the warp drives were very new, and then there were all these aliens they encountered, which are known to us as Star Trek fans.

The Andorans, the Tellarites, the Zindi, the Romulans, and suddenly Earth is thrust in the middle of a war, a cold war, and he has to navigate some battles between people he’s never even heard of.

He’s never even met them before, and he’s not even sure at times which side he should be on.

Now he knows he doesn’t trust the Vulcans much, but they seem like they are good people, maybe.

And then you have other people who are pretty aggressive.

But But there are reasons when Archer goes into space where he trusts people, doesn’t really trust people, doesn’t know who to trust or what to look at.

He has this entire new world of space that’s new to him.

And when it comes to diplomacy, just like in our world, we do not expect our astronauts to be diplomats.

We have an international space station, so you have to be a little bit diplomatic, but not with these major battling people.

So Archer really was stuck in a very interesting spot.

He has a dog, Porthos, and his dog is fantastic.

I love Porthos.

And I think at this point, we don’t even have transporters, so everything has to be handled through shuttles and physically going places, which makes all types of leaves to different planets and ships much more dangerous and a lot harder, and there’s no quick way to get back.

So we have to give Archer a lot of credit for being a pioneer and facing space for mankind as a first.

The next captain I’d like to talk about is Captain Pike.

I have to tell you that Captain Pike has been one of my favorites since the very first time I saw “Star Trek.

” The secret was is when they first aired “Star Trek,” they did not air the episodes, “The Cage” and “The Menagerie” with Captain Pike.

And then when the show took off, Suddenly it became a part of the story and you got to see what happens to Captain Pike.

But then there’s a new Star Trek series, which I highly recommend called “Strange Worlds.

” Christopher Pike is just such an enigma of a character.

In almost every rendition, he has a great sense of humor.

He’s also a mentor.

You can see him literally looking for young talent.

And Captain Kirk is one of those people he brought up and taught how to be a good captain.

Pike is bold and he also tries very hard to bring up talent in his own ship.

People like Spock also educated in leadership and how to run a spaceship.

He’s a fantastic communicator.

I just love listening to anything Captain Pike says.

And to be real honest with you, the new Pike is played by an actor called Anson Mount.

And boy, I have a crush on him.

I don’t know what it is about that character and the way that actor plays that, but he does a great job and I just can’t wait to see more of what he does.

When he was on Star Trek Discovery for just a few short episodes, he and Spock and Number One showed up in such a strong way, I suddenly became less interested in Star Trek Discovery and more interested in “let’s bring those characters to the screen” and you know what they did.

very courageous, he always does very hard things, he tries to think about things outside the box, and he’s not against playing a certain role in order to get himself into a certain negotiation or to try to escape out of a bad situation.

And he says, you know, sometimes things go badly and you just have to laugh.

That is a great way to look at things going badly.

Sometimes when you have people in Star Trek, namely enemies, and something goes wrong that person’s dead.

But Pike, he allowed people to fail and then let them fix it in a more educated way.

He has respect for his team and he just never gives up.

He is patient and he keeps working with his team in order to make them work better.

So I’d like to give a good shout out to Christopher Pike and what a great leader he is in the movies, also the TV show, Strange Worlds.

And then the last person to talk about in this episode is Captain Janeway and what an amazing leader and human being she is.

It’s one thing to talk about Kirk and Picard and Sisko, all fantastic leaders, But you know what.

Janeway could count on nothing.

We talked about Archer and how he had new technology and had to think outside the box.

Four different issues, four different situations, how the ship worked.

But literally Janeway had her crew and that was it.

The story of Star Trek Voyager is they get thrown to the other side of the Milky Way galaxy – Star Trek takes place in the Milky Way galaxy – and it’s 75,000 light years from Earth, an estimated 75 years to get home, and that’s if nothing goes wrong.

Nothing breaks, nothing like that.

But Janeway had no one and nothing to help her with it.

