Working for Your Own Dreams

by Robert L. Gisel

The whole essence of the 24 Qualities That Geniuses Have In Common is that when you bring out the best in yourself you can step out from mundane expectancies of life and live the adventures of your dreams. How well you do that has everything to do with how well you get your ducks in a row to meet the challenge.

In Sustainable Life Vs Enjoyable Sustenance I advise against full out abandonment of an income source into a dearth of no income or support. The other side of that is that you could land in Philadelphia with nothing but a few coins in your pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm and end up a renown author and philosopher. Benjamin Franklin did it, but not without visions of enterprise already jelling in the think tank.

A brilliant idea merits a brilliant plan of execution and positioning. It is often born out in your first flash of genius on the subject, where the creation first incubates. When you start to roll out an idea don't stop because the sun goes down or the clock says it is time for bed. Take it as far you can and document it. Write it, draw it, outline it even in vignette, place it in the physical universe where doesn't get lost because you later forget it in whole or in part.

For an invention you would want to encapsulate the idea from the need that it fulfills, and for whom, and even what would you call it that elicits a creative image of the thing. Consider how it would be built and marketed or the kind of expert that could be brought in to handle those aspects. You may only need to consider its possibilities, that it can be done.

You can always outsource or insource the details the way Henry Ford did. He didn't know how to build a V-6 engine, he only envisioned that it could be done to advantage, then demanded his staff experts do it until after many times of failure and repeated demand it was done. The dream was the most valuable piece of the engine.

A new business idea may be simply filling a vacuum in an absent market where the need and demand by lots of people provides a huge potential. Starbucks fulfilled coffee drinkers desire for specialty coffee in a fast-food format and then reached out with that to its market potential around the world.

Plan It Out

From initial thought to realization the key is to think it through.

The incredible advantage we have today is you can Google anything. You can rapidly learn what you need to know. Aside from that there are libraries, schools, texts, colleges and people more that willing to help you understand an area that fits any piece of the puzzle. These are the details of R&D, though. Before that you have to plan out where the idea is headed.

You can list the steps forward one to the next, say, each step of establishment of a facility to deliver a popular fast-food hamburger that could be duplicated in many locations, eg, MacDonald's. It might be more appropriate step if backwards from the final result, as in Edison's dream of electric lighting in every household.

Go back over it and think it through from different angles. For instance, there is the financial considerations. What will it cost, what could it be sold for, how does that compare with similar things, is there even anything like this extant, and if so, how does this differ. To pull it off can it be done on a shoestring, leveraging monies and resources as you make your way. How much development or establishment will it take? Will it require financing? If that, who would have an interest in backing your project?

It is your bright idea, you are the Granddaddy of it, get familiar with all its facets that you can answer questions on any of it or know what expertise could work it out. You only have to believe it is possible, even if all the mechanics are not yet worked out.

Breaking Out

At some point you will have the confidence of your particular grand scheme. You are source, and none know a dream or have a better feel for it than its dreamer. That is infinitely valuable, yet there is another ace in the hole.

When you have assured belief in something and take action towards it all manner of solutions, help and practical assistance will materialize. Doing nothing is as dormant as a dead log. When you set out and do, resources will appear. That is just the way it works. The key is do something, take any action, however small, towards the dream and the universe will align to help you achieve the dream.

Your decision accompanied with your doingness, fueled by your desired will part part the waters in sometimes the most uncanny ways. Remember that formula: decision, doingness and desire.

With all that said, you could well find yourself in a position to quit your job, cast all abandon to the wind and launch your ship into the unknown. Be unshakable in your resolve and practical in your ability without kowtowing to the naysayers, and then why not go where no man has gone.

Do it for the love of life.

Sustainable Life Vs Enjoyable Sustenance

by Robert L. Gisel

“vital (vit'l) adj.

1.Of or characteristic of life: vital processes.

2. Necessary to the continuance of life; life sustaining: vital functions...”

Having money, a regular and predictable income of, is necessary and even vital to one's life. That goes without saying, until it comes to leaping off a regular job into a new activity.

For the establishing entrepreneur, the self employed, the artist, the innovator, this may seem unfortunate or inopportune. Even the most worthy of non-profit organizations require an an input to its finances and more so to its start-up phase. Whether it begins with one's own stash of funds, pay-as-you-go cash flow funding, OPM (other people's money), a line of credit, venture capital, even charity or good will there will will be money involved.

It has been proposed on several blog sites that working at a “day job” just for money and particularly where this does not fulfill one's dreams and desires for happiness is a dead-end road. Yet without the vital regular income to keep putting food on the table one cannot live at all. Witness the homeless bum with his hand out.

Money is an energy and energy is required for any motion or activity. Whether it comes in Dollars, Pounds, Yen, gold, uranium or a carton of eggs there has to be an exchangeable value. This is what motors the world. That's our universe.

Unlimited excesses and huge abundances of capital supposes far more funds than could be consumed in the next great project. Unless you have already produced such or inherited it you are still left with the searing question: how much money do you have to have in order to acquire a world of freedom and joy where having enough money is no longer even a passing consideration?

The answer to this varies condiderably as each person's desires and circumstances are individual. Once a hypotheses of mine that there could be a set formula for funding requirements for an initial business activity, I was expecting a neat and handy service for business consulting. But the period in the red is different for each business. Not accounting for enough time in the red can be the death toll of a new activity. Just witness this factor in the high rate of new business failures.

So if you don't want to be a slave to an employment only tolerated lest you go homeless or starve, what do you do?

Be a deaf, dumb, blind kid that sure plays a mean pinball.

I joke, but seriously, it has truth to it: you have to be a wizard at something. In some way you have to create a phenomenal proposition.

You don't have to a demi-god but you do have to propose something exceptional. If not, you can learn and learn well enough to set your something apart from other somethings. Short of that you can always piggy-back onto the genius of others and find a unique or overlooked zone to franchise another's already created wealth builder.

Find the uniqueness of what you love to do. What makes it different? What lights your bells and makes you feel alive? What is all-out fun for you? That you should contemplate how to do for a living, and program out the steps to get there. The simpler and more direct the approach the better.

If it is a dream worth having it is a dream worth going for for all it is worth.

Time versus money.

Could you live on $10,000? $10,000 a year? Only if you can live on $833 a month.

It is said that you should have enough in reserves to cover your expenses for 6 months in case you lose your job. Six months might not be enough. Where it takes longer to get a job or the income you are expecting to make takes longer you'll need more reserves. Still, ruthlessly taking a percent off the top of every paycheck and setting aside to build such reserves, well aside where you are not tempted to spend it, is a good plan. Create a cushion for your future.

Bills will come in, rent needs to be paid and you must have money for food and the routine costs of living, weekly or monthly. You can spend less, but only to a point. Nice-to-have expenses can be foregone but not essentials. Sustainable life happens when you have adequately more income than the monies that must go out.

There are ways to establish a side income or residuals that do come in timely enough to keep the monthly expenses covered. Then following ones dreams is not only feasible but lends happiness in the doing. Working for yourself at what you love is very fulfilling. Keep plotting at that until you achieve success.

Do that well and you will win the hundred yards. But don't give up your "day job" until there's sufficient money to sustain yourself while the main game catches up. Living on the street might be adventurous, but it isn't fun.