Author: Brand Smit

THURSDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2012

Because I try my best to avoid failure and disappointment, I wonder long and hard whether a particular way to make money is a good fit for me. I want to be sure before I spend time, and money, on a project.

A few comments:

1. There is no guarantee that you will make money with anything – even if other people earn their bread and butter with it, year in and year out.

2. There is a parallel to identity: who I am versus who I want to be. Decide whether you want to make money with something, whether it is something that suits your lifestyle, whether it is something with which you can identify, and whether it’s something that will be sustainable for at least the next ten years. If you decide it is indeed something with which you can and want to make money, then do what you need to do and learn what you need to learn to turn possibility into reality. Commit yourself to becoming successful with this activity.

What more do I want? Confirmation in a pile of tea leaves? Should someone throw a handful of animal bones to confirm something is right for me?

Decide something is right for you, and then make it right for you.

WEDNESDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2012

(I have most probably already noted this idea.)

My efforts to make money since 2006 have to a large extent been a search for identity – in a new “environment”.

For years I reckoned how you make money is not who you are; it is just what you do to meet your own needs, and perhaps the needs of a family. You are therefore not a lawyer – it’s just what you do for money.

Projects I have undertaken with the sole purpose of making a profit include affiliate marketing, sports betting, short report writing, and the selling of websites and domain names. I was perfectly competent and intelligent enough to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to eventually make money with these activities, and in some cases I was somewhat successful.

However, none of the ways in which I made money, or could have made money in theory in most cases, was something I wanted to see as part of my identity. What I learned was that if you do not see a certain way you can make money as part of your identity, it is not a complete mystery why you’re not a raging success.

MONDAY, 17 DECEMBER 2012

To think of myself as a “publisher” is to a large extent a missing piece of the puzzle.

Since the early nineties, I’ve been holding on to the image of the “writer” – independent; elevated above the ordinary; on his own. The specific vision was of myself in an old stone fort, somewhere in a mountainous wilderness, or perhaps on the plains, at least a few days from the nearest civilisation.

That this romantic figure needs money – or worse, that he needs to make money – has always been a huge stumbling block.

This is why the idea of the publisher is so powerful. The publisher’s business, to some extent more than the writer’s, is books. Whereas the writer puts ideas and opinions and stories in words, the publisher focuses on publishing. The publisher is the one who places the writer’s creative work in the hands of the reader.

The writer is in the wilderness – or on the plains. He writes, and does not allow himself to be distracted by such common everyday concerns as money.

The publisher is in the city. He does the marketing. He advertises. He produces books in different formats. He talks business.

The publisher is the one who makes money. He is the one who makes sure the writer survives.

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FRIDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2012

As a child, you don’t automatically know how to play chess. You don’t know how to ride a bike, or how to do ballet or play football. You don’t know how to use a computer. You don’t even know how to read or write until you’re taught how.

As a child, you almost never wavered when it came to something new you had to master. You just did what you were told. You kept trying, and after a few months or a few years you could play chess, ride a bike, play football, or do ballet. You learned to read and write, and eventually you learned how to use a computer.

Why then, as adults, do so many people doubt their ability to learn something new?

“I don’t know how,” the man or woman will mutter.

“I’m too old to learn something new,” the thirty or forty or fifty-year-old man or woman will say.

“No, good grief! There’s no chance that I’ll be able to do that!” one person will opine, safe in the knowledge that at least a handful of other adults in the area will support them in their belief that they are unable to do something.

Can you imagine if children suffered from the same malady?

“Oh no, Daddy, that bicycle is so big. I’m going to fall off and hurt my toe,” little Johnny might say, and then he’ll walk away and go sit under a tree.

“Those dances look so difficult, Mommy! I can’t do them!” little Joanna might say, and then refuse to get out of the car at the ballet class.

“Chess seems so complicated …”

“I don’t know how to draw those curls and lines like the other boys and girls in class …”

“You know I’m afraid of mice, and the computer always makes such funny noises …”

The end of civilisation as we know it. The beginning of Zombieland.

“If you think you can do something, or if you think you cannot do something, you’re right,” Henry Ford advised.

What I want to know is what kind of example do people think they set for the next generation if, at the age of 25 or 40 or 50, they stop believing they can master anything new.

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TUESDAY, 6 NOVEMBER 2012

In 1998 I had a few plans that didn’t quite work out. I wanted my own place of residence, even if it were only a small apartment. I wanted to earn a regular income, even if it weren’t a fortune. I wanted a car, even if it were a piece of junk. I did not want to pack my bags and go abroad again. I did not want to return to English teaching. And I did not have a burning desire to come to Taiwan.