She was her own captain, there was no Federation, there was no one to back her up, if something went desperately wrong there’s no space station you can fly into in order to get repaired, and it was a perilous situation.

The good point is that she has her crew, they’re good crew, likable people, some of them are a little bit rogue, and this other ship, a Maquis ship, gets also thrown into the far side of the galaxy.

It’s a small ship, they have no chance of getting home whatsoever.

Despite that this is a paramilitary group, and we got to chance to meet them on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, they’re trying to feed the Kardashians and try to win freedom for people who are being suppressed by the Kardashians.

But this ship has been known to do violent things been known to even do violent things with Federation ships So you can’t necessarily trust them and we find out later that Jane ways first-in-command was posing as someone who was also part of this group trying to infiltrate it So there’s a lot of mistrust a lot of anger.

A lot of people said no we should be in charge We’re tougher we fight harder Jane ways like this is my ship.

I’m a starship commander I’m gonna be captain, but she makes one of the McKee leaders her second-in-command He’s a good guy.

He’s a good actor But that trust has to build over years and sometimes it breaks down There’s also B’Elanna Torres Chakotay that’s her first-in-command and some other people that were a part of this group a lot of them didn’t want to follow in the same footsteps and sometimes even when it came time that they had a chance to leave the ship and just not go home, some of the key would just rather stay over there than even go home.

So everything was up in the air and Janeway had to hold people together, keep them together, make sure that they keep to their mission of getting home.

She has a husband on earth, a lot of people have families, and they want to get back.

So So she tries very hard to keep everyone together.

They pick up some other alien people who just want to get out of the place they’re at to join their ship and return to Earth with them.

Sometimes there’s a little bit of trust issues there too.

So really Janeway is this amazing captain because of the situation she’s in and the hardship she faces with no one on her side.

her likeableness, her leadership, her understanding that people have to have fun sometimes.

They have some fun in the holodeck, but they also have to be careful, ration things, sometimes they run out of energy, and she always has to keep that tender alliance going.

There was no doctor on this ship, so they had a hologram doctor.

They also had Tom Paris, who tried to learn and become a medic and help out the doctor, but he’s kind of got that boyish, well, let’s say bravado, maybe even rebellion in him.

So he’s the fly in the ointment.

He’s always the guy who just doesn’t necessarily do the right thing, or at least the way Janeway wants to have it happen.

They also pick up their first borg and talk about your trust issues, but Jerry Ryan, who is seven of nine, gets brought home from Star Trek Voyager and changes the entire future of everything because her knowledge of the Borg helped humankind survive and defeat the Borg.

A lot of good things to say about Katherine Janeway.

And in the end, she is one of my favorite captains.

She really gave us strength and a dignity and made a situation interesting.

Because again, we’re used to seeing things that we know and things that we understand when it comes to Star Trek.

And this was an entirely different take on it.

I think too, I probably haven’t laughed more at a Star Trek series than I did at Star Trek Voyager.

Really is a fun and funny show.

And primarily it all relies on Janeway for making her humor such a key part of that show.

And of course you gotta give a special shout out to Worf.

Worf was in Star Trek The Next Generation, he was in Deep Space Nine, he was in a lot of the movies, and his impact on all of the various captains and places that he showed up was strong because he’s not afraid to say the bold thing, even if it may intimidate or hurt other people.

He is honest to a fault and is willing to take on challenges, take on difficult situations in a way that makes it hard for almost any other Star Trek person to do.

I think by the time humans get to space, we’re taught, “Be nice.

Don’t be so aggressive.

” But the Klingons, they never got that word.

We first contact, Worf did amazing things, even while injured, to try to defeat the Borg and take back the captain.

In Deep Space Nine, he was also able to show a little muscle whenever there were battles going on with the wormhole and the people who were on the space station.

I think his biggest leadership challenge had to be when he had a spinal cord injury and it was possible he was going to be paralyzed.

Now for a Klingon, that means it’s time for you to die.

But you know what.

