Saturday, September 19, 2015

When A Man Or A Woman Really Is An Island

A quick Google search told me that it was John Donne who first wrote the line, "No man is an island."  Others have undoubtedly used that line over the centuries.  The meaning is fairly straight forward, none of us is a world unto ourselves.  Each of us is part of a larger whole.  We all understand that.

But I want to argue that point, for a moment.  There is a time when a man or woman really feels like an island.  There's a point where a person has an idea.  Maybe it's an idea for a book, maybe it's an idea for a business or something else.  Whatever it is, there is a point where everything we see around us was once a thought in somebody's head.  At that point, when you're the one with the idea, it often feels like you're all alone.  At that point, not a single person on Earth has been brought aboard the idea, and it seems every single person on the planet thinks it's a bad idea.  That's when a person can feel like an island.  When you first express this idea, nobody agrees.  There are two reasons for this.  1) It really is a bad idea and everyone can see that.  Or 2) it is a good idea, and no one else has the foresight to see just how good it can be.  A lot of ideas, both bad and good, are tossed aside at this point, because the person with the idea loses faith. 

This is the point I'm at in my life right now.  I have an idea of what I want to do to earn a living, and absolutely no one thinks it's a good idea... yet.  For quite a while now, I've been struggling with a variety of issues, medical and otherwise, and trying to find a way to earn a living in the small town of Kernersville, North Carolina.  I'll admit, I look terrible on paper.  My last ten years is a series of taxi driving jobs in both California and North Carolina, not one of which has the records to prove I actually worked for them.  In addition, there are big gaps in my employment.  On top of that, people tend to think that taxi drivers can only drive, and they tend to simply go on to the next resume' when I apply for a "normal" job.  For years now, I've been trying to dumb myself down just to get an entry level job... ANY job.  At that same time, I was blogging and self-educating myself about the internet and the world of "new media."  There are VERY few businesses around here who use new media channels very well.  Businesses have websites and Facebook pages, and maybe even a Twitter stream, but they don't use these channels to their full potential.  So with everything I've learned over the last several years, it became clear that my best chance of making a living would be to create my own job, not get one that already exists.  Of course, to everyone else, and I mean ABSOLUTELY everyone I know right now, it just looks like I'm lazy.

On a church trip the other day, one of the old guys I know brought up a new restaurant being built in town, it's called Dairy-O.  It's going to be something like a Dairy Queen or maybe even a Sonic.  It's being built on a major road right next to a Wendy's.  The man went on to say that Dairy-O will take a lot of business from that Wendy's, because it takes FOREVER to get waited on at that particular Wendy's.  He's right.  Everyone listening to the conversation agreed.  The man said he talked to the manager of that Wendy's about why it takes so long to get served, and the manager said that he can't find good employees.  When he hires a young person to work there, they simply don't want to work hard.  I chimed in at that point.  I told him that that particular Wendy's was the only place in town that actually called me for an interview.  The assistant manager who interviewed me seemed interested in hiring me, in part because I had three years of restaurant experience earlier in my life.  But she had reservations about my weight, which she hinted at.  She seemed to think that I wouldn't be able to stand for a whole shift.  When I called back a week later, as she told me to, she said they had hired someone else and didn't need me.  The Wendy's that says it "can't find good people," wouldn't hire me.  I was a really good employee at every restaurant I worked at.  Maybe, just maybe, the management of that particular Wendy's doesn't know good people when they see them.

In any case, after a long time of trying to dumb myself down to find an entry level job here, I've decided to do just the opposite.  I'm going to stretch myself and my particular talents by giving workshops to people who want to find their passion in life.  Yes, that sounds crazy.  But I've given these workshops 25 years ago for friends and family members, and they were helpful to everyone who went through the workshop.  So here I am, dusting off an old idea, and running with it.  And every single person I know thinks I'm crazy right now.  My mom just walked by and asked if I was blogging as I typed that last sentence.  When I said, "Yes," she replied, "it's nice you have nothing to do."  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  In today's world, blogging can be work.  This IS my job.  This is the 21st Century, most of the factories have closed down and moved to other countries.  As marketing expert has put it, "the time when people get paid above average wages for average work is over."  Many other jobs have been taken over by robots doing the work humans once did.  Creating and working with ideas and knowledge IS the work these days.  Giving thoughts and ideas away through blogging or Facebook or Twitter or You Tube IS part of the work in today's world.  It isn't work for everyone, but it is for a lot of people.  No one I know around here understands this.  But then, no one I know reads the books I read, listens to all the talks online that I listen to, or delves into the "new media channels" that are changing the way we communicate and how business gets done these days.  No one else sees the opportunities I see right now.  I'm an island at the moment.  But that's OK.  Unlike most people, I've been in this position before.

In the early 1980's, I started racing and then doing tricks on a little bike in Boise, Idaho.  Everyone I knew thought I was crazy.  Two years later I was working at the top BMX magazines in the country.  A year later I was working at a video company producing the first alternative sports TV shows.  A few years after that I was working on the stage crew of American Gladiators, one of the highest rated TV shows at that time.  The BMX thing worked out pretty well for me and for a lot of other people I know.  What I'm doing now might work out, too.

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