BARBARA

SHER’S
IDEA
BOOK
How to Discover What You Really Want
(Even if You Have No Clue)

Barbara Sher

Book One in her new series

How To Do What You Love Without Starving to Death

Genius Press Unltd.

www.geniuspress.com
New York
Barbara Sher's Idea Book ....
1st edition
ISBN 0-9728952-0-5
copyright © 2004 by Barbara Sher

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book
may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except for
brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information write:
Genius Press, Box 20052, Park West Station, New York, NY 10025
 DEDICATION
To all human beings who long to do what they love
and still pay the rent.
Also by Barbara Sher

BOOKS
Wishcraft
Teamworks!
I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What It Was
Live the Life You Love
It's Only Too Late if You Don't Start Now

AUDIO COURSES
Dare to Live Your Dream 12-audiocassette course
Discover Your Dream Workbook with audio CD

VIDEOS FOR PUBLIC TELEVISION

How To Create Your Second Life After 40
Live the Life You Love/Map To Success
Barbara Sher's Idea Party
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Matthew Pearl, a first-rate editor, writer, researcher and

proofreader, who worked with me almost every day for two years to turn
my scraps, notes and emails into books and who is an unending pleasure
to work with, I say, “Bless you and yours. Take the rest of the week off
and then let’s do another one!”

To Andrea Reese, my trusted assistant, who always lifted my spirits,

changed her life to meet my writing schedule and took the office load off
my shoulders to give me what every writer can only dream of: free time
to write, I give my sincerest thanks.

Together these two people created the perfect team and gave me the
happiest writing experience I’ve had so far. Best of all, both of them are
living their dreams in addition to helping me live mine—Matt in Greece
with his wife and their fine baby, Leo; Andrea with the continuing
success of her one-woman play, Cirque Jacqueline.

Thanks to all my wonderful Success Team leaders around the world

who work every day to help people achieve their goals and who sent me
some terrific success stories to share with you. Many thanks to all the
wizards on my bulletin board who continually give intelligent, heartfelt
help to everyone who asks for it and who are so knowledgeable I am
always astounded. They generously gave me permission to share some of
their best information with you.

Finally, a huge thanks to all the people who requested ideas via
letters, private sessions, telephone Idea Parties, Success Teams and my
workshops (to say nothing of taxis, restaurants and airplanes). You have
allowed me (and everyone who stepped forward to help) to do what we
love most: scout for creative solutions, cheer you on with our personal
experiences, share our information and address books, and dig around for
some way, by hook or by crook, to make your dreams come true. I hope
this book, in sharing the results of all that jolly brainstorming, will spread
your success to many more dreamers.
“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything,
as a career.

I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed,

or process anything sold, bought
or processed,

or buy anything sold or processed.

Or process anything sold,

bought
or processed.

Or repair anything
sold, bought or processed.

You know, as a career.

I don’t want to do that.”

John Cusak’s character in the 1989 movie “Say Anything”

 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 9

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK 25

PART ONE: IDEA WARMUP 28

PART TWO: IDEAS A TO Z 51

EPILOGUE 237

APPENDIX 1 H-Levels
APPENDIX 2 Idea Soup
APPENDIX 3 Idea Parties
APPENDIX 4 Support Teams
 INTRODUCTION

“What book are you working on now, Barbara?” one of the security officers
at LaGuardia Airport called out on one of my recent trips. He sees me so often
we’ve become old friends. This time he was standing at a different screening
machine about six feet away and the airport was noisy.
“This one’s about how to do what you love without starving to death!" I
called out.
Every person in both lines stopped and looked at me.
Now, you understand that when you shout in New York, people don’t stop
and look at you. It must have been what I said.
The security officer who was screening my luggage leaned forward. “Can we
talk? I really have to come up with something. I don’t want to leave my kids
alone all the time,” she whispered.
The man in front of me with a computer half way out of his briefcase stepped
out of line and handed me his card, saying, “Email me?”
“Where can we get the book?” the woman behind me asked. “When will it be
in bookstores?”
Obviously, I had struck a chord.
I have always loved books packed with ideas for interesting and unusual
ways to earn money. Even before I began running Idea Parties and Success Team
workshops in 1975, I had a sizeable collection of books devoted to the subject:
365 Ways To Earn A Living Without a Job, Dollars at Your Doorstep, 100
Businesses You Can Start with $1000. I still look through them periodically,

9
although many of their suggestions are outdated. (Many are now out of print, but
thanks to the internet you can usually get your hands on them anyway. Just do a
search for “used books”.)
But most of the ideas in this book come from the work I do every day. The
major part, my favorite part of what I do—in private sessions, telephone classes,
television shows, in workshops or wherever someone recognizes me and strikes
up a conversation—is to try to find ideas that allow impossible-looking dreams to
come true. The routine usually goes like this:
I ask, “So what do you want to be when you grow up?” and they reply, “I
don’t know.”
So far, that’s never been true. Within minutes we’ve established that either:
1) they know perfectly well what they want but it seems so impossible they’ve
never seriously considered it; or 2) they want too many things and can’t choose
just one.
I can usually dispose of the second scenario in a few seconds: “Who said you
were supposed to choose one? Do them all.” The results are delightful and
immediate. The first response is silence and an expression like a corralled horse
that just noticed the gate was open. Then they grin and you can almost hear them
thinking, “Oh, right!” and they look as though a huge weight has fallen off their
shoulders.
The first scenario goes a lot deeper, however. So, why do their dreams seem
so impossible? Because, like most of us, they make assumptions based on
conventional wisdom that stop their dreams before they leave the starting gate.
They assume everything they want to do has to earn money, usually in the form
of a paycheck. Or they think it costs a lot of money: their dream of having a bed
and breakfast means they have to buy a Victorian house. People automatically

10
assume they need fancy credentials, when not only don’t they need them, but
having credentials could put them on a track where jobs are actually harder to
find. And they make lots of other assumptions, too. They’re too old, there’s no
market for what they want to sell, they have no time...that kind of thing.
That covers about 99% of what people ask me to help them with. I’ve found
the very best way to help is to run lots of brand new ideas past them, the kinds of
ideas that bust their assumptions wide open and show how narrow and inaccurate
conventional wisdom really is.

So many dreams die unnecessarily. People give up because they just don’t
have enough information: People from corporations assume that there’s only one
way to go into business and it’s loaded with business plans, bank loans and
investors. People from academia always assume you need advanced credentials
for anything you want to do. And yet, there are people doing exactly what they
love, making decent money doing it, without business plans, bank loans, a 9-5
job or an advanced degree.
So if you’re someone who thinks it’s impossible to do what you really want
(without starving to death), it’s time for some fresh thinking. You need a
different approach, new angles, innovative strategies. That is to say, you need
lots and lots of ideas to give you truly original ways to do all kinds of things.
Fresh ideas are delightful entities and they’re absolutely necessary to start
planning a path to a goal you will be happy with. Of course, even a really good
idea won’t bring the hay in, as my country neighbors often tell me. Not to worry.
Once you’ve found some ideas that wake up your interest, this book will give
you a first-rate method for adapting them to your personal specifications. (Take a
peek at Appendix 2: Idea Soup. It’s a honey.)

11
 But you have to start by letting your imagination have some fun, to play a
little, and even do a few minutes of fantasizing or pretending. This isn’t just a
good idea. It’s essential. Every time you come across an idea in this book that
makes you perk up and get interested—or one that just looks like fun—you’ve
stumbled on a marker, a clue from your genetic finger-print, your biological
makeup. Your receptiveness to the ideas in this book is your own kind of private
genome mapping. You were designed with some special abilities you might not
be aware of, but they are what draw you to one idea instead of another.
Remember, what you love is what you are gifted at. Anything that looks like a
good idea to you must be noted. I’ve left wide outside margins so you can note
your H-Level at any point where it seems relevant. That is, if something looks
just great, write “HL 9” or “9” in the margin next to it. If it looks unusually
detestable, write “HL 2”.
What’s an “H-Level”? Briefly, “H” stands for Happiness. Assigning H-
Levels to anything—a color, a food or a lifestyle—is a surprisingly precise (and
easy!) way of figuring out which elements in any idea appeal to you. On a scale
of 1 to 10, if 1 is dismal and 10 is pure heaven, you can assign with good-enough
accuracy how you feel about any aspect of the ideas you’ll be reading in these
pages. The numbers you write on these pages can give you amazing insights into
talents you may not have noticed, or even thought of as talents. H-Levels reveal
elements that can become the building blocks to a happy and productive life for
you. If anything is a 7 or greater, that means it’s very important and must be
noted. Be sure to circle it and write the actual H-Level next to it.

The next section, HOW TO USE THIS BOOK, will help you pull the most
from my decisions on how to organize this material. But I’d like to explain my

12
choice here in the Introduction. After many tries, I’ve decided to lay the ideas out
alphabetically, which means, actually, that they have no logical structure at all.
There’s no particular significance to the fact that “Coaching,” for example,
starts with a “C”. Alphabetical ordering means that “Gondolier” probably won’t
come before or after anything related to it. That’s because I want you to
encounter these ideas in no logical order, without a hierarchy to show you what’s
most important, what’s less important, and which activities should be grouped
together. The reason? This is an idea book, and ideas are unruly, beautiful things.
Like small, fast birds they dart in any direction at all.
Most importantly, the best way I can get you to stir up fresh ideas of your
own is by presenting mine in the most random fashion. I’m hoping this
alphabetical organization will help to stimulate that part of your brain that loves
possibilities and scorns practicality. The lack of logic in the order in which you
read the pages, even the absence of continuity, will hopefully wake up your own
nice, messy, untamed ideas.

Give your brain a chance to do its best work by respecting and jotting down
all the thoughts that pop into your mind in the spaces I’ve left for you, and take
the time to answer the questions I’ve asked.
Also keep your eyes open for the “meta-dream” that fills the hearts of so
many people—not any particular activity, but something else that is crucially
important to their happiness: to live by the ocean or in the mountains, or simply
to never work at a formal “job” again. If that’s you, what’s needed is some way
to support that lifestyle financially. You’ll find some excellent ideas for how to
do that as you read through these pages—ideas that will turn that “impossible
dream” into a day-to-day reality.

13
 One more point: Not all of the following ideas are designed to make money
(although they definitely could); they’re about using your talents and gifts to their
fullest—and starting as soon as possible. Some of your talents are of such
importance that they shouldn’t be compromised or made to justify themselves
financially. You shouldn’t re-make them so they’ll earn money in the
marketplace. Instead, these activities can be subsidized by earning money some
other way, and I’ve come up with as many ways as I can think of to keep you in
groceries and with a roof over your head, even if you’re a poet, an artist, or a
philosopher.
Other dreams can make money and should. You’ll find lots of wonderfully
ingenious approaches to earning money doing what you love in the following
pages.
If you can and wish to turn your dream into a small business or some form of
self-employment, I have chosen ideas that require almost no risk (that is, no
investment, no loans, no expensive rents, and no full-time employees for you to
worry about). These ideas don’t require that you go to school for years to get
advanced degrees, either. The best ideas are those which will be fun and use
skills that come easily to you. Not just so you’ll have a good time (though that’s
very important), but because when things are fun and the learning curve is an
easy one, we tend to be more flexible and inventive. A small, enjoyable endeavor
that doesn’t succeed will leave you with energy and enthusiasm to try another,
and it will always give you knowledge you didn’t have before. Why get worn out
at the School of Hard Knocks when you can attend the School of Enjoyable
Exploration and increase your chances of persisting until you find what you’re
looking for?

14
 Incidentally, turning a beloved activity into a small business doesn’t mean
you have to do everything from scratch (or buy, build and sell everything
yourself and be your entire office staff, as well). Discovering what you’re best at
and finding ingenious, low-cost ways of delegating everything else is the first art
of a successful business owner. The “Lone Ranger” assumption makes too many
people abandon marvelous dreams.
And the assumption that “Everything Has to Be Big!” is foolish and wasteful.
It kills almost as many brilliant ideas as the Lone Ranger assumption.
For example, during an off-camera break on a recent television show, one of
the women who had been on camera with me sighed and said, “My son often tells
me I should incorporate and start my own business. Maybe someday I’ll get
around to it. But it’s such a huge project.”
Guessing that she and her son had made the dream bigger than it needed to
be, I asked, “What kind of a business would you start?”
“A garden center,” she answered, smiling dreamily. “But who has the time or
money to start up a project so big?”
“What’s the part of that business you’d enjoy the most?” I asked.
Her smile broadened and her eyes lit up. “I love finding neglected or badly
designed gardens and turning them into gorgeous ones!” she said.

Now, I know from many years of experience that when someone’s eyes light
up and they smile while talking about a dream, that’s their gift speaking. (It’s just
like H-Levels, in fact, but visible to outsiders.)
“Why start such a big business?” I asked. “Why not start small, maybe even
stay small? First, find a couple of friends with unfortunate gardens, get a
photographer to shoot some good photos of how the garden looks now and
follow what you do about it, then take a few weeks or months to make the garden

15
gorgeous. That’s your portfolio. You can use it to get an article written about you
in a local newspaper, and you can also take it to your favorite garden center and
tell the owner that if he’ll promote your services, you’ll use his products. You
can even lecture at the garden center and bring in business for both of you. That
way you won’t need to incorporate anything, or own inventory, or pay rent on a
building. You don’t even have to quit the job you presently have. And you can
start taking the first steps tomorrow.”
She listened with surprise. Then she started to look very happy as she
realized she didn’t have to wait or take on a huge project (or a huge financial
risk) to do what she loved at all. She could pick up the phone, call a friend, get a
photographer and start on her dream in a few days.
That’s how fresh ideas can make dreams come true, and there’s nothing in
the world more enjoyable. (I just felt a smile on my face while I was writing that
story.)
If, for example, you want to work at home (or need to), and if, like a woman
I know, what you really love is something as “impractical” as ancient Greek and
Roman literature, you don’t have to seek a job in a school. You can open a nice
little home business tutoring kids on the internet. Just put up a website (you can
get free or nearly-free ones.) A website will let you show off a bit where people
can watch you. You can also have a bulletin board for free questions and
answers. You can offer telephone tutoring while Ovid is up on your computer
screen, or you can ask and answer questions on Instant Messaging if you’d like to
tutor someone overseas and save money on your phone calls. You can send out a
brief email newsletter to your students telling about some of the things you’ve
been asked and have answered in the previous week.

16
 If your tutoring service doesn’t earn all the income you need, you can add
some more services to your repertoire in completely different fields, depending
on your skills and interests. If you’re good with numbers, you can do tax
preparation for artists in February and March and run a small lawn care service
agency in the summer (hiring other people to do the actual work.)

Or, perhaps you’re like Elise who had a good job but couldn’t bear to be
away from her pre-school children every day. She asked to work part time and
the company actually said yes, but the household would be short of income if she
stopped working full time. She was stuck. Or was she? A group of friends got
together to brainstorm her dilemma, and discovered that she owned a nice big
van. That changed everything. She went on a part-time schedule at her company
and started a special neighborhood pickup and delivery service—and took her
children with her everywhere she went.
If you’re a writer who also needs to eat, you can be a freelance writing
teacher in a corporation or for the military and make up to $4,000 a day. Yes,
that’s real. It’s done all the time. Look at this article I read in “Writers Digest
Magazine” a few years ago:

“With fees ranging from $100 to $4,000 a day, teaching writing often pays
better than writing itself. Here are some steps you can take to join the
lucrative speaking, consulting, training seminar and workshop business...A
few weeks ago I taught a writing seminar to a group of 25 logistics
professionals employed by the US Army. My fee: $6,000. The week before, I
taught a shorter version of the seminar at a medical equipment company. For
less than a day’s work, I received $3,500 plus expenses.

17
 “The point: writers can earn significant fees teaching their writing and
marketing skills to others. In fact, surveys frequently cite writing and other
communications skills as key factors contributing to the success of corporate
managers and support staff. Yet many executives will tell you their employees
are poor writers. This creates a steady demand for in-house corporate
seminars that teach basic writing skills, business and technical writing,
grammar, and presentation skills. Specialty subjects, such as how to write
reports, manuals and proposals, are also in demand...”
Robert Bly “Teach and Grow Rich”
(You can find the whole article at www.bly.com/Pages/writersonly/Teach)

Now, that’s what I call a good idea.

Ideas have power. They can change your life. In the following pages, you’ll
find ways to earn money without holding down a soul-sucking job, or ways to
support your dreams even if they don’t earn money, or ideas for going after
dreams you thought cost money but don’t—even some great ways to simply get
your hands on some quick cash when you need it.
However, if you really have dreams of business plans, big investors, IPOs
and a place on NASDAQ, you probably should find another book, and there are
many of them available for you in the business section of any bookstore or
library. Many of the ideas here will show you how to make money, of course.
But not huge amounts. Getting rich isn’t a goal in this book. Why not? Because
almost everyone wants to get rich in order to do something they love with the
money, and I have ideas that will get you what you love without the money. So
why waste your time getting rich? Why not go directly to your dream and bypass
the years of trying to gather wealth?

18
 Different dreamers have different needs
What if your problem isn’t about money, but indecision or an unwillingness
to focus on only one thing? Well, if you like to write, you can write books or
articles about anything that takes your fancy—whales this month, archaeology or
filmmaking next month. What if you can’t get your articles published? Then start
your own e-zine on the internet where people can see your articles, and shoot
emails past the noses of magazines to show them what they’re missing while you
find another temporary way to make your living. Or you can be an Information
Specialist (see “I” for Information Broker) and do research for your clients in
every field that exists. (You can shoot emails past appropriate noses in this case,
too. Every time you find an amazing piece of information that’s not relevant to
the search you’re doing at the time, send it to people who will notice. Be sure to
sign it with your email address along with a catchy handle, like “The Obsessive
Researcher”.)
Or become a freelance teacher and teach anything that interests you. Unlike a
teacher in an institution, you can change what you teach every semester and
never get bored. What school will let you do a thing like that? Adult Education
centers like the Learning Annex in New York and other cities in the U.S. and
Canada. Do they pay enough for you to live? No, they don’t, but they bring
students into your classes who can later become private students or clients. I
know of three separate cases where a teacher at adult education groups was asked
by a group of attendees to teach a private, ongoing class which added hundreds
of dollars to their weekly incomes.
And what if you’re someone who’s interested in lots of different things? You
can self-publish e-books on any subject you love, on your own without any
special software (see “P” for Publishing). If you think having too many interests

19
makes you a “Jack of all trades, master of none,” here’s an author who tells you
how to become an expert authority in any one field and has written dozens of
special information books, each on a separate subject! Author Stephen J.
Spignesi, has written The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia, The Complete
Titanic and a novel-in-progress called Shelter Street, among over a dozen other
books! (and the next time someone tries to call you a dilettante, direct them to
Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Asimov or Ben Franklin).

Support that dream

But what if the one thing you love will never bring in money? I know
someone who wants to be a poet, and writing poetry is no way to pay the rent.
Poems don’t sell and poets shouldn’t write them to sell anyway: they should
simply write the best they can. This poet needs a non-toxic job that uses up to
eight hours of his day and no more, preferably less. With a day job, he can
dedicate his free hours to writing poetry without worrying about paying the bills.
(He’ll join the ranks of the most notable American poets who had other jobs:
Wallace Stevens spent his days at an insurance office and William Carlos
Williams was a physician).
Eleanor wants to pursue her photography and she wants to get paid for it. She
doesn’t want a “good-enough job” during the day. She needs to find some good
ideas for turning her passion into good income (See Mindy’s story below in Part
One: Idea Warm Up).
Alan left his law practice (even though he doesn’t mind practicing law)
because he doesn’t want to do any one thing all the time. He loves variety, but no
one will hire him for that. He needs to do many different things to earn his living

20
and he also needs time for fun and travel. (Keep reading to see how many choices
Alan has.)
Do any of these people sound like you? Well, here’s a taste of what you’re
going to learn in the pages ahead.

YOU CAN FREELANCE JUST ABOUT ANYTHING

Accounting or law, teaching ancient history, even surgery. If you’ve got a
profession you don’t want to leave, but you wish you had more time or could do
something else, that’s important information to have. (I know people who are
freelance lawyers at firms for which they used to work 80-plus hours a week.)

YOU CAN COACH ANYTHING

It’s possible to coach people at anything. If you have a skill and enjoy
helping others learn it, you can coach it. I personally know of a memoirs coach, a
charisma coach and a performance anxiety coach, as well as a writing coach, a
“caring for newborns” parenting coach, a dinner-party coach, a home decorating
coach, an organizing coach and a home business coach (see “C” for Coaching).
You don’t have to leave the house to do most coaching. Typically, coaches
work with their clients on the telephone. Some use email. Others meet with their
clients in person. The dinner party coach mentioned above does all three—she
supports each step on the telephone, helps with invitations and online purchases
via email and accompanies her clients to decorating shops, to markets and into
their own kitchens.

YOU CAN BE SOUGHT OUT (AND PAID) AS AN EXPERT OR

AUTHORITY
You can become an expert or an authority on anything you know how to do.
Bone up from books on your subject and go looking on the internet for relevant

21
websites or discussion groups so you can fill in any gaps in your knowledge.
Don’t assume you need a PhD. Look closer to home to find your expertise.
You’re already knowledgeable in a number of areas and the ones you like the
best can be developed into authoritative status.
What’s the difference between an expert and a coach? You can easily do
both, but an expert also publishes books and newsletters, speaks, consults,
teaches classes and often has a website with a bulletin board where he or she
answers questions. My friend Gustav, a brilliant chef originally from
Czechoslovakia who cooks at the best restaurants on the Greek island of Corfu,
has decided to supplement his income and keep from getting bored during the
winter months by setting up a website of his own on which he will give advice,
share cooking secrets and sell some of his recipes. For example, someone wanted
to know why meat didn’t get tender in a stew no matter how long he cooked it.
Gustav’s secret: marinate it in pineapple juice! (He insists he got goat meat ready
for grilling that way! I haven’t tried it but I believe him.) Call that what you like.
I call it a Food Coach.

YOU CAN BE AN AGENT OR A BROKER

If you’d rather learn from an expert than be one, but you long to share your
learning experiences with others, you don’t have to buy a school or build a spa.
You can take your treasured teachers into someone else’s school or spa! That
way you can attend any class that interests you, and if the teacher is really first-
rate, you can help get him or her paid work somewhere and take a small
percentage for yourself. Win-win-win is what that might be called.

22
YOU CAN DO MORE THINGS ON THE ROAD THAN YOU EVER
IMAGINED
If your town doesn’t provide you with opportunities to share your gifts, how
about taking them elsewhere? You can be an itinerant director of children’s
theater. Or a color consultant who visits towns twice a year. You just need one
adoring fan in each town to set up the event and fill it with people from your
mailing list of customers. How about traveling around your own town to different
neighborhoods as a barber for children? Or a traveling dog groomer? Or a
courier? You can make deliveries within 100 miles and charge less than FedEx or
UPS—or you can charge more because you have some kind of specialty—say,
transporting kids or pets or groceries or money or letters that need to be delivered
by hand, or being great at last-minute, Sunday or all-night pickups and deliveries,
like Elise, who you’ve already read about.

YOU CAN MAKE GOOD MONEY DOING THINGS FOR HOME

BUSINESSES (OR LOCAL SMALL BUSINESSES) THAT THEY CAN’T
DO FOR THEMSELVES
You can put on promotional events or decorate their windows with
removable spray paint for the holidays. You can suggest (and run) a small booth
outside their front door. You can make a short video for their local TV station—
and broker the commercial, too. Or come up with an idea that will get them
invited to be a guest on a show. You can put out a newsletter for them or design
and deliver flyers or write press releases or feature stories about the business for
the local paper. You can create great windows for them (and advertise your
window-dressing skills at the same time by creating real interest.)

23
YOU CAN FANTASIZE AN IDEAL JOB DESCRIPTION AND CREATE
THAT CAREER
If you love swimming and talking and you like to sleep all afternoon and go
dancing in the evenings, you can invent a career that includes all of those
activities and pursue it. That’s how the most original careers are devised. In the
case above, this person could have a speaking career (a lecturer or trainer) or a
swimming career (a teacher or swimming pool salesperson to institutions) or both
(a lecturer on the history of competitive swimming for the Olympics), and do it
in Spain where they have siestas. Try it out yourself. Come up with the perfect
job description and see if you have any bright ideas for inventing a career based
on that description.

AND YOU CAN DO ALMOST ANYTHING YOU LOVE WITHOUT

LOTS OF MONEY. HONEST.
Yes, you can travel the world or have a philanthropy or perform in your own
plays or design and sell your own line of women’s clothing—you name it—
without much money at all. Everyone thinks you need a fortune to do such
things, but the truth is, you’ll do much better without it. (See “M” for Money if
you don’t believe me. And check out “F” for Fashion Designer or “T” for Travel.
I’ve got stories of real people to back me up.)

So if you think you don’t have a clue about what you really want, start
reading. When the blizzard of ideas surrounds you with dozens of delightful
possibilities you’ve never thought of before, I think you’re going to change your
mind.

24
 HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

You can read the pages in this book in any order. It won’t do you the
slightest harm to open it in the middle and start there. You can also read from the
beginning to the end. On each page you’ll find what I think are interesting and
useful ideas I’ve gotten from doing sessions with people or from letters and posts
on my bulletin board, from Idea Parties I run as part of my workshops or just fun
ideas that popped up in my brain when I thought I wasn’t thinking.
Ideas are an entertaining read on their own, but you can’t just skim over
them. An idea is a special kind of creature. You have to dance with it, see how it
moves, discover what it wakes up inside you.
Thinking is not a spectator sport. There is no end to ideas, but to select out
the ones that are relevant for your life or to allow them to stimulate ideas in your
own head, you must let them have an impact on you. Your response to an idea is
a crucial part of the process. If you combine the ideas on these pages and your
own responses, you can create a fresh and exciting future for yourself—one you
never imagined was possible.
If you’re not usually an “idea person,” this can turn you into one. If you are,
you might think that you already have too many ideas; but the pages that follow
will help you select the ones that are right for you and give you strategies that can
make them real, no matter what the present realities of your life may be.

So resist the impulse to do a little reading first. Pick up a pen or pencil and
keep it near you before you read another page. Here’s what to do with an idea:

25
 1) Dog-ear the pages with the most interesting ideas on them. I do it on the
lower part of the page. I also dog-ear the upper part to mark where I left off
reading. Some people can’t bear to fold a page and for them I suggest you go to
the back inside cover of this book. I’ve left it blank, so you can write the page
numbers there.

2) Write a note on the page about what part of this idea is interesting to you
and why. Don’t neglect to do this or you might not understand later what flashed
in your mind and these mind-flashes are incredibly valuable messages from the
most creative part of your brain.

3) Apply the “Idea Soup” technique, which can be found in Appendix 2 at

the end of the book.

(Of course, if you find an idea so great you absolutely have to do it now, that’s
different. Go straight to step 3 and get rolling!)

The underlying goal of this book is to get you to be an idea person. You don’t
have to DO every one of the plans you come up with, but you do have to THINK
about them, to look out a window or draw on a napkin and think them through
the process the best you can. Try to imagine actual steps—what you’d be doing
during your work day, how you’d bring in customers. See if you can put yourself
into an imaginary scene where you’re delivering your service or product to them.
Where would you be? Then think about how many days a week you’d want for
yourself, away from your imaginary business. Such imaginings are incredibly
helpful and if you don’t usually do them automatically, you should pick up the
practice right now. There are some very good reasons for it.

26
 First of all, this will help you to become a good thinker. Second, you’ll be
doing the kind of rehearsal that will give you confidence when the time comes
for you to step forward and take action. Thinking about every idea here that’s
even remotely interesting is time well spent because, without the confidence
you’ll gain, you might hesitate forever. You’ll imagine monsters that don’t exist
(and be unprepared for some that do!) unless you sit back and say to yourself,
“Suppose I actually did this one. What would I do first? What would I need?
Who can help me find this information?”
That’s the first step towards action. In fact, it is action. Real action. Don’t
pass up the chance to work out some ideas as you read through the following
pages.
Keep this book with you and open it when you’re stuck in traffic (or on a
long plane flight or in a line) and I promise you’ll get the full benefit—just as
long as you have something to write with at hand. It’s essential to catch your own
thoughts. Don’t let them fly away. They could prove more valuable to you than
anything I could possibly put on these pages.