He had a son and he realized probably the hardest leadership lesson of them all, that even a wounded war, who’s a good father is more important than a dead war who dies by honor.

For playing such a good character, and I think the interesting thing about it is the Klingons are not easy to be around.

You know, I found them annoying in most of the Star Treks and I didn’t necessarily like when Klingons had a lot of airtime on the TV episode or even in the movie, but he played such a fine line of being noble, being a Klingon, but also understanding nuance a little bit better than the rest of his people.

So it made me appreciate not only the leadership of War, but also the actor who plays him.

What a good line he fell in between.

And to give you a quote, there was an episode with Cisco on Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

Cisco says, “I suppose I don’t have to tell you to keep a close eye on him.

” Wharf says, “At the first sign of betrayal, I will kill him, but I promise to return the body intact.

” Cisco says, “I assume that’s a joke.

We will see.

” He just played that line that you couldn’t tell if he was kidding.

And I think it probably helped him because I think the enemies didn’t know if he was kidding either.

Another interesting interaction was also in Star Trek Movie First Contact where Picard said to Worf, “You’re afraid.

You want to run, you coward.

” And Worf said, “If you were any other man, I would kill you.

” And I believe him.

And I think if he was any other man, he would kill him.

But Worf knew his place and he knew how the Federation worked, but I don’t think he would really kill Picard in the end.

So my challenge to you is think about Janeway or even Archer.

What kind of leadership have you shown in situations when you’re in the unfamiliar.

Maybe you’re on a first day at a new job, maybe you’re traveling to a country you’ve never been to before, but what kind of skills and values do you use in order to succeed in a situation where you just don’t even know what to do or who to rely on.

Everyone, thanks so much.

I appreciate you giving me that opportunity to do a second Star Trek episode.

I do love Star Trek.

I could talk about it all the time.

I even had a thought, wouldn’t an entertainment podcast be great.

But honestly, how many podcasts can I have.

Listen to the podcast or subscribe through any service on smallstepspod.

com.

Everything that has to do with me or that website can be found there.

Have a wonderful week and remember that getting back home in perilous times can happen with small steps.

(upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO].

I discuss leadership in science fiction, specifically in Star Trek by highlighting the leadership qualities of Captain James T. Kirk, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Captain Benjamin Sisko, and Captain Kathryn Janeway. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding the technology, keeping calm, trusting your team, staying true to your morals, and recognizing the humanity of those around you. I encourage readers to reflect on their favorite Star Trek leader and consider how their leadership skills can be applied in their own lives.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57414333

Transcript

[MUSIC] Have you ever wondered how science fiction can help us be better leaders.

That’s what we’ll talk about today.

[MUSIC] Science fiction frees you to go any place and examine anything.

Octavia E Butler.

Today we’re gonna talk about science fiction and specifically leadership in science fiction.

There’s a book and it’s a good starting point for this conversation, but I think there’s a difference in ideas when it comes to leadership too.

There’s of course military leaders and then there’s leadership that’s outside of the military.

This book was interesting and it’s called “To Boldly Go, Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond.

” It is an anthology of science fiction articles about various leaders and how they reacted to certain things.

And the leadership is either good or bad, it’s evil or not evil.

And instead of doing this book directly, I’m going to talk about my own opinions of it and then take some quotes and some conversations inside this book and the directions they took it.

So it will be loosely based on this book, but not exactly.

I’ve been a fan of science fiction my entire life.

It was the one thing my dad and I always had in common.

He was a science fiction fan with books and with television and movies.

He took me to Star Wars for the first time.

And if you think I talk a lot now, you should have heard me on the drive home from the movie theater.

I don’t think I shut up about that movie for months.

So I love science fiction and I still read it, listen to it, watch it to this day.

The interesting thing about science fiction is it gives us this model of how we can look at things and almost experiment with them in a playground situation.

Almost like The Sims, right.

You set up the situation, you play it out.