Taiwan ultimately worked out much better than I could ever have imagined – partly the result of my own decisions, and actions I have taken; partly luck. However, it is important that you sometimes remind yourself that at some stage you did have other plans, even if those plans would probably have led to a dead end.

______________________

FRIDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2012

I always find it fascinating: the embarrassment of not being busy with something that is supposed to make money, when it is expected of you, or when you yourself expected to engage in such an activity.

I had a busy morning. I took laundry to the laundromat, did some print work at the 7-Eleven, continued my preparation for a private class tonight, and by noon started getting ready for a meeting at a school. I knew that when I got back from the meeting, I had to finish my preparations for tonight’s class, get something for dinner, and then after dinner leave for my last commercial activity of the day.

Just before the meeting, I saw that I had missed a call. A two-minute conversation enlightened me to the fact that the private student I was supposed to teach tonight is still in Taipei, and that the class is thus cancelled.

By three-thirty, N. and I were back from our meeting (we teach at the same school). We stopped at the 7-Eleven at our apartment building so that she could buy something to eat, before heading off to another school to teach there for a few hours. I wished her a pleasant remainder of the afternoon, reminded her to drive safely and to eat something proper for dinner, then turned towards our apartment building. It was a rainy, chilly Friday afternoon. My “work” for the day was done. And I felt guilty. And ashamed.

Could it be that I have not yet advanced further than the robot-like programming of the materialistic world? After all these years of weighing up values, is it still appropriate to feel ashamed just because I am staring a final few hours of a “work week” in the face in which I won’t fulfil any visibly commercial role? Where – can you imagine? – I might just take it easy?

Why do some people manage not to think twice about it? They get a Friday afternoon off, give an unashamed whoop of relief, and rush home. Why is it that I feel ashamed about something like this, even though I know I am most likely still going to work on something else?

The answer is boring. The answer has shown its face too many times.

Most of the work I keep myself busy with has little or no commercial value, or has yet to bear fruit of any material significance. In a materialistic world where your personal value is determined by how much commercial value you create, or how much commercial value you carry in your handbag or wallet, even the lone-working entrepreneur and writer of non-commercial material occasionally then buckles before the temptation to show the world that he, too, is “busy”. “Look everyone! I’m not just sitting at my computer all day writing, and working on internet projects and things like that! I also go out sometimes and do things primarily for the money, like other people!”

And what happens when you miss an opportunity to do something primarily for monetary gain when it was expected of you, and when you anticipated having this opportunity? The old programming kicks in – as if you have never even tried to think differently about it.

______________________

SATURDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2012

When someone asks my advice on career, work or ways to make money – or when I give it on my own accord, I always base my opinion on a certain model that I have in my head. This model says: don’t put too much weight on what will give you higher status in the community; think twice before you insist on trying to make money with something you’re passionate about – there’s not necessarily a market for it, and even if there is, you might find after a few years of commercial activity that you’re not that passionate about it anymore; do not commit yourself to a career or a commercial activity where you will do the same thing over and over and over again, Monday to Friday, until someone finally taps you on the shoulder and says, “Stop! You’re 65. Retire, for crying out loud!”

I believe this model makes sense, and have thought so for a long time. I can therefore never understand when someone hears my well-meaning advice, and then do the exact opposite.

But there’s something I tend to forget.

In many cases, people get something back when they follow their own instinct and consider status in the community, when they go for something they have always had a passion for, and when they choose a profession or business where they will do the same thing over and over, ad nauseam. They establish a regular stream of income that puts food on the table and pays the rent. They develop a relationship with other people in the community. They become part of something. They will tell me: “You know what? It’s true that sometimes the work is boring, but we like what we get back at the end of the day and at the end of the month. What we get for our labour, not only money but also the connection and sometimes friendship with people we work with, make up for the things we don’t like. We simply endure the less pleasant aspects of our labour.”

My model works for the individual who wants to be left alone, for the person who doesn’t want to compromise his passion with commercial packaging, and who definitely does not want to do the same boring job every day, over and over until he goes out of his mind. My model works for the person who is not concerned on a daily basis with keeping a family alive, who doesn’t want to endure tedious and boring work.

So, am I wrong?

No. I just don’t always take into account what works for other people, what other people want, and what they’re willing to give up for what they get in return.

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