Focus

If you're old like me, you remember this scene.  Karate Kid 2, I believe.  Now that I'm working on turning my hobby into a small business, one of the first things I needed to do was to focus.  Over the last couple of years, dealing with some health issues, I had a lot of time with not a lot to do.  Once I made the decision to create my own job by creating my own small business, it was time to buckle down.

The first thing that went was excess TV watching.  I'm lucky in a way, I can work on my artwork while listening to TV.  But I spend a lot less time in front of it, and more time listening to interesting, educative, and motivating talks on the computer while working on my drawings.  Another thing is to spend as little time doing non-work activities.  That's why I emphasized J.K. Rowling avoiding housework in the last post.  Sure, you have to do some housework.  But if you spend all your time cooking and cleaning, there's no time to run a business.  Unfortunately, I currently live in a place where housework is the only respected type of work, everything else I do for my business is considered "playing" because I'm not making much money yet.  This creates lots of drama, but that's just the nature of things right now.

Another aspect of focus is that in creating an art business, I need to do a lot more than art.  I'm really lagging at the accounting aspect right now.  I have all my receipts and stuff, but they're not very organized yet.  So I need to focus on that for a while.  My bedroom/studio/laundry room isn't very organized yet, either.  I'm working on that, step by step.

Twenty some years ago, after making the first video for Chris Moeller's fledgling bike company, S&M Bikes, I wound up roommates with Chris and a guy named Shaggy, who looked just like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo.  Chris was one of the young entrepreneurs of the BMX world then, and I wanted to learn the secret to starting a business.  As the weeks turned into months and years, I learned there really isn't any secret.  What Chris did was have the courage to start, and then he just got up, listened to some music to get psyched, and did whatever needed to be done.  The "secret" was just to focus and work hard and work consistently.  If the frames needed to be picked up at the welding shop, Chris talked someone into giving him a ride to pick up the frames.  He didn't even have his own car at first.  Then we'd put stickers on the frames, pack them in paper in boxes, and ship them out when they were ordered.  Day after day it was a job of figuring out what needed to be done, focusing on that, and doing it.  When the work for the day was done, it was time to go ride.  After that, it was time to drink.  Then it started all over the next day, focusing on the next order of business.  That's what I'm doing now with my fledgling art business.  Figure out what needs to be done, and focus on doing it, day by day.

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How a Welfare Mom Became a Billionaire by Not Doing Housework

The title of this blog post sounds crazy, but you probably already know the story.  Above we have a 2001 BBC documentary/interview with Jo Rowling, better known these days as J.K. Rowling, the billionaire author of the Harry Potter book series.  OK, technically she wasn't a "welfare mom," she lived in the U.K., so she was "on the dole" as they say over there.  If you watch this (quite interesting) program, you'll see Jo in her old flat, and at 16:34 she says that the way she got the first Harry Potter book written was by not doing housework for four years.  And then she caps it off with this line:  "Living in squalor, that was the answer."  Whether you like the Harry Potter books or not, you have to acknowledge that this one woman who had an idea for a story sparked an entire industry based on the seven books that told that story.  How big of an industry?  I've heard estimates that the Harry Potter empire has earned roughly $10 BILLION.  The books themselves have sold more than 400 million copies.  The movies turned into the highest grossing movie franchise in history.  There's a theme park in Florida.  Perhaps even more important, literally millions of kids in the last 20 years start reading really big books for enjoyment.  This one woman, once a single mom living off government subsistence, accidentally created a business empire, and turned a whole generation of kids on to reading.  Not a bad return for an idea that popped into her head while stuck on a delayed train.  

"So what?" you ask.  She had a great idea for a story and now she's a billionaire.  What does that have to do with the rest of us?  There's a huge lesson for our current society here.  A good idea, followed by a lot of hard work and persistence, can create an industry.  This is one of the main ways jobs are created in our world today.  All across the U.S., and other parts of the world, there are local government officials trying to bring jobs to their region the old school way.  That way consists of schmoozing executives at large corporations, giving them a pile of money, tax incentives, and necessary community construction projects, and getting those people to bring one of their business operations to that city.  Unfortunately, that is not working in most cases.  

Then there's a newer way to attract jobs to a city or region.  The city leverages a quality university with research capabilities, corrals venture capitalists, and tries to get entrepreneurs to launch high tech start ups.  Cities and small towns without a major research university are out of luck from the start.  Even those with a major college aren't having too much luck with this plan.  Why?  Because many of the major high tech companies are clustering in a small number of major cities.  They set up shop in these cities because that's where a large number of talented tech people are located.  Professor Richard Florida discovered this trend and explained it in his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, and has expanded on the idea in subsequent books.  But in his books, he emphasizes one thing, every single human being is creative.