In this case with science fiction, we can go anywhere, do anything, set up any scenario we want and play it out and see how it goes.

I know that some people write science fiction because they’re really good science fiction writers.

science fiction writers talk about how they just really enjoy setting up a scenario and playing it out and seeing how it goes.

There are a lot of different people who were science fiction writers who never really intended to be.

They just wanted to see how a scenario worked.

The interesting thing about science fiction also is that we can set up this situation that’s outlandish but still incredibly human.

The science fiction class I took in college, my professor, Fanny, and I’m sorry I can’t remember her last name, she said that at the heart of every science fiction is, “What does it mean to be human.

” It is exploring our humanity.

Fantasy can have technology, it can discuss what it means to be human, and often does, but it’s more centered around a trip instead of being centered around a technology or a situation.

For example, when you watch or read the book The Expanse, you’re dealing with a culture that is broken up apart, it’s no longer at peace with each other.

And then major pieces of technology introduce themselves into the story and then we see how it changes everything.

When it it comes to something like Lord of the Rings, it’s about the journey.

We started here, we have to go to Mount Doom.

And the whole process is in that journey, which is why a lot of people say that Star Trek is science fiction, Star Wars is fantasy, because it was a journey that the people had to go on in order to get the Empire.

Makes sense.

The other thing that’s interesting is that there’s a lot of mainstream science fiction, but there’s a lot of really good science fiction from names you’ve never even heard of.

I think about Kindred.

There was a short-lived TV series about it, unfortunately it just got cancelled, but it was good.

And the book is really good too.

Butler’s books are very hard.

They’re depressing.

But Kindred probably is the most accessible and easy to read and probably I think the more enjoyable one that I have read.

But then there’s other places like Ender’s Game, Battlestar Galactica.

I I mean, I can just list all the science fiction books I’ve loved.

There was a weird series out there called River World, where everyone who’s ever lived on planet Earth wakes up 22 years old on this planet that has a giant river that bisects the planet.

They have a food tube and it spits food and cigarettes and liquid out at them.

They never have to want for anything.

And they start rebuilding societies.

You see Mark Twain hanging out with a Neanderthal and other people that he never would have met in his time frame.

During the pandemic, I started doing some weird things.

I don’t know why, but I decided I was going to start doing these series of things.

So I started with Star Trek and watched every one of the series from beginning to end in chronological order.

So Star Trek Enterprise came first, and then I went through the whole thing.

When I think about the original Star Trek show, I always had this image of Captain Kirk being some, what, a cowboy, someone who goes off and just does what he wants, and someone who really likes to romance the ladies.

But, you know, when watching it again, I found out that he is a lot more thoughtful than I remember him to be.

There was always this image that Picard was always the thoughtful one, and Sisko the diplomatic one, and Janeway the leader who is a force of nature.

And then there’s Captain Kirk and he’s pretty wild.

But it’s not true.

He’s a fantastic leader.

So that’s why I thought this would be a great topic to talk about, leadership in science fiction.

Much like the culture series I did earlier last year, this will be kind of an ongoing series.

We won’t do them in order.

I’ll do them here and there, sprinkled throughout.

Not everyone loves science fiction, and so I understand that.

I noticed that when you look on the internet You even asked chat GPT about who makes awesome leaders in science fiction.

People bring up people who are like Yoda.

I think he was a great teacher, but was he a great leader.

I know that there were parts where he was General Yoda.

We never really see that.

But living in a cave in the middle of nowhere doesn’t really make you a leader.

It makes you someone who’s kind of hiding a bit.

Same thing with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Great teacher, mentor.

was a general but eventually he goes lose on a desert planet by himself.

Not great leadership but there are some fantastic leaders in Star Wars 2.

Today what we’re going to talk about is Star Trek.

We’ll start off there I think that’s the one many people have seen and have some familiarity with it.

When we talk about leadership and Star Trek the first thought that comes to mind again is Captain James T.

Kirk.

He’s our first captain we got to meet him.

