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Sure, choose ludicrous options to try to disprove my point. Nobody is expecting you to go out and become a professional athlete or artist, and to pretend that those are the ONLY options is disingenuous.
I used to be in the music business, a career I planned for, and tailored my entire education toward since middle school. After a couple of decades in it, the entire business collapsed, and millions of people lost their jobs, including me.
I tried a few other things, mostly sales jobs, and finally decided to start my own thing. That was 18 years ago, and it was the best decision of my life.
This is looking like the toughest year, due to MAGA screwing up the economy so badly (the indicators lag by a few months, but in a quarter, it will be apparent how badly the economy has slipped. Small business owners are already feeling it, including me). So I'm not sitting around whining about it, I've already started a few other initiatives to generate some money, including an online business. I have confidence that my regular business will survive this, but it will be good to have alternative sources of revenue, and when the economy recovers, I'll have those side strategies boosting my income, which is always nice.
You have skills, and they are transferrable to other businesses. My music education and experience didn't help my current business, so I developed the skills I did have - sales, negotiating, improvisation, quick thinking, etc. - and applied those.
You're what Small Businesspeople call a Dreamstealer. You're fishing for excuses, but if you don't think you have what it takes to work for yourself, that's fine, but don't try to make it sound like I'm wrong for encouraging people to follow their dream, and Hire Themselves.
your treating running a business like its not a skill unto itself. people are better and worse at that. just look at the trust fund babies who burn down companies. its not a dream stealer to be rational about your own capabilities and what is most effective to do time vs result wise. building a successful business is way harder than all ludicrous options I gave. business is not this skill that is natural to the whole human population.
There are an infinite variety of businesses, they aren't all the same. Uneducated immigrants come to this country without speaking the language, and start successful businesses every day.
The basics of business are easy. Business management is one of those college degrees that kids with no other skills get, like communications. At its core, business is just fairly simple math, with lots of percentages and what not. I'm pretty dumb about that stuff, and I managed to start my first business with no money, a legal pad, a pen, and a list of potential clients. Then I started cold-calling. Don't know how to do that? Neither did I. You learn by doing.
Eventually, you can get into the advanced stuff like funding, going public, and selling your business, but most people just have a small business large enough to support their family, and they only have to worry about costs, expenses, and profit. Learn to balance those, and you'll have a business.
Or you can keep convincing yourself that you can't do it, and you will be 100% correct. Those that succeed don't listen to that nonsense.
You can literally say this about everything. There are examples of undeducated people becoming superstars. Also if you look you will see many people from other countries who own businesses are not undeducated and many came with a nice chunk of money they started the business with. You have to make calls. Every hour trying to get a business off the ground is time your not looking for work. You call yourself dumb but its possible. Just possible. You have a knack for it but did not realize until you did it. You know most people in my age and my field went into management but I did not. Why. Because of my natural ability and inclinations or lack there of. Although also partially because the generation before held on far to long and by the time it came my way I pointed to the next generation who have the time to make a career out of it. Look im one of those people who think people know things the same as they but ironically I had to learn that is not the case and it just so happens one of my inclinations is education where that has good feedback to work against that particular inclination I have. Think about this. Can 100% of the total population run a business. Would a society work out that way. I would say no. My initial reply was basically. You can't just tell someone to go start a business or go learn to code or do whatever thing someone thinks anyone can just go do.
I get it, and I even said somewhere that not everybody is cut out to be a business owner/boss. I just got really tired of having to take stupid orders from stupid bosses. My current boss is as dumb as an ox, but I'm self-employed, so that's the best I got.
The world needs employees, too, so that's okay, but I'm just saying that if I was in a long-term unemployment situation, and was getting nearly no response, I think I would keep that up, but carve out some time to establish some side hustle, like Etsy, or eBay, based on something you can do. Do you play an instrument? Maybe you can get into a band. You don't have to be a rock star to make a little money playing 2 or 3 wedding receptions a month.
It's better than sitting home week after week, month after month, waiting for things that are entirely beyond your control to break in your direction. At least you are taking responsibility for your own fate, not leaving it to others who don't even know you exist.
If you are so willing to work that hard for somebody else, why wouldn't you work that hard for yourself?
I mean im not waiting around but im aweful at music, art, and sports. My prediclections are in the direction of my initialy choice of career which was scientific research. I am a better thinker than doer and I moved to IT as it was the only thing paying. I picked up an education degree but just got denied for a program to get certified late in life. Everything you listed goes right into things I am horrible with. This is what I mean again that everyone can't do X. That being said I am actively trying to figure out something that will work for me and am not exclusively just hitting my head against the linkedin/resume wall but its tough as hell at my age. I don't have people to lean on. People should be leaning on me (well my wife does). I have changed careers before but I was able to live at my brothers place at the time. I have gotten more education but there were opportunities I could take advantage of. Im not someone sitting around waiting for a job to fall into my lap.
Can you write? Can you teach? If you are an expert in your field, you can do a blog, or write a book and publish it on Amazon, or do a YouTube channel.
Perhaps there is some sort of consulting you could do. Years ago, I put up a consulting page on my website, and it generated over $100,000 in revenue over about a decade. I still get 2 or 3 nibbles a year, but I'm not really chasing that these days.
You are trying to find a job in your field, so you must feel you have a value. I'd establish myself over the next six months with a blog, write a book about what you do, and then start fishing for consulting gigs. A year from now, you could be making real money, and be completely in charge of your schedule and your life, with no boss but your own sense of responsibility.
Hm. I have no useful skills, just lots of time. I have considered trying a Patreon or the like, for a specific kind of thing: "Newgame Plus".
In some solo videogames, you get to play future cycles of a game with maxed out characters, filled out maps, complete bestiaries, unlocked narrative routes, and so forth. I am wondering if my time spent on completing games could be used to create and centralize distribution of such savefiles, for a monthly subscription of $5 or so?
I got at least 60 NG+ savefiles on my PC, probably closer to a hundred. Plus cheated games to emulate the idea, such as System Shock 2 with +10 attributes (you normally cap at +8) or maxed skills in Ultima Underworld 1 & 2.
I recognized some of those words, but the point is YOU did, and more importantly, there are almost certainly others out there who would be interested, too. That's exactly the sort of specialized information that has value to a small group of people, that you can capitalize on.
In the old days, it may have been impossible to reach those people to let them know what you offer, but the Internet makes it easy to reach everyone in the entire world who might be interested. You just have to figure out how, but you probably already know forums and websites where you can promote your unique service.
You'll have to figure out how to reach them, sell to them, etc., but just take it step by step, and figure out each hurdle. There are a lot of steps, and some can be a bit complicated, like taking credit card payments. But you get through it, and then you can take credit card payments for any business you start, forever.
Start running business scenarios in your head, and be brutally honest with yourself. Which ones work? Which ones won't? Which are too complicated? Too expensive? Etc. There is almost always a simpler, more efficient, more elegant, and CHEAPER alternative, if you put your full mind to it. Nothing is more satisfying than when a solution pops into your mind that is easier, works better, and most of all, is more profitable. ALWAYS try to UNcomplicated things as much as possible.
Just remember to keep your humanity and your morals. Too many business people forget that.
Im not an expert in my field. Im pretty typical for someone who is decent in the field. IT books is crowded as heck as are youtube channels. I do not get how anyone can feel this is a reasonable thing for a typical person to do. This very much is like just start auditioning for roles until you are a star. A year from now I could be making real money or still be unemployed where I might not have been because I had located a job. Its kinda funny because I laugh at everyone chasing this creator thing. For every successful time your strategy works for someone there are tons of folks putting massive time into channels that are in the red month over month.