27
 PART ONE: IDEA WARM UP

The purpose of this section is to give you a warm-up for the ideas that
follow. For the next few pages I’ll be tossing ideas at you as fast as they come
just to loosen you up and give you a notion of the richness and variety of what’s
available—and to get your mind up to creative thinking speed. The flurry of ideas
in this first part is like a snowstorm, or, more accurately, a “Form-storm”. The
ideas come too fast to be examined and they zigzag in unexpected ways. That’s
deliberate. A Form-storm is designed to get you away from habitual thinking so
you can expand the narrow focus you might have to the rich variety of forms
your work life can take. In the main part of this book, IDEAS, you’ll be asked to
slow down again and do some thinking about almost every idea, but by then I
predict you’ll already be thinking differently.
So let’s talk first about self-employment. Before you start assuming that
working for yourself is too insecure or you can’t make decent money at it or you
have to find a location and buy lots of office furniture—or that it takes a huge
effort or inside connections, or expensive advertising to get paying customers—
take a look at Mindy’s story. Mindy loved photography but worked as an
administrative assistant. After getting laid off from her job, Mindy started
teaching photography in her home just to pay the rent until she could find another
job. (See “H” for Home Businesses).
The problem was, she didn’t have a darkroom. But she did have a secret
weapon (one I hope you’ll create for yourself before you’re finished with this

28
book) called a Success Team. That’s a group of friends who meet regularly to
help each other achieve dreams. (See Appendix 4: Support Systems.)
Mindy’s Success Team suggested she teach photography classes on “How to
See,” which is exactly what she did, using photos and slides, handing out
cardboard frames for her students to look through as they walked through their
daily life. To her surprise, she did very well at these classes because she really
had a flare for teaching her subject and had many happy students. Her classes
began to grow in no time by word of mouth.
Where did she get paying students in the first place? Her teammates went
through their address books, called their friends and promoted her class. Two of
them became students themselves. Her first class filled up within a week. (“A full
class is one that brings in enough money to pay my rent that month,” Mindy
explained.)
Mindy could have built that little source of income into an profit-creating
business by starting a lecture series on the same subject at an existing adult
education group like The Learning Annex, or on a telephone conference call
while her students viewed sample photos on their computers. She could have
easily made an audio or video recording of every class and turned it into a taped
course, using a CD-ROM for the photos she wanted to discuss—and then sold
them all on her website.
But how would she get the word out to the world when there’s so much
competition? Mindy, fortunately, didn’t try thinking like a major corporation
because she doesn’t have to get the whole world to come to her site, only the
people who already know her and the people they refer, all on her email mailing
list (to which she could send notices of any kind in a single moment, no
expensive printing or licking stamps required).

29
 Mindy’s teaching website could have had a bulletin board on which she
answered questions, building her reputation as an expert. She could have
eventually used these already-written exchanges to create her own book of tips at
almost no cost to her as a simplified “e-book” and made it available right on her
website. And she could have and gotten paid for her e-book in advance on the
computer as well. Or she could have turned her ideas into a “real” book—that is,
published and made into a hard copy using a revolutionary advance in book
publishing called Print On Demand, a computerized way to create professional-
looking books one at a time—instead of paying out thousands of dollars and
ending up with a garage full of books you have to sell. Where would she do that?
There are many reputable companies offering very low-cost publishing to anyone
who wants to have their book in print. (See the ads in “Writers Digest Magazine”
or do a search for “Self Publishing” on the internet.)
With a book, she’d have a much easier time getting invitations to be a
motivational speaker on the lucrative lecture circuit. Motivational? Yes, she
wouldn’t have to limit herself to amateur photographers. They don’t pay much
anyway. She’d be much better off speaking to groups with no special focus,
groups of all kinds from the Rotary Clubs to garden clubs about “How to Wake
Up Your Eyes” (to the beauty of this world, or to find your own personal vision,
or a dozen other topics) regardless of whether they’re interested in photography
or not.
Have I gotten your attention? Or do you think most of these ideas are simply
pie-in-the-sky? If you do, you’d better head over to my website
(www.barbarasher.com) and read my bio. I do everything I’ve just described
above rather successfully, and have for years—on my own, from my home, with
one part-time assistant and no bank loans. (Yes, I do have a literary agent and a

30
publishing house for many of my books, but I don’t suggest that route anywhere
in these pages. You can’t control getting published by a major house, but you
have a lot of control over every idea above.)

Mindy might have built her teaching business until it brought in much more
than the bare minimum she needed for rent, but another business presented itself
and now Mindy is on her way to having enough money to buy her own
apartment. Here’s what happened:
At lunch one day a friend complained about getting no responses to having
her photo online with one of the internet dating services. Mindy saw the photo
she was using and knew she needed a better one, so they set up a date and took
some pictures. A day or two later the friend posted her new photo on the dating
site and got 45 responses.
Friends lined up for photos so Mindy threw parties and took photos of them
all. They all got similar results. A few of them called the newspapers and soon
Mindy appeared in several major New York papers, and a few weeks later on
CNN!
These days she gets paid for taking photos of singles to use on internet dating
sites—and she’s doing very well because she’s got a gift for catching something
special in every photo she takes. Her pictures get results. Now she has a waiting
list of people who want their photos taken and she’s being courted by three
different internet dating services to work for them exclusively. The last time I
talked to Mindy, she had hired two assistants, and brings in five times the money
she earned while working for someone else. If you want to see her work, go to
her website (www.singleshots.com) or come to mine! I was so impressed with the
before and after photos on Mindy’s original homemade website, I got her to take
my photo before she got too famous to have time for me!

31
Is self-employment starting to look more interesting?
Mindy’s got the kind of business that doesn’t require much investment. She
has no inventory and doesn’t rent a store. She doesn’t manufacture a product,
either. Mindy’s in what’s called a “service business”. The range of service
businesses you can start without much trouble is dizzying. So read about all the
variations below, and when you’re done, you just might want to put this book
down and take a long walk to re-think your notions about what’s available in this
world.
I started out totally broke, so I like service businesses. You don’t need to buy
or manufacture or store or ship anything, and you don’t need to sit in a store all
day trying to sell enough to pay the rent. Nothing is less expensive regarding
overhead, especially now that the internet has come along to help us send out free
announcements. If you don’t have a dime and you do have a skill or two (as
everyone does), try a service business.
Here’s a small sample of some alternative forms a service business might
take that you might not have thought of.

You can run your business at unexpected locations.

“I’ll be retiring soon, and I would love to be a fix-it guy, you know, a
handyman,” someone said in a recent workshop I did in Jacksonville, Florida. “It
would make me happy and bring in some income if I could be someone who
repairs toasters, lamps, that kind of thing, but there are some real problems. For
one thing, most people don’t repair things anymore, they just throw them out and
buy new ones.”
That’s a perfect example of a dream-smashing myth if I ever heard one, and I
wondered where he got it. It turned out he got it from someone who sells to the

32
upscale 18 to 38 year old market. My workshop had about two hundred people in
the audience and most of them were over 40.
“How many of you would rather repair your broken stuff than buy new
stuff?” About 190 hands went up.
He was surprised and impressed, but then he got concerned.
“You should all know I don’t know how to do everything, like computers or
furnaces or that sort of thing, and I really don’t want to learn how, either.”
“How about finding people who are good at those other things?” I suggested.
“Ask them in to repair your computer and your furnace, or anything you don’t
know how to repair yourself, until you find the highest quality people, and then
act as an agent for them.” (See “A” for Agent.) “That means that you go out and
get every kind of repair business and if you can’t do it, you call them. It would be
worth the 15% or 20% you’d take as a commission for them to get extra work,
and you should be able to charge good rates for reliable, capable people.”
“Wow!” he said. “I never thought of that. How would I get people to call me
to fix things? Is everyone in this room actually going to give me a toaster to
repair?”
“Oh, I think many of them would call you if you handed out a card,” I
laughed. “But I bet you didn’t bring one, right?” He hadn’t. “Then I advise you to
borrow a few sheets of paper and ask them all for their telephone numbers,
mailing addresses or email addresses and start your mailing list.”
“And I bet many of them would come to a class to learn how to fix a toaster
or a lamp. And most of them, once they learned how, would call you in to do the
work anyway.” I turned to the audience and asked, them. “Am I right?”
They laughed and agreed.

33
 “You could give the classes for free, or almost free, in your own workroom
at home. But you can also give classes at a community center, or even better, you
could offer classes at a hardware store. The owner might be very happy to
advertise and bring in people for your class as a way of bringing in new
customers. Especially since you’d be teaching them something that might require
them to purchase parts from the store. Also, most hardware stores get requests for
repair work and they might be happy to send it your way.”
“Wow,” he said again. I sent him around the room to get the names and
telephone numbers of people who would be interested in attending his first class.
One raised her hand and said, “My uncle has a hardware store. Do you want me
to talk to him?”
That’s an Idea Party for you.
Think about the stores you go to most often and think about something
related to that store that you’d enjoy teaching. You might want to consider
teaching on their premises like he plans to do.
After the workshop he said, “I thought I was a good idea person, but you just
shot those ideas out like popcorn!”
“I bet you are a good idea person,” I said, “but you got stuck behind the myth
that nobody wants your skills anymore so you stopped yourself before you got
started. That’s one of the best reasons to run our ideas past other people. Nothing
beats having a whole room full of people to spot those myths and come up with
ideas that dissolve them.”
He’s a believer now, and he can run an Idea Party anytime he needs some
more ideas. (So can you. See Appendix 3: Idea Parties.) I love Idea Parties.
They’re responsible for making more impossible dreams come true than anything
I know of.

34
 NOTE: If you want to participate in any of the telephone Idea Parties I often
run, be sure to get on my mailing list! Just go to www.barbarasher.com, click
on “Mailing List” and sign up. Don’t worry, I won’t fill up your mailbox. I
don’t send out lots of email, but when I do, it’s something you’ll want to
know about.

Working out of your home can be an excellent, low-risk way to start a

business without a lot of expense or risk. Another person at the same workshop
stood up to tell us his wish and his obstacle.
“I love to cook,” he said, “but my dad had a restaurant and I never want those
headaches.”
“How about a dinner club?” I suggested. “How about a dinner club for
singles, in fact? Upscale singles, who’d be willing to pay a decent amount to
meet other upscale singles. If you have a nice, well-equipped kitchen, you can
start a private dinner club with a minimum of licenses. If you don’t have the right
kind of home, pitch someone who does. That person might be happy to have the
party at his or her home in order to be at all the parties!”
People started calling out from the audience. “Hey, I’m not single but I’d
love to come to cooking classes held in someone’s home.” Other people called
out, “So would I!” One woman said, “Can you teach me how to make sushi?”
and the man who loved cooking said, “Sure! There’s one fabulous fish store in
this town. Oh,” he paused. “I don’t think they carry the fixings; the ingredients
you get in Japanese food stores.”
A voice from the back rang out. “Don’t worry. I get all my sushi fixings, and
cooking utensils too, from a catalog. I’ll give you the name of it.” And our
restaurateur was off and running.

35
 To see more ideas for running a business from home, go to “H” for Home
businesses. You’re also going to be reading about some great ideas for running
your business more unusual locations. Here’s a preview to whet your appetite.

Teach a craft in someone else’s home to a group of friends.

I read about this in a magazine called “Time Out” a few months ago and
loved the idea. Groups of friends would get together once a month or so and hire
a craftsperson to come to one of their homes and teach them how to do
something, such as quilting, needlepoint, lace-making, or watercolor painting.
They had a wonderful time, and the artisan was paid for her time—about three
hours—and often earned an additional profit from selling crafts materials she
brought with her.
That’s a nice idea for a hostess, but it’s a great idea for a craftsperson.
The significant element in this form isn’t really the location—although the
rent-free aspect is a revelation to people who always fret about where to hold a
class and how much it will cost, and this is especially lovely because it reduces
your overhead to almost nothing—it’s the fact that someone gets a group of
customers together and pays you to do something for them. Again, look at the
savings: you don’t have to advertise or promote the class to bring in people. The
host will do it for you.

Why not put on a play? Or have a reading? You might bring the audience
into the cast by giving them a short rehearsal and letting them read from a script.
You could start in the afternoon and go into the evening when guests would
arrive to see the reading and have an actual performance. You can even start an
ongoing amateur theater group for them and teach them how to run it. Or have
them bring you in as the director or acting teacher. You could have your “cast”

36
bring their own costumes! Or learn how to create them from clothes in their attics
or local thrift stores. Or start a group business sewing costumes for the theater or
for local school productions.
If you love the costumes more than the acting or directing, forget the theater
entirely and teach your class how to sew costumes for their children at
Halloween or for costume parties, or how to make dolls, or how to turn their own
clothes that don’t fit into perfectly tailored fashion statements. (You’ll get lots of
business from people who would rather you did the work for them, once they see
how hard it is. And how good you are. See “S” for Stitcher.)
What kind of qualifications do you need? Well, you have to be good at what
you do, and good at teaching it, or you won’t be invited back. But that’s it. No
applications or tests have to be taken, and your credentials can be solely your
ability to teach something they’d like to learn. Many people living in suburbs
hesitate to leave home at night to go to classes in nearby cities, but are yearning
for interesting ways to get together with their friends.

What if you expand the venue from other people’s living rooms to other
people’s workrooms or backyards or kitchens or garages? With those spaces
available to you and the audience provided by the sponsor of the party, you could
teach cooking, pottery-making, gardening, auto-maintenance, home repair or
carpentry. Teach these classes to uncharacteristic groups of people like women or
retirees or kids at risk and you’ll probably have good luck at getting free
publicity, too, because teaching people who need but can’t afford your services is
both interesting and newsworthy, and it feels good to readers. Newspapers are
always looking for such stories.

37
 (Notice how we’ve slipped from what you’ll do to how you’ll market it?
That’s how ideas work. Don’t rein them in. Watch what happens if they run
wherever they want to.)

Back to the notion of teaching a group of friends in their homes: another idea
that appeals to me is doing an ongoing series—for example, a career series in
people’s homes. You can gather information about jobs and create support teams
to help them go looking. Or you can simply talk about what’s available. For that
matter, you can teach them how to start their own home businesses, and if they
opt for that, you can become their beginning business coach, meeting with them
three times a month on the telephone to help them solve problems and keep
moving. (If you don’t know about some of the businesses they want to start, you
can find someone who does and be an agency that refers coaches. Think of all the
coaches you could have in your stable! If this appeals to you, head over to “C”
for Coaching and look at the list of ideas for things that can be coached.)
You can also teach a language and culture series, like how to speak Italian.
Imagine getting together once a week with a group of eight people, cooking up a
great Italian meal and eating it together, all the while speaking only Italian (with
your help, of course). You might even consider getting them ready for a trip to
Italy. A local travel agent would love you for that, and not only give you some
kind of incentive (like free travel) but use some of their budget to advertise your
class for you.
If you’re like most of us, the idea of working in other people’s homes—or
even other people’s stores—is a new one and deserves a little time to mull over.
So let’s take a moment for you to think about it. Pick up your pencil and see if
you can think of some other unexpected venues where someone could provide a
service and earn money. The following exercise might stimulate your thinking.

38
 MAKE A LIST
Imagine you’re in a situation where you need $2,000 and you have to come
up with ten ways to earn money—and each must take place in a different
location. To make it worth your while, pretend each idea will bring you $200.

1. ____________________________
2. ____________________________
3. ____________________________
4. ____________________________
5. ____________________________
6. ____________________________
7. ____________________________
8. ____________________________
9. ____________________________
10. ____________________________

If you didn’t come up with 10 ways to earn your $2,000 call your friends or
email some buddies—or come on my bulletin board at www.barbarasher.com
and ask for more ideas. Asking for ideas will be good practice for you!

Here’s another idea that doesn’t really have a specific venue. You can do it
from home, of course, but many colleges have students who do this for their
schools: You can be a booking agent and bring shows or bands (or even circuses)
to your town. It’s a fun job if you don’t like to travel but do like to see and hang
out with interesting performers. I have a friend who lives with his wife in the
Catskills and brings classical musicians as well as rock bands to his small town
and gets a great turnout.

39
 Or you can be a talent agent and have your own stable of good speakers or
performers and booking agents will call you (see “A” for Agent).
Often local people or businesses interested in the betterment of their towns
will be willing to pay for your services and sponsor the event you’re producing as
well. Check with your local Chamber of Commerce and tell them what you’d like
to do. Start with nearby towns you can find on the internet. If they have a
website, they may be forward-thinking. (Of course, if they don’t have a website,
maybe you should contact them and offer to create one for them!)

Let’s talk about teaching

Don’t get locked in by visions of school buildings, lesson plans and too many
hours of administrative tasks. Teaching is the most portable skill of all. (A few
others are nursing, administrative assistant with language skills, librarian, cook,
seamstress or nanny.) You can teach what you know, and you can teach what you
wish you knew. If you’re a natural teacher, you can teach anything at all. You
can be a speaker or a corporate trainer or an online tutor if you have teaching
skills.
You can teach a huge range of subjects—in people’s homes as we mentioned
before, but also in community colleges, adult education groups or on the internet.
You can teach things you haven’t mastered by using someone else’s book as a
class guide. (I often get emails from people who use my books for that purpose.
Some of them are college professors or career counselors. Others have no special
credentials at all and are doing a very good job.) If there’s a book that you feel
would be valuable to people, you can teach it to a group of friends and learn
about it at the same time.
You can teach dancing, writing, assertiveness training and computer skills.
Yes, computer skills, even if you only know how to handle emails and surf the

40
net. Why would anyone want to learn from an amateur like you? Because they’re
intimidated by a pro and don’t think it’s even possible for them to learn anything
about computers. Think about the “home party” form again and envision a group
of friends, people who feel totally stupid about computers, whose kids and
spouses are using computers every day and don’t have the tact or patience to
teach them. Shed your pre-conceptions about what it takes to be a computer
teacher and imagine teaching them the way someone taught you to play guitar or
drive a car, or to walk when you were a baby for that matter: in an informal,
hands-on way, not once but a number of times until you got it. And think of how
great your students would feel when they showed the rest of the family how to
create a weblog or use a newsgroup or Instant Messaging. How can you resist?

Now, if you’d love to learn something but don’t want to go back to school,
you can hire a teacher. Just for you. I know a number of people who have done it
with fantastic results. Where did they find them? Bill took a one-day class in
writing for TV sit-coms and liked the teacher so much he called and offered him
$200 for a two-hour phone session each week. (Those sessions helped him
produce several screenplays which he is now shopping around to the studios.)
My assistant, Andrea, met a young, award-winning playwright and hired her to
teach a two-semester writing course in her home for a group of Andrea’s friends.
(Lots of talented people need money. And lots of them love to teach.)

You can work at home

You can use your computer to sell your hand-crafted jewelry or your used
books about mountain climbing. You can be a virtual assistant and help someone
with their bills, insurance, and airline tickets. You can write letters from a
transcriber or take telephone messages for salespeople on the road.

41
 While you have to be careful of scams when you see offers to “Make Big
Bucks From Your Home” licking envelopes, there are many cottage industries
that are completely legitimate. In The Work At Home Sourcebook by Lynie
Arden, I saw companies I’ve ordered from in the past like Country Curtains, Inc.
and Dainty Maid Manufacturing Company, both offering work to people who
sew, or “stitchers” as they’re often called. There are knitting opportunities, too.
I did notice that a company that outsourced embroidering has dwindled to
only one worker at the time of the writing of this book and may have disappeared
completely by now. Now an idea person might wonder if he or she couldn’t start
her own cottage industry and wake up some new markets for embroidery.
You can use your telephone to do more than make cold sales calls
(something that would put me right in front of a TV set with a carton of chocolate
ice cream and a big spoon in my hand.) For example, you can run telephone
classes (I do) or email classes online. Or on a weblog (see “W” for Weblog).
And, of course, you can bring children (or pets or valuables for that matter)
into your home to watch over while the owners are away. You could call that the
“Haven model” of home business.

You can also work from home

You might do all your work out in the world as a gardener or a consultant, a
speaker on the lecture circuit or flying to China, but the correspondence—the
business telephone, the fax, email—all takes place in your home. That just means
you’re your own boss and you’ve got what’s known as a Home Business. These
days with the internet and other technology leveling the playing field, it’s very
possible for a small time operator to be self-employed and eat very well.

42
You can make things and sell them
That’s called manufacturing, although that seems like a big word if you’re
making cookies or crafts. You can make things, and sell them too, in a way that
won’t put you in the poorhouse or leave you with a garage full of baskets or
Victorian feathered hats…
The selling part is called “retail” (unless you sell to someone who will sell it
again, in which case it’s called “wholesale”). I don’t love any of those words—or
“service” either, to be honest—because they immediately take my imagination
away from the loveable world of ideas where I can picture creative small-time
operators doing interesting things and making enough money, and bump it over
into the dreary world of Boring Business Terminology where everyone wants to
get on the stock exchange and doesn’t much care about the loveable stuff. I’m
pretty sure such people won’t see one idea in this book that’s worth discussing,
and anyway they use words like “scalable” and “pro forma”. Never mind. They
have their own books. But in case you read something besides this one book, you
might need their terminology here and there.
There are ways to sell what you make (or what someone else makes) that do
not require a shop of your own, or any shop at all, and won’t send you begging
for a loan at the local bank after spending months sweating out a business plan
they won’t laugh at.
With micro-businesses, when you make something, you often have to do the
selling too. You may make dolls and offer them for sale at a booth in a craft fair,
or on your website. You may collect antiques and sell them in an antique barn
where you rent a small space among many other antique dealers. (This can be a
nice option if you don’t want to spend all your time at the “shop” because many
dealers take turns watching each other’s areas.) Sometimes you can sell your

43
truly great fudge to a market or a restaurant or a caterer. (That makes you a
“wholesaler” I guess. Doesn’t really seem to work with fudge, does it? Unless, of
course, you have a huge factory and hundreds of people on your fudge assembly
line. You can already guess that the only assembly lines I like are the ones you
set up in your kitchen with your family and some friends, where you play loud
music and tell jokes.)
And you can sell gift baskets and flowers and kids’ toys in the halls of a
corporation to busy workers who don’t have time to shop on their way home
from work.

MAKE A LIST
I know I’ve left out dozens of places you can sell from. Go into your
imagination (and your rolodex or email list to ask for other people’s input) and
see how many more locations you can find to showcase and sell an item you’ve
made or bought. Write them down in the space below while your brain is warmed
up, so you won’t forget them:
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

44
 (Incidentally, if you want to share any of your great ideas, send them to me
and I’ll put them in my next Idea Book. If I use your idea, I’ll send you a copy as
a “thank you”! Go to the back of this book to a page called “Write Me.” I’d love
to hear from you.)

But if you simply do not want to be self-employed, if you just want to show
up, do your work and subsidize you dreams with the money you earn, I’m with
you all the way. You don’t have to invent and manage a company of your own.
But you also don’t have to sign up for a 52-week year with eight (or more) hours
a day.

You don’t need a full-time job to earn money. You can work as a temp or on
a project-basis only.
You know what a temp is—you go to an agency and they farm you out, or
you show up at the office of a lawyer you know and do paperwork three days a
week. Contract work isn’t as well known. That’s a job which is tied to a project
and can last for a few months. Contract work is popular in the information
technology field, and also in TV or film production where they need people to
work on projects and don’t need them when the projects are completed.
Both temp and contract work will pay your bills and leave you time to do
what you really love. Temp work gives you time to paint or be with your family
or read, and contract work gives you time to travel to the Himalayas for a few
months at a time. Just remember, you can find the kind of work that suits your
dreams.
Remember, too, you don’t have to do just one part-time job. It might be
smarter and more interesting to do work at different part-time jobs to bring in

45
money. Then if one doesn’t work out, you don’t have that heart-stopping interim
where you can’t pay your rent.

You can have more than one source of income

Who said you had to find the one thing that will earn all the money you
need? No wonder people get stuck. If none of the things you like to do will make
enough money on their own to support you, don’t reject them. Do them all.
Create a number of profit centers or income streams, and if one or two don’t
work, the others will. Together, you can bring in whatever money you need
without having to choose only one way to do it. There are lots of people who
have been doing exactly this for years, and I’m one of them. I write books and do
speaking engagements, I do individual consultations and make television specials
for public TV. I teach on the phone and run Idea Parties on the phone as well.
And I run workshops where I train coaches to use my techniques. I also sell audio
sets. I love having a variety of income sources, but even more, I love never being
bored by doing the same thing every day.

A woman who was the subject of one of my telephone classes wanted to

work at home designing and sewing clothes. She gave away the fact that she’s
highly creative when she said, “Don’t ask me to do something twice!” Every
truly creative craftsperson I’ve ever met says the same thing. That means they
have to find a way to do things once (or create a cottage industry to make many
copies of their designs).
She really got my attention when she mentioned that her son requested a
copy of the yellow zoot-suit Jim Carey wore in the film, “The Mask”. That was
one truly extreme suit and she had to create her own pattern, but all she said was,
“Now that was fun!”

46
 If she limited herself to sewing—and there’s no need for her to do this
because she could be a designer or consultant for a theater where other people
could do the sewing—she could do any (or all) of the following:

1) Run ongoing classes every week or two, in which she teaches mothers
how to sew their own Halloween costumes, for example. Classes could
be held at the home of one student, attended by her friends. If each
student paid $20 plus any materials they bought (let’s say $25
altogether), and there were seven friends attending, she’d earn $175 for
a 2–3 hour class. If she got some publicity, she could easily run two of
these each week in the afternoons or evenings. That’s about $350 each
week.

2) She’d probably get commissions to sew some costumes herself if she

brought samples of her work—or photographs of it—to her class. At
$75–250 per costume, she could probably earn at least $500 per month.

3) She could teach “How to Throw A Successful Costume Party” in

tandem with a friend who’s good at parties, or teach another subject on
the telephone. How could she teach sewing on the phone? Well, she
could make and mail a workbook to every student so each person could
look at the illustrations as she referred to them. Or, if her students had
some kind of broadband access to the internet, she could hold her class
on the computer screen while talking to students on the telephone. She
could show them still photos or sketches of what they’re supposed to be
doing while giving instructions. Incidentally, with those photos or
sketches, and a transcript of her telephone classes, she’d be creating
something a lot like a printed crafts book, wouldn’t she?

47
 But how could she get it published? Or self-publish it without mortgaging the
homestead?
Here’s how: Get someone to burn the pictures and the voice on a CD (Who?
I bet everyone you know has a friend or relative with a computer that can do that
without much trouble at all.)
If she preferred a full video, she could produce a series of “shows” in her
home and easily burn the whole thing onto a DVD. Then, her telephone students
could play her DVD while they’re on the phone with her and watch her actually
sewing—that’s like a TV crafts show. Of course, they could also see her “live” if
she had a webcam and was on camera. That way students could ask questions
she’d be able to answer on the spot and everyone could see exactly what she was
doing. (I hope your mind is starting to spin a little bit as you realize you can also
teach art that way, as well as engine repair or indoor gardening.)
With the teacher on camera and the students watching their computer screens
while they listen to her on the telephone, it’s a lot like a live class except the
students can stay home and get into their pajamas if they like. And the time is
already here that anyone can do a web radio broadcast too. Live. In the their own
kitchen.
It won’t be hard for her—or you—to get 10–20 people signing up for each
class if you have a mailing list or can get a newspaper or national crafts magazine
to write an article about you. These are very modest numbers. I usually get over
80 people each time I do a tele-class, but you can do quite well with five to ten
people. And you can sell materials to your students in any of these teaching
mediums to raise your income even more.
For example, each student might pay, say, $15 for this one-hour telephone
class. If 20 people sign up, that’s another $300. And anything done on the phone

48
can easily be recorded and become an audiotape set for sale on your website. Or
you can combine them on a CD, as I mentioned above.

4) She could introduce herself to dance clubs, like the Swing Dance Club
which has its own contests and weekly dances at a nightclub near her.
“Everyone is dying for some vintage 30’s clothes to dance in,” she said.
The idea delighted her. She said she’d love to sew vintage costumes for
swing dancers. And that’s a very nifty idea and a very smart way to
market her costume-making skills. (I advised her to sew her own label
into each outfit with instructions on how to find her.)