You might not know this but back in the day when Star Trek first came out it was owned by Desilu Productions.

That was Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

They bought RKO Studios and they produced Star Trek.

When it comes to Captain Kirk, one of the best things about him is that first of all he’s charismatic.

You like him.

He’s a nice guy and he has fun with his staff.

He tells good jokes.

He pokes fun at his people a few times.

He is really an interesting kind of leader.

The thing that makes him so interesting about him is the fact that first of all he knows his stuff.

He knows that ship backward and forward.

Not only that, he knows how the other ships work.

He is well versed in Starfleet commands.

He’s not a cowboy.

He follows the rules.

He goes by the rules and he just comes up with interesting quick-thinking ways that he can go about it.

He also likes to get punch to got you always notice that the shoulder in his shirt rips off quite often and he often loses his shirt quite a few times I’m not sure what it has to do with that but I thought that was kind of interesting how often the costume group in Star Trek productions probably had to give him that ripped shoulder shirt but he always thought of a way out when he was taken prisoner when he had to fight the Romulans.

It was very touchy.

There was a very tight, easily broken treaty in there with the Romulans.

And so he had to edge around that very carefully.

He was so creative and that’s what made him so interesting.

When he came up against robots, how did he get away from it.

He created logic problems so that the robots couldn’t think their way out of it and it eventually conked out because they couldn’t process what he was saying.

He had such a sharp mind.

And so that’s what I really appreciated was all the different ways that he was creative with it.

And even when you look at people that you would think would make great leaders, like Spock, would Spock make a great starship captain.

He had that opportunity to take command of the ship and almost got everyone killed because he was by the book.

Not that Kirk wasn’t, but he wasn’t creative about by the book.

It was strictly by the book.

He followed all the rule sets.

He processed everything logically, but what he didn’t realize is that his enemies often didn’t process things logically.

They were illogical.

And because he didn’t understand people the way Kirk does, he understood the ship and the technology better than anybody, the science better than anyone, but he did not make as good of a captain.

So I appreciated Kirk all over again just by watching the series again.

And when we had the episode “Mirror, Mirror,” which came out in October 6 of 1967, we got to see a different thing.

The interesting thing about alternate universe science fiction is it’s about taking the people we know and putting them into a situation that is completely unknown.

All their expectations go away.

They couldn’t count on their crew.

They couldn’t count on Federation because everything was broken.

In the Mirror Universe, most people who were evil were the opposites of what they were.

So in that particular episode, Spock and Kirk and some others were transferred into this Mirror Universe where the Federation was evil.

Kirk was an evil overlord who killed his enemies without thought.

And Spock was kind of mostly Spock with a beard, but he was methodical with an evil bent to him, but not quite the same way Kirk was.

Kirk had to go into what was called the Terran Empire and then take on those attributes of the other Kirk, who had no morals, was driven by power and lust for life and money and things.

He was an evil character.

He had to figure out how, in this framework of being evil, how could he get back to his own universe.

But at the same time, not becoming so evil, not killing so many people, that he loses who he is.

And so that was a really amazing episode because it showed us what another James Kirk would look like.

It showed us what Kirk in another situation would look like.

It gave us the “what if” kind of scenario, which is like a science fiction inside a science fiction.

he was able, with his charisma, his quick thinking, to figure a way out and to figure a way of getting back to his normal universe.

So then Kirk asks him when he does get back to his own universe, “Hey, how did you know that that wasn’t me.

” And the quote was, “What I don’t understand is how were you able to identify our counterparts so quickly.

” And Spock says back to him, “It was far easier for you as civilized men to behave like barbarians.

than it was for the barbarians to behave like civilized men.

And he adds, “May I point out that I had the opportunity to observe your counterparts here quite closely.

They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous, in every way splendid examples of Homo sapiens, with the very flower of humanity.

” I found them quite refreshing.

Well, there’s Spock.

And the thing is, if you do watch the old Star Trek, there is a lot of humor in there.

