| - |
| Properties of woods | Properties of woods | - |
| Accounting | - | Accounting |
If she decides she does indeed want to try her hand at becoming an independent harp maker and harp designer, she now knows what she needs but lacks: computer programming, knowledge of the principles of electronics, and accounting. In other words, List C. These she must either go to school to acquire for herself, OR enlist from some friends of hers in those fields, on a volunteer basis, OR go out and hire, part-time.
It is always possible—with a little blood, sweat, and imagination—to find out what A – B = C is, for any business you’re dreaming of doing.
But let’s say you’ve come up with a business idea that you’re just sure no one else has ever thought of. Who do you go interview, then? Parallel businesses. Let’s take a ridiculous example. You want to start a business of using computers to monitor the growth of plants at the Antarctic (!?). A parallel business, in this case, would be:
¦ someone who’s used computers with plants here in the States,
¦ or someone who’s used computers in the Antarctic,
¦ or someone who has worked with plants in the Antarctic, etc.
You would get names of these people, go talk to them, and along the way you might even discover that there is actually someone who has used computers to monitor the growth of plants at the South Pole. Then again, you might not.
But what you would get, for certain, is an awareness of most of the pitfalls that wait for you, by learning from the experience of those who are in these parallel businesses or careers.
CONCLUSION: “CAN I CREATE MY OWN JOB BY CREATING MY OWN BUSINESS?”
It takes a lot of guts to try ANYTHING new (to you) in today’s brutal economy. It’s easier, however, if you keep these things in mind:
1. There is always some risk, in trying something new. Your goal, I hope, is not to avoid risk—there is no way to do that—but to make sure ahead of time that the risks are manageable.
2. You find this out before you start, by first talking to others who have already done what you are thinking of doing; then you evaluate whether or not you still want to go ahead and try it.
3. Have a Plan B, laid out, before you start, as to what you will do if it doesn’t work out; i.e., know where you are going to go, next. Don’t wait, puh-leaze! Write it out, now. This is what I’m going to do, if this doesn’t work out.
4. If you’re sharing your life with someone, be sure to sit down with that partner or spouse and ask what the implications are for them if you try this new thing. Will they have to give up things? If so, what? Are they willing to make those sacrifices? And so on. You have a responsibility to make them full partners in any decision you’re facing. Love demands it!
It is up to you to do your research thoroughly, weigh the risks, decide if they’re manageable risks, count the costs, get counsel from those intimately involved with you, and then if you decide you still want to create your own job by starting this kind of business, go ahead and try—no matter what your well-meaning but cautious friends or family may say. They love you, they’re concerned for you, and you should thank them for that; but come on, you only have one life here on this Earth, and that life is yours (under God) to say how it will be spent, or not spent. Parents, well-meaning friends, etc., can give loving advice, but in the end they get no vote. Just you… and God.
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
NIKOLA TESLA (1856–1943) Chapter 11. Being Inventive Is Key to Survival
It’s lovely to be able to find a job. Even lovelier to create a job that somebody else has thought of, and then make a success of it—as in the previous chapter. But what if we have to absolutely start from scratch?
What if we were a stranger riding into town in the Old West of 1870? No employment agencies are there. No government assistance is there. We’re on our own. Gonna have to mosey around town, and see what kind of work we can put together for ourselves.
Or, never mind 1870. What if we were riding into a town or city like Joplin, Missouri, this year, just after it was torn apart by the worst tornado to hit the U.S. since 1947, and we need work. Where would we begin?
Well, we would begin by inventing. I know the popular phrases are being creative, or innovating. But I like inventing. It’s more meaningful to say we are inventors, than it does to say we are creative, or innovative. Those words have been overworked to death. Let’s go back to good old-fashioned inventive.
I think everybody is by nature inventive. Maybe in small ways. Maybe in big. But we all have it in us. After high school I worked on a grass-cutting crew for the Board of Education. We were dropped off at a school in the morning with our lawnmowers and surrey, and then picked up again, later in the day. I figured out a way to do the job more elegantly, and everyone noticed. I was just being inventive.
In the film and TV series, Mildred Pierce, the heroine needs to support herself, so she looks around town to see what is needed, and she becomes inventive. One answer that occurs to her is: apple pies. People hunger for apple pies. And Mildred, it turns out, makes very good applepies, not to mention other kinds of pies. Thus she creates her own job in that place. She was just being inventive.
Jack K. Wolf was a real-life theorist (he died May 12, 2011). He figured out a way to store more data in less space, say on a magnetic disk. This formed the heart of computers and other devices we all know. He was just being inventive.
A cook is working in her kitchen, off a standard recipe. Suddenly she gets an idea for putting some different