You can pick up quick cash when you need it

I’ve got a rather jolly list of ways to do this (see “Q” for Quick Cash) but
right now I just want to introduce the “quick cash” concept so you’ll understand
how many ways you can get money without a full time job. Quick cash can be
for necessities, but it also comes in handy when you find a fabulous guitar you
must have, or a course you must attend and you simply don’t have the money or
much time to get it. You can use the ideas in the Quick Cash chapter whether
you’re a happy beach bum or fully employed. It’s just a bit extra for special
things.

Or you can slowly accumulate a nest egg to finance your dreams

Just because you can’t afford your dream now doesn’t mean you can’t afford
it in a few years. If it’s your dream to go back to school or to live on an island in
the Aegean or to buy your own horse, you need a piggy bank of some kind and
special activities that funnel money into it and nowhere else. This, like quick

49
cash, can be done “on the side,” without reference to how you earn your other
income.
My point? Any dream can come true, whether you need extra money or extra
time or just some brand-new way to do it.

That’s what this book is for.

That was your Idea Warm Up. I hope you had some fun reading this section
and enjoyed shaking loose some of that methodical thinking. Most of all, I hope
you now can see that there are many, many ways to go after any dream—and that
your dream is almost certainly within reach.
Now it’s time to jump into the actual Idea Party that this book is intended to
be. A book is just one of many kinds of Idea Parties, so when you’re finished
with the ideas inside be sure to go to “Appendix 3: Idea Parties” to learn how to
run your own Idea Parties.

Got your pencil in your hand? Let’s look at some ideas.

50
 PART TWO
IDEAS A to Z
As promised, here are even more ideas—a lot more—for you to look at.
They’re in alphabetical order, but I have purposely not put each item in strict
alphabetical order within each of the 26 lettered chapters. There’s a reason for
this: I want you to see as many unexpected ideas as possible while you’re reading
this book. That way you might stumble on something important in areas you
haven’t considered before.
Keep that pencil nearby and circle anything you like (note anything you
dislike, too) and write your H-Level number next to that sentence in the margin.
To refresh your memory, an H-Level of 10 is an idea, or part of one, that you
absolutely love. An H-Level of 1 is something you definitely do not want in your
life. Anything that earns an H-Level of 7 or above from you is significant.
Anything under a 4 is equally significant. Don’t spend too much time assigning
the middle numbers. They can require too much head-scratching and aren’t as
relevant, so you don’t have to think about them unless you’ve got a lot of time on
your hands.
In the margins I’ve provided space for you to take notes and write comments.
You’ll do your best thinking if you jump in with your own reactions as often as
you can. This is your future we’re talking about, so don’t be shy about writing
anything important in it. (Of course, if you’ve borrowed it, just keep lots of blank
paper nearby for your notes.)

51
 A
Ancillary skills for your “good-enough job”
[an.cil.lar.y (adj) 1. in a position of lesser importance, 2. providing support for
somebody or something.]

When we talk about your “good-enough job” we’re not talking about your
dream, just a source of income that will subsidize your dream. You can work at
almost anything that doesn’t make you sick, but it’s a lot more pleasant to do
something you’re good at than something that bores you to death. You’ll
probably earn more money, too, because we always shine at things we like to do.
If you like driving, researching, talking, fixing things or creating order, there’s a
good-enough job waiting for you. While using these ancillary skills may not be
your dream, they’re great for your good-enough job.
A client of mine loved writing fiction and was willing to work at a job to
support it, but he just couldn’t stand the job he had as a salesman.
“I’m not a salesman. I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.
“What do you do at home when you’re avoiding writing?” I asked.
He laughed. “I love to organize my house, to make sure there’s a place for
everything. I’ve come up with some really ingenious organizing systems. My
accountant says I should rent out my receipts, they’re so organized!”

52
 “Well, that’s that,” I said. “You’re a personal assistant and if I didn’t already
have one, I’d hire you myself. How much money do you need to earn each
year?”
The amount wasn’t overwhelming since he had some income from other
sources.
“Great,” I said. “Then you don’t have to be a full-time personal assistant to a
wealthy celebrity (they can be demanding). You can take five or ten clients and
work half-days for each of them.”
“Doing what?” he asked.
“Balancing their checkbooks, paying their bills, organizing their papers,
creating systems to help them track expenses for their taxes, organizing their
receipts, keeping track of their insurance, stuff like that.” (For more, see
“Assistant” below.)
“That would be fun!” he said.
“Not everyone would agree,” I laughed.
“But who needs that service?”
“Who doesn’t? Before you leave your job, offer to do it for one or two
people you work with and get good recommendations. Next, try self-employed
people, or busy professionals. You can even help other personal assistants! After
all, you’re an organizer. You could make sure their systems were up and running
so they could be efficient. You could even train personal assistants and set up
your own agency, except for one thing—and you don’t want to forget this. You
love to write. If there were two of you, one might own a personal assistant
agency, and the other could have plenty of time to write, but you’re just one
person. So you might want to stick with a one-person service.”

53
 He chose the one-person service. You might want to choose the agency that
specializes in people with your ancillary skills, whatever they are.

Now, stop for a moment here, at the beginning of this section, and think
about what you’ve just read. Is there anything in that story that you find
appealing? Look again, and if you find a word or a phrase that you liked, circle it
lightly with a pencil. In the outside margin, write a number that represents how
much you like it on a scale of one to ten (its “H-Level”). Take the time to do this
at every moment while you’re reading. The payoff for this little technique could
be huge.
Then, if you really want to know who you are and what you want (and how
to get it), if you’re dead serious about wanting a life that will excite you and
make you happy and still keep a roof over your head, take the time to answer the
following questions:

1) What did you learn from writing H-Levels for this idea?
2) What elements of this idea might be useful for your dreams?
3) If you were going to pursue this idea—or help someone else pursue it—
what steps would you take first?

These aren’t just any old questions. Answering them requires that you
practice three essential steps in goal achievement. First, you pay keen attention to
anything that appeals to you, even if you don’t yet understand its significance.
That’s like being a detective gathering clues. Second, you become curious about
new methods of doing things and wonder how you might use them yourself. That
step makes you creative and adaptable and confident. And third, you develop the
habit of moving from thought to action.

54
 That third step is the big one and can feel like a cliff instead of a step. Fear of
moving from thought to action is what stops most people from achieving their
dreams. That’s not cowardice. No person in their right mind would consider
jumping into action without having taken the first two steps. But after you
become used to checking your H-Levels and you’ve developed a good eye for
strategies, action stops feeling dangerous and becomes interesting. That change
will transform your life. Guaranteed.

Assistant
At one time the only people with personal assistants were famous and rich,
but now almost everyone can and should have one (including personal
assistants!) Hiring a personal assistant doesn’t have to be expensive if you have
yours come in only once a week. An assistant can get all your bills ready to pay
(and pay them for you, too), stay on the phone with tech support when your
computer is having a bad day, be there for deliveries and send out FedEx’s, order
(and return) things you’ve bought from a catalog, make travel arrangements,
maintain your website and/or take care of your car registration—whatever you
need done. I believe that if everyone had a part-time personal assistant, they’d
write more plays and design more gardens, have more fun and earn more money,
too.
As a job, being a personal assistant is a very interesting choice: rather than
sitting in a cubicle all day, you visit your different clients on different days. That
gives you the flexibility to attend classes, go to movies in the daytime and work
on any fun project that takes your fancy.

55
How to get started
You can post flyers in elevators or small stores in your area. If you’d like to
be a “virtual assistant” you can operate from your home using your fax, phone
and computer. Do a search on the internet for contract jobs or moonlighting. Last
I looked there were sites offering the services of virtual assistants to potential
employers. Take a look at InfoWord (www.infoword.com) to see what they offer
and if that’s the sort of thing that interests you. And be sure to take a look at one
of the absolutely best sites on the internet, Craigslist (www.craigslist.org), where
you can place a free classified ad offering your services.

Scheduler
If you like politics and have good organizing and administrative abilities you
should consider being a scheduler. Who hires full-time schedulers? Famous, busy
people, like your representatives and senators in the U.S. Congress, that’s who.
You can find out about this and other opportunities on Capitol Hill from a book
called How to Get a Job in Congress (Without Winning an Election) by
Christopher Porter.

Animals
If you love animals, you probably wish you could earn your living working
with them. Well, you can. I’ve gathered a number of ideas in my travels, but if
you want to see the vast range of possible careers with animals from some real
professionals, check out the following:
105 Careers for Animal Lovers and The Companion Bird Lover’s Guide
to Careers by Paula Fitzsimmons (contact: [email protected])

56
 Career Success With Pets: How to Get Started, Get Going, Get Ahead...
A complete guide to starting your own rewarding career with pets by
Kim Barber (Macmillan 1996)

Adventure guide for dogs

Someone on my bulletin board wrote that she was out walking in Golden
Gate Park in San Francisco and watched a woman drive up in a truck filled with
7 or 8 big, happy, slobbery dogs. “She saw my big grin, handed me a business
card that read ‘Dawg Adventures’ and told me that she takes people’s dogs on
these ‘adventures’ around the San Francisco Bay Area.”
Does that sound like something you might be happy doing? I’m convinced
that there’s a special gene which real animal lovers possess, and they are only
truly happy when they’re near animals. If you’re one of these uniquely gifted
people, there are tons of ways you could be working with animals right now. You
can find plenty of professional agencies on the web that can give you a taste of
what it’s like to take your love of animals and turn it into work. Visit
www.thepetstaff.com to see what they do. (Go to www.craigslist.org for this one,
too.)

Animal refuge
If you wish you had an animal refuge to help unwanted animals, don’t
assume you need to amass a fortune first to buy the land. Instead, you can join an
existing refuge (I found sites for animal refuge centers in every part of North
America as well as Tenerife, Venezuela and Kansai, Japan!); or locate people
with land they’re not using and ask them to donate it to your new foundation; or
go out to the farm country closest to your home and find retired farmers who
might be interested in helping, perhaps in return for some service they

57
themselves need (lots of farmers do not want to sell their land, even when they’re
unable to use it themselves. Anyone who helps them hang on to it will go to
heaven without question.) Or you can do what many people have done: start an
animal refuge right now, in your home. Before you shrug off that last idea, think
about these benefits:

1) You can start right away, and if you’re an animal lover, you don’t want
animals in need to have to wait years for you to organize something big
and ambitious: you want them to be safe right now, tonight.

2) You can learn the legal and/or non-profit ropes of animal refuges so that
by the time you’re ready for a Texas-sized spread for your animals,
you’ll know everything you need to know (and any legal or financial
problems will have been on a very small scale).

3) You can fill that big heart of yours with something besides aching
helplessness, because you’ll be saving one or two or twelve fine
creatures right now. It will give you the energy you need to keep
moving until you get things exactly the way you want them.

Someone who did exactly that is Sandi Meinholz, director of Fine Feathered
Friends Sanctuary, Inc. Sandi has created an aviary in her home. Check out her
website (www.feathered-friends.com). You’ll love it.

Portable Animal Grooming

If you have transportation and want to be your own boss, how about setting
up a traveling Pet Washeteria? Well, you don’t have to call it that, but you can be
an animal groomer (if you’ve got a gift with animals) by setting up your
grooming salon inside a van. If the weather is warm and you can do the grooming

58
outdoors, all you need is a car or even a bike that pulls a cart, if you want to get a
lot of attention (which translates as ‘If you want to get a lot of free advertising.’)
Whatever you drive, make sure your name (and a great cartoon) are visibly
painted on the outside of the vehicle.
You’ll need to bring a galvanized bathtub, shampoo, combs, brushes, nail-
cutters, teeth-cleaners, scissors, a blow dryer (plus a way to hook it up to
electricity) and a portable platform with a harness setup to hold the creature still
while you comb it. You might be a very welcome visitor to the homes of people
who don’t have time to take their pets in to be groomed, just don’t want to do the
job themselves, and especially dislike hair and water all over their homes.

Agent
Talent Agent
If you saw the film “Broadway Danny Rose” and would still like to handle
talent, it’s in your blood, and you’ll do a great job. (See the movie again anyway,
it’s a gem!) Whether it be speakers, bands, presenters—these acts are all your
product, they’re what you’re selling. If they get paid, you get paid. So, although
finding work for your talent is all you’re technically responsible for, you can also
re-package, promote and market your acts. Help them dress better, line up
singing coaches, send out press releases and create a hot brand for each one.
Make your acts look good. Show that they’ve got something that’s a hot
commodity.
Clearly, the very first step is figuring out what you’re booking: models,
folksingers, look-alikes, motivational speakers. Once you’ve done that, get on the

59
phone and figure out who’s in charge of booking your people. Get to know the
people who hire (in corporations, organizations, etc.) and the venues where your
talent will show their stuff (hotels, event centers, small clubs). If you’re booking
models, your clients will be anyone in the fashion industry or in advertising
agencies, of course, but models attract attention and are wanted for everything
from store openings to walking around the floor of a boat show. If you’re
booking musical acts, all clubs and schools have someone who makes the
decision as to who performs and when, but musical acts are also wanted by
conferences and at corporate sales meetings. Get on the phone, call hotel sales or
banquet offices or convention centers to contact event planners in different
companies. Befriend event planners. Do favors if need be. Work for free. Show
them what you’ve got.
Here’s an interesting title that could give you all the detailed information you
need: How To Be Your Own Booking Agent And Save Thousands Of Dollars: A
Performing Artist’s Guide to a Successful Touring Career by Jeri Goldstein. I
haven’t read it but the table of contents is impressive. It looks like she’s done her
homework. If you can learn to be your own booking agent from this book, you
can learn how to do it for others, too.

Agents aren’t only for performers, however. Sometimes the best way to get
involved in what you love is to act as an agent and find work for someone you
admire.

Agent for Health & Wellness Practitioners

Did you ever wish you could have a wellness spa and bring in all the
fabulous teachers and healers you’ve worked with? Well, before you give up on
that idea because you don’t have the money to build a spa (and let me mention

60
that if you don’t already know how to run that kind of business you might not
enjoy it once you did) think about this:
If the part you love most about this dream is working with gifted healers, and
the longing that drives this dream is to bring their gifts to others—and maybe just
a bit of recognition for having such good taste and such a good heart—then you
should consider becoming an agent for healers instead of a spa owner.
As an agent you’d continue to seek and find exceptionally talented people in
the fields that are important to you—from yoga to dance therapy—and help to
place them in top spas around the country and the world. Many of them are not
recognized widely and most are underpaid. You could help them, help the people
who would discover them due to your efforts, and help yourself by taking a
percentage of their fee for finding them work. You’d also enjoy seeking out new,
talented people and whatever you paid for taking their classes would be tax
deductible! That’s a triple Win-Win-Win all around.
(If you’re interested in bringing shows to your town, see “B” for Booking
Agent.)

Artist
Yes, you can make a living as an artist. You can do the kind of art that people
pay money for (designing fabrics, layout for ads, decorating) or you can teach art
full-time—or as one of your many income streams (see “M” for Money)—or you
can make art, have a show and sell lots of it and become the art world’s darling
and get really, really rich. I don’t know how you do that last one but the people
who do it appear to be insiders, so if that’s the one you want, head for the art
world and get to know everybody. If you just want the excitement of making the
best art you can without worrying about whether or not it’s saleable, and to find a

61
good-enough source of income to keep you from starving to death, you’ll have a
very fine life. From everything I know about artists, they really know how to be
happy if they’re just allowed to do their art.
How does an artist become well known? Here’s some good advice from
working artists:
1) Keep turning out good work. Maintain the highest quality you’re
capable of.

2) Find a special subject or a niche that identifies you, like a brand. People
who want your work (and reviewers who want to write about it) will be
able to find you more easily that way.

3) Don’t isolate yourself. Hang out with other artists, especially those
whose work is similar or in some way related to yours, and when you
hear of opportunities be sure to share your information. (Select the
nicest, least competitive people to share with, incidentally. You’ll find
that they’re the ones who will return the favor whenever they can.)

4) Find a way to show your best work as often as you can. Don’t disappear
from the scene. If galleries won’t accept you, have your show in
restaurants, schools, or in the home of a fan who is willing to have an
open house on Saturdays or Sundays.

5) Get a copy of one of the Artist’s Marketplace-type books and read a

little every day. Before you select the book you want to own, look
through them all in your local library or bookstore. Then choose the one
that works best for you. (Don’t worry too much about your choice. You
can always go back and read the others as well!) These look useful:
Artist’s Market & Graphic Designer’s Market, 2004 by Mary Cox, The

62
 Artist's Guide to New Markets: Opportunities to Show and Sell Art
Beyond Galleries by Peggy Hadden and The Business of Being an Artist
by Daniel Grant. (I’ve seen an out of date title that looks so useful, but
no up-to-date editions and that is The 1982-1983 National Directory of
Shops, Galleries, Shows and Fairs by Sally Ann Davis (Editor). You
might try to find it online at a used book store. (Do a search for ‘used
books’. I found abebooks.com, powells.com, alibris.com and addall.com
—and there are many more to choose from. I’ve used most of them
myself, with great success.)

6) Never fail to put announcements of anything you do in the calendar/

events section of your local newspaper.

7) Speak in front of groups. Local organizations that meet on a regular

basis (like garden clubs, investment conferences and service
organizations like the Lions or Rotary Clubs, etc.) are always looking
for interesting speakers. Offer to talk about some aspect of art that might
interest them, like “Understanding Today’s Art” or “Collecting
Contemporary Art” or anything you think will draw an audience. If you
have a slide show prepared, speaking can be easy. (You stand in the
dark with a microphone and can read from your notes just like the
academics do!) Best of all, you can use many of your own paintings to
illustrate your points. (Don't forget to collect an email list at every
appearance! A mailing list is worth many times its weight in gold. If you
build one you’ll easily be able to contact interested people about your
next events.)

And thanks for being an artist. The world needs you.

63
 Actor
Misc. acting jobs
Everyone says actors can’t make money, but I’ve heard differently. Here are
some fun jobs that can bring in some extra income for an actor:
“I taught in a course—at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School—
where actors learned to play patients. The idea was to train medical students a bit
before they went out and actually treated real patients.”
But this type of course is now being taught all over the country. So, if you’d
like to teach others to simulate patients (a.k.a. patient simulators), you may want
to contact your local medical school. Alternatively, if you’d like to do the
impersonating yourself, you should contact the medical school and see if there is
someone who is coordinating the course. It is usually called “medical
interviewing” and it might be a good income source. Here’s another one:
“In our newspaper this week it was reported that people giving dinner parties
are hiring actors/ amateurs to attend, dress and behave as normal guests. Their
job is to have an argument or lover’s tiff part way through the night, or behave
obnoxiously to some of the other guests. This is supposed to spice up the dinner
party and make it more memorable. Just when you think you’ve heard
everything...”

64
 B
Banquet Waiter
Banquet waiting is not at all the same as waiting tables in a restaurant. Surely
you’ve seen waiters at weddings and big events wearing tuxedos and passing
hors d'oeuvres. Those are banquet waiters. What they do is provide excellent
service. They carry trays of food and serve from the left. They know how to pick
up food with two forks in one hand. They can pour wine beautifully, make an art
of folding napkins, and have the graciousness to make the customer feel they’re
getting their money’s worth. Who hires banquet waiters? Caterers. Look in your
yellow pages to find them. The big caterers all advertise so you can call to see if
they hire waiters. It’s usually good money, too.
If you’d like to find work out of town so you can also work on your novel,
call some small resorts outside of your city. You can be a banquet waiter in the
mountains or by the sea. You’ll be on duty for every meal, but you’ll have hours
off without lots of phone calls in between setups and clean-offs to be by yourself
and do your own work in a beautiful setting. I know someone who sublets her
New York apartment for the whole summer and works in a Catskills resort where
she lives for free. By the end of the summer she has an extra $4000 in her bank
account.
(Don’t forget to circle anything you like and write its H-Level in the margin.
And don’t forget to answer the questions What did you learn? What can you use

65
for your own dream? How would you proceed? Okay, I’m going to trust you
from now on. Don’t let yourself down.)

Bed and Breakfast

Have you ever dreamed of having a little place in the country (or a big one),
where you could offer grateful guests a unique, cozy getaway? That’s exactly
what Bed and Breakfasts are, and they range from simple accommodation to
fancy havens full of antiques and cultural goings-on. Sounds like a great dream
for someone with a lot of money, doesn’t it? Well, don’t cross it off just yet.
Here’s an idea that actually worked for someone who didn’t have an extra dime.
Jan and her husband found a B&B in the countryside about 45 minutes from
their home and after a few visits became friends with the owners. They learned
that the owners had been in the business for 12 years and wished they could get
away occasionally to do a little traveling themselves. Jan and her husband started
giving them a hand on their free weekends, and after a while (once real trust had
been established) arranged for them to get away for a whole week. This was the
test they needed to see if they actually enjoyed doing the work and having all the
responsibility instead of merely helping. They loved it. So, they made the couple
an offer to become partners. The owners could travel half the year while Jan and
her husband took over. Now the owners spend the winter months in Florida while
Jan and Billy buy into the partnership with “sweat equity” (that is, they aren’t
paid a salary for their work), live rent-free, and send the owners half of the
profits after expenses. When the owners return, Jan and Billy live in a small
apartment on the premises and help out, or do some traveling too.

66
 Did you love anything about this story? What other dream could you make
come true this way? How would you put this idea into action for yourself?

Beach Bum
If you’re someone who cares more about the quality of your life day to day
than long-term goals or status in society, if spending your days and nights by the
ocean makes you feel that life is worth living, you can find many ways to earn
money to support yourself. I’ve met people who do boat detailing (that means
cleaning up the boats while they’re in dock), and I even heard of one amateur
scuba diver who makes a steady income at the marina scraping barnacles off the
hulls of the sailboats.
If you like to sail and you know how to cook, you can sign on to an ocean
voyage as a chef (see “C” for Cooking). And, of course, you can be a very
comfortable beach bum if you manage to make money on your computer as the
“day traders” used to do when the stock market was at its hottest.
The point is, if you need to live by the sea, you can find ways to do it. It’s
simpler than it looks. You can be an electrician or a carpenter or handyman.
Don’t worry about losing your status as a Beach Bum if you’re doing any of
those perfectly respectable things. Your family will still call you a beach bum. I
promise
.

67
 Book lover for hire
You wouldn’t think a book lover could build a career around her passion, but
I know it’s very possible. I love this story. It’s about someone who insisted she
didn’t know what she wanted, but of course, like everyone, she did. She was sure
she couldn’t think of a thing she loved until I threw some random choices at her:
Do you love athletics? Are you creative? Do you like books?
“Books! I love them!” she said.
“That’s more like it! What kind?”
“Any kind. I just love turning people on to books.”
Her friend walked up with a huge tome under her arm and said, “She’s good at it
too! Look at this book! I never would have picked it up. Now I can’t put it
down!”
“Why didn't you tell me you loved turning people on to books?” I asked.
“Because there’s nothing you can do with it,” she said.
“Really? How do you know that?”
“Well, I can’t think of anything.”
“I can,” I said and started to run this list past her, just of what happened to
occur to me that I know is possible:

1) Teach your skill to teachers and parents.

2) Get a small website with Tips on it—one of the students would probably
set it up for free, or a grateful teacher could make it a class project.
Become known as a resource and an expert.

68
3) Then you could send out a newsletter with recommendations for books.
You might get publishers to advertise in your newsletter, or just pay you
to do this because you are helping them sell books.

4) On your website you might have a bulletin board like I do, but design it
for kids. They can tell you which books they’re assigned and you can
show them why those books are exciting. You might have a discussion
area for teachers, too.

5) How to get paid? There are a lot of people who would like to know how
you turn people on to books when they can’t: teachers, parents,
publishers. You can run classes on the telephone and let people pay to
attend by sending you money via Paypal.

6) You can also ask your audiences to tell you what exactly you did that
turned them on to books and figure out how to teach it. Then go on the
lecture circuit. Talk to parents. Or to teachers. Credentials? Your
website, your bulletin board, articles written about you.

7) Warm up at the local library until you’re used to talking in front of

people. (“Oh, I can do that already,” she said!)

8) At an independent bookstore—maybe even a mega bookstore—you

could have a regular speaking gig there like authors do, but you’ll get
people excited about someone else’s books because that’s what you love
to do. You’ll sell books for the bookstore and you’ll get a lot of
confidence about the value of what you’re doing.

9) Have a little reading circle for your church or organization to help build
your reputation and your mailing list. Especially your email list. You can

69
 notify people where you’ll be speaking and you can send them a bi-
weekly recommendation.

10) You can speak in front of publishers and organizations that encourage
reading clubs.

11) You could be a consultant to reading groups: put an ad in the paper that
says, “Don’t know what to read next? I’ll visit your reading group and
turn you on to great books.”

12) You could find a school teacher friend of a friend and visit her classroom
to turn the kids on to reading; maybe most of them wouldn’t listen but
two or three would probably weep with joy—“Is that good enough for
you?” I asked. “Yes!!” she said.

13) You could develop a reputation through steady public relations. That
means getting into local newspapers, clipping any articles written about
you and creating a press kit to send to radio and TV shows.

14) You might get into national magazines when you’re ready. (You can get
into trade magazines and e-zines more easily and sooner.)

15) ...and then you could get on the lecture circuit and talk to parents’ groups
or teachers on how to make young people want to read, how to start the
fire in them for reading; you could get a few advertisers and do a webcast
on the internet, and call it “Irresistible Books”: talk about your favorite
book each week.

16) Finally, in some hospitals (and nearby libraries), doctors will hire a
Bibliotherapist for depressed patients. The Bibliotherapist creates a list of

70
 books for the patient to read to help them through their illness, or at least,
cheer them up. If you find this idea intriguing you can read more about it
in Salon Magazine. Here’s the link:

www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/08/08/bibliotherapy

When I was through her mouth was open, so I said, “Am I making you crazy
or do these look like useful ideas?” and she said, “My God, they’re amazing—
would you write them down? I had no idea!”
Now, take a look at that list again. If it’s possible to create an income from
the gift of making people love books, you can use the same methods to create
income from anything you love at all. Give it some serious thought. What do you
love to do that you were convinced couldn’t make money? Can you rewrite this
story and plug in what you love instead?
Finally, if you love reading books and need to earn some money and/or do
some good, there are people hired by colleges to read books onto tapes or CDs
for vision and learning impaired students. Look in the student employment
office, where some jobs are made available to people not connected with the
school.

Booking Agent
Colleges have budgets for bringing entertainment to the campus, and the
students who take on the role of booking agent do the hiring. They find and hire
bands, stand-up comics and motivational speakers to come to their campus. I’ve
spoken to a few of them through the years, and all of them told me they intend to
continue in the profession once they graduate, because it’s so much fun. If you’re

71
a booking agent you’ve got the auditorium and you’re looking for talent to fill it.
Your job is to find and bring in (“book”) people who will draw good audiences.
It’s a definite inside track for a groupie, but also for someone who likes to help
discover talent. If you know of a good musical group or comedian who is still
flying below the radar you can have a real influence on their success—a
satisfying accomplishment for a true admirer of talent.
To track down the people you want to bring to your auditorium, look on the
back of their CDs or in their latest book for contact information and call their
agent. If they don’t yet have an agent, call them personally. You’d be surprised
who you’ll find if you call information or check for phone numbers on the
internet.