Spock is not as straight-laced and serious as I remember him being either.

So Captain Kirk, what a great leader.

And of course, when we talk about Captain Kirk, we have to talk about the wrath of Khan and the TV series with the Khan episode in it.

Khan was Ricardo Montalban and he was this genetically engineered human being to be a superhuman being.

Very smart, very strong, and very capable.

And he had a team of people who were also genetically modified like him.

But because this genetic modification was a mistake, they were put into sustained sleeping and sent out to space.

The episode of Star Trek was called “Space Seed.

” The Enterprise comes across these sleeping genetic mutation people and thaws them out.

They quickly take over the situation and Kirk has to defeat him.

When we see in the movie Ratha Kahn, which came out, you know, 20 years later, they find Kahn again, who was sent to a planet that was supposed to be nice and it turned out the planet got destroyed by another planet exploding.

And now Kahn is even more maniacal.

He lost his wife and he looks to get vengeance against Kirk.

But Khan, while being a good leader technically, is a fascist, is crushing everyone, puts everyone down, and his anger and rage just causes him to make bad decisions.

When the Enterprise went into a nebula to get away from Khan, Khan went after him, even though there would be no type of tracking that could be done inside the nebula, and eventually Kirk got an advantage over him.

And even before that, Kirk knew all the ships very well and so when he was able to fight Khan one-on-one, he knew the commands, he knew how that ship operated, and he was able to take control and drop the shields of Khan’s ship.

Because Khan never spent any time learning about his ship, he doesn’t really know strategy, he doesn’t really know how things work or military training officially.

He just knows book and he just is a smart guy.

Kirk was able because he kept his cool, kept his knowledge for him and worked as a team with his bridge crew.

He was able to get to him and beat Khan.

But then when we think of leaders again, the next leader we think of is Captain Picard.

And of course, Picard is a really great leader.

For a long time, he was just one of my favorite captains.

I loved Star Trek The Next Generation.

The warmth among the crew was just amazing.

It took some time to gel, the first ones were kind of weird and silly, but it really built into a family feel to it.

I appreciated the way that Picard was thoughtful, calm, always said the right thing, he knew how to work with other people, and what my dad always said about him was that he knew how to rely on the opinions of other people, which was one of the most important things any leader could do.

You need a team.

You need to be able to trust the people around you and have them trust you as well.

When we see Picard get captured by the Borg and be a part of the hive for a while, then was removed from the Borg.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it essentially is like think of a colony of ants, all thinking and ordering the same way based on what the queen wants.

No thought, no original ideas, just everything coming from a centralized location.

When Picard is removed from that and cured of the Borg pieces that were brought into him, it made him question himself.

It made him question his own humanity And his hate of the Borg collective just came through every once in a while.

He could be calm, cool, collected, diplomatic in almost every situation.

But when it came to the Borg, it made him lose that.

And so it was that ability to overcome and figure out who he still was, even in the face of the Borg, it made him a more flawed leader, but a better leader in so many ways.

He only saw himself as someone who was damaged, but instead he was able to do it.

He even had holodeck experiences where he tried to confront the Borg and confront who he was in the Borg, which was the name Locutus.

And it was even weirder because when he was part of the Borg, he learned what they were made of.

He heard their thought.

They heard his thoughts too.

So now it is an enemy who knows us all too well.

Eventually, we get two Borgs on the Enterprise.

One is called Seven of Nine, who was also rescued from the Borg.

And no one trusted her.

What if she goes back.

What if she’s just kidding.

Or what if whatever it is that made her a Borg takes over again.

So, because Picard had that opportunity to become part of the Borg Collective, we had a chance to see what he would do in those situations.

We have Benjamin Sisko who was on Deep Space Nine, which was a community which was on the edge of a war pole and it was an international community of different races, of different types of people and warring factions.

And so Benjamin Sisko was a great leader because he was diplomatic.