Here's where J.K. Rowling fits into this.  She was a poor single mom, with an idea for a children's book.  She spent five years writing that first book.  She was incredibly determined... to simply get it published.  She found an agent.  Then the first 12 publishing companies approached turned down Harry Potter.  These were huge publishing companies who were experts in the publishing world.  They didn't like the book.  Finally, the 13th publisher decided to bring the book into print.  Jo Rowling was asked to come up with a gender neutral name, because experts didn't think boys would read a book written by a woman.  She added a relative's initial and became J.K. Rowling.  For all that work she got... drum roll please... 2500 pounds.  That's around $3500 to $4000 in the U.S..  She was working as a teacher to support herself while writing the second book.  Then U.S. publishers got wind of this odd book.  A bidding war began, and that finally earned J.K. enough money to work full time as a writer.  The whole thing snowballed from there.  

This is an extreme example, but random people with good ideas are where many of our industries come from these days.  Yet very few cities are working to find these people, help them start businesses, and see what comes of it.  This could be done for a fraction of what cities spend schmoozing large corporations.  

So now comes the question, is this practical?  Here's an example from my own life.  In the mid 1980's, I moved with my family to San Jose, California, when the nickname for that area of "Silicon Valley" was just coming into being.  Several of my mom's cousins lived there, and they were a hilarious and inventive group.  One of them, a doctor, had invented a crib for babies that made a baby feel like it was still in the womb.  It was warm, had a heartbeat, and other features to help keep babies healthy in their first months.  Another cousin told us that one day that he was looking at tea bags in the grocery store, and wondered why no one ever made a coffee bag.  We kicked the idea around, and thought it wasn't half bad.  There were definitely people out there interested in a single serving of coffee.  Now to make this more amazing, this was before Starbucks and designer coffee entered the picture.  This cousin never ran with the idea.  But now, 30 years later, single serving K-cups are in every grocery store.  Someone else had that idea, but they worked on it and brought it into fruition. My guess is that person is doing pretty well financially right now.

Coming from the actions sports world, I've seen dozens of whole industries emerge in my lifetime.  BMX started with Scot Breithaupt and a few others around 1970.  Bob Haro started doing tricks on BMX bikes in about 1977, that spawned BMX freestyle, which now includes several genres that are worldwide.  Nearly every action sport (except surfing and motocross) was born in the last 40 years.  Tom Sims, a Southern California surfer and skateboarder, made his first snowboard in his 8th grade shop class.  I've actually held that first board in my hands.  Tom wanted to surf on snow.  That's why he did it.  Now snowboarding is a huge industry and even in the Olympics.  Then, of course, we have the computer/internet/cell phone/tablet tech world.  These huge industries evolved in the last 40 to 50 years.  But there are many smaller but vibrant industries that spawned from some person's random idea.  In this area of North Carolina, a state not known for high creativity, there's another example.  Moonshiners souped up their cars in the 1920's, 30's, and 40's to outrun the police.  Then they started racing those cars.  Stock Car racing was born, which we know now as NASCAR.  

Finding decent jobs for millions of unemployed and under-employed people is one of the major issues facing our society these days.  Shouldn't we put more effort into finding and supporting those people with ideas that may spawn jobs, perhaps even whole industries?  What do you think?

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The Job Creation Disconnect

The Greensboro (NC) News and Record newspaper had a huge article the Sunday before last stating that this area has lost tens of thousands of good paying factory jobs in the last 15 years or so.  And if you're from this area, or much of the country, you're reply is probably, "Duh."  For those of you not in this area, the "Piedmont Triad" is the marketing name for this area in central North Carolina comprising the three main cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Highpoint, and the surrounding small towns.  This area traditionally was big in tobacco, textiles, and furniture making.  Guess what, many of those jobs have been outsourced to other countries.  In the tobacco world, the anti-smoking fervor also helped reduce that industry.  Like the article said, this area, like so many others, has lost over a hundred thousand jobs over the last 25 years or so.  We all know that.