Business on a bike
Most people think the only business you can start with bicycles is a sales and
repair business, but you can start a completely different kind of bike business and
make a real splash. That’s what Doug Woods of Boulder Bike Taxi did. He just
started a short time ago and now his bikes and “drivers” are carting people all
over Boulder, Colorado in something that looks suspiciously like rickshaws. (The
most charming one is the “Wedding Limo” in white with gold trim.) The carts
attracted so much attention he got written up in all the local papers. Soon he got a
call from Celestial Teas asking to advertise on the sides of his bike-driven carts
and as it turns out, most of his revenue is from advertising!
Doug did his homework by traveling to a number of similar businesses
around the country and asking their advice for his business plan. He got investors
and everything! Now he is doing so well he has plans to branch out into other

72
cities. He could be one of those people who has an IPO and gets on the Nasdaq,
and then somebody else will have to write about him because, as I’ve stated, I’m
sticking with small-time operators. But maybe we can still go to parties in his
mansion!
Doug’s company transports people for the most part—although I’m sure he
also does small deliveries (no pianos, I assume)—but you can use this kind of
bike business for many things besides transport. In fact, almost any business that
can be done from a van or on the road, can be done with a bike and rickshaw (see
“V” for Van-based businesses).
If you’ve got more imagination than money, get your hands on one rickshaw,
make it really pretty, and spend your days driving it around where people can see
you. I’ve already mentioned portable dog grooming in the last chapter, but you
can do all kinds of things people need—and you can do them right now! If you’re
riding around on the city streets, people in cars are going to look at you. Get a
name like “Help In A Hurry” and write a list of the kinds of things you do right
under your name on the side of the rickshaw to give them the idea: Take down
drapes and deliver them to the dry cleaners, and bring them back (and put them
up again!) Pick up your kid from a party, or deliver food for a caterer. Just make
sure your telephone number is very conspicuously painted on the side of your
rickshaw so it’s easy to see, and be sure you’ve got a cell phone with you.
If you don’t like driving around in traffic, you can carry packages (and
people) to their cars in a really large shopping mall with a really huge parking lot.
You can help seniors or little kids or the disabled get around those big, unfriendly
spaces, too. Who would pay you? Well, since you’re just tooling around getting
free advertising for yourself, no one has to pay you at all. However, if you really
prefer this business over the “Help In a Hurry!” idea, the merchants in the mall

73
might be interested. You just have to head into the main office and do a little
selling. You’re sure to be the first parking lot rickshaw person in your town.
(And hopefully, the people you’re transporting will love you and give you a tip.)
Can you think of any other loveable, attention-getting services that might
attract advertisers without using rickshaws? Write them down. (Call friends and
co-workers to help you come up with some more. That’s good practice!)

C
Captain of your own ship
So many of us assume that dreams like this are for children, but just because
a dream sounds grand or you’ve had it since you were a child doesn’t mean it’s
silly or out of reach. If you have a dream of being a Captain, then that’s what you
must be. If you know how to sail a ship, here are some ideas. If you don’t, do a
search on the internet to find a school that will teach you. (Or better yet, find a
captain who will take you on as an apprentice. That doesn’t sound easy, but give
it a try. You’re sure to learn something, even if it’s just that some captains won’t
talk to you!)
Find someone with a yacht who needs it moved to a warm climate
Be a ferryboat captain (I met one who had a degree in Philosophy!)
Charter a boat for historical excursions on the rivers of the U.S.

74
 Here’s one of my favorite entries (in one of my favorite career books, Cool
Careers for Dummies which you can find in almost any bookstore):

“Tugboat Operator. This is a sailor’s job that pays $50,000-60,000 and

doesn’t require long stints away from home. And the job market is good.
Fear of oil spills has resulted in regulations requiring most large ships to be
towed into dock by a tug. Most tug operators get their experience working
on party boats or fishing boats, or by attending a two-year maritime
program. See International Organization of Master Mates and Pilots:
www.bridgedeck.org. See also: jobxchange.com/xisetoc.htm for job
listings.”

If being a captain is a dream you don’t want to—or can’t—presently turn into
reality, don’t abandon it. Do readings of books about sea captains or present a
film festival of great sailing movies in a public place by the marina—or on
someone’s boat. (To earn some money from this endeavor, bring books and
videos/DVDs to sell. Contact catalogs or shops that sell to sailors and offer
discounts with tea and cake after the show.)

Cowboy
This is another dream that most of us just assume is impossible. Well, it isn’t.
The following comes from Joyanna, a Success Teams Leader in Toronto and
Vancouver:
Paul, an accountant, did not like his job. After unsuccessfully trying to
find a profession he might like better, we discovered he really wanted to be
a cowboy! Of course, Paul resisted, saying it was silly—how could you
make a living that way? Paul’s team didn’t agree and brought magazines
devoted to horses to the meetings. He committed to weekly homework of
visiting local stables. Within a few weeks he signed up for a horse grooming
course. Next, he took a course in horse massage! Now the team calls him the
Horse Whisperer because of the special ability he has to connect on a
profound level with horses.

75
 The story doesn’t end there. Paul got in touch with several ranches in Canada
inquiring if they might be able to use his accounting skills...and got several
offers! Paul jumped at one of them and will soon be doing accounting (and taking
care of horses) at a ranch 100 miles from his home.

Film Critic
Being a critic doesn’t automatically make you a bad guy! If you’re wild
about movies and you’re seen as representing the viewpoint, for example, of
twenty-something film audiences, you can be a film critic and write a column for
local newspapers. Advertisers who want to reach the group of people you
represent would be interested in the publication you’re in and that means the
publication would be interested in you. Make your viewpoint clear—write six
sample columns about recent films you’ve seen and submit them to the local
newspapers. Be sure to spell out just who you are and what group of people you
speak for.
You can cut your teeth by starting out on the internet with your own
newsletter and mailing your reviews to the filmmakers themselves, as well as
everyone else you know. Let the local movie house know what you’re doing. If
you like a film that’s showing there, the manager might direct people to your
website.
The same goes if you want to be an art-, restaurant-, theater-, or music critic.
Just make sure you’re catering to a very specific audience and concentrate on
building your readership. That will be your key to getting published (and paid!)
(Remember, thinking is not a spectator sport. Keep taking notes.)

76
 Coaching
What is a coach?
A coach helps people who feel stuck and need action. In that way, he or she
is different from a therapist. The reason coaches can make such a huge difference
is the same reason Success Teams and structured classes make a huge difference.
Coaches, teams and teachers have new information people might not have
themselves, so they can give needed advice. They often have personal contacts so
they can help you get the right doors opened. They give you assignments and
make you show up to account for your progress, so you actually take one step
after another—whether you’re a positive thinker or not. This is called
“accountability” and it makes things happen like nothing else in the world.
Originally—after its use in sports, that is—“coach” meant career coach, and
while the profession developed from a number of sources, I think the idea came
mostly from big companies. When they’d fire a top-level executive, they’d pay
serious money (over $15,000 per employee) to have a support person from an
outplacement firm keep them company, guide them through the demoralizing
process of finding a new job (or not), and so on. But corporations were by no
means the only places to use coaching. I was one of the earliest people to be
called a “career coach” in the U.S.—and I didn’t work with corporations or their
downsized ex-employees at all.
When these people became known as coaches, an entire industry opened up.
Coaching basically means you meet on a regular basis with someone (you can
coach via telephone or computer), and help them think of steps they can take to
improve their situation. You’re also there to encourage follow-through and

77
accountability. If someone is supposed to make a phone call, you help them
figure out who to call and what to say. And you check to make sure they did it.
How much do you charge? At this time, the corporate-downsized people are
paying $300 to $900 a month for three sessions. But if the corporation isn’t
picking up the bill, that can be a little steep for an individual. You’ll get a sense
for the right fees by how many customers you get!

How to get started

Don’t judge your effectiveness by how well your support works with your
family. If you want to help them, find another life coach and send them to her.
Families and friends have all kinds of resistance to getting advice from people
close to them. But if you’ve found yourself trying to fix their lives since time
immemorial, you’ve gotten great practice and you’re obviously a good life coach.
You can find out if it’s right for you before you sign up for any coach training.
Here’s how:
First, find your niche (you’ll see lots of options in the next pages).
Second, join any relevant organizations that have small discussion groups
(like churches, National Organization for Women, etc.) Sit in on the discussion
groups and help people. You’ll get noticed. Explain that you’re a coach. That
kind of experience will show you who you are, and it will show other people as
well. If you decide this is for you, there are two possible routes you can take to
become a Generalist (a.k.a., Life) Coach:

1) get trained and certified by one of the new schools of coaching. You can
figure on at least six months and about $4,000 dollars at some of them,
less at others. (See CoachU.com and Coachville.com); or

78
 2) just do it. Remember, if it’s something you’d love to do, you have a
talent and that will draw clients.

So, what can you coach? Start by thinking of how many people with different
needs would benefit from having a coach. Here are a few that come to mind:

Food coach
My friend Gustav is a wonderful chef. His biggest complaint? “People don’t
know how to eat!” He decided to become a food coach.
“When people see how different tastes go together, they become gourmets.
My job is to teach them how to really enjoy what they cook and serve.” He is
constantly coming up with imaginative new ways to create dishes that are out of
this world. He is currently planning a website whose purpose is to build a
mailing list and start selling his recipes. He’s going to include a bulletin board
and a free advice page. For more ideas, see “Cooking” below.

Budget coach
If you’re good at keeping track of money, you should consider being a
budget coach. You’d help people get out of debt, checking up on them every
week or two and be someone they can call (like a sponsor in Alcoholics
Anonymous) when they’re having trouble sticking to their commitment but who
gets paid. If you’re someone who’s really good at getting back on your feet
financially, and if you’ve helped all your friends do it (probably free of charge),
it means you’ve got something going for you and all you need is to be able to get
near a phone three times a month for each client.

79
 What else can you coach?
I just met a memoir coach—she’ll help you write your memoirs by meeting
with you on the telephone three times a month to hear what you’ve written and
help guide you towards a successful book.
You can be a script coach or a book coach or a thesis coach. A writer I know
used to send off drafts to his manuscript coach and loved getting it back full of
notes and comments the next day.
I’ve heard good things about performance anxiety coaches—an actor friend
of mine had become a director, not because that’s really what he wanted but
because he tended to freeze during performances at unpredictable times. He went
to one of these coaches, and now he’s acting without any problems and phasing
himself out of directing.
Some people on my bulletin board have suggested that someone with social
talents become a friendship coach which sounds like a sensational idea to me.

You should be looking at any/all of your strong points as possibilities (don’t

be modest!) Do you have a keen sense of style? Are you great at helping people
put resumes together and prepare for job interviews? Is writing your strong suit?
How about party planning? Or wedding planning? That’s not a “planner,” you
understand. You’d meet with your client in person once or twice to set up their
“to-do” list and you’d schedule phone appointments to keep them moving and
help them troubleshoot problems. These are all areas where coaches are sought
and paid (sometimes very well).

Home business coach

If you’ve started and run your own business, you can coach someone else to
do the same. (Don’t you wish you had had someone knowledgeable to keep track

80
of you, help you get out there and start marketing yourself, remind you to keep
up-to-date with your bookkeeping, tell you when you need an assistant, etc. when
you were just beginning?)

Charisma coach
I kid you not. I knew someone who went to a class in How to Have
Charisma. The teacher was so good that a number of students hired her to meet
with them every two weeks to continue the training. She helped them look good,
but only so they could forget entirely about how they looked! (They were
allowed to look in the mirror only three times each day.) According to her
philosophy, charisma came from having a strong center and looking at others
rather than worrying about them looking at you. To build each student’s center,
she had them read philosophy and act in amateur plays! To teach them to look at
others, she taught them to ask themselves what role any person they met could
play in a movie. Because it was all too easy to fall back into old habits of self-
consciousness or shyness, having a phone session with the coach twice a month
was a very fine gift each student gave herself.
You know, of course, that there are singing coaches who get opera singers
ready for a performance and there are riding coaches to train horseback riders.
But did you know that there are organizing coaches who will set up your home or
work space in person and then do follow-up meetings with you on the phone
regularly to see how well you’re doing at throwing things out, keeping your bills
in one place and being careful about bringing new things into your home?

In a pinch, what could you show someone how to do? Without thinking about
it too much, just move over to those nice, wide margins and start writing

81
everything you can think of that you could teach to someone who just didn’t
know how to do it.

Cooking
If you love to cook, don’t automatically sign up for Cordon Bleu or buy a
restaurant. You might already know what you need to know to do what you love
best, and you might not like owning a restaurant. There are lots of ways to earn
money cooking that might suit you better.

Be a personal Chef
So many people don’t know how to cook, don’t have the time, or simply
don’t want to! If you were a personal chef, you could create and deliver the meals
that busy working people (especially parents) and singles who just don’t cook
would want to eat. Maybe there’s someone out there who likes custom meals, has
special nutritional needs or allergies or has difficulty getting out to shop for food.
Regardless, this is the perfect job for anyone who actually likes to make a meal.
What if you don’t have a “legal” kitchen? Do what someone on my bulletin
board did: rent the kitchen of a nearby church. It will surely be licensed and the
church might be very happy to earn income at times they’re not using the
facilities themselves.
Word of mouth is going to be your most powerful advertising tool, so offer to
cater local meetings (at cost, the first time only). Ask the store where you shop
for the freshest foods to post a flyer promoting your service—and in exchange
you’ll promote their store. There are networking organizations (some of them
charge a fee) that help personal chefs get hired: personalchefsnetwork.com,
pchefnet.com and hireachef.com.

82
Run a private Dinner Club
This is an idea not many people think of, but those that have done it really
love it (check the rule books in your part of the world but last I heard, a private
eating club doesn’t require the same licenses as a public restaurant). If you like to
cook, try creating upscale dinner parties for singles. You need access to a nice,
big house or apartment. See if someone will loan you his/hers in exchange for
being at every party, or in exchange for getting publicity for his/her cooking/
catering. Invite someone with people skills to get the conversation rolling, or
come up with a topic for discussion. I read about a couple who started that way,
and were so successful they later opened up a restaurant. The end of the story is
interesting: they found the restaurant required so much work that had nothing to
do with their first loves—cooking and people—that they closed it and returned
the action to their homes. The upshot was that they were much happier and made
considerably more money as well.

Moral: All cooking doesn’t have to take place in a restaurant. Think of some
other places you might enjoy cooking for a profit. Here are some ideas to get you
started:

1) Cook at flea markets or ethnic fairs. (No ethnic fairs in your region? Start
one. Start a number of them in different locations.)

2) Cook special diets (like Atkins) and deliver them to people at work.

3) Cook on yachts and sailboats and see the world!

4) Be an itinerant cooking teacher and travel the country doing lunch-time

programs for employees at corporations. Show them how to cook fast,
simple, nourishing meals. Or do programs for students at colleges on

83
 how to cook with a textbook in one hand, or how to cook economically
without getting scurvy, or how to cook on a Bunsen Burner! (Go to an
online used book dealer and see if you can find a grand book from my
college days called How To Cook A Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher. The wolf in
the title refers to the ‘wolf at the door.’ I still fondly remember a highly
nutritious meal made from castoff vegetables discarded by supermarkets
which was cunningly called ‘Sludge.’)

5) Do a professional video shoot of all your classes (many companies and

colleges have the facilities for this and might be interested if it defrays
some of your fee) and show them to your local public TV station (along
with some kind of weird cookbook) to see if they want to do a show with
you, or put the videos up on your own website and sell them (and the
cookbooks) online.

D
Dive in the ocean
(See also “B” for Beach Bum)
Diving for a living is not the pie-in-the-sky type of goal it appears to be.
There are many opportunities for certified divers, and more are being created all
the time as sea exploration becomes a high-priority for governments and
businesses. There’s money to be made in scuba diving. Here are some ideas:

84
1) Move near the ocean and find any kind of temporary job to tide you
over until the good stuff starts happening. Once there, start doing
diving-connected activities for extra cash and to build lots of contacts.
Scuba divers can make good money cleaning barnacles off the bottoms
of boats at any salt water docks. All you need are sturdy brushes and a
metal scraper. Make up cards and fliers and leave them in all the marina
offices you can find. The work pays well and you can make your own
hours.

2) Create a nestegg for your dream by saving your pennies so you can go
on a diving trip. Your local dive shop will have all the information you
need.

3) Contact reclamation projects for shipwrecks. Check out the military,

police and rescue units and find out what they’re looking for. Search for
any employer who might pay for your training and/or move you out to
the ocean.

4) Build more and more contact with friends who love diving like you do.
Take classes and make friends with your dive instructor. You’ll often
find a door into something exciting (like underwater archaeology, which
always needs volunteer divers).

5) Start a meetup group at www.meetup.com. The people who attend will

know about all kinds of opportunities and ways to make money from
diving.

85
 6) Another way to get diving friends: put an ad in the Personal Column,
“Wanted: Activity partner who loves scuba diving for enthusiastic talk
and sharing information.”

7) Craigslist (www.craigslist.com) has a section specifically for “activity

partners”. Even if you don’t find them in your own town, you can find
them in other towns, and start a friendship through emails and telephone
calls.

8) Get in touch with divers through websites. Some can be found far from
the sea, such as the Triangle Divers Scuba Diving Club in New
England!

9) Find some discussions on Usenet Newsgroups for even more insider

information and support. Here’s what my search through Google groups
found: One person wrote that he had just completed his Open-Water
certification and dives in Alaska in November! He said he was going on
a scuba trip but was hesitant as he had so little experience. An answer:
“For your first dives, you can team with the divemaster as a dive
buddy...Congrats on the O/W cert and your cahones to get in Alaskan
waters.”

10) Work in a dive shop. If you’re not near the ocean, work on a dive
website, at a diving school, at a diving equipment retail outlet.

86
 Documentaries
As everyone will quickly tell you, it’s expensive and difficult to make
serious, feature-length documentaries and it’s even harder to get them sold and
shown. Oh, and everybody wants to do it, so the competition is fierce. It’s almost
impossible, ruinous, heartbreaking.
When the nay-sayers are finished, think about this: One, you don’t need
much money at all, depending on what you want to shoot. Two, you don’t need
experience or credentials unless you’re looking for a job, so be your own boss.
Three, no one wants to do the documentary you want to do anyway, so just
search your heart and you’ll find the subject that needs to be done. You’ll see
right away that you’re the one to do it. Four, there are many places where you
can show your documentary (depending on the subject). Five, Steven Spielberg
started by making movies in his backyard as a kid. And Six, who can stop you?
You don’t need to ask anyone’s permission or get anyone’s approval to make
a documentary. You can make a high-quality short documentary on any subject
you care about. Pick a subject that really matters to you and you’ll find you have
a special instinct for asking the right questions of the right people.

Start close to home. Do the story of your neighborhood: its character, how it
came to be the way it is, its history; or the oldest people in your town, where
they’re from, what they’ve seen, how things have changed, what they want to tell
younger people.
Or do a documentary about Love. Interview anyone who’s willing to talk
about what love means to them. If you want the real skinny, hide their faces and
let them talk. You could do something fascinating here.

87
 How about “Kids Today”? What do ten-year-olds care about these days in
your neighborhood? How about comparing it with kids in other neighborhoods
and see what comes of it? Or compare it with your parents’ memories. Or your
own.
The point? There are things that matter to you and nobody’s filming them.
Pick up your camera and shoot them until a story emerges. Then, go get the
pieces you left out when you didn’t yet know what the story would be.
Want some more ideas? Shoot a documentary on all the ethnic groups in your
town: get interviews about their histories and donate them to your local library.
They might put your documentary on their calendar of events and even ask you
to address the audience afterwards. Or take your documentaries to the local
movie theater. If it’s a huge chain and won’t let you, try the hall of some service
club like the Lion’s Club or the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and stage a
documentary festival every few months. Advertise for people to bring in photos
and stories that you can put into your film, and shoot some more!
Do a documentary about someone’s family, and let them give it as a present
at the next birthday of the oldest member. Interview the owners of any small
business in town, from a dry cleaner to a diner, and put together a short film on
the history of their store that they can show on a loop in their window (or at the
local TV station). Volunteer to teach the craft of filmmaking to kids in school.
See what happens when you put a camera in their hands and turn them loose.
You might wind up with an Oscar and a stage full of kids to help you accept it!
Did that get your juices flowing? What's the subject of the documentary you
should start making tomorrow?

88
 Dairy farmer’s relief pitcher
If you know something about dairy farming (or would like to learn) and
sometimes wish you had your own dairy farm, but know perfectly well you’d
never be willing to live and work there all the time, you can be a relief person for
a dairy farmer. As you should know, a dairy farmer has to be there every day,
morning till night, to take care of milking and caring for the herd. They never get
a day off, much less a vacation in Florida for a few weeks in the winter.
You could step in like an angel from heaven. I don’t know what kind of
money arrangement you’d want to set up , but if you have the kind of work that’s
seasonal or that can be done from anywhere (internet-based for example), you
might want to contact some of your local farmers to see if any of them need a
vacation. Offer to help out for a day or two as an introduction for both of you.
You’ll know soon enough if you both have the tolerance for each other’s ways.
Think about it, this could be a service, like a part-time employment agency.
Find the sons and daughters of farmers who have moved to the cities because a
full-time life of farming wasn’t for them, but who also miss the beauty of the
farms of their childhood. Maybe they’d like to be the relief pitchers. Why should
it be all or nothing for them? Everyone deserves to have more than one kind of
life if they want one. You can help them get it.

Day trip planner

Do you have a talent for thinking up fun ways to spend the day? Do friends
ask you what they should do with visitors from out of town or bored kids on
school holidays? You could start a service for people who would love day trips!

89
 Have a free telephone message for great things to do with kids, romantics,
seniors, creative types and adventurers each day. Post that phone number on
supermarket bulletin boards or in the “Events” section of your newspaper. On
some days you can add “I’ll be taking up to 15 people on a tour of beautiful
Wave Hill on Saturday at 11:00 am, rain or shine. Come if you love to read, stroll
and take photos or if your kids have too much energy to be indoors. We’ve got an
amazing historian coming along who turns historical sites into action movies
when he talks. The cost is $10 per person if you bring your own lunch, $20 if you
want a delicious basil chicken picnic with wine and dessert.”
Next week offer a tour of the museums, galleries or even inside the studios of
working artists in your town with an art historian: “The artists who have offered
to open their studios will talk about their art and answer questions. Get on my
email list for more instructions on joining me for a fantastic day! Come to
www.neatdaytripsforall.com.” (I made up that website, but you knew that, right?)
If you had a bicycle (or a motorcycle, depending on what your passengers
will tolerate) with a sidecar (or that rickshaw again!) you could take elderly or
disabled people for great trips through parks or any parts of town they might like
to see.

If you need more ideas for what to do, you can use existing activities. Here’s
a pitch by an enthusiastic fan on my bulletin board for naturalist clubs.

Love Animals? Nature? Take a Day Trip to the Great Outdoors! Join a
Naturalists Club. You will find all kinds of people who love everything
outdoors...botany, geo-physics, birds, fish, tigers, lizards, you name it. And
they are always networked to other Naturalists Clubs.

Naturalists Clubs always have walks and hikes and cross-country skiing and
boating and camping activities of every kind. No matter your fitness level,

90
 there is something for you and your special interest. They often arrange work
parties and preservation projects, too... (Ours were nesting boxes for
Mountain Bluebirds; lakeshore clean-up for shore birds and shore fish and it
was great fun. We met great people, too, with every interest, and found
resources we never dreamed of. Age is no barrier.)

And here are some books to read aloud to your happy troupe during lunch:

“The Complete Walker” by Colin Fletcher. Colin has walked the Himalayas,
the Grand Canyon, deserts, and the Rockies north to south, perhaps the
Andes, too.
“Feasting on Wild Edibles” and any other book by Bradford Angier.

E
Escort
No, I’m not advising you to get into the steamy world of sex work. There are
many other kinds of escorts. Any subject you’re interested in has its visitors to
your city. Some are celebrities and some are ordinary people who love what you
love: photography, art collections, antique autos. Others just want to have a good
experience in your town, and if you’re one of those local treasures who know all
the best places to eat, all the best shops or shows or music, you could make their
visit a memorable one. If, for example, you know something about art history
you can earn some money as an escort or tour service to corporations with
visitors from out of town. Women travelers would probably be very happy to
have someone to escort them to events like gallery openings.

91
 There are also escort services on cruise ships where you can actually work as
an independent contractor to be a woman’s escort on the ship: you take her to
dinner, dance with her, and entertain her with intelligent conversation. Nothing
more than good company is required.

Author Escort
Publishers hire freelance escorts, too. An author escort, for example, is a sort
of a personal assistant/minder to authors while they’re on book tours, whose
main job is getting them to the radio and TV shows, book signings and
newspaper interviews on time. I've had wonderful escorts, hired by my
publishers, and never would have found my way around without them. I found
this article at bluemooncommunications.com:

Author escorts are professionals who know the media of their city and can
get you there on time. Often, they’ll even book the media for you or at least
provide you with a media list of people you can contact to secure interviews.
All of this isn’t cheap, of course, and rates usually range from $135 for an
eight-hour day to $180. Some charge mileage or fees for booking media on
top of that. But talk about a investment that is well worth the dollar! What
good would it do you to schedule an interview with CBS This Morning or
Oprah if you got lost on your way there and missed it entirely?

The best way to find an author escort for nearly any city in the country is to
contact the National Author Escort Network Pro Motion Network. Emily
Liasy (pronounced Lie-zee) can find you just about anybody.

92
 Expediter
I know someone who makes a really good living as an expediter. (I never
heard of the job title before, either.) She works for insurance companies and
contractors and basically stands in line to get their permits for them. She’s got the
personality for it, and doesn’t become impatient waiting in line for six hours to
get to the next level. Expediters get paid a lot of money because they push along
(they expedite) the horrific and sometimes infuriating process of getting permits,
and processing paperwork, which could otherwise hold up their clients’ valuable
business.
If you have unusual tolerance for the kinds of details that make others want
to pull their hair out, you might be able to do something interesting with it. Call
any company that might need your services and tell them what you do. (Import-
Export people come to mind at once.) Write up a short sales piece that educates
those who don’t know what an “expediter” is to the glories of not having to
worry about the problems you’ll handle for them. Meanwhile, the rest of us will
dream of being able to afford hiring you for ourselves!

There is no business that doesn’t need an expediter, just some who haven’t
realized it yet. I’ve found expediters who help researchers find human tissues for
research, and trucking businesses have expediter booths at their expos and shows.
But what I don’t find (and would love to!) is someone who can expedite for
individuals. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone get through the details of
purchasing a cell phone or digital camera or webcam or PDA for each person’s
unique needs? Who has the time to compare and understand these things? How
about someone who can expedite your understanding of an insurance policy? Or
an elder care facility for a family member? How can you trust the salesperson?

93
Of course, you can always scout out the details on Usenet newsgroups or do a
deep search on the internet, but that’s just not a good use of most people’s time,
and it might be worth some money to get someone to do that for you. Like, who
can sleuth the truth about what a company is really like to work for? Who can
understand the forms you have to fill out to get a grant or become a non-profit?
The information is often available and people who don’t mind fighting their way
through books and networking and interviews and newsgroups might think it’s
no big deal...but oh, is it a big deal for the rest of us! If one existed, that’s an
expediter who just might get a lot of work.

How to charge? Like a lawyer with a retainer. You can charge $50 an hour or
accept a retainer of, say $100 for up to 5...uh... expeditions. :-) If you set up shop,
call me first. I need a lot of help.

Expert, become one

If you’re someone who knows more than the average person about something
(and everyone is), that makes you an expert. Don’t assume you need higher
degrees or formal training. Find what you already know and examine it carefully.
I had a client in the Bronx, years ago, a young mother who said the only
thing she was good at was taking care of her kids. She knew she was a great mom
and wished she could help other mothers, because she knew it was hard for many
of them. But she had no confidence that anyone would listen to her. She had
never finished high school and couldn’t even volunteer at a community center
because she didn’t drive and had to wait for her husband to come home after
work to take her.

94
 I sent her (by taxi, at first) to an upscale NOW chapter full of wealthy,
educated women who held discussion groups on different subjects one night a
week. She sat in on one group saying nothing until one woman mentioned how
hard it was to handle her infant child who was up all night. She jumped in with
advice and her confidence had other mothers surrounding her the first night. Her
advice worked and soon she became a group leader at the meetings. Before long,
she was doing phone consultations any time of the day or night (she didn’t mind
a bit!) and the women insisted on paying her for her invaluable help. “You do
more for my life than my therapist!” one said. “You do more than my
obstetrician!” said another.
She later went back for her high school equivalency certificate and the
women she helped taught her to drive. She fulfilled dreams she’d never
attempted before because of the respect she got from the women she was helping.
And she got that respect because she deserved it for her expertise.
Here’s another example: I heard of someone who had worked as a secretary
for an art restoration house for many years, and learned a lot more about antiques
than most of us will ever know. She didn’t consider herself an expert because the
firm she worked for was filled with “real” experts. But she did know how many
people watch the hit TV show Antique Road Show, and how much they wished
they could find out what their antiques were worth, so she started her own one-
woman antique road show. She’d travel to small rural towns to look for antiques
for herself or for friends and would set up in advance (often in the local
schoolhouse) an afternoon where she’d help people figure out what their antiques
were worth. She carried many reference books with her and hooked up a
computer as well, but working in the office of a restoration firm all those years,
she saw first-hand how much people were willing to spend for what kinds of

95
pieces, and her instincts were excellent. She helped people understand what their
antiques were worth, and bought the ones she liked at what she could prove were
fair prices.
A letter I received last year proves the point:

“Many people find old paintings in aunt Lucy’s attic and have no clue as to
what they actually have. An example: an alumnus from my college went to
an estate sale and bought this huge painting for about $25. It is nearly 20ft
tall, a portrait of three generations of men. He decided to donate it to the art
department of the school if they would help him have its worth evaluated.
His $25 purchase turned out to be an original Italian Master worth
$20,000,000. Yes, that’s twenty million. Dollars. The Italian government
even brought a case against him to have it returned as a national treasure,
but I believe it is still housed in the Fine Arts Department of Spring Hill
College. You never know what treasures are out there, and how many
people have no idea what they actually have.”

