A good career strategy: find something to do that most people don't want to do. If you enjoy it and are particularly good at it, even
better.
A study at the University of California, Irvine, found that when it came to workplace distractions, most employees were actually happiest when performing rote tasks. Highly successful people, though, aren't most employees; they make it a habit to do work that others don’t want to do.
If the only things that make you happy are things that everyone else is willing to do for free, you're in trouble. If you're good at something that almost no one else can or will do well, the world is your oyster.
If the only things that make you happy are things that everyone else is willing to do for free, you're in trouble.
ReplyDeleteThat's not necessarily true: think of personal trainers, or yoga instructors. Everyone else is not only willing to do it for free, but is willing to pay to do it well. You can still make a living doing what they do for free, plus teaching them how to do the thing they like to do for free a little better.
It's just somewhat more precarious if there's an economic downturn, because no one really needs you. Artists are the same way: people are willing to paint and draw for free, but if they have some extra cash, they'll pay money for better paintings and drawings than they could make themselves. If they don't have money suddenly, though, the demand is highly elastic.
Hmm, I am an old timer but my whole job description is doing what everyone else would like to avoid, particularly compliance "kr@p" like filling out the Conflict Minerals Compliance Template, talk about a pointless waste of time. Don't expect it to go away. There is a whole new industry built up around it. It's one of those useless, non productive, endeavors that creates a lot of fake, makework jobs.
ReplyDeleteThat's not necessarily true: think of personal trainers, or yoga instructors. Everyone else is not only willing to do it for free, but is willing to pay to do it well. You can still make a living doing what they do for free, plus teaching them how to do the thing they like to do for free a little better.
ReplyDeleteThere's a diff between teaching someone else to do X well and merely doing it as a hobby because of A.
A lot of the modern, internet connected economy, is one about niches, since a small niche online encompasses the entire globe, even transcending language barriers at times. Even a minor split percentage point of the global online population can produce massive profits and demand for a good, if you are part of the limited number of suppliers that can get it to them.
Some people call this globalism, but the thing is, without the internet, one would never know these niche markets, supply or demand, in the first place. It takes communication to tie them together first.
That, along with various other things, is why the prepper culture went "mainstream" as raven noted. The preparation communities like being off the grid, but they also like non orthodox income streams that aren't beholden to gov bs, and the internet is one sphere where it is very less regulated.