You've happened upon my first blog perhaps because you're tired, bored or just dissatisfied with your current employment situation. Perhaps your story is similar to mine? or completely different?
Working 7 days a week became my lot in life. We rarely went out to concerts or to the footy. Organizing a night out or a few days away "Down South" was always a major planning activity, but worth it! Attending a wedding, a funeral or any celebration was a major juggling act to get regular cleaning jobs covered by staff or biting the bullet and heading off to work 4 hours after arriving home from the previous nights festivities... Hard work! Long hours and no problem at all in falling asleep at the end of 10 hours physical work on a Sunday!
Our cleaning business serves my family well, it always has. We live in a comfortable rental property with modest to nice furniture which has stood the test of time and the urge to replace it. We've put two kids through school, donated to our church and have always eaten good healthy food. Can't complain. But there's always the itch to explore a new venture, to try starting an additional income source, a new game with an exciting challenge. Forever searching.
A few years back, a friend offered us her paella and grazing table catering business. She didn't want to continue with it, she'd had enough and had in fact, found her new "thing".
She insisted that we take it on. Linda and I have often helped out with catering for private parties, our church and even friends and we both have experience working in hotels and restaurants. It seemed we were the obvious choice to step into our friend's shoes and keep walking. Now life became quite intense, juggling the cleaning jobs scheduled with catering functions, walking the dog, watching the T.V. and finding time to sleep!
Crazy, right! Yes. We somehow managed to keep it all together. So where does the copy and content writing come into it?
I've always been a fan of the advertising, marketing and writing fields. Such that most of my extensive library of books are on the subjects of, advertising, marketing, copy and content writing, promotion and sales... I find it all fascinating. It was reading these books that gave me the ah ha moment. The concept of being a freelance copy and content writer, a blogger or even a podcaster was very refreshing and more so because it was as removed from physical work as I could get.
Oh my! another business! I think Linda must have thought I was nuts! But no, it dawned on me at 56 years of age, that this was my sea change. I was to become a writer, I wanted to try it all, I wanted to learn it all. I was so itchy to get started. Time was my enemy as the cleaning and catering stole so much of it.
Despite my lack of hours in the day, I became a sponge for everything and anything relating to writing. Blogging, white papers, business to business emails... in fact, anything that involved the putting of pen to paper or sausage fingers to a keyboard to create written material that was effective and served a need was of interest and became my "food". I've mentioned the books, I'm still wading through those. Udemy courses and podcasts by professionals and even courses on podcasts have given incredibly valuable knowledge and insights from different perspectives. Now to put it all to use.
Today was an exciting moment for me... I launched my Rik Write website! it still has a long way to go until I'm satisfied with it. Interesting, will I ever be satisfied with it? I'm understanding that life for me is a continuous learning journey, I've just sharpened the curve over the past 2 years. My wife seems a little disturbed by my attention span and time being spent on this venture... Never before has she observed me so focused and engrossed in an activity. No more searching, no more pacing about, wondering what to do with myself.
Not wanting to lose momentum, I've hopped right into my first blog, Sea Change, The Middle Age Bonus, as it really is a bonus! I feel the shackles of a business (cleaning) that I'm not passionate about loosening. I know that it's not to be my lot for much longer. I've started afresh with a new venture.
What's your sea change? What job or industry were you stuck in? what was your a ha moment? I'd love to hear from you.
Eventually, I'll be presenting a podcast on the same subject. If you'd like to be a guest, by all means, email me and tell me your story. We can collaborate and work it out so there's a definite benefit for all; the readers and the podcast participants. That's likely the subject of a future blog.
Rik van Spankeren
Rik Write
Perth, Western Australia
Sea Change, The Middle Age Bonus
Thanks Mark.
ONYA Rik