If you become an expert in crafts fairs, for example, you’ll add to your
present knowledge by searching for lots of ways to bring in money that you
didn’t know about before. You might also have a website and a short newsletter
(see “Mailing List”) and use it to sell your items, or even better, to sell your
expertise to other crafts people. This goes for absolutely any area that interests
you, the more esoteric the better.
Don’t know what area you want to learn about? Try this exercise: think of
ten things you’d like to be an expert in if you could swallow a magic pill and
have instant knowledge. Aerodynamics? Botany? Chess? Just let your
imagination go. Write as many as you can think of in the margins of this page.
Now for the fun part. Just for a laugh, go to Yahoo.com or google.com and
do a search for each word you wrote on that list. Go on, actually try it. Now take
a look at what came up: those links—which are now just a click away—are all
the information you need to start building your expertise right now! What if you

96
find nothing for one of your items? No aardvark sculptors on the entire internet?
It’s unlikely, but it would be fantastic!! That means you got there first. The time
has come for you to put up that website on your own.
Experts never want to stop learning, and these days it’s easier than ever.
You’ll find books in your bookstore or online. You can go over to
www.soyouwanna.com to find advice on how to do anything at all, from experts!
You can find magazine articles on your subject in The Reader’s Guide To
Periodical Literature at your library. At one time, that huge set of books was my
bible for learning about anything. Once you’ve read a number of articles on any
one topic, you’ll get a sense of what’s going on that very few books can give you.
And you’ll get names and places so you can make contact if you want to learn
more.
If you really want to be up to date in some field, to know what’s going on
today, head over to the internet newsgroups and read what the people in that area
are saying to each other. Go to websites on your subject and get on their mailing
lists, too. Pretty soon you’ll be an expert in anybody’s estimation. Here are some
books that might help you with the process:

Become a recognized Authority in Your Field in 60 Days or Less

by Robert Bly, 2002
How to be an Instant Expert: 6 Steps to Being an Authority on Any Subject
by Stephen J. Spignesi, 2000
(If you need an expert yourself, take a look at ExpertCentral.com. They have
volunteer experts to answer your questions.

97
 F
Fix things
“I wish I knew how to repair antique dolls. Every time I need to get
something fixed it costs more than the doll itself,” said a neighbor with a small
collection. I’m an avid book hunter, so it wasn’t long before I found some out-of-
print books on exactly how to repair dolls. My neighbor did some searching and
she found that there’s a woman not far away who actually teaches courses in doll
repair! Since it typically costs $75 to fix a pair of “open-and-close” eyes on an
old doll, taking that class might be a decent supplement to my neighbor’s
income. Where will she get the business, once she knows how to repair dolls?
She can visit antique stores and offer her services, of course, but she can also do
every bit of her marketing on the internet. She doesn’t even need a website if she
doesn’t want to bother with one. All she needs is to do a search for “dolls” and
“doll repair” discussion groups and bulletin boards on the internet. She can leave
a comment on any subject and sign with her business name, such as “Bridget the
Doll-Eye Repair Maven,” or some such thing, with her email address right
below. You don’t have to be an expert to make a little cash fixing things. You
just have to know where there’s a need—and there’s always a need somewhere.

If you like the idea but prefer a different niche, take a look at your own
possessions and see which ones are most difficult to get repaired. Is it your
piano? Or your lighting? Window screens? Can you imagine getting in there and

98
making them work again? If you can, then there’s a income source waiting for
you. If you can’t, find the people who can, and sell their services. You can be a
sort of mini-contractor and pay them yourself, but for small items it might be
more practical to take a percentage of their fee. You can run classes too! (Call a
local church or community center and I bet they’ll be interested. You’ll be the
master of ceremonies, and present a different specialist each time.)

Fix someone’s life, starting with their apartment

You could call this the Get-A-Life Housekeeping Service. Supposing you
cleaned people’s apartments to earn your money. It’s not a bad job, actually, but
you might get bored. Now imagine that you worked for some overworked, single
professional who had no time for a social life and was leaving too many empty
beer cans in the trash. Wouldn’t it be fun to fix his or her life? You wouldn’t just
clean their apartment, but also update their linens and decor and persuade them to
invite interesting people home after work, where you will have created romantic
dinners: your client needs only to light the candles and open the wine. You can
also do this for couples. If they have very little time, they surely need their
apartments kept in order, and they probably need some candlelit dinners, too.

The housekeeping part will keep you in cash and away from the desperation
of finding clients. And your clients will come to trust you because they know
you. It’s a lovely idea.

99
 Farrier
I live in New York City, and just assumed farriers (those are the people who
shoe horses) all lived in Montana. In fact, there are many farriers in Westchester
county, a city bus ride away. It appears that lots of people in Westchester own
horses. To be a farrier, you either go to school and get licensed, or you become
an apprentice and learn by doing (or both). Horses are precious animals so this is
no job for an amateur. But if you love horses, this can be a very lucrative field.
According to the American Farrier Association, there are 10,000,000 animals that
require shoeing, and that number is growing all the time. Consider the fact that
most horses need shoeing every 6-9 weeks, and you’ve got a big demand.
Check out the following websites: www.farriers.com has a worldwide
directory for locating farriers. Americanfarriers.org is the official website of the
AFA, and gives lots of information about becoming a farrier, costs and benefits,
and meetings/events near you.

Flying, teach it
There’s a whole world open to people who love all things aeronautical (I’m
not one of them—my favorite part of flying is the nap), and it’s not limited just to
commercial pilots. A very nice woman came into my office one day and told me
that her husband (an Air Force pilot) was retiring and that they’d soon be moving
off the base: a big part of her life had always revolved around flying, and now
she felt like she was losing that part of herself. What to do? Since her love was
flying and she had a small plane pilot’s license I suggested teaching; but she
didn’t feel adequate to teach in a classroom (“Oh, no. I have no aeronautics

100
training,” she said, as if I’d asked her to train fighter pilots!) I was curious, so to
check out this meek lady’s attachment to flying I asked a trick question: “Do you
think I’m too old to learn how to fly?”
Her eyes flashed and she leaned forward with energy I hadn’t seen until that
moment: “No one is too old to fly!” she said.
“Look at you!” I said. “You’re a natural preacher. You could teach anybody
to fly.” The passion was there, it was just hard for her to see herself that way. I
don’t know if she decided to take my advice, but if she had gone for it, the path
would not have been complicated. Wherever her husband’s work took them
(probably a small town) there would be an airport close by and she could give
lessons to novices; or she could start a flying club and bring the public in for
demonstrations.

OTHER SUGGESTIONS: There’s a wonderful site that almost changed my

mind about being a pilot. It’s called pilotinterviews.com and does just what it
sounds like: interviews pilots. You can get a real taste of the pilot’s life, and they
also have a great resource list of training schools (looks like it’s in Canada only,
so check for similar sites where you are).

But a preacher can do more than teach a skill, a preacher can inspire. So I
also suggested she get on the lecture circuit as a motivational speaker for
corporate programs. Corporations are always looking for motivational speakers
who are women, but they’re conservative places, afraid of touchy-feely or New
Age thinking, which they automatically associate with women speakers. A pilot,
however, and the wife of an Air Force pilot—who had the fire in her that I saw
when she said “No one is too old to fly!”—a woman like that would be

101
welcomed into any corporation (especially one with a large population of female
employees).

Fashion Designer
If you know anything about the field of designing women’s or men’s clothes,
you also know it’s next to impossible to begin without lots of money and lots of
connections, and even then, it’s a terribly risky, difficult business. You need a
factory and a showroom and a huge staff at the very least. And many times, the
stores that buy your clothes end up sending them back for a refund.
But years ago a friend took me to an apartment in New York where a
designer’s representative was running a week-long show with about 30 dresses
and jackets hanging on one rack, and a stack of fabric samples on a nearby sofa. I
chose a dress I liked. Each of the styles had samples in various different sizes. I
found a size that fit me, and then chose two colors from the pile of fabrics on the
couch. I did the same for a jacket. Then I wrote a check to the designer for two
dresses and one jacket and I went home. Ten days later, my new clothes arrived
in the mail.
This designer had representatives in at least 20 cities in the U.S. They were
paid a percentage of what they sold, and they provided their apartments for
showrooms. (Sounds like a nice job to me!) At her home, the designer called in
her staff of stitchers to assemble only dresses that had already been ordered and
paid for. And her faithful clientele waited eagerly to get notified every season
with a letter containing hand-made drawings of her new designs and locations of
her representatives. I thought the model was brilliant, and the clothes were
perfect. (I wore one of her designs on the Oprah Winfrey show!)

102
 This model for making and selling your own fashions is simply brilliant
because it completely sidesteps all the barriers to becoming a successful designer.
No advertising and no showrooms. You don’t have to get in the windows of big
department stores or sell them huge lots and find some way to survive for months
until you’re paid (while you live in fear that they’ll come up with an excuse to
return the whole lot to you and pay nothing!). Best of all, you don’t have to go
looking for financial backers, and you don’t have to be part of the establishment.
Until I learned about this I always cautioned people against trying to enter the
fashion business. But now I eagerly explain how this designer worked, and I’ve
seen a number of small, successful businesses come into existence as a result.

G
Gifts, make and sell them
There is big business in selling gifts—like Teddy Bears—to corporate
employees, saving them the time and effort of going to stores before heading
home.
But you don’t need a warehouse full of Teddy Bears to do the same thing.
Hang around flea markets and thrift stores and buy up loveable items with charm
and create your own unique, one-of-a-kind gifts. I once saw half a dozen small
dolls sitting on vintage handkerchiefs inside pretty teacups. Think of how many
teacups don’t have saucers (and how inexpensive they are!) and how many little

103
dolls you can find who otherwise might never have a home. And how would you
like someone to bring you a pretty little doll sitting in a teacup for a gift. You
might want to make one-of-a-kind lamps from thrift store items like one I saw in
a magazine recently—a lamp made from an antique Victorian high button shoe
with a small pole coming out of the top and a pretty lampshade attached. It was
beautiful and it sold for almost $400.

Gardening, how to earn money at it

I own a book published in 1894 called An Island Garden, by a woman named
Celia Thaxter, who loved flower gardens and spent her summers creating them at
her island home off the coast of New Hampshire. She got an early start on her
garden during the snowy winters when she lived on the mainland, by planting
seeds in empty eggshells where they would start sprouting in her greenhouse. In
the spring, she’d head over to her island with many cartons of eggshells full of
small sprouts for planting in her island garden.
For those of you who live in the tropics, this may seem an unfortunate
necessity, but to this woman (and to me) it seemed like a delicious ritual. If you
agree, there’s no reason you can’t replicate the whole mood. Wouldn’t this be
lovely? Everyone gathers at a friend’s house during the cold days of winter and,
under the guidance of an experienced gardener like you, they learn how to set up
an indoor greenhouse.
You can represent the manufacturer of indoor greenhouses, if you like.
(You’ll find their ads in most home magazines.) Or you can show people how to
create a good-enough greenhouse from inexpensive materials. Or you can create
your own and sell it to them!

104
 If that interests you, give a free talk on winter gardening at your local library
(where you can have a signup sheet of people who want to know of your next
presentation and build a mailing list). Be sure to get in the ‘events calendar’ of
your local paper, and even run a classified or small space ad to offer this service.
I’m sure there’s a nursery—the one where you buy your own gardening
supplies—that would benefit from offering your services at their location and
would advertise your talk on their dime.
If you can wait for warmer weather, you can even take your group of
students to visit her island. It’s called Star Island and there are day tours during
the summer from Portsmouth, NH. It’s very tiny and very beautiful and you can
still sit in a rocker on the veranda of the lovely white hotel that housed so many
famous people of the time.

How to get hired as a gardener

1) Praise Yourself!
I heard of a young artist who loved flower gardens, but couldn’t have one of
her own since she lived in an apartment in the middle of Boston. She decided to
tell everyone she met that she was a professional gardener and had a magical
green thumb with dahlias (the dahlia part was true). Within months, she landed a
full-time job gardening for a wealthy homeowner just outside the city and spent
an entire year planting and maintaining a garden, which really did feel like her
own. Anyone could proceed in the exact way she did: ask around and see if
anyone might be interested. Figure out where the upscale people shop (or send
their gardeners). If they have gardeners, and you’re not a pro, you might want to
sign on as an assistant until you are. It would help if you were associated with a

105
local gardening association or a plant nursery. In the meantime, you can brush up
on your gardening.

2) Offer A Specialty
One article I read featured a woman who designs, creates and maintains
parterre vegetable gardens on Long Island for wealthy people. She is also an
artist, and part of the service includes a lovely drawing of the garden-to-be. Quite
a nice job, if you live near lots of well-off people and love gardening. There are
many wonderful sites on the internet. These two looked good for starters:
www.mastergardeners.com and www.yourgarden.org.

spinoff idea #1: Head over to the closest used book store and see if you can
find old home and garden magazines or—even better—gardening books from
long ago. You could make a specialty of selling them with your own website.

spinoff idea #2: I once saw an article, wish I could remember where, about a
botanical illustrator who taught her craft to women in their homes. The photos
were taken in a baronial mansion in England where they know their gardens. If
you’re an artist or you know one, you might think of doing something similar in
your home town. If you hook up with any nearby botanical garden, you can find
out what art classes presently exist, if any. Then, become a botanical illustrator
and teacher by going to a class.

spinoff idea #3: If you become knowledgeable about the gardens of the
world, or at least the gardens in a country you’d love to visit, you can put
together a small tour. You can combine it with drawing and painting classes, or
photography classes, or you can simply find really special places with a special
angle, like heirloom flowers from seeds that have almost disappeared from

106
modern gardens. You can make a literary gardening tour—the gardens of Little
Women in Concord Mass, for instance. Dig up your favorite period novels and
find every description of the gardens and see what you can make of it. (Maybe
put on an evening’s reading of garden excerpts from old novels.)

Gondolier
Yes, I said Gondolier. I saw a post on craigslist.com (a community website)
offering a position for someone who wants to spend their days rowing around
Lake Merritt in a gondola singing Italian songs for tourists. Sounds like fun for
someone who loves singing and Italian culture!

In my search, I found an article about college grad, Chris Johnsten, a singing

gondolier:

Four days a week, the Great Falls native and graduate of Montana State
University-Bozeman dons black pants, a striped shirt, straw hat, red scarf
and red sash. Then he climbs into a gondola, acquires an Italian accent and
spins tales about his mama and papa and how he landed a job in the middle
of a desert. In between, of course, he serenades his riders with songs like
“Santa Lucia,” “O Sole Mio” and the best of Dean Martin.

If you’re an actor or a singer or you just love to play make-believe, you can
start searching for opportunities on the internet. The article’s at
http://montana.edu/commserv/csnews/nwview.php.

107
 Geographer
I love geography. I always have. I love knowing soil types and how they
determined the way humans lived; I love knowing what a big bump in the ground
really is, and knowing the difference between a new river valley (it’s shaped like
a “V” and the water moves fast!) and an old river valley (it’s shaped like a “U”
and the water meanders around like a big snake.) I love history and there’s no
history without geography. I’ve also found, though some lovely listservs, that
geographers are a passionate bunch. They all seem to love what they do.
I came up with this idea for geography lovers: be a freelance geographer who
does research for novelists and historians and screenwriters. Wouldn’t that be a
great gig? The way to get started is almost certainly by word-of-mouth. Head
over to a local college and sit in on some history classes. Post a flyer on their
bulletin board saying that you’ll help students with the geography part of their
projects. Post an ad in a writer’s magazine and an amateur history magazine. Or
you can come help me with this novel I’ve been wanting to write for a long time
that takes place in the Himalayas. Check out the website of the Association of
American Geographers at www.aag.org, but don’t limit yourself to American
sites. If English is your only language, check out the Canadians, Australians and
South Africans. And the English, God love them, who have done so much
traveling for so long you’d almost think they didn’t like being home.

108
 Game, design one
You don’t have to jump the hurdles of the game industry and get caught in
the swamp of protecting your idea, or trying to bring in a prototype for 4 cents
and wait two years for your royalties...that is, if they come at all. If you know
that route and want to take it, great. But if you don’t and you don’t, try this:
Invent a game that solves a problem—a Rejection game for salespeople, for
instance. You can use a Monopoly-type board if you like, or put one on a screen
for them to see, but essentially they’d be moving pieces or picking up cards that
have little scripts on them for the typical rejections, designed to make people
laugh and let off steam, get practiced, have answers ready by doing it fast and
often, etc. Then you can create a brochure and sell your game—and yourself to
run the workshop—to any organization that uses salespeople. (Salespeople put up
with a lot of rejection and many companies pay for programs to keep them
motivated.)
In the meantime, just go to a big bookstore and find the sales motivation
section in the business section and see if you can think up a game—either a board
game, or a game people can play face-to-face in the workshops you’re going to
run for them (for huge amounts of money!) when you become a guru!
While you’re there, think of what other problem-solving games you could
create: a game for teachers who have difficult students? dealing with toxic co-
workers? getting through family gatherings?

109
 H
House sitter (or “anything” sitter)
People want to be able to go away and know that their house, apartment, dog
and plants will be in good working order when they get back. You’d take in the
mail, open the windows, occupy the space to ward off intruders, and whatever
else is needed to maintain the home until the owners got back. Word of mouth
will get you most of your jobs, or you could advertise in your local paper or try
and get work through an agency, like housecareers.com. You can also check out
an online magazine with some good opportunities (and, from what I hear, some
not so good.) It’s at www.caretakers.com.

Home businesses
Great for people who’d like to see their kids now and then before they grow
up and leave home—and a blessing for disabled people—working at home is also
just something some of us love to do. (I’ve done it for the last 35 years and I’m
not tired of it yet.) There was once a magazine, one of the very few I subscribed
to, called Home Office Computing, and every feature was about another person
who had a home business. I wish it was still around. I’ve found some online
magazines, though, and so can you. Just do a search for ‘home business’ and
you’ll get some ideas. Unfortunately, they’ve got that bright and fiery edge that
keeps them asking things like "Are You Thinking Wealthy?" and keeps making

110
me feel all tired out. I really miss my homey magazine with its pictures of home
offices and nice people with dogs on their laps.
In any case, there are endless ways you can earn money from your home.
Some require that you go out to buy and sell and deliver services, while the main
office is at home. Some don’t require that you leave home at all; everything can
be done by mail or phone or computer or messenger or employee (or carrier
pigeon!), or by having your clients come to you. These are ideal for the
homebound, and for people who just hate to dress up. Here are a few things you
can do from home, on your own, without addressing envelopes or signing up for
those shady offers that require investments. You can:

1) Write cookbooks or magazine articles about a subject you know. Or

books like this one you’re reading, which I’m writing from my bedroom
computer at this moment.

2) Instruct, coach or give advice on any number of subjects you’re

familiar with, on the telephone, via email, or by having people come sit
at your feet in your own living room.

3) Take in children, plants, pets or other valuable entities whose

owners need them watched while they work or travel.

4) Create things—like an audiotape series from your telephone classes or

nifty lures for fly fishermen or Halloween costumes—and sell them on
the internet.

5) Start a cottage industry like weaving or hand-painting on cloth for

dinner napkins, tablecloths, bedroom linens for bigger companies.

111
 6) Do graphics or editing or proofreading or translating for publishers or
authors or anybody who needs it from all over the world.

7) Make desserts for local restaurants who are often very happy to offer
locally made fresh and delicious desserts to their customers. Take some
samples of your cheesecake or brownies to eating places near you (don’t
forget old-fashioned diners) and let the boss try them out. Holiday
desserts can be sold at gift stores, flea markets or your own table or
roadside stand.

8) Make meals for working people on special diets. When it comes to

special diets like The Zone, Dr. Atkins, vegetarian, etc., I’m always
surprised at how few restaurants serve them. What if you put up flyers
in strategic places offering to deliver special lunches and/or dinners to
people at work? You’ll have your own list of clients (hopefully in the
same building so you won’t be traveling all over town every day). They
can call in their orders by 3:00 pm the day before (to your home
answering machine) including their credit card and expiration date and
you’d always get paid in advance and wouldn’t have much paperwork to
worry about. If your kitchen at home doesn’t pass health inspections
(they can be pretty stiff), rent one by the hour. I know someone who did
just that: “I rented a church kitchen near me which served meals for the
elderly and therefore was certified. They only needed it at noontime and
were glad to get the extra money I provided.” (She also had to get a
“food handler’s” permit of the kind every food worker gets. Inquire at a
church kitchen near you.)

112
9) Be a freelance techie—If you have Information Technology skills but
don’t want to be a full-time employee, try this site: www.elance.com for
freelance work. It’s been called “a sort of eBay for freelance projects.”
All the neat stuff you can do is shown right on the sites below.
Incidentally, they’re great models for web businesses you can do. They
use every kind of technology you might want to develop (from
telephone classes, email classes, instant messaging, teleseminars, etc.),
and you can sign up on Paypal or other internet payment options. Study
these sites well. Look at them as if you were an owner, not a viewer, and
see if they interest you: www.youcanworkfromanywhere.com.

10) Work with a school to teach online. One woman, who had health
problems and was virtually homebound, didn’t know what she could
possibly do from home. I found out she loved classics—I always look
for a passion as my starting point—and here’s what we came up with:
She could teach classics online, to kids in public or private school
classrooms, with links, exams, paper writing: she’s the teacher—maybe
the only online teacher in the school—and she’s also a tutor, who can
charge by the hour or a flat rate for the semester. She’s got the
credentials, and this way a school could tap in without nearly as much
money or commitment. She could offer her class to a number of schools.
She could look up all the relevant websites and discuss them on her own
website. Maybe get kids to create their own classics website, from the
point of view of their character: The World According to Sisyphus, etc.
Why not teach a bit of ancient Greek and have sound available too? All
the resources and technology are out there, accessible from the comfort
of home.

113
 11) Start a babysitting agency. A woman with similar health problems ran
a babysitting business from her home. She matched up babysitting jobs
(for professional couples) with babysitters (adults, not teenagers). She
would get a cut of the babysitting fee, like a temp service. Business
grew by word of mouth.

12) Be a transcriber for health agencies. Check with the hospitals and the
doctor’s offices in your area. Even though they may have a full-time
transcriber, they often have a need for someone to fill in when there’s
over-flow typing to be done. Winter is the busiest time for doctors, so
you may be hitting them at just the right time if you start looking now.
Learning medical terminology is not too hard to do; I took the course
many years ago and it was only offered on an independent study basis.
I’d bet you could borrow a recent book from someone who just got
through with theirs to get yourself up to speed. Depending on where you
live, arrangements could be made for you to pick up or drop off the
work once or twice a week (perhaps even less if they don’t need the
finished product right away), and someone may even be able to pick it
up or drop it off to you.

13) Telecommute. If you want to work from home but aren’t ready to break
loose and be on your own, telecommuting may be the answer. You can
find a number of sites on the internet offering jobs that allow you to
work from home via computer. A quick search brought up the
following: www.sunoasis.com, which offers editing and copywriting
jobs, and The International Telework Association and Council
(www.telecommute.org) and JFP-Telecommute Programming Jobs

114
 (www.jfpresources.com/jobtele1.html). There you’ll find up to date
telecommute job ads for programmers and web developers. Make
telecommute-friendly employers aware of your existence by posting
your resume.

As with everything, you have to be careful about what you sign up and pay
for. Check out www.WAHM.com. It’s a good resource to help protect you from
scammers. Cheryl Demas runs the site (she’s published a couple of books on
working from home) and she also has a page for job sites and listservs to help
you in your searches.

I
Information broker
If you’re someone who spends too much time surfing the internet because
you love to learn about everything and you wish you could share the amazing
information you find, you can be an information broker—which is a fancy name
for someone who researches things for people who don’t have the time to do it
themselves. If you want to get into a competitive, high-paying field and you
don’t mind words like “demographics,” “patents” or “focus groups,” you might
be able to work for some deep-pocketed companies. Look at these words from a
company pitching their information broker training service:

115
 “You will be in a position to save companies many thousands of dollars
because their information gathering is inadequate or nonexistent. For
example you’ll be able to report things like:
-A prospective employee has already filed for workman’s compensation
on their last three jobs.
-An applicant has a criminal record or negligent driving record.
-A new client has past due accounts and bad debts at many other
businesses.
-A client or vendor already has lawsuits pending, and the court has
already awarded a $250,000 judgment against them.”

It sounds like they know what they’re talking about because they’ve hit on
the two best ways to get a company to hire you: 1) demonstrate how you will
make them lots of money, 2) demonstrate how you will protect them from losing
lots of money.
But if that kind of work makes you feel like never surfing the net again, or
you just don’t want to spend ten-hour days in front of the computer (or never
want to have a corporate boss), you might like a less competitive and far more
interesting way to use of your love of finding information—and that would be to
help micro-businesses and self-employed people. Imagine if a single mother of
two with a day job, who has decided to breed and sell trained ferrets, could email
you to do a search for all the places that breed or train ferrets—information about
how to keep them healthy, who buys them, what kinds of licenses she’ll need,
and where ferrets have been mentioned in magazine articles in the last few
years—and spend $25 to $100 to have that information waiting for her when
she’s through putting the kids to bed at 9 p.m. She might actually have a chance
at a successful income stream and be very happy to pay you for your time.

116
 I’m convinced that if micro-businesses had a freelance cyber researcher like
you and a part time administrative assistant helping them, we’d see a lot more of
them surviving and flourishing than we do now. And, pardon my soapbox, but I
think successful home-businesses and one-person businesses are essential to the
survival of our neighborhoods and the people in them. After all, chain stores and
corporations pull money out of the community while tiny, local businesses spend
their money right there. Okay, off the soapbox.

Why not specialize in working for freelance writers?

You could offer your service to freelance writers, too. They always have to
do a lot of research to prepare magazine articles, and could write many more if
you’d do all that research for them.

spinoff idea: build a mailing list of writers.

If you’re feeling ambitious, you might try building a mailing list of freelance
writers who wait to hear from you with suggestions about the new Latest Thing
they could write an article on. You might want your information to be delivered
via a paid subscription to a newsletter. Most newsletters have trouble getting paid
subscribers, but if your newsletter will clearly help writers increase their income,
they’ll pay for this one.
Even easier, you can have a paid-for service with no newsletter, just an
email, like “Hi Everybody. If you’re scouting around for a topic for your next
article, you might want to take a look at the new place ferrets have begun to
occupy as replacements for watchdogs in homes and factories. There’s a bunch
of information and I’ve found three experts you can interview on the subject, to
boot.”

117
 I’ve heard of a load of books about being an information broker. I don’t
know if any of them are useful because I don’t have them in my hands. See if you
can look through the ones that are in print at your local bookstore to establish if
they’re actually useful to you (and/or go to the internet and look up the authors to
see what they’re up to these days. That way, you’ll be your own information
broker, right now):

Building & Running a Successful Research Business: A Guide for the

Independent Information Professional by Mary Ellen Bates
Super Searchers Make It On Their Own: Top Independent Information
Professionals Share Their Secrets for Starting and Running a Research
Business (Super Searchers Series) by Suzanne Sabroski
Super Searchers Go to the Source by Risa Sacks
Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence by Margaret Metcalf Carr
Super Searchers Do Business by Mary Ellen Bates, Reva Basch
Find It Online: The Complete Guide to Online Research by Alan M. Schlein
Information Brokering: A How-To-Do-It Manual (How-To-Do-It Manuals
for Libraries, No 86) by Chris Dobson
The Information Broker's Handbook by Sue Rugge
Researching Online for Dummies (with CD-ROM) by Reva Basch, Mary
Ellen Bates
The Invisible Web by Chris Sherman, Gary Price

If you were an information broker, who would you love to have as clients?
Think of what you’d enjoy learning. That will point to your answer.