As a recovering taxi driver, I'm one of the millions of people who hasn't been able to find a good paying job.  I've written for magazines, worked on the crews of TV shows, and done many other things over the years.  But none of that helps me get a job in today's work force here in North Carolina.  Unlike millions of unemployed people out there, though, I've been reading and educating myself on the big picture and macro-economic situation in our rapidly changing, tech-laden world.  Unfortunately, most of the people actually running our cities, counties, states and federal government have not read the books or listened to the dozens of lectures I have.  I know I'm a geek in this area, but it still baffles me how clueless so many people in power are to the big picture.  So here are some of the main issues in job creation today.  These aren't my conclusions, but the findings of experts in various areas.  This is why we're having such an issue finding good jobs today.

Robots:  I don't have exact figures, but industrial robots and other forms of technology have probably taken more former human manufacturing jobs than out sourcing.  ATM machines, for example, killed off hundreds of thousands of bank teller jobs.  We've all seen the TV commercials of the robot arms welding cars and other things.  That's where a huge number of jobs have gone.  Those jobs aren't coming back.

Outsourcing:  This started a lot earlier than many people today think.  When I was a kid in rural Ohio, people were complaining of a few companies shutting down factories and moving to the American South.  Some years later, big corporations started moving jobs into Mexico and Taiwan.  Then jobs went to Japan.  Then came Southeast Asia and China.  Again, those high paying manufacturing jobs aren't coming back.  Period.  Stop whining about this.  Those jobs existed for a couple of generations because of the labor unions and because industry was nation-oriented.  Once the business world got more global, American workers were just too expensive.

High Technology:  Technology has completely changed our world in my lifetime, and most of our industrial age organizations, and thinking, have not caught up with that.  One by one, our industries and institutions are crumbling in the wake of new societal norms and the way tech has changed the working world.  Today's high-paying jobs are largely in tech, computer science, engineering, and similar fields.  We don't have enough workers to fill many of these jobs in the U.S.  This is a huge part of the disconnect, on one hand, 30 million people, including me, can't find decent jobs, but there are thousands of jobs employers can't fill because we don't have the right skills.

Clustering and the brain drain:  No one in politics (that I've see) even has a clue about this huge trend.  The cutting edge tech companies have spent the last 25 years clustering in a handful of regions in this country.  Why?  According to professor Richard Florida (who wrote The Rise of the Creative Class), this happens because now the top companies are going to where the talented people live, rather than workers moving to where the big companies are.  In addition, many of the best and brightest people in our country are going to work in these few regions.  The San Francisco Bay Area (aka Silicon Valley), Seattle, the Boston/New York City/Washington D.C corridor, Southern California and Austin, Texas are the main spots where tech is clustering.  This creates a couple of big issues:  These areas are where venture capital and money are focusing and pouring into.  On the other hand, with the smartest people in these few areas, the rest of the counttry is not only struggling to create jobs, but they're stuck with the people of 2nd and 3rd rate intelligence trying to figure out how to create more jobs.  Pure and simple, most of this country is slowly dying economically, and they don't even realize it.  The area where I live is one of those regions.

Changes in communication:  Personal computers, the internet/world wide web, smart phones, tablets, social media and other advances in technology have completely changed the work world.  While most people use these devices and tech in their personal lives, they don't take full advantage of these technologies in the workplace.  In this area where I live, many people in their 50's and older avoid computers all together.  The civic leaders in most of the country don't fully understand how this tech is affecting society, and they're still trying to bring back the lost factory jobs.  The mayors, city councils, state legislators and governors are all fighting the wrong battle.  They're stuck in the mentality of the industrial world they grew up in, and simply don't have a clue how to create new jobs for the millions of unemployed people in these cities across the country.

This is just a brief look  at why we have so many decent people without good paying jobs, and why we have so many high-paying jobs that can't be filled at the same time.  I'll go into more detail on these issues in further posts.  My advice to the chronically unemployed:  Create your own job if you possibly can.  That's what I'm doing.

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Where Will the 21st Century Jobs Come From

In this Concordia panel discussion from 2013, several prominent people discuss one of the biggest issues facing society in the 21st century:  Where will all the jobs come from?  Short answer, no one really knows.

When I went googling for info on this subject, I was amazed how little turned up.  In a 2014 article I often cite, there are believed to be 30 MILLION or more unemployed and under-employed people in the U.S..  We're the wealthiest nation on earth, and yet we have a huge problem here.  I've heard reports that unemployment in France is 30% for young adults.  One of the panelists above states that unemployment in Greece for young people is 60% at the time of this discussion.  The big takeaway here is that the world needs to create tens of millions of good jobs in the 21st century, and no one has a clue how that is going to happen.  The most amazing thing is that this is a huge issue nearly everywhere (except Silicon Valley), but hardly anyone is doing anything about it.

