implemento
I like one word post titles, but sometimes I find I’ve already used the one that would be most suited to the post I am writing. A couple or three years ago I wrote a longish post on getting things done called implement, so this one’s called “Implemento “…awesome creativity…no? It’s an homage to an experience I had in Cadiz a dozen or so years ago. I was trying to order food and wine in a harbour side bar, when I kept getting interrupted by a bunch of Neanderthal English sailors who were haranguing the waiter I was talking to for “cigarettos”, thinking that they just had to add “o” to English words or shout to be understood by Spaniards. There’s nothing more annoying for a Scot than an arsehole Englishman abroad…I was smiling on the inside.
I’m going to wrap this New Year series today so we can move onto something else; even my countrymen have stopped celebrating New Year by now so we should take that as a sign ;-).
Yesterday, I posted a Mindmap® that drilled down a bit on the previous day’s. I did this to illustrate that your past career can be a rich seam of ideas that can be mined to get you off and running in your bid for freedom. Getting off and running is usually constrained by worries about money. Getting started on making some money for yourself can be made easier and less scary if you start up by tapping into your past experience and skills to generate a little freedom income. Remember, you are an expert in this field.
Here’s yesterday’s Mindmap® again:
And here’s what I started doing during what I like to call my tunnel digging phase:
- Singled out a sector within my industry that needed advice and that I was particularly knowledgeable about. In my case this was helping lawn bowls clubs to have better greens.
- I started a blog called Bowls-Central
- I wrote my arse off and produced over 200 articles that were aimed at helping bowling clubs to improve their greens.
- I promoted a method of bowling green improvement that I had previously worked on and showed how this worked despite flying in the face of the commonly promoted wisdom in the industry.
- I answered hundreds of emails and gave honest to goodness advice completely free of charge and still do. This generated a lot of goodwill among my readers.
- I wrote an eBook called Performance Bowling Greens, which distilled my thoughts down into a program clubs could follow to achieve performance improvements. A side shoot of this is that they also saved money.
- I continued to look for other ways to help these people and they responded by supporting and encouraging me in my work.
- KEY POINT: I truly and respectfully engage in this industry; making money from it came as a welcome bonus; you’ve got to believe in it and give it 100%.
Today, I still run that blog and my biggest project for January 2015 is to re-write my best selling eBook, before re-designing and rebuilding the website in February, including an on-line education program for my customers at Bowls-Central.
Remember also that all of the above is generated from one entry in my Mindmap®. In addition to the Bowls-Central blog and it’s constantly expanding reach, I’ve carried out similar work for golf clubs, I’ve carried out consulting work and I’ve been engaged as a freelance teacher and consultant all over the world, almost without trying.
Please think about this approach as your initial step off the hamster wheel. It’s fulfilling, it’s helpful to others and it can generate decent income for you and a whole new world of experiences. It can also help you to see that all of those years in chains weren’t wasted…you can create a real asset or even a whole portfolio of assets from your previous career, skills and experience.
Please feel free to ask me questions on this.
I hope my New Year series looking at getting started on freedom has been helpful and that you find something that clicks with you on restless-peasant.net.
Tomorrow, we’ll move onto something a little different.
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