118
 Inventor
I have met a lot of brilliant people who had great ideas for inventions that
never saw the light of day because either 1) they didn’t know where to start
(patents? prototypes? licensing? Who do you talk to if you want to sell
something? How do you tell someone about your invention without having it
stolen?); 2) they lost faith that their inventions would sell to a mass market (how
to produce it cheaply enough/get a fair royalty from people who buy it); or 3)
they got so caught up in the legal and financial complexities of trademarks and
registrations that they had no time or energy left over. That’s a real shame,
because the world could have used their creations.
If you have a knack for problem-solving and an ability to envision what it
would take to do certain tasks easier or better, then there might be an inventor
inside of you waiting to come out. Keep in mind, your inventions don’t have to
be limited to gadgets like an improved can opener; you can invent new
organizing systems or software for children or a new technique for shooting
video. And I’d like to ask you to forget all about trademarks for now and just
think about which of your brain children you’d love most to see become real.
You should also know that there are more ways to bring your inventions to the
world than through mass marketing.
Example: I invented Success Teams in 1975 to help people solve the problem
of getting what they really wanted without all the fancy connections that big
shots have. I didn’t try to get Success Teams patented or to sell them to a
marketing company, because I knew that my ideas would be successful when
people saw for themselves how effective they were (plus, I knew that anyone can
rip off just about anything in name: the key is to make the substance yours
alone). How did I do that? By getting the word out any way I could. I ran

119
workshops, I went on the radio, and I wrote my first book, Wishcraft, so by the
time people all over the country started hearing about Success Teams, they had
also heard my name...
There are other ways to attach your name to your invention, such as
becoming an expert (see “E” for Expert) and publishing articles in the right
places. (You’d know what your right places are better than I would. If you don’t,
that’s your first research project! Find the publications that deal with your kind of
invention as soon as you can.) If you find it difficult to get published by the
establishment, write and self-publish your own books or eBooks, set up your own
e-zine and start writing articles online. Send the address via email to all the
people and places you want to know about it, so lots of people hear your name.
Can you get ripped off? It’s possible , but if you’re well-known as an expert it’s
not an easy thing to do. So be sure to become well-known! Below, I’ve listed
some resources for inventors—they’re a huge presence on the web, and offer tons
of information to their fellow creators. I’ve also included an excerpt from my
bulletin board with advice about trademarks from people who have tried to bring
their inventions to market.
www.inventorsdigest.com has been around since 1985 and claims to be
“America’s only inventors magazine.” You have to subscribe, but it’s full of
articles, information and help for inventors in every category, and is probably a
good starting point to see which direction you want your invention to take.
The United Inventors Association (www.uiausa.com) is “a tax exempt, not-
for-profit corporation formed in 1990 solely for educational purposes. The
mission of the UIA is to provide leadership, support, and services to inventor
support groups and independent inventors.” A quick glance at this site shows a
lot of information, resources and connections to the community of inventors with

120
an emphasis on protecting your invention. I was relieved to find what appears to
be a very legitimate site, because I often feel wary of the offers made on TV for
inventors. Call me paranoid but if I had something I thought was really
innovative, I wouldn’t want to share it with people who advertised right next to
infomercials.
And here are some sites recommended by the goodhearted geniuses on my
bulletin board:

United States Patent and Trademark Office:

www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm
Trademark: Legal Care for Your Business & Product Name ( Nolo book)

www.loc.gov/copyright

J
Job Search Club
Start one. I started a few of them once (and read about a priest in Pittsburgh
who did the same). Mine worked like a Success Team. Everyone met once a
week, went over the classifieds together and prepared each other for interviews
(we even kept each other company on the big day). There are lots of ways to
make the unbearable process of getting a new job much easier (even fun!) You
can use a video camera for mock interviews until everyone has their skills down

121
pat. You can help each other with resumes—which always need re-tailoring for
every interview—and even mail them out together. These are such loaded
activities that trying to do them in isolation can cause paralysis.
This is the best way to conduct a job search and avoid isolation, but it can
also be a good source of income. You can be a facilitator for these clubs and
charge a small fee (say, $15 per person for each meeting) or conduct them via
phone and computer if you want to cover greater distances and have fewer people
competing for local jobs; you could do all the mailings, help people write their
own “Situation Wanted” ads, and search the net for job sites and interesting
opportunities. That would move you into the area of employment agent, which
can be very profitable.
Think of some variations on this idea. What group besides job-searchers
really needs a support group to help them get into action? What small activity
club would you love to be a part of? Don’t forget to check your ideas for H-
Levels!

Journal Keeper
There are so many people who would love to keep a journal, either of what
they’re doing with their business, or just their thoughts in general, or what their
lives have been about. Luckily for them, the weblog, or “blog,” has arrived (see
“W” for Weblog). No, it’s not a monster movie, but an ingenious and simple way
for people to keep a record of anything important in their lives and share it with
the world via the internet. But most of those people don’t have the time or the
technical confidence (it’s really easy to do) to create and update a blog. If you

122
learned the very basics of blogs and consulted with clients to gather their
information (photos, writings, etc.), you could create a nice little business.
For instance, say you know people who are homebound and just can’t
manage to write their journal, but want to have a record of what they’re doing
and/or thinking. They would call you (or you could visit them) and give you
whatever they’d like to include in their journal; you would then put together a
weblog with vignettes and photos from their lives and maintain it for them. You
could create even more interest by teaching a course on making journals—
including writing, photography and a little technology and bring in new clients.
It’s very hard to write about your own life, and it would be a wonderful thing to
help people this way: they dictate, you write; then you put up the blog, enter the
photos, help them assemble an email list (even if you have to call their long-lost
relatives in Cincinnati to do it), and you make the whole thing work!

Junk rehabilitation
It’s not news anymore that shabby is “in” and a lovely book called Shabby
Chic even gave it a name a few years ago. If you can see the beauty in an old
wooden chair or chest of drawers put out on the street or found at the thrift store,
then you could put your love of their hidden beauty to work stripping and
restoring pieces, and selling them (if you can bear it). Even if you don’t know a
thing about restoring furniture, pretty much anyone can strip a chair or an old
table. All you have to do is invest in some paint stripper or remover, some
scraping implements and steel wool. Apply the paint remover and strip away! If
you want to learn more (which you probably should) check out The Furniture

123
Doctor by George Grotz and Furniture Repair and Refinishing by Brian D.
Hingley and Timothy O. Bakke.
Advertise or bring your own pieces to show at flea markets, antique shows,
and used furniture stores or have some fun and get a colorful truck to drive up
and down the city streets with a loudspeaker hawking your wares! (For more on
this, see the spinoff idea for Knife sharpener and kettle repair under “K”.)

Jogging Buddy
If you love running—and can keep a cheerful conversation going while you
do it—you could be a jogging buddy for people (individually or in small groups)
who want to get in shape but lack the discipline to haul their tired carcasses
outdoors on cold mornings. If you know how to gently motivate people and can
teach them good running form, you’d be performing a valuable service. You
could run your service like a club with membership fees, or charge per outing.
You could cater to special groups like seniors or new mothers, and put out a
newsletter with success stories and events to generate interest. You could sell
prepared meals for them to take on their way, to help them eat the way they
should. Once again, the internet will be your best friend. Start a website, get your
mailing list together and put some flyers up where people shop or wait to have
their cars fixed.

124
 K
Knife sharpener and kettle repair
Think how many of these quaint occupations have been forgotten as we’ve
become more modern and efficient (and wasteful). But now there’s a whole
revival going on in hand work, and people are paying more for the personal
touch. A few years ago I heard a loudspeaker below my window calling out,
“Knives and scissors sharpened, kettles repaired!” I looked out the window and
saw a wonderful thing: a renovated old truck with an open back, colorfully
painted with gaudy lettering. It was so appealing, I gathered all my knives and
scissors and ran downstairs to line up with many of my neighbors. It was a lot of
fun—a real neighborhood scene—and besides, who remembers to get their
knives and scissors sharpened? This was a real, direct service business. Since
then, I’ve dreamed about driving one of those charming trucks around different
neighborhoods, calling out something for sale on the loudspeaker. If the idea
appeals to you as well, think of some other services you might offer: Shoe repair?
Photo portraits? A traveling magic show that sells magic tricks? Peaches, pears,
watermelons? (My mother tells me people went down the streets of Detroit in
1915 calling out “Water Melones! Water Melones!” It strikes me as a fine
tradition and one that should be maintained.)

spinoff idea: Those colorful, open-sided trucks would be great for selling
many things, but where can one find such a truck? Well, if you’re a

125
mechanic/blowtorch artist/junkyard lover, how about rehabilitating and
decorating old trucks and setting up a website where we could find you and order
a couple?

Knitting clinic on a weblog

Now here’s an interesting thought that might be new to you. (See “W” for
Weblog first, if you have no idea what I’m talking about.) You can now show
short video clips on a weblog, and that makes it possible to teach handcrafts like
knitting on the internet from your home! How about a “knitting clinic” where
people who have problems with some aspect of their knitting come online and
get help from you? If you had some traffic coming through to your site you could
make your income from advertisers.
If you have a specialty in knitting (or any other craft) you can go on a search
engine and find the discussion groups on your subject, or go to relevant websites
and their bulletin boards. The way to “advertise” is to leave a very helpful
message with some great tip or technique and have your name and blog address
in the signature, such as: “Gert Jones, knittingandtattingclinicblog.com” or
suchlike. (Sorry, I get a bit nutty when I’m inventing imaginary names for little
businesses. I’m sure you can do better.)
What else can you teach this way? Soon it will be possible to have much
longer videos and more efficient webcams, so don’t limit yourself with present
technological limitations. I have a hunch medical schools are already teaching
open-heart surgery with a version of this technology, but what can you teach?
Kite building? Small engine repair? Success with African Violets? Making a
white sauce without lumps? I know there are some instructional shows on

126
television, and others that can be ordered from specialty video stores, but this
would be instant gratification. A weblog would be waiting for those who want it,
on the internet, any old time.

Karate philosopher
This may sound like a wacky idea at first, but bear with me for a moment. If
you love the martial arts, you know how rich the philosophy behind them is.
Other martial arts lovers feel the same way. There’s a market for booklets,
websites, even full-length books which would be popular as gifts to karate
students by their friends, parents or teachers. Gather together an anthology or the
most important quotes from books in the public domain (ancient books are the
best, anyway), unless you already are a karate philosopher, in which case you’ll
have a long term commitment on your hands of actually creating, writing and
publishing a book. I was thinking of something shorter and easier to produce.
You might get the maker of karate equipment and outfits to sponsor your
book if you put their ads in the very last page of the book. With such
arrangements, the sponsor often finances you by buying a few thousand copies
up front, before they’re published. I’ve heard of such arrangements before.

(Hint: If you’re not a martial arts lover, replace the word “karate” with something
you love more, and then see if you can apply the idea to your own personal
passion.)

127
 Keelboat recreational river vehicle
A keelboat is a covered river boat with a keel and shallow draft but no sail,
propelled by rowing, poling, or towing, and used for transporting freight. Small
ones would be wonderful for Sunday picnics on a small river in a city park. If
you know how to build boats—or you know someone who does—do some
research to find out what the legalities are locally (Can you just put a boat in your
hometown river? Does the city want a license? Or a different kind of boat? What
about the rules in nearby towns? Or a stretch of river on a farmer’s land. You can
always suggest he or she create a campground or a picnic ground—maybe even
add a couple of buffalo and an electric hookup for trailers or RVs? Wait, wait,
I’m getting out of control here. But you know how I feel about helping farmers
get extra income. If you don’t, see “D” for Dairy farmer’s relief pitcher).
It may be possible to build these small, shallow boats with canopies to keep
the sun off, and a small bench around the inside so people can sit, trail their
fingers in the water and have a small picnic on a low table you could build in the
middle of the flat bottom. I was on one of these in Thailand and they're quite
wonderful.
Using keel-boats this way would be a novelty, which means if they catch on
and you create your own small “Armada”, you can bring in revenue from
advertising on the sides or canvas tops.
You can get started by building a single boat to see if there is a market in
your town. But don’t stop there. Check out other small towns, too. Maybe you’ll
get some commissions to build more. If you’re set up to do that, you’re in the
boat-building business and your clients could be the park departments of
different towns.

128
 If this idea appeals to you but you couldn’t build a boat if your life depended
on it, just find a boat builder who can. If you don’t want to pay a prohibitive
price and you’d like to work with somebody who needs the money, word-of-
mouth in a not-too-fashionable fishing village might find you a real master. You
might also get a seat in heaven if you kick start some kind of small economic
boom in that business, that village, or that boat-maker’s life.

Kids
If you love being around children—and not all people do—it means you have
a talent for it. Just add your other talents to the idea of working with kids and
you’re sure to come up with something interesting and new. You don’t have to
go through the public school system. Instead, you can offer Outdoor Saturday
Afternoon Rock and Roll Camp with a performance for parents and kids that
evening at a family fee of, say $45. Or “mountain climbing” on a local hill while
you tell mountaineer stories and top it off with a mountain climbing movie
shown outdoors at a picnic ground.
One way or another, you need to be using your talent with kids, and they
need someone like you, too. The best part about working with kids is that it can
be part of so many other ideas: like writing (a two-day writing camp) and
photography (ditto). I like the idea of capping off with an evening’s performance
of some kind. In this case, a reading or a photo exhibit of the work done by the
class that weekend. I think you’d be sought for repeat visits.

Here are some more possibilities:

129
Kites and kids, traveling exhibit and workshop!
Follow the fairs and flea markets and bring materials for making kites. Bring
some great ones to sell, and some greater ones if you want to have an exhibit. If
you’ve really found some exciting historical material about kites, you might have
a performance in you, one that can be done at county fairs or school assemblies.
Most important, hold a contest after a kite-making class. Finance yourself by
selling kite supplies and videos (if there are any—and I bet there are).
If kites don’t do it for you, ask yourself this question: Is there anything else
you could use this form for besides kites? Give it some thought until you find
something you enjoy and, in your mind, replace "kites" with what you like better.

Kid’s Farm visits

Find a nice family farm and arrange a program that brings city kids on a day
trip to the country to experience life on a farm. For those of you who love the
idea of getting away from the city and living a more natural life—say, raising
horses or running an apple orchard—you’d be loved by kids and farmers alike
(and earn some income to boot) if you could help farmers bring in some income
this way. Here are some more ideas:

“Farm stay” for vacationers or foreign students’ semester abroad

programs
Visiting programs by naturalists or other teachers
A class in Farm Economics: How to run a farm for a profit
Summer stock theater
Traditional American cooking school
Computer support center
Assisted living home
Land rental for animal refuge (See also “A” for Animal refuge).

130
 L
Living history specialist
If you’ve ever had the feeling you were born in the wrong century, you
should check into this wonderful world. ALHFAM (The Association for Living
History, Farm and Agricultural Museums) calls itself “An Organization of People
who bring History to Life,” and lists openings in living history museums around
the country. Here’s a small sample:

The 1812 Homestead Educational Foundation is a working farm of the

1830’s dedicated to the preservation of early American Heritage. Director
must have knowledge of pioneer life with skills in colonial cooking or
spinning or weaving or animal care or gardening or shingle making or
lessons in one room school house. Duties include: scheduling school groups,
promotion, staff training, development of new programs, grant writing,
grounds-keeping, visiting schools, and attending workshops. Salary: $1400 -
$1800 per month plus housing and meals. Medical insurance available.
Willsboro, N.Y. e-mail: [email protected].

This might be fun for would-be actors:

Living Historical Interpreter-Female Role
Location: Recreation Area in Western Kentucky and Tennessee
Salary/Benefits: $21,320, $125/month health insurance allowance, 10 paid
holidays, 15 days paid leave. Starting Date/Duration: April 16,
2003/Permanent position. Qualifications: 4-year college degree and some
related experience. Duties: This full-time position serves as a living history
interpreter on an active mid-19th century farm with 16 restored log
structures. The position plans and demonstrates 19th century domestic work
including wood stove and hearth cooking, spinning, weaving, domestic

131
 trades, gardening, and special events for the general public and organized
groups. The successful candidate must be available for weekend and holiday
work, have a warm and enthusiastic demeanor, be team-oriented, and quality
customer service driven. USDA Forest Service. Find out more by visiting
www.lbl.org.

Have you ever dreamt of running a farm? In another century?

Historic Farm Leader, Golden Pond, KY
Duties: This full-time position oversees the daily operations of an active
mid-19th century farm with 16 restored log structures.
([email protected])

If you’re interested in working with kids and having a lot of fun, check this
next one out; the best part is that it’s seasonal work, leaving the rest of the year
open for your other goals. (Of course, if your goal is to write historical novels,
you can do it in the evenings, right on the farm.)
Seasonal Program Interpreters, Herndon, VA
Learn to teach early to mid 20th Century rural & agricultural history. Lead
programs for school and scout groups. Learn to drive a tractor and give
hayrides. Work with farm animals including cows, sheep, goats and more.
Work in the Frying Pan Country Store. Learn about gardening, crops and
farm equipment. Enjoy being outdoors. Full or part-time position available.

Love consultant
Single professionals are often so busy they have no time to fall in love. They
have no time to find dates, no time to learn how to entertain them and no time to
create a pleasant, romantic environment in their homes to invite them to. A love
consultant's goal would be to fix all those areas. If that's something you know
how to do, you can provide this needed service.

132
 For example, you could help someone develop his or her romantic side by
assigning books to read and old movies to watch just before falling asleep. You
could advise them about the people they're meeting at work, help them figure out
who seems worth getting to know better and how to talk to them. Then you could
help them set up their homes with the right decor, music, lighting, even ice-
breakers like fun board games to fall back on when the action flags.
See yourself as a director preparing someone for the romantic lead of their
lives. You might be brilliant at it. Every success will bring you more referrals.

Start a Learning Center

If there is no adult learning organization in your town, start one. It’s not hard.
Just find specialists who are really good teachers, rent different locations for the
classes and advertise in the local paper. Here’s how I’d start:

FIRST STAGE: At a local church that has lots of non-religious programs for
the community, arrange to use their space a few nights per month to start with.
Take one night for yourself, if you like. Pick a topic (from memory, here’s what
I’ve seen in catalogues of adult learning centers: installing solar panels, how to
make movies, computer skills, start a mail order business, salsa dancing, etc.)
Design a 1½ hour presentation. Here are some guidelines:

1) Ask everyone why they came and what they're hoping for unless you
have too many people, in which case you can say, “Does anyone want to
answer?” and wait for people to raise their hands

2) Give a synopsis of what you’re going to talk about

133
 3) Present a problem that people typically run into and why they’re solving
it the wrong way

4) Show them the best way to fix it/do it, etc.

5) Ask for questions

6) Offer materials for sale, such as books or tapes you’ve found valuable,
or your own books and tapes, if you have them

7) Ask for their email addresses so you can notify them of other events

8) Hand out evaluation sheets and ask what kinds of classes they’d like to
attend in the future.

Get someone you know who is willing to give a different presentation.

Everyone too shy? Find a schoolteacher or a lawyer or a singer. They like to
stand in front of audiences and entertain them and they’re usually pretty
good at it.

SECOND STAGE: Contact local authors or teachers and other interesting

people and ask them to present. Build and build. Presto, you’ve got a Learning
Center. You’ll never need a location, just rent inexpensive places to hold the
classes and don’t tell anyone where they’ll be until the registration fee has been
paid.

134
 M
Money
The biggest obstacle to dreams I hear about is lack of money. There are
several reasons why we assume our dreams need vast sums of money. Some of
them are based on what we hear (“You need a fortune to start a
theater/ranch/catering business, etc.”) and others are the tricks our resistance uses
to keep our dreams at a safe distance. But money isn’t the obstacle you think it
is—most of the ideas in this book require little or no start-up capital. If you look
around, you’ll find that the best ventures start with creativity and a real love for
the idea. That’s why I ask you to drop your assumptions about how much money
things cost, and instead check your levels of happiness with every idea here. If
you can find something you’d love to do, there’s always a way to do it without
much money.

So, if you think money is your big obstacle, ask yourself two questions:
1) If you didn’t need a lot of money to start, what would you love to do?
2) How many ways could you do that without money?

If you need some input, start planning an Idea Party right now. Go to my
bulletin board and/or bring as many helpful people together as you can and say,
“I want to do X, but I don’t have the money to start. Any ideas?”

135
Money, how to live in paradise without it (in a mansion, yet!)
Of course, you need a minimum amount of money to live anywhere. But to
live in a place that feels to you (and lots of rich people) like Paradise, it takes
serious money. Or does it? There is work in every resort, and not just domestic or
hotel or restaurant work. Just don’t think “job,” think “needed services you can
do for money.”
I learned this from a woman I met who decided she simply had to live on a
special and very fashionable island in the Caribbean, so she took a job in the
local ballpoint pen factory just to support herself (barely). She didn’t much care
for the job, but it paid for a cheap apartment, and once she’d settled in she started
scouting for sources of income that were better suited to her tastes.
“I realized I could live anywhere, if I was willing to do anything it took to
earn a living,” she said. She began by learning how to do carpentry and wiring by
assisting the local handyman who was often a bit unreliable. “I saved his job for
him, and started bringing in more renovation business by hanging out with home
owners whose primary residence was in the States and talking up our services.
“Once there was a hurricane, and while everyone else was diving under their
tables I rolled out of bed, went downtown and bought a chainsaw! I knew a lot of
people were going to need trees removed from their property within 24 hours,
and I was ready.”
After everyone in the small community got to know her, she began house
sitting a mansion, and now her domicile is whichever vacation home she’s been
hired to take care of while the owners are gone. If you have a way to prove
you’re trustworthy and reliable, you too might be able to house sit for a
millionaire. There’s a magazine dedicated to finding that kind of gig at

136
caretaker.com, but I get mixed reports about it. The best way is to establish
yourself in the community and start doing household repairs like she did.
If you know in your heart where you want to live, that’s a very big thing. A
lot of people haven’t figured that out, so you’re one of the lucky ones. See if you
can find a way to spend some time there, as often as possible, before relocating.
Get to know the ropes. Hang out with the people who have to earn a living. Start
thinking about what services are needed and a plan will start brewing in your
mind.

Money, how to subsidize your dream

There’s a difference between doing what you love for money and financing
what you love to do. Often it’s a good idea to find some way to bring in money
that has nothing to do with what you love, allowing you to develop your dream
without the pressure of having to make it profitable.
However, the grind of a regular job isn’t for everyone. Instead of a 9–5 job,
you might consider finding a number of small revenue sources to pay your bills.

Multiple Revenue Streams

Setting these up for yourself is a great idea. It means you take part-time jobs
or sell your services in a number of ways at the same time, so that together they
bring in enough income for your expenses. You don’t have to worry about
getting bored, and if one source of money dries up, you still have three or four
more. That can be very soothing to your sense of security.

STEP ONE:
Check the classifieds—they show what sorts of services are needed in your
location. You can answer them and try for a job, but a better way might be to

137
offer the same service on your own, without being hired. You can also figure out
how to offer a service that will help the employer who placed the ad, and/or how
to offer a service to help the people who might answer the ad.
Flip through the yellow pages—they give you ideas of what you can do on
your own. As a fun little exercise, pick a letter in the yellow pages and see which
of the services listed you could do on a small scale: (A — Aquarium Services “I
could clean aquariums in my neighborhood.” Auto repair “That’s out, no talent
there, but what if I offered a service for finding the best rates for auto repair,
acting as a broker, through the internet? Or what if I persuaded a garage to do
overnight tune-ups? I could bring the car in at night, and return it all fixed up in
the morning.”)

STEP TWO:
Take an inventory of your assets—You’ve got all kinds of tools for
bringing in extra money, but it may have been a while since you had a look at
them. Try out these suggestions and see what shows up:

1) List what you loved as a kid (were you a math whiz? did you love
bikes?)

2) List anything you’re good at (be very objective here: what comes easily
to you? what have people told you were your talents?)

3) List anything you’ve been paid to do (that includes work done for
friends or family—don’t list job titles; try to think of exactly what you
were being paid for)

138
 4) List all your personal resources (van? computer skills? a foreign
language? theater or mechanics knowledge? lots of free time? extra
money? an extra room or apartment?)

5) List your ancillary skills (organizing? leading? good with people?

selling? kids? learning? researching? teaching? brain-storming?) (See
“A” for Ancillary skills)

6) Find local problems, wishes of homeowners and renters, or stores and

customers or parents or pet-owners. Think of ways to make things
better. What could you do to help schools, commuters, businesses, car
owners, students?

Look at your list, then look at those want ads once more to see if you can
find a match of some kind. What do the ads indicate that people in your
community need and that a clever person like you can provide (without actually
taking a job)? Try out one or two ideas on a small scale while keeping your
present job. If you like the results, add a few more. See what happens.

Money, ways to make quick cash

This is so much fun I gave it a chapter of its own (go right to “Q” for Quick
Cash).

Money, create a nestegg for your dream

Matt worked as a legal proofreader for six months every two or three years,
and used the money to subsidize living overseas in the Greek isles. Dan works as
a summer forest service employee to finance his life in Italy. If you dedicate all

139
the funds from a certain kind of activity—say you use every penny you make
cleaning apartments to buy the sound equipment you need—you’re building up a
nestegg. It’s easy to come up with ingenious, low-risk ways of making some
extra money and using it only for your dream.

Mailing List
There are two things you have to do if you want to work for yourself and
survive:
1) Make a promotion schedule, and
2) Never stop looking for good names to put on your mailing list.

One of the very best things about modern technology is that you can send an
email to your whole list without printing up something or licking a stamp. If you
have a mailing list, you can send a message to your people any time you like. It
costs next to nothing and they won’t throw your message into the trash if they
recognize your name. You need a mailing list if you’re going to use most of the
self-employment ideas mentioned in this book, such as selling something on the
internet, inviting people to an event, or announcing what exotic dish you’ll be
cooking at the next meeting of your dinner club.
Buying a list is an option if you have something special to sell to a specific
group like nurses or teachers; it’s worth your while to buy the email list for those
groups. But in most cases, you want your mailing list to consist of “fans”—
people who know the quality of your work and want to be informed of what new,
exciting things you’re up to. You can announce a telephone class or a new
product or your new book by writing a short email note with a link to your

140
website and sending it to your whole list. Nothing has done as much to level the
playing field between the well-heeled and regular folks without much money as
email lists and links to the internet.

How do you build a mailing list? You can give one-time, free seminars and
make sure everybody who attends puts their name and email address on your
sign-up sheet. With that mailing list, you have a business. Now the question is,
“how do you get people to come to these seminars?” Well, you can start a
grapevine or e-vine by asking people to invite their friends. You can also make
an announcement on Craigslist.com, open a special interest group on
meetup.com, or get some business to allow you to run a program on their
premises—preferably something that will get them some sales—and let them
have the job of bringing in people. You can also do a free seminar for a church
and let them publicize it in their newsletter, as I did for All Soul’s Church in
Manhattan when I ran an Entrepreneur’s Workshop for them. Of course, you can
also use good old press releases and flyers to bring people in.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Building a mailing list doesn’t mean you use any of the
following ideas only once. Or five times. You do them over and over, in a cycle,
and you never stop doing them. Pace yourself, give it a few hours a week if
you’re busy, but never stop building your mailing list. It’s the basis of almost
every business (and of every internet business).

SIX WAYS TO BUILD A GREAT MAILING LIST

1) Get PR
Get yourself on the radio or in a local newspaper and give out your website
address, or your email address (and make it easy to remember! Not everyone has

141
a pencil handy). Make it interesting to visit your website. For example, invite
people to send in questions to which they’ll find answers, like my friend Gustav
the food coach did (he’s under “C” for Coach).

2) Find reviewers
If you’re planning to sell some service or product for pets, for example, find
the magazines dedicated to pets and read the columnists and book reviewers. At
the bottom of each column is their email address. They want to hear from you
because they have a column to fill up for every issue. And they’ll be pleased to
be on your mailing list and receive emails from you—especially if your emails
are “sexy”. For example, “Every Poodle’s best kept secret!” (For ideas, check out
the covers of any major magazine and you’ll see their teasers, the ones that make
you eager to look inside.)

3) Speak in front of groups

You can create a list by speaking in front of groups of people from different
organizations and asking them to give you their email addresses so you can
notify them of any future appearances. Ask them to toss their business cards or
email addresses into a fishbowl to be on your list and to get a prize in a drawing.
Take the names home and enter them after the event is over.

