My own Bookkeeping biz with a partner
I had started my own Bookkeeping biz with a partner 4 years ago which was one month before I started to work for my last Corporate employer. We dragged our feet in getting it going because we both had corporate jobs and were thinking we could get it going as a side gig. But then as I worked on the marketing material the year before I left my corporate gig for this biz on the side, a nagging thought kept coming to me. It was in the form of a question. "Do you really want to spend 40 to 60 hours a week trying to make this business work while your guitar playing remains relegated to what scraps of time you can allocate to it?" AND THE ANSWER?! Well the answer I kept giving this nagging question was "No! That is not what I really want to do." So then the logical next question I asked myself was "Then why don't I create a guitar lessons business?"
Here are my reasons for thinking this was the most profitable course of action for me when it came to finding ways to play my guitar and get paid for it.- First, I had researched what it would take to make money as an artist. What I found was that I needed to either start writing my own songs and they would need to be very good or find other musicians I could start a band with to collaborate in writing our songs and they too would need to be very good. Then and only after I had one of these 2 scenarios in place (and let's assume I chose to form a band) we would need to start playing in local clubs and self publish our own CD. To play in clubs today you have to either pay to play or play for free because that is what every other competing new band is willing to do. Since no one has heard of us, the club owner really doesn't care if we think we're any good and since we're not willing to play for free, we won't get the gig but the band who is willing to do so will get the gig instead.
- I myself have bought many Guitar instruction videos and books and DVDs from others who marketed themselves as guitar teachers, so I was confident that I wasn't the only one who had and so there must be a market for this. I also found information online that claimed that guitar students today are taking lessons by Skype and that is a big thing these days. I wasn't surprised that might be the case since after all, the internet, as we now know it and in the sense of how everyone in the world could connect with each other (well, more and more people since Microsoft) has been around since 1995.
To be fair, I believe my meditation and mindfulness practices helped me to be aware of these ideas as they came to me and make notes on them as I went along. The reason I believe this is because even though I was aware of it at the time, I also had a subtler underlying thought that kept coming up. It was a thought that said "You're not good enough. Sure, your friends ask you to play your guitar for them but they're just being nice. If you try to market yourself as an expert then you will be laughed off the internet!" I think if I had not the mindfulness practice in place then I might have heard that thought and not really noticed it and just obeyed it by telling myself that this was a good reason to keep doing bookkeeping and keep my guitar playing as a nice hobby.
Also, in January of 2015, I made a New year's resolution to use my 2 hour drive time to my corporate gig and my 2 hour drive time back home every day by listening to Podcasts on my iPhone every day. I did just that and found many great "How to start your own Business online" type of Podcasts but the one Podcast I felt really inspired me to make the jump to self employment was "Join Up Dots" with David Ralph. I also listened to Podcasts that dealt more specifically about how to start a Guitar Lessons business. The one that I felt really encouraged me and helped me feel that I didn't need to be an expert guitar shredder to be a great online teacher was "Start Teaching Guitar" by Donnie Schexnayder.
I have to say the "JoinUpDots" podcast on my iTunes was the most influential to give me courage to quit my job and start my biz . I had been listening to David Ralph's show for that last 6 months since my January 2015 resolution to listen to podcasts during my 2 hour commute times. I loved the interviews he was publishing on the Podcast. He still does them and in a little over 2 years, now has over 550 recorded interviews of people like you and I who got to a point in their lives where they said to themselves, "I have to do something that means more to me and provides value to others and is not a drag but a passion to pursue." They all tell similar stories, though the details of each life and the choice of passions to pursue are all different, the patterns for how they arrived at success as an entrepreneur are all very similar. These candid conversations between David and his guests were very inspirational to me.
With that said, I have to point out what was inspirational about it. The stories told were often NOT stories such as 'I left my corporate job in June and by the end of July the same year I was making more money than I ever had before.' No. They were more like stories of struggle in getting things going. Struggle in figuring out how to get noticed in the sea of websites that now reside on the internet. For some they had years of struggles. Some had to go back to the corporate life and continue their dream on the side for 7 more years before anybody cared enough about what they did to contact them because they found their website or book or Facebook page.
So I felt ready for a struggle. I knew the possibility of it becoming a struggle and that I might not make money at my new biz for awhile. So with this idea and not the false idea that I would certainly get rich in the next 12 months, I made the jump. After my first year of not only promoting my online guitar lessons biz but also doing other side gigs and now writing for Steemit, I feel confident still that eventually I will break through to the success David's other guests have achieved.