Ooo pretty new colors. Somebody's been very creative. Me like.
Was chatting with a friend yesterday who is forever coming up with new schemes, but never acts on them. She's been stuck in her job for 20 years and hates it, but always finds a reason for not getting a new one. She is a very arty crafty type in her spare time, and many of her ideas revolve around setting up her own small business. Well, that certainly works for some, but you need good business skills and strong motivation to carry it out - and I don't think she's got them. I guess she knows in her heart it's all a dream and she'll never do it; she's what they call an innovative thinker but not strong on carry thru, and doesn't pay enough attention to detail.
Lately, she has got it into her head that instead of looking for a job, I should become self employed as well. She keeps coming up with all these bright ideas for me whenever I do something a bit creative. "You knit beautifully; sell your work to craftshops." "You give great speeches at Toastmasters, become a public speaker." "You do good writing, you could be a bestseller."
I think she overrates my skills and underestimates just how hard it is to make a living on these things. Even if I started making some money on them, I would probably need to continue working a regular job to have a regular income until I became sufficiently rich and succesful. Most self employed start out as parttime hobbyists. It's not that I dont' play with the ideas sometimes; it's that I'm not sufficiently interested in doing them to put in all that time and effort. Call me lazy. Or maybe it's that I prefer the security of a regular income. And I like my laid back daily routine. Like the proverbial Mexican fisherman who refused the offer of a well paid business job so he could work hard for 20 years, make a bundle, and then retire and go fishing in Mexico. He was doing that right then. We hear so much about work/life balance nowadays; I think I'm pretty well sorted on that one the way I live now.
The one idea that really appeals to me is the last one. I enjoy writing in my spare time and I'd like to have a book published some day, even if it never becomes a bestseller. And writers are often asked to do public speaking.
Here's what my friend said when I floated the idea: "Write a book on knitting! There's heaps of them being published right now. You could be a best seller!"
Um, I personally think a lot of the new knitting books are terrible and I could certainly do a better one; but there are also some brilliant ones by real experts. How do I make mine stand out? I need a creative approach.
Second suggestion from my friend. "You're really good with money. Books on money sell well. And you've just lost weight. Diet books sell well. If you write a book that talks about both money and weight loss you'd make millions!"
Bingo! I'm off to write the Accountant's Diet. See you on Oprah in 18 months.