4) Hand out bookmarks or flyers that invite people to come to your site
(give them a good reason to come, like a helpful, free bulletin board), and once
there have a button that invites them to sign up for your mailing list.

5) Write a letter to an editor of a magazine and sign your name and email
under the letter. If you’re published, you may get emails from people who read
your letter, and their return addresses go into your mailing list.

142
 6) Offer to write an article (or a column) for an e-zine or your local
newspaper and make sure your name and website or email address are very
prominent.

REMEMBER: the best kind of mailing list is one you assemble from people who
have seen you speak or read something you wrote or came to your website and
asked to be on your list. Make it your ongoing project to build an up-to-date list
of email addresses and you’ll never regret it.

N
Niche, find one
This one is important, so it’s really worth taking some time to think about. If
you are able to find a need that isn’t being met, you’ve got a business on your
hands. Start with something you know is needed, or something you enjoy
doing—say training dogs or creating scrapbooks or doing closet makeovers or
driving people long distances—and find a market by tailoring this service to one
segment of the potential population. Create online books for stamp-collectors,
train dogs to play outfielder for baseball devotees, drive Christians or Croatians
to reunions, do closet makeovers for kids or retirees or left-handed people, etc.

143
 If you can find a niche, you’ll get a lot of repeat business, and if your niche is
interesting enough, you can get lots of publicity, too. Two brothers from Greece
did that in my neighborhood. They set up a warm, friendly food market
specializing in super-fresh produce and home-style takeout meals, and they
chose a location directly across the street from a huge supermarket chain store.
To everyone’s surprise, they do a booming business, and have been written up in
the neighborhood newspaper more than once.
Where to begin? Well, aside from your own neighborhood, the obvious place
is the internet. Start looking at Newsgroups and Newsletters/Listservs that are of
interest to you (see “Newsgroups” below). You will find a lot of information
about what’s currently out there. I did a fascinating search on www.liszt.com and
found a place where one can find any listserv and/or create their own for free!
When you think you’ve hit on something and can identify who you want
your market to be, send out press releases to the appropriate magazines and
newspapers and e-zines on the net, including all your information and a statement
about how your business will help your market. That could launch your business
right away!

Newsgroups
When people want to talk to other people with the same interests, they go to
“Usenet newsgroups”. Finding your people can make a tremendous difference in
your life. In fact, it can be the difference between achieving your dreams and
giving up on them. There’s nothing in the world that makes your dream feel as
legitimate as being in the company of people who respect it. And nothing will
help you achieve it more than people who know the ropes and are willing to tell

144
you what they know. So every time you start feeling proud of being a “loner”
who doesn’t join anything (an attitude I had myself for many years), hit your
forehead with the heel of your hand and say “Cut it out!” (if you want your
dreams to come true, that is).
But it can be tricky to navigate your way around Usenet newsgroups. At this
writing, there are already close to a million different discussion groups, from
“shyness” to “marriage” to “unschooling”. For a good start, head over to
www.google.com, click on “groups” and do your best to plug in key words that
might help you find your people. You might need some time to locate all the
newsgroups it would be useful to know, but you only need to find them once and
then you can settle into the lovely feeling of being surrounded by people who
understand and want to help you. You’ll get a lot of pleasure and build your
confidence when you start helping them, too.

Spinoff idea: If you’ve got time and surfing Usenet is your idea of fun, why
not offer a valuable service by helping others find their relevant newsgroups?
They can answer a questionnaire on your website or just send you an email
telling you their problem. Maybe they need a good dentist for their Yorkie, or
they think they just found a page of the Dead Sea Scrolls in their great aunt’s
attic. You can do a preliminary search and give them an estimate of what you
might be able to find for them, and how much it will cost. If you’re good and
fast, you can keep your prices relatively low and still earn a great hourly wage.
Come on my bulletin board to show off a little and let people know where they
can find you. The word will get out. (This is a great idea for an income stream.
That is, it might not earn you all the money you need, but it might earn 15% of it
and then you can do lots of other things in addition. I love income streams. They
keep life interesting.)

145
 Newsletter/Listserv
You know what a newsletter is, and you can write and print one or send an
email newsletter to your emailing list (which you will build and that’s an order!
If you skipped around in this book, head back to “M” for Mailing List and you’ll
get lots of tips for gathering a lovely mailing list for yourself.) But what I’m
suggesting is a very different kind of newsletter. It’s sometimes called a listserv.
Yes, that’s spelled right, no “e” at the end. A listserv is a fine thing, indeed.
Some people call it a “list” or a “mailing list” but that’s not quite right, either.
I’m not a techie, but I was so astonished when I saw a listserv in action that
maybe I’m the right person to try to explain it to those among you who aren’t
techies, either. Here goes:

Imagine you had an email list of a whole bunch of people who were animal
lovers or, even more specifically, a group of people who were interested in the
breeding of alpacas and who had all signed up to be on the mailing list of a
website about alpacas. And supposing you wanted them all to get a message from
you. You could write an email, send it to the address they provided with the push
of a button and everyone on the list would get your question in their email inbox.
Suppose you said “I hear a new breed of alpacas is coming into North America
from Peru. Does anyone know anything about this?”
Everyone on your mailing list would get that question as an email in their
inbox. No big deal. That’s a nice way to send out a newsletter (and that’s why
listservs are sometimes combined with newsletter discussions.)
The amazing thing would happen if any of the recipients chose to answer. If
one person hit his Reply button and said, “Yes, I saw 2,000 of them, dark brown,

146
walking in a huge herd across the border at Texarkana,” (you know I’m making
all this up, right?) that response would go into the email inbox of everyone on
your list too!
That’s new. It means every time anyone on the lists asks or answers
anything, you’ll know about it. You’ll get an education you can’t buy in any
school. And while you can’t advertise a business or a service on a listserv, every
time you answer a question in a truly helpful or knowledgeable way, you’ll get
noticed. If you sign each answer with your name and your company name and
address, people will be able to find you. It’s a really nice way to increase your
business, and to know what your people’s concerns are.
It’s also a great way to build a community, or keep in touch with one, that
could otherwise melt away. Just set up a listserv and invite some old buddies
from the Peace Corps or college to sign up (and to contact whoever they know in
the group to join, as well). What we’re talking about is checking your email
before you go to sleep and finding a note from someone wonderful you thought
you’d never find again. Nice. You should do it.

(To start your own listserv, go to liszt.com/create/index2.html. Listservs were

free last time I looked.)

Night Out!
If you’re someone who always knows what to do with a free evening, it
means you have a talent and can make it work for you. If you established
yourself—either at work or any organization you belong to—as a Night Out
expert, you could arrange events like theater tickets or swing dancing. You can

147
scour all the weeklies for events and tailor an evening for couples or groups—or
singles! Never overlook the singles market for evening activities. You can
include ethnic dining with live music (or belly dancing!), a comedy club or open
choir practice for Händel’s Messiah (a lot more fun than it sounds). If you feel
like expanding, you can start a hard copy newsletter and hand it out at super
markets so people will call you, or offer an email newsletter on your website.
That’s just one step away from an entertainment publication.

Nightmare Nights!
If you love mystery or horror, you can find the most haunted-looking house
in your town and conduct recreational evenings where people pay to have the
living daylights scared out of them (see the first spinoff idea under Love
Consultant in “L” for more ideas). Corporations hire professional companies to
do this and pay serious money for the privilege, but until you’ve done it on your
own and gotten some articles or good reviews in the papers, they might not be
interested. Anyway, you need to start small to see if you can do it.
You don’t have to buy the house, of course. Just rent it for the evening from
the owner—and if they still live there, that’s fine, too. They can act as your
experts, showing you all the hidden places, squeaky stairs and creaking shutters,
as well as joining in and helping to scare everybody.

148
 Nostalgia
Anyone who knows what kind of car James Dean drove in “Giant” or loves
the sound of a jukebox picking out a 45 and playing it (scratches and all) is a
nostalgia expert. Don’t listen to people who think you’ve frittered away your
time, because someone wants your services (or could be made to see that they
do.) Did you know that restaurants pay people to go picking through flea markets
and going-out-of-business sales for nostalgia to hang up on their walls? If you’ve
been to any newly built 50’s-style diner, you know what I’m talking about. There
are tons of ways to make money as a memorabilia expert or collector or
consultant.
You could decorate homes or halls for parties or consult for the movies. If
you’re the kind of person who annoys your friends during a film by saying, “No
one wore that kind of hat in the 50’s!” Hollywood might need you. Or you could
come up with wonderful “Junk Events” where people dress up in vintage
clothing, maybe drive vintage cars to a location where they could have a vintage
swap meet (and you could provide the vintage music and portable dance floor!)
Yes, you would charge for admission, have a drawing, have a contest for the best
something-or-other, sell nostalgic food. And you would announce it in your local
newspaper’s events column, announce it to your mailing list and try to talk on the
radio or get an article written about you in the local paper. You could also start a
newsletter and get advertisers who sell all things nostalgic. Or you could start a
catalog of memorabilia catalogs. And, of course, there’s good old eBay.
I saw a piece on TV not long ago about a man who collected videos and
films of the first TV commercials. He had videos of black and white 1953 Buick
ads and Stepford ladies in kitchens smiling brightly over their Crisco cans.

149
Hollywood pays him a lot of money to rent those videos these days. But you
don’t need to become a collector and rent storage space. You can combine this
idea with “Night Out!” and have costume parties at a restaurant by age group:
Wear What You Wore When You Were 15! (Maybe you can sell some of the
clothing on your own site—or at the door of the party!)
There’s really no limit to what you’ll devise if you have a strong nostalgia
gene. Sit down and look out a window. I’ll bet you come up with five ideas in the
next five minutes.

O
Ocularist
If you’re an artist with a technical eye and an interest in medicine and/or
helping people, you might consider being an ocularist. This is a trained painter
who makes glass eyes. An ocularist makes the painted eye match the existing
eye, which might involve a sitting with the subject, so the job requires a
sensitivity for people as well as artistic ability. From what I’ve been told, the
craft is learned through an apprenticeship. You can find out more at
www.albeye.com/albqeye.htm.
If you’re an artist with the slightest interest in medicine, see what other ideas
you can come up with that use both. If you’re a writer, do the same. I know of
scholars in the field of Autobiography Studies who specialize in Medical

150
Autobiographies. See what you can come up with that pleases you, and then go
looking for H-Levels.

Organizer
A professional organizer is someone who can organize anything—from your
closets to your life. If they do their job right, you’ll never lose another bill or
another sock, and never miss another appointment. Sounds like heaven? Or are
you one of those lucky people who is organized. If you are, you should provide
this service for everyone else!

Ongoing Organizing services

Many organizing services say “Get organized once and for all.” Do a search
for “organize” on Google.com and you’ll see what I mean. We know that
disorganized people simply can’t stay organized forever (just as we know there is
no diet that you’ll stay on for the rest of your life) but since that’s the fantasy of
the buyers, that’s what people sell.
It might be a good idea to educate them to the realities. Advising that your
program will last for a while and then they’ll need your services again would
make life easier for both you and your clients. Otherwise, every time you finish a
job, you’re out of work again. It’s better for everyone concerned if your service is
more like a gardener’s than a bricklayer’s. After visiting your client once and
putting in the initial organizing effort, you’d know what their place looks like and
where the problems are. If the client paid in advance (as they usually do with
career coaches) they’d know an appointment was coming up and it would

151
motivate them to take the next step. You could handle any problems that came up
in your meeting.

Find a niche
I’ve been told there are organizers who specialize in cleaning up the acts of
professional athletes and models or people with Attention Deficit Disorder (I
wish one lived in my spare room!) They speak in front of parents groups,
teachers groups and to organizations dedicated solely to A.D.D. You could
specialize in small businesses, or fashion designers, or event planners.
There are other things to organize if you’ve got the gift. You can offer your
services to travel agents who handle business travelers, for instance. You could
write a booklet (or an audio tour!) for them to offer their clients who travel every
few days to another city and title it something like: “How To Bring Everything,
Find Everything and Lose Nothing When You’re in a Different Place Every
Day.”
You could get a lot of business by using that title for a speech you’d offer at
travel agents’ professional conferences, or the Junior League and gardening clubs
all over the country for friends and spouses of business travelers. (You won’t find
many business travelers at the meetings because they rarely have the time.)
How about combining athletes and travel by starting an organizing service
that specializes in athletic teams traveling from town to town? Or contestants and
their families who go to beauty pageants? If you have superior organizing skills,
there’s absolutely no one who doesn’t need you!
A well-placed ad (or story) in the right trade magazine—for example, an
event planners magazine—might do you a world of good. Who would write the
story? You can if you like, or call one of the writers on their masthead and

152
suggest they write an article about “Ten Things An Event Planner Can Do To
Always Be Perfectly Organized”. (Change a few details and re-submit the article
to a publication that serves managers and agents of actors, painters’ reps, the
bookkeepers for home business owners, or tax accountants! They’ll send their
clients to you!)

Online Classes
If you need or want to learn something but can’t cut out enough time from
your busy schedule to attend classes, you’re in luck. Thanks to the wonders of the
internet you can study almost any subject in your home, at midnight, if you like.
A search for “online classes” brought up the following entries (and dozens
more):
1) LVS Online Classes — Web Design and Graphics Courses. Tutorials.
2) Hewlett-Packard Business Center — Online Classes
3) Third Age Learning Center — Free Classes
4) Genealogy.com — Genealogy Classes
5) eOnline Classes — universities and colleges directory
6) Online Classes — Joslin Diabetes Center (Free)
7) Online Writing Classes — Script Magazine (screenwriting class)
8) Classes in Electronic Poetry and Fiction offered by The New School
Online University, New York.

The question you have to ask yourself is, if you could learn anything in the
world, what would it be? What would you love to learn? And then, when you
have the answer, ask one more question: Could you learn it online? Even if you

153
prefer to be physically present in a classroom, an online class could get you
started right away. The excitement could begin, not someday when you have the
time and money, but now.
Check it out. Head over to google.com and start some searches for online
classes. See what happens.
And since we’re on the subject of online learning, how about this idea?

Teaching online
Take a look at www.blackboard.com for an impressive example of offerings
from people just like you. Here’s what their site says: “Blackboard.com guides
you through simple steps for creating your online class, which is available
immediately. If you can surf the internet, you can create a course Web site on
Blackboard.com.”
They host classes for schools, colleges and businesses all over the world and
to my knowledge represent the cutting edge of virtual classrooms. (Things on the
internet can change overnight, so don’t hold me to this.)
What’s handy about a place like blackboard.com is that you don’t need to
bring in the students. Blackboard will do it for you. It already has an impressive
number of visitors, so your class will be seen. But if you don’t mind bringing in
your own students, if you’ve got the energy and focus to systematically gather
addresses for your email list, you can offer classes yourself, on your own time,
via email or telephone or Instant Messaging.
What should you teach? Anything you know and enjoy teaching. If you know
more than your family cares to hear about the old days in Romania, including
food and music and crafts, you can teach a class in it.

154
 In fact, there are services where you can speak your lesson into a telephone
and email people an address on the internet where they can go to hear what you
said! (Go to www.audblog.com). Yes, you can arrange for them to pay you for
the privilege, also online. (Paypal.com is just one example.)

Overseas
Living and working
If you’re reading this book, chances are your English is pretty good. These
days, that’s like a ticket to ride: English teachers are in very high demand all over
the world. If you have an adventurous spirit (and a little cash in your jeans to see
you through sparse times), you might be willing to take your chances and in that
case, you don’t need to be certified. If you find yourself in any country that puts a
high value on speaking English (Japan for instance), you can present yourself to a
corporation or a department store that caters to tourists, or an English Language
Coffee Bar (if you can’t find one, you might consider starting one) and offer to
teach conversational English.
You hear of a lot of college grads getting certified, however, because many
schools that offer certification have a network that will almost guarantee you job
placement anywhere in the world. I know an artist who was tired of working odd
jobs to support her painting, and decided to invest in certification from a really
good ESL (English as a Second Language) program and travel the world. In two
years she’s been to Italy, Mexico and now she’s going to Prague. She pays for
her own plane ticket, but knows she’ll have a job when she lands. For more info
about certificates and schools in your area, do an online search. You might also

155
try these sites to get you started: www.tesol.org, www.psrn.org,
www.eslcafe.com, and www.eslincanada.com.

Odd Jobs
Does the idea of going to an office every day turn you off? You may have
thought until now that a mundane job was the only way to make money. Well,
think again: here’s a list of jobs you probably never considered (or even knew of)
that people are doing right now. I’ve made a hobby of collecting oddball jobs in
my travels by writing down every one I encounter. I speak to people on planes
and in airports, in taxis and in restaurants and on the sets of TV stations. As
you’ll see below, my list of oddball jobs has been helped enormously by the
people on my bulletin board, which I’ve tried to indicate throughout as best I can
without interrupting the discussion. If anything below looks interesting to you, do
a search on the internet. You’ll be amazed. This list is just the tiniest glimpse at a
world of work that goes on every day that we never hear about.
If you’re having a hard time deciding what you might enjoy doing for a
living, you can always find more like these. Just ask any group of friends to tell
you the oddest jobs they know about. And while you’re reading through this
surprising list, keep your pencil ready so you can circle anything you like and
write your H-Level in the margin. You might find out some unexpected things
about what you love.

Curator of an odd museum

Someone on my bulletin board informs us that she has a friend who is the
curator of the Jell-O Museum. Now, I didn’t know there was a Jell-O Museum

156
and I bet you didn’t either. But if there’s a Jell-O Museum, there are all kinds of
museums we never thought of. So if you ever wanted to be a curator and thought
museums were few and far between (or just too stuffy), maybe this could be an
opportunity for you.
Of course, you can always start your own museum. People do it all the time,
as you’ll find if you take blue highways across the U.S. My family did that when
I was a kid and we saw one-room museums with arrowheads and the skeletons of
small animals in glass cases... well, never mind. There are fabric “libraries” that
house scraps of fabric from long ago where designers do research and get ideas.
And one of these days I’m going to raise enough money to create a small
museum in a village in Central Turkey in an old restored home, just to keep alive
some of the old ways that are passing away so quickly. I got the idea from an old
house I saw in Corfu, Greece, created by the father of a friend, full of artifacts,
embroidered linens on the beds. It was quiet and beautiful and filled my head
with ideas.
Is this odd activity of being a different kind of curator stirring any H-Levels
over 7 in you? I haven’t heard it brought up much in career books, at least not in
any way that feels warm and personal. Thought I’d throw it in, just in case it’s
one of the things that makes your heart beat a little faster—as it does to mine.

Want to hear some more odd jobs?

You can create floral arrangements out of candy, like a shop called “Candy
Blossoms”. This is also the primary industry of a lovely town in the hills of Italy
called Sulmona. As soon as you get off the train from the lowlands you’re
looking in the windows of shops filled with every kind of candy structure, mostly
made from sugar-coated almonds (called, oddly enough, “confetti”). If you’d like

157
to be a first-rate candy sculptor, you might want to visit Sulmona and take some
photos of yourself in that setting for your press kit. You’ll definitely get instant
cache and if you speak Italian you might get some great tips, too! Take a pencil
and sketchpad and even if no one talks to you, you’ll get dozens of ideas just
from looking in all the shops.

Here’s more from my bulletin board:

“On www.guru.com I found an ad for a Seafood Taster, for a San Francisco

seafood company. It pays $22 an hour for 8 weeks!”

“My cousin lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory and works for a

government agency that provides satellite mapping info to mining
companies, fishermen, hunters, etc. She used to run fishing charters and her
husband operated a helicopter adventure company—dropping campers
into wild terrain and coming to get them again in a week.”

“Two women I know operate apple orchards and there are several women
in our area who run CSA farms (Community Supported Agriculture)—
coops where people buy a share in the spring, work some on the farm, and
get weekly harvest baskets all summer and fall.”

“Around Valentine’s Day a radio station interviewed a guy who helps

people plan marriage proposals.”

“There’s a company in town that will rid your backyard of your dog’s
doody. If that doesn’t gross you out, you’ve got work, because there’s
obviously a big demand.”

“My cousin’s daughter, who loves the outdoors, now works as an outfitter
for a fly-fishing adventure company just for women, called ‘reel women’.”

“Heard of this woman, Isabelle Tihanyi, from California who started The
Surf Diva School and is quite successful at it. So basically she spends her
days on the beach, gets to travel, meet people, does women a great service
and earns good money. Try surfdiva.com for ideas and details!"

158
 “I have a cousin who makes black powder rifles and accessories. I have
another friend (several, actually) who are professional armorers and
sword-makers.”

“I have worked as an auction coordinator (maybe contact the National

Auctioneer Association www.auctioneer.org).”

“My husband worked as a nude model for the college’s theatre class
(costume design). They were looking for men with ‘real’ bodies and it paid
fairly well. Try the art department of your nearby university.”

“My brother, a scuba diver himself, knows a guy in Florida who makes a
good living scraping barnacles off the bottoms of boats for a hefty fee. It
costs boat owners oodles of dough to have the boat dry-docked to have this
done, and it is much cheaper to have a scuba diver do it.”

“I know a ‘beer taster’. He was employed by a beer distributor and his job
was to go from bar to bar, tasting the product. If you’re looking for a similar
job, check out beer distributors in your town.”

There are people who do sign-language on stage for the audience during the
performance of rock bands, and even rappers! To find out about training, look at
the American Sign Language site: www.accd.edu. You can read about Ben &
Jerry’s Flavor Development Specialist (Professional Ice Cream Taster) at
http://outtakes.com/work/taster.html. It’s possible to be a facilitator who helps
people swim with wild dolphins. www.swimmingwithdolphins.com might lead to
more information. If you’d like to be a professional sandcastle builder take a
look at www.sandyfeet.com.
St. John’s cathedral in New York brought over master masons from Italy to
teach their art to apprentices from local schools. You can volunteer to help and
work on a Cathedral just like they did in the middle ages. Toss a skill like that
over your shoulder and you can march to any town that needs beautiful stone
work. You’ll have to let them know you’re there but once you’ve inspired them

159
with your portfolio and pointed out the buildings that could benefit from your
craft, you won’t have much competition.
There are also people who work only as conference staff, and move from
conference to conference. They don’t do the planning part of the conference, just
the onsite logistical details at each location. Contact a conference center like the
Javitz Center in New York to see what’s available. At a waterfront park there are
people who get paid to let their dogs run on the beach a few times a day to keep
the geese away. Nice job for the owner and fun for the dogs, too. Check out the
city parks in your town and see what jobs are listed. The inner workings of our
city parks are an unknown world to most of us and you can be sure there are odd
jobs all over it.
I saw an ad recently for a Mystery shopper: the job was to go to certain
stores, buy things and evaluate the service, store presentation, attitudes among
staff and report back to the owner/head of the store: www.gofeedback.com or
www.mysteryshop.org. There was another kind of “mystery” job I saw, for major
hotel chains. It involved traveling all over the country (and the world), sleeping
in major hotels. There was a long list of things to do, like ordering meals at odd-
hours from room service, having your suit cleaned and pressed, using the health
club, etc. There were checklists to be filled out, too, on things like whether there
was an extra pillow in the closet, or rolls of toilet tissue. (Nice job if you like to
travel.) www.hoteljobs.com might have more information. And yet another
mystery job: Students, actors, or anybody who wants part-time work with a very
flexible schedule and good pay should look into being a “Mystery Guest” for
any of the major fast food restaurants. You’re actually a quality control person,
checking to see if the restaurant is run well. Contact the big chain restaurants for
more information.

160
 A woman in her late 60’s, a retired home economics teacher near Albany,
NY, bought a farm, fixed up a commercial kitchen in a converted barn, and is
luring tourists, scouting groups and others onto the farm: They can work in the
farm gardens or buy already-harvested produce, then cook and can it in her
kitchen and take home their own home-made jellies, jams, pies, breads, etc.

Spinoff idea: Wouldn’t it be a wonderful odd job to offer a service to small

farmers helping them find ways to earn additional income so they could keep
their farms? You’d locate the farm, check out what the owners might be willing
to do, such as:

1) Have guests for home stays.

2) House families who’d like to spend their vacation with their children
farming and caring for farm animals.
3) Instead of a semester abroad, why not hold a “semester on the land” for
parents who don’t want their kids to travel abroad these days?
4) Set up a computer-training center and/or a ‘help center’ and bring new
jobs to the area as well as income to the farmer.
5) Bring in assisted living people for short or long stays.
6) All of the above.

And when you find what the farmers might be comfortable doing, you go out
and find the talent (teachers, cooks, theater groups, etc.) and, of course, the
customers by any means of marketing that seems appropriate: placing notices in
the nearest big city’s events columns, writing articles in national magazines (or
getting a freelance writer or someone on the masthead to write them) and doing
internet marketing of all kinds.

161
 You could travel all over your state (or every state, if you decided to create a
national organization), finding farmers in need and matching them up with
fascinating, talented people who’d love to run a program at their farms. I don’t
know how you’d get paid for this, but some options that come to mind are these:
you can take a percentage of the tourist’s fees or become a non-profit 501(c)(3)
organization and/or get some kind of grant (from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture? FarmAid?) Go to your local Foundation Library (you’ll find it on
the internet) and ask the librarian for some help. Or better yet, get sponsors from
the people who sell to farmers: feed stores and tractor shops who want people to
know they care about the small family farm. See if they’ll help you finance this
idea. You’ll do well if you gather together a nice, fat mailing list so you can send
stories and photos out to the world to let them know how great a farm visit could
be (see “M” for Mailing List).

P
Part-time Dreams
People usually assume that their dreams have to be all or nothing—which is
why a lot of dreams never seem to get off the ground. But if you could make your
dream part-time, imagine all the energy and pressure you’d save: you could start
right away and later think of ways to make it more full-time if you wanted.

162
 Victoria’s part-time coffeehouse
Victoria wants to own a coffeehouse/theater and wants it to be a theatrical
school to boot, teaching everything from acting to set production and
playwriting. She knows experts who would be happy to teach the classes if she
could provide a location; but she can’t imagine how she’ll get the money to own
or rent a space suitable for a coffeehouse/theater or where she’ll get the time to
run the place full-time. However, if she reframes her dream into part-time, at
least temporarily, she can use someone else’s space and do the whole dream
almost right away. Here’s how:

1) Victoria can have the acting classes every Monday during the day at a
nearby coffeehouse which is usually closed Mondays. The owners are
quite enthusiastic about her plan.

2) If her schedule allows it, she can learn how to run a coffeehouse by
working or even “interning” there. It’s worth the investment of her time
because she’ll know if it’s really what she wants, and the experience will
be priceless. (She has to try to help out in the office as well as on the
floor with customers so she really understands the business.)

3) She can run set design classes at a local community college, but she
favors a lumber yard/module furniture store in the downtown area of her
town and is trying to get permission from the owner. If he can do it he
should, because it would bring him more customers from the students
and if he contacts the local newspaper about holding set design classes
there, he has a good chance of getting some publicity, too. Since he
closes at 6 pm, the classes can be done in the evenings without getting in
the way of his daily business.

163
 4) Victoria knows an independent performing group that would be thrilled
to present plays during the week as soon as she invites them, which will
also bring in business for the coffee shop.

5) She can forget about the coffee shop setting entirely and do the whole
project, from acting classes to set design to performances (and even
serving great coffee) in different people’s homes! Or in a truck on the
road, as a traveling theater workshop with refreshments all ready to go!

Party Motivator
Some people just have a natural gift for bringing life to social events.
Everyone knows the difference between a great party and dead one, and every
host dreads the latter. So, if you know what it takes to make people really enjoy
themselves, your skills are in big demand and you can turn them into income.
This was on National Public Radio:

“Suzy Choy loves to have a good time, and she’s found a way to get paid for
it. Choy is a ‘party motivator’. Her job is to make sure guests have fun at the
weddings, bar mitzvahs and corporate events she’s hired to attend.” (Here is
the link to the audio file: www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=
1490273)

Is there some part of this idea that gets your H-Levels up above a 7? Take
that part, redesign the rest of the idea to suit your tastes and see what you come
up with. (How about sitting in the bleachers at kids’ practice ball games and
cheering their efforts to keep their spirits high? Or bringing a group of friends to

164
applaud the performance of a stand up comic? Cruise ships are certainly looking
for you if you’re like Suzy Choy. )

Be a Peddler...on a bike!
A peddler is someone who sells things. Or it’s someone who peddles along
on a bike. Or both. In Austin TX there’s a soup peddler who delivers soup to over
100 people. Incidentally, he quit his corporate job to do this and has never looked
back. Maybe you can develop a different kind of business using this model. What
else could you deliver besides soup? Take a look at his website. It’s fun:
www.souppeddler.com. And for more ideas, see “B” for Business on a bike.