He was a funny guy, he was a warm guy, he had a son and was a great father, but he was able to try to bridge those battles between various fighting groups.

Another one that I really liked was Captain Janeway.

She was the first female captain in Star Trek.

And what happened on the USS Voyager is they were out flying around And they get thrown so many light years away that it was gonna take a long time to get back.

But they were dedicated to finding their way back to Earth so they could be with their families, their friends again.

And she did everything to keep scary situation, something where people would probably die and maybe never get home.

She kept them together, she kept their spirits up, and she was able to get people who were in a dire situation every day to stick together and work on this challenge, and they eventually did get back.

She also had a good sense of humor.

I noticed that about all the Star Trek captains.

All had pretty good senses of humor, but she was no nonsense.

I know she was afraid too, and you could tell that there were places where she questioned her leadership, but she knew the mental game of this, and so she was able to stick to her guns and win the day.

Someone joked about if you added up all the people who actually died on the USS Voyager, it had to be more people than actually ever shipped out.

But it’s a TV show, so that’s okay.

And this book brought up some other interesting episodes that talked about leadership inside a Star Trek.

This one article was called “The Dark Side of Leadership” by Steven Leonard, and it talked a lot about the original Star Trek, “Who Mourns for Adonis,” where Kirk and the team run into Apollo, who turns out to be an alien and went all over the different planets.

And this guy wanted ultimate control and worshippers.

And the way Kirk dealt with him was to make him angry.

It was outside the box again.

So in summary, what did we learn about leadership from Star Trek.

Is first of all, understand your technology.

Whatever tools you have available to you, if you can understand what they can do, it will make your leadership and your situation so much better.

Second thing is, keep calm and keep your leadership tactics strong.

Don’t break out of what it is you know you should do, and don’t start relying on emotion, anger, fear, but stick to what you know and keep acting.

Keep getting your way out of it.

Third thing is, make sure that not only do you trust your team to give you good advice, Kirk relied on Spock and McCoy and his entire team, and he listened to anyone who had an opinion to give him.

But the reverse side of it is everyone trusted Kirk as well.

They knew that he had their lives in his hands, and because of his proven track record, he was able to win their trust too.

The fourth advice.

Don’t break away from what makes you you.

Your morals, your core, your being.

Whether it was Picard in fighting the Borg, whether it was Captain Kirk in fighting in Mirror Mirror, or even Janeway, who was in an entire different area of the galaxy, they kept to their leadership skills and who they were, their moral center, the Federation rules, because that’s what made them human, that’s what made them good leaders, and those principles carried them as a backbone to their actions.

And I would say the last thing is to make sure that you understand that people are human.

Your crew is human and the people around you are human.

And so that means jokes, fun times, holodeck trips, times to get away on planets and have shore leave.

People, no matter who they are, whether they’re now or in the future, need some entertainment.

All right, so my challenge to you is think about your favorite leader on Star Trek.

What principles, values, actions, and leadership skills do they have that could be a part of your life.

If it’s Picard that’s your favorite, what do you appreciate about the ways he acts.

If it’s Kirk, how do you take his charisma and leadership and make him a part of your daily decisions or working with a team of people.

Alright everyone, thanks so much.

I hope you enjoyed this.

It’s a little bit different than what we usually do.

But if you have any questions, comments, you can find me on Twitter.

You can also get my email and email me directly if you send me an email and answer any questions or whatever comments you may have about who your favorite Star Trek leader is.

And remember that going boldly where no man has gone before starts with small steps.

(upbeat music) you [BLANK_AUDIO].

Do things that will benefit the future you most and make you happy. Learn how to see short-term goals to make that work for your future self.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/short-term-goal-setting

You don’t know who you will become because you can’t see the future and the small steps you will take to get there. Change is logical looking back in time makes sense. Set the stage to influence your future self.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220201-how-thinking-about-future-you-can-build-a-happier-life

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220201-how-thinking-about-future-you-can-build-a-happier-life

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