Billionaire real estate mogul, reality TV star, and leading presidential candidate Donald Trump says that he has created thousands of jobs in his businesses, and will create "lots of jobs" if he becomes president.  Uh... OK... how?  He doesn't say.  His business empire consists of many hotels.  Would you want to be a maid or bellboy making $8 an hour in a Trump hotel, or say work as a Google intern making $5,000 a month?  Do you see my point?  Most of the jobs Trump has helped create are low wage service jobs.  As a former taxi driver in Orange County, California, where Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are, I'll let you in on a little secret.  Every place that has a huge tourist industry, like Anaheim, CA, also has a ghetto nearby made up of all the low wage service workers who work in those hotels and resorts.  How many high paying tech jobs has Trump created?  Not many.

The other non-traditional presidential candidate with a big jobs plan is Bernie Sanders.  His plan is to put 13 million Americans to work re-building our country's crumbling infrastructure.  This is an awesome idea.  It kills two big birds with one stone, creates jobs and re-builds things that need it.  But could Bernie, a Democratic Socialist, actually win a general election?  If so, could he get a dysfunctional Congress to actually implement this great idea?  Both are pretty unlikely.  The other idea here is that presidents don't actually create many jobs.  Growing businesses create jobs.  For those businesses to grow, you need a fairly affluent middle class with lots of disposable income to buy the products those businesses make.  As we all know, that's what we've lost here in the last 30 years or so.

So we're back to the core issue.  Who is going to create MILLIONS of high paying jobs for the former factory workers and recent college graduates in the U.S.?  There's no good answer.  On one hand, there are lots of tech jobs companies are having trouble filling.  On the other hand, those are about the only well paying jobs these days.  Whenever I look at this problem, I keep coming back to one idea.  Entrepreneurship.  To really put people back to work in fulfilling, well paying jobs, millions of unemployed and under-employed people are going to have to create their own jobs.  There's no one else to do it.  Are you up for that?  Most people aren't.  None of us were taught to do this in school.  Schools actually do just the opposite, they were created to turn people into compliant factory workers.  Anyway you look at it, this is a big issue that not near enough people are working on.  That's what this blog is about.

Get A Job

This is probably the worst radio edit of all time for a really great song.  Have you ever been in a situation where people who see you just don't know what it's like?  Everlast.

It's frustrating.  This week, the drama nob got cranked to eleven here in the household.  I got blindsided by things I didn't know were going on.  On one hand, I was offered some help in an area that I could really use it.  I didn't ask for the help, and it was initiated by someone talking behind my back.  That's really frustrating.  I accepted the help, because it came at a crucial time, again, unasked for by me. 

On the other hand, a couple of people I have a lot of respect for told me, "Maybe you should get a part time job."  I just nodded.  I know millions of other people in this country hear this on a regular basis, too.

Their frame of reference is 30 years ago when they began their professional careers.  At that time, factories in this country were just starting to shut down and move to other places.  But the job market was still strong.  Jobs were easy to find.  Decent paying jobs were pretty abundant.  Entry level jobs were everywhere.  You could walk into the office of most any company, fill out a paper application, maybe give them a resume', and get hired, often times on the spot.

But we don't live in that world anymore.  The people who wanted to help me simply don't realize what today's job market is like.  They're intelligent people.  But they just haven't had to deal with this situation in years.  I've already applied for pretty much every entry level job in this town, several times.  Even entry level jobs now require a 30 minute online psychological evaluation, graded by a computer.  Our digital resume's are scanned by a computer and searched for the appropriate keywords.  Then, if you even get called (which I never do) there are multiple interviews for a job like wiping off tables and taking out the trash at McDonald's.  In the end, they person in charge usually hires their friends and relatives.  This is, after all, still a small town.

I'm not alone.  That's what this blog is about.  There are 30 million or more people like me, unemployed or underemployed.  I'm more motivated than many of these people.  Ive decided to create my own job.  I've been self-educating myself on how technology has changed our working world for years.  I'm now working 12 to 14 hours a day building a small business.  But none of that matters to people with a 1980's mindset.  They still say, "Get a job."  I nod, hold the frustration until I can release it later in art, and I go back to the 21st Century.  This blog.  My other blogs.  My social media.  My crowdfunding campaign.  My fledgling small art business.  I'm busy working in today's world.  They are entrenched in a world that began 30 years ago for them.  In that world they'll stay...  Until technology comes along and revolutionizes their industry.  It's only a matter of time.  Then they'll know what it's like.  That's where the song above comes in.  Keep plugging along people.  Create your own jobs if you have to.