Prepare taxes
For the right person this is an ideal job. Think of it: you work the three or
four months of tax season like a beast, and then you have the rest of the year off.
It isn’t a pipe dream. I know people who do it. One of them not only bought and
restored his own brownstone in Brooklyn, but is always looking for interesting
things to do the rest of the year. If you hate the idea, forget it. You won’t do a
good job. But if you’re detail-oriented and fairly good with numbers, you might
actually have a good time! (I heard an accountant speak a few years ago who said
that tax accounting for her clients was utterly fascinating: “You know so much
about them, it’s like reading a novel or a biography. You even know their
secrets!”) If writing Romance novels is the dream you’re subsidizing, this could
be a wise source of income for you. You’d never run out of ideas. (And you

165
could travel to Capri and write that novel with the extra time and money you’d
have.)
If you specialize in doing the taxes of people who do what you do or did (law
or corporations, performing, art, photography, home repair or dog-walking)
you’ll find your people without too much trouble: they’re the people you know.
And finding a specialist will make them very happy.

How do you learn to become a tax preparer? H&R Block used to train people
for a minimal fee so you’d work for them (which I would do at first, if I were
you. The experience is very valuable.) But so many people trained and left to
start up their own services that I think they’ve wised up by now and might charge
more than before. Check it out. You can specialize in micro businesses by
reading one of my long-ago favorite books, Small Time Operator by Bernard
Kamoroff. Apparently I’m not the only person who loves that book. It’s always
in print and has been updated frequently.
To start earning money soon, you can stay with Block or work for another
tax preparer—or two. How would you find them? Reach out your hand in any
crowded elevator and you’re sure to touch people who personally know one.

Publishing
e-books
You don’t have to get involved with e-book companies or costly software to
publish your own e-book, and your readers don’t need to own a special reader
apparatus. Their computer will do just fine and here’s how: In many word-
processing programs (Microsoft WORD for example) you only need to push one

166
button to turn your document into a lovely book. It’s called “Adobe PDF” and
it’s not important what that stands for as long as you know how to use it. It
provides you with professional-looking pages and a lovely table of contents that
helps readers move around in the document. And, unlike going through the hassle
of getting hard copies printed up at a professional printer, the price is right. Once
you own the software (mine came bundled with my new computer), we’re talking
about zero dollars in publishing costs.

Hard copy books

On the other hand, if you’re someone who wants to hold your book in your
hand and see it on amazon.com, that’s not expensive anymore either. Just use the
services of reputable Print On Demand publishers like xLibris or iUniverse. You
can see their ads in Writer’s Digest Magazine, or look up ‘self publishing’ on the
internet. I’d advise having some of your books in hard copies if you want to be a
speaker. Even if you don’t sell them, you can include them in your press kit and
impress the people who receive it.

167
 Q
Quick Cash
I’m not talking about finding work you love, or even saving up a nest egg for
your dream. The ideas here are for those times you need to make some money
fast and you don’t mind doing work you’re not in love with. Basically, we’re
talking about doing something once, or occasionally. Either way, it’s a good idea
to get your contacts for this kind of enterprise set up well in advance. If any ideas
below seem possible and tolerable to you, arrange to do them at least once before
you really need to. Don’t assume they’ll work until you’ve done that. (You’d be
amazed at what can go wrong when you’re desperate.) Here’s a list of quick
money makers from my bulletin board, friends on the telephone and the dark
recesses of my own mind. Some are better thought through than others, but they
should give you something to work with. Let me shoot them past you quickly,
but don’t forget to circle anything interesting, even if it’s only one word, and
write your H-Level in the margin.

1. Be a substitute teacher
The education board of every city or town should have a website—in New
York City it’s www.teachny.com—or at least accessible offices, where you can
post your resume and inquire about substitute teaching possibilities. You do not
have to be certified to substitute, though different boards may have different
requirements. The day ranges from actually doing another teacher’s lesson plan
to giving out tests and reading a magazine or teaching an inspired class if you’ve

168
got it in you. (This is the Quick Cash section, so we’re not being as fussy as
usual.)

2. Model nude for art classes

Contact local schools with art departments and give modeling a try well in
advance of the time you actually need cash. You need to find out how much they
pay and if you can hold still long enough to qualify. They need real people of
both genders and all sizes and shapes so don’t fret about imperfections.

3. Dismantle booths at trade shows

Visit booth owners towards the end of a trade show and offer to help them
take the booth apart and haul it away. Look at this heartfelt plea for help from the
Angel Ladies on my bulletin board:

“This weekend we’re doing a trade show, and I’m dreading it already.
Setting up the booth is fine, we’re still fresh and excited. But taking it down!
By Sunday evening, we’ll have been on our feet for thirty or more hours and
‘on’ with booth visitors. At that point, the idea of repacking stuff, hauling it
to the van, and loading it is simply overwhelming. More than once, when
the show ended, all I wanted to do was crawl under the skirted table and
sleep, not take down the booth. If someone came by and said, ‘Hey lady, I’ll
pack and haul this stuff for you for $50,’ I’d have given $75!”

Try visiting shows and handing out brightly colored flyers, or go around to
the booths around closing time to see who could use your services.

HURRY UP SERVICES
The next entries are for impromptu work. Your clients have to know about
you before they need you. And you need to be ready to drop everything and go to
them when they call. I’d even try to set up a mailing list and write them every
few weeks to remind them that you’re available. If you have backup people you

169
can rely on, you’ll never get caught short; but they have to be reliable, maybe
even bondable. If you get people with a wide array of skills, you just might have
a very special kind of employment agency. That’s not quick cash for you, just for
the people who work for you—and you might like the work very much. (You’d
better, because this kind of work doesn’t go away. You can’t strand people who
think you’re going to jump forward when they need you.)
Here are some of the things you (or your backup people) might think of
covering:

4. Impromptu animal sitter

What happens if you’re leaving town and the person who watches your dog
suddenly disappears? It’s happened to me, and what a nightmare it was! I ended
up taking my dog with me and running a four-hour workshop with him on my
arm! There was no other way. Some people weren’t thrilled (like the rather
proper ladies who brought me in to speak) but I had no choice. I couldn’t leave
my loveable but weird little dog with just anyone or I’d have been courting
disaster. (He’s very small but gets all fierce with every size dog and could get
himself in a lot of trouble. My pet sitters have to be ready to protect him from
getting his just desserts at any moment.) How I wish I’d known someone reliable
who could solve my last-minute crisis! To advertise, put up flyers at pet supply
stores and veterinarians and don’t forget to get listed on www.craigslist.com.
You can also offer emergency pet sitting for out-of-towners traveling to your
location. Contact travel agents, airline ticket offices and hotels, and tell them
about your service. Show them references. (You should be able to get one from
your veterinarian.) If the hotel doesn’t allow pets, offer to bring the pet to your
home and they might be very happy to tell their guests well in advance.

170
 5. Prepare a week’s dinners in someone’s home
“I’d be so happy to have someone come by and cook up dinners I could
freeze. I think I’d pay serious money to have five casseroles or whatever in the
freezer,” I was told by a very busy software designer who wants to eat right. You
might have to stop by a market to pick up the necessary food (and storage
cartons), cook all night, and deliver the food first thing in the morning before
your client leaves for work, but some people don’t mind emergencies and even
enjoy unpredictability. (It’s never boring, you have to admit that.)

6. Match up outfits for busy (or colorblind) people

If someone were available to come over on the weekend and turn the closet
into a place where each cluster of hangers held a perfectly matched outfit
including shoes, belts, scarves, jewelry or cufflinks, some people would be so
grateful. If you gained enough trust to visit some midweek, you could also check
to make sure no buttons or shoelaces were missing and that everything was
cleaned or polished and ready to go: you might become a very popular person.
You’d need some flair and a bit of compulsiveness, but this wouldn’t have to be
your dream career or most important talent by any means.

7. Research, type, run to the printers

Find writers or students with looming deadlines who need last minute
research or writing or typing. People in trouble will pay top dollar for someone
fast and capable. Put flyers up in copy centers and markets near colleges, and call
publishers or agents to let them know you’re available to assist writers in a
frenzy.

171
 8. Do a one-time de-cluttering job for someone

I got this really helpful idea from my bulletin board:

“When my grandmother moved out of her huge home and into a retirement
apartment, she had someone who specialized in interior design come and
help her decide what should go with her and how she should arrange what
she really wanted to keep. The designer also helped the family make
distinctions between valuable antiques and things with solely sentimental
value. I don’t know how much the woman made an hour, but it was a lot,
and she was worth it. It helped take so much of the emotional stress off, and
people will pay a lot for that. My friend’s great-uncle just died, and she
would have been so grateful to have had someone to go through the
basement and closets to get rid the junk and set aside anything valuable,
like important papers or photos.”

spinoff idea: If this sort of thing appeals to you and you’re looking for a
business of your own, you might consider heading up a whole group of rapid
response helpers to dispatch to these sudden calls. You’d be the boss, and they
would be reliable people who want to do the work. (They’d be able to say ‘no’ if
necessary and it wouldn’t be a problem if you had a big enough “stable” of good
people to choose from.) Write up some flyers and call yourself something easy to
remember, like Help in a Hurry, or Last Minute Assistant (or something better!)
Then post those flyers, come up with some good stories of last-minute rescues
you’ve executed and tell the local radio show (you can call in to local talk shows
any time you like, and it’s a great way to get known!); also tell newspaper and
TV news shows all about it. Get in the phone book, and get a website up (a free
one is fine) so you can be found easily. This is definitely the place for business
cards with a magnetized back on them. If you’re someone who can provide last-
minute help for overwhelming tasks like those above, I’d like your name on the
side of my refrigerator!

172
 9. Perform for gatherings and crowds
Go to places like baseball games, car races, swap meets, expos or flea
markets and perform for the crowd. You could juggle or clown around for the
kids, play romantic guitar for couples, or write poems for $2 apiece.

Here’s a list of some more places where crowds gather or people wait. See if
you can add to it:
-train stations
-car races, horse races
-movie lines
-Dept of Motor Vehicles
-protest rallies
-parades
-traffic jams

And here are some random things you might consider doing there:
-make signs, decorate faces or t-shirts
-carry a small wireless setup computer and write emails for people stuck in
traffic
-carry a charger and charge their cell phones and laptop computers
-hold someone’s place in line so they can go sit down or get something to eat
-wash and/or lube people’s cars while they’re at a movie
-read palms or tarot or do astrology readings
-take dictation for letter writing

You can also provide services for helping the people who work at these
places, by making change or watching the booth while they run out for a
moment. Now, before the cash crisis hits, make yourself known to the regulars at
these places so they’re comfortable with you, and when you’re in a pinch and
need quick cash, they’ll be glad to see you!

173
 10. Sell something you own
It’s human nature to accumulate things. But when those things stop being
useful, they can be a burden. Why not sell them for quick cash? You’ll be
passing them off to someone who will appreciate them and clearing necessary
space for your next dream.
Search your home (attic, garage, closets, car trunk) for things to offer on
eBay or Yahoo or Amazon or Craigslist. You’d be amazed what people will buy!
If it’s in your house and you know you don’t need it, the item is probably
something that has sentimental rather than practical value. That’s great, because
you’ll be able to write an affectionate description and everyone will want to buy
it. Take a nice digital photo of your item, preferably against a contrasting
background. Then head over to one of the above sites and ask them what to do
next. eBay has a whole online program to teach you, and some of the others
might have the same.

spinoff idea #1: sell for other people

If you discover an interest in this process that means you have a talent for it.
And that means you can help your neighbors sell their stuff online for a
percentage of the proceeds. The money will come to you so you’re sure to get
your cut. Just give them 75% of what comes in and you’re even. Unless you’re
willing to keep their stuff at your place, and you don’t mind post office lines,
consider leaving the items at their house and let them do all the packing and
shipping.

spinoff idea #2: teach online selling in your neighborhood

There are lots of people offering to teach how to sell online, and they’re
online themselves. The competition is steep. However, if you enjoy the process,

174
you can offer a workshop on it at a local adult learning organization. You’ll make
a little money for the class, but you’ll also get a number of new clients who will
want you to do the selling for them (even though you’ve shown them how).
You’ll be drawing in people who have heard about eBay and thought about
selling online, but aren’t computer literate or aren’t comfortable with the process.
People are curious about this subject and this is a low-threat way for them to
examine it a bit closer. They’ll ask you to help them for sure, if you tell
interesting stories of online sales you did for other clients. That will give them
the idea. Then be sure they have your email and telephone number so they can
contact you in the future, after they take another look at an old brass lamp sitting
in their garage and remember your stories.

11. Sell off those books you haven’t opened in years

This question came up recently on my boards: “I have hundreds of books,
some valuable, some not, in my house. I also have a closet filled with antique
fashion magazines. How do I find places to sell these things?” Here’s a sample of
the answers this person got. I think you’ll be as impressed as I was:

Head for these used book sites on the web:

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html/002-6493057-5510617
www.alibris.com/cgi-bin/texis/searcher
www.keplers.com/
www.booksearch.com/request.html
www.auldbooks.com/biblio/asubs/
abaa.org/
www.scaruffi.com/fiction/booksell.html
shop.barnesandnoble.com/oopbooks/oopsearch
www.avenuevictorhugobooks.com/

“Here’s another: You can find out what the value of your books and
magazines are by searching eBay to see what similar items are selling for.

175
 Also go to rare retail websites like pbagalleries.com to get an idea of high
and low values for books....just fill in the blanks. When I’m selling a book
or magazine, this is how I research.”

12. Buy junky furniture at garage sales or flea markets, fix it and sell it on
consignment or at flea markets or on eBay for many times what it cost you.

13. Do telemarketing for a week. This only works once. You’ll never want to
do it again.

14. Personally cater a special party, wedding or corporate function using

personal contacts, relatives, or by asking another small caterer for overflow.

15. Design a website for a new business, or an existing one that wants to get
online. (Step into your local cleaners or delicatessen and sell them on the idea!)

16. While you’re at it, see if they’d like a newsletter (online or not) to remind
their customers that they exist.

17. Open or close someone’s pool or summer cottage or winterize their

garden.

18. Trace someone’s family tree and prepare an online presentation they can
email to all the relations.

19. Sponsor a home party like Tupperware and get free merchandise which
you can sell.

20. Tune up or repair a friend’s car or major appliance.

21. Borrow and drive a friend’s cab for the weekend.

176
 22. Be a “Just in time” nanny-taxi: The pay can be good for someone who
will drive kids to their activities.

23. Tutor college students: “The university campus where I teach has a
number of tutoring jobs open, pays about $15 per hour, flexible scheduling.”

24. Be an entertainer, storyteller or read Tarot cards for people at parties.

25. Offer a one-time service to small stores. Get things ready for them to do
an inventory. Clean up after a display in their windows.

26. Be a production assistant to real estate agents: run out to find the right
flowers or hang a special painting in a home that’s for sale. Do the same for a
window dresser by knowing the best places to find a purple feather boa or replica
of the Titanic.

27. Find out what someone just doesn’t want to do and do it for them. Is it
balancing their checkbook, paying bills, making a difficult phone call or
accompanying/delivering a difficult relative or a pet to another city? Doing the
laundry or windows? Washing the dog? Do they want you to call them every day
to tell them exactly what to eat so they’ll stay on their diet? Or cook and deliver
it for them?

28. Work for lawyers doing research, typing pleas, running documents down
to the courthouse, etc. Don’t wait for a job to be posted. Every successful lawyer
is wildly busy. Convince them that you learn fast and can do the work almost at
once. If you don’t know what they want, do an informational interview with the
office manager or legal secretary. Don’t bother with big firms for this cold-
calling stuff.

177
 29. If you’re in school you can often find unexpected on-campus jobs in the
library, bookstore or cafe. Many schools give students one to two-hour shifts to
accommodate class schedules.

30. Ask for little jobs around the college theatre or library that you can do
part-time.

31. Check with student services and see if anyone needs a reader for students
who might have problems with reading such as visual impairment or limited
language skills.

32. Don’t forget waitressing. That’s how I got through college. You never go
hungry (and neither do your friends!)

and if you don’t mind driving or biking …

33. Call a limo company and see if they’ll keep you on backup for overflow.

34. Be a bike messenger. But don’t forget, this isn’t a way of life, this is for
quick cash. Bike messengers have a hard (and dangerous) life.

35. Teach someone how to drive or ride a bike.

36. Take people to their appointments using their car (or yours, if you have
one.)

and finally, some more miscellaneous ideas …

37. Give pedicures in your home (or theirs). Or at retirement homes.

178
 38. Contact moving supply stores and moving companies with a flyer: “if you
wish someone would come over and pack everything you own, contact me.”

39. If you’re good at writing complaint letters to big corporations, do it for

other people. It’s a talent.

40. Throw a rent party

This is a good way to raise quick cash and it’s been done by friends for
friends for a long time. You don’t have to pay the rent with the proceeds—you
can take a trip to Catalonia instead—but these parties were originally designed to
help friends pay the rent during times of duress. Everyone who comes pays $10
at the door, brings potluck food and a skill they can sell, like foot massage, palm
reading, photo-taking, chess-instruction. You can have a contest, too. If one
person knows some kind of trivia, you can have people throw questions at him or
her. If they guess correctly, the questioner puts a dollar in the kitty. If they don’t,
the expert puts a dollar in the kitty. Speaking of the kitty, you can play poker too,
but all the stakes go to the guest of honor, no matter who wins.

41. Sell your hair to a wig maker. You can also walk up to other people with
long hair and offer to sell theirs for them.

42. Set up a food stand at a flea market and cook something good. Got an old
recipe? Make it look nice on a piece of parchment paper and sell it. Only $1 if
they buy a piece of pie.

43. Buy a bit of stage make-up and do children’s face-painting in a mall, at a

street fair or in the park. (Paint your own face first, so no-one will recognize
you!)

179
 44. Grow seedlings in pots in December and sell them in February when
people are aching for spring. Include instructions.

45. Polish silver. Put up flyers, especially around the holiday season.

46. Baby sit on special holidays so you can charge more (I know someone
who made $300 last New Year’s Eve!)

47. If you can do basic knitting, try some long scarves in the colors of a local
team and see if you can sell them to supporters.

48. Make fruit tarts/cheesecakes/mustard/preserves and sell to a local deli or

diner.

49. Try selling raffle tickets for some item you’re willing to part with.
Where? Maybe at a rent party!

50. Ask relatives to give you cash instead of a birthday present later on.

51. Take a page from public TV and ask for a donation; then reward them
with a gift, such as washing their car three times or performing at their next
party...

(If you’re not dizzy yet, head over to my bulletin board at www.barbarasher.com
and enjoy yourself with hundreds more ideas for making quick cash.)

180
 R
Radio
Here’s a book you might not run into at your local bookstore:

Get Into Radio by Robert C. Elsenpeter, 1998 Book World Services, Inc.
Contact: 800-444-2524
The cover copy is very funny: “Don’t go to Law School....Get Into Radio...Over
130 Internet Resources...Choose a Fun Career”, and inside the author trashes
lawyers and doctors while writing beautifully.

His Note to the Reader:

“The purpose of this book is to entertain and provide information. This book
is not subject to any outside governmental or legal review process. Neither
is it a manipulative tool of the totalitarian Establishment, the hungry hounds
of political correctness, or America’s drab and sappy corporate media
machine.”

It’s a good book. He tells you exactly what you need to know, including how to
find a job opening and ace the interview. He also gives the addresses of Usenet
newsgroups that will keep you up-to-date on the profession.

181
 Retirement
For any of the ideas you read until now, were you thinking you’d consider it
more seriously sometime in the future when you had more time? Or worse, are
you waiting to retire so you that you can just sit in the sun and have complete
freedom and rest? Listen carefully: Rest is for people who are ill or dead. Doing
nothing is fine for Monday, but what about Tuesday? A good retirement doesn’t
mean complete bed rest, it means “no work you hate, plenty of work you love.”
So get to work at once, only this time, make it work you love. If you don’t
know what that is, make that your project and start searching. It can be a
fascinating project. Talk to anyone who looks like they’re having a good time
and find out why. Try to remember anything you ever enjoyed and try it again. If
your retirement dreams include moving to another location, plan a visit and stay
for as long as you can. Before packing up and relocating, you want to see if you
like it as much as you thought you would.
But do not wait until you’re free. Get so happily busy with something you
can’t wait until you retire so you can do more of it. Free time without a clearly
defined role and something you have to and want to do every day can plunge you
into a mood that makes everything seem impossible. Think about the word
“retirement”. At its root is the word “tire”. That’s what you’re going to do
without doing something you love. (It’s also what you’ll get around your waist if
you just sit around!)

Trust me on this one. You’ll be glad you did.

182
 Research (see also “I” for Information broker)
If you like research, there are many ways to earn money that you’d enjoy. In
law, for example, there are many online databases that contain what lawyers are
always in need of on a daily basis—court decisions, statutes and regulations, and
commentary on all of them. Rummaging efficiently or inventively through these
databases on their behalf could provide you with lots of lawyer clients paying
very decent fees for your services.
If you’re someone who has an instinct for finding just about anything on the
world wide web, there are other people looking for you as well. Here are some
ways you can help them find you:

1) Create a website with an address that tells what you do (so search
engines will find you easily) and then show a number of examples of the
different kinds of research you do best.

2) Some people advise that you show your prices right on your site. You
can put up your hourly fees (perhaps with a two-hour minimum) with
special rates for very short jobs and other special rates for longer, more
complicated projects (charge by the day—or a lower fee per hour). Find
other researchers to get an idea how they handle their fee structure.

3) Pick the subjects you like best at first and see what comes your way. If
you love any old kind of research, pick the kind that pays the most. If
you find the field too competitive for a beginner, head in that direction
and if you have a gift, you’ll be as good as anyone after you’ve learned
the ropes.

183
 4) To find clients, have an Idea Party and ask everyone to help you think of
all the kinds of people who might need help gathering information. You
might find some unexpected and lucrative niches. Here are a few ideas
to start with:

Freelance writers could turn out a lot more work if you did their
research for them. Journalists in newspapers or television news
shows (the local ones might be more accessible at first) consume
facts and stories voraciously.

Grant writers come to mind. Any business of any kind or size needs
information from dozens of trade magazines or good but not well
known news sources on the net (like www.asiatimes.com, for
example).

Every department in every government agency, everyone who

writes for textbook companies, even historical novelists who love
to do their own research but are so addictive they’re afraid they’ll
never get around to writing. (No kidding, I know one writer who
says she’s afraid to start researching because she’ll never stop. She
should turn it over to you!)

Of course, every student with a paper to turn in wishes you were a relative,
but you may not feel it’s right to do their research when that’s one of the things
they’re supposed to be learning (and are getting graded on!) In that case, you can
teach an online or telephone class on how to find facts and do their own research
more efficiently.

184
 Re-publish out of print books
If you love old books about some special subject—Sheep herding around the
world or Antique motorcycles—you probably collect out of print books on the
subject, and your small, personal library could be full of books others would love
and don’t even know about. You might want to re-publish these books. If the
books are old enough, the copyright may have run out, but that might mean that
the big publishers are reprinting them and that’s tough competition. If they’re
not, contact the publisher or estate of the author (the internet should help you
there) and ask if you can have the rights to republish them.

Recording
Do you have a flair for recording and taping and burning stuff on
audiocassettes or CDs? Find out which conferences are coming to your area and
contact the sponsoring association. See if they need anyone to record the
speakers (and make duplicates) to sell to the audience when they leave (or to
those who missed the lecture). You’ll need a multi-recording device which is
sold by companies on the net. I found them by searching for “sound
reproduction”.

Retreat!
If you’d love to teach, why not take it one step further and produce a retreat or a
weekend workshop?

HOW TO START: What is your retreat for? Who is it for? How, as a

retreat, does it take up more time and space than a regular class? If you were to
run a quilters’ retreat what would make it different from the Thursday night

185
Quilters’ Group meetings? You’d have teachers and quilting bees and an exhibit.
You might have people buying your quilts. Or selling them. In fact, you might be
able to get companies that provide quilting supplies to pay for the whole thing. I
spoke at a crafts conference years ago to hundreds of delightful crafters who
made all kinds of things (including books on how to do crafts) and the sponsor
was a large crafts supply manufacturer.

You can go as far as you like into any subject that matters to you. Leisure
time—even meals—would revolve around the chance to meet so many like-
minded people. A retreat creates a community. The possibilities are endless. This
is such a jolly idea I think you have to stop and make another list, this time of all
the subjects you can think of that could possibly be at the heart of a weekend
retreat.
1. ________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________
4. ________________________________________________
5. ________________________________________________
6. ________________________________________________
7. ________________________________________________
8. ________________________________________________
9. ________________________________________________
10. ________________________________________________

If you’re really serious, assemble a committee. Have them help you get the
word out and find people. You’ll be sure to find them on the internet. Just do a
search for your key words and you’ll find web sites with mailing lists, and often

186
with bulletin boards. Email the person who put up the website and talk to the
people on the bulletin board to find out if they already have conferences and
retreats—or if they wish they did.
Don’t forget to get into newsgroups. These are discussion groups on every
subject imaginable. On Google.com you simply click on “groups” and then do a
search with a key word, like “quilting”.
And don’t overlook retreat centers themselves. They know which groups
already do retreats and are goldmines of information on how to produce a retreat.
And they’re motivated to help you, because it means business for them. Your job
is to figure out how many people need to sign up in order to meet your expenses
and make some money for your time. Write out a plan. Have one person on your
committee in charge of food, one in charge of tickets, one in charge of
transportation.
How will you advertise? The same way you would for teaching—in trade
magazines, specialized groups, bulletin boards (the ones in your office
lunchroom or outside your supermarket and the ones the internet), and via email.

187
 S
Stitcher
“Stitcher” is the androgynous term for seamstress and tailor. If you can sew,
you can be a stitcher. There are many ways to use this skill, but if you only want
to make a steady income, it isn’t about making a three-piece suit or designing an
evening gown—it’s hemming pants and dresses, fixing tears, maybe taking in or
letting out seams. Sometimes it includes restoration of vintage clothing, too. You
could advertise for this job at the local laundromat and dry cleaners (as long as
they don’t have stitchers of their own). You could pick up garments, fix them
while watching television in your own home, and then bring them back to their
owner. It’s a great way to make extra cash utilizing a skill so many people just
don’t have. Or you can turn it into a serious business. In New York we have
someone called “The Ghost Tailor” who does alterations. It’s a big city and
you’d think there would be a stitcher on every block, but everyone who loves
their clothes seems to know her name, and you have to wait in line to talk to her
and show what you want when you visit her loft. (You could be the ghost tailor
in your town—or neighborhood!)

More sewing ideas: Put up notices that you’re available to sew at places
where people repair sewing machines, and you might get someone looking for
cottage industry-type stitchers. Also, post a notice at fabric stores, where
designers can find you. And, as always, a nice flyer posted in the entries of
grocery stores might bring in business.

188
 You can also find people who sell vintage clothing and let them know you’re
available to mend some of their finds. Ballroom dancers often need stitchers:
sometimes to remake a second-hand costume so it doesn’t look familiar to the
audience, sometimes to repair the hard use the costumes have taken. Dance
costumes can go for $5,000 and up brand new, so many people buy them used
and might love to find you.

Self-publish

1) Booklets for tourist stops

Yes, I paid $15 for a pamphlet called “Highlights of the Louvre in 90
minutes or less.” (It included instructions like “get off subway here…” “go in this
entrance,” and other very helpful things, including where the nearest bathrooms
and coffee were.)

2) Your own (or other people’s) books

Getting published is a whole new ball game these days. The major publishing
houses are conglomerates that seem to be in the business of blockbusters, just
like the big film studios. With huge advances to earn back, they judge incoming
manuscripts solely on how much money they can bring in. If you have your own
national TV or radio show or you’re a household name for some other reason,
they’ll be happy to talk to you. If not, you can still try to get their attention, but
don’t take it personally if you’re ignored.
The biggest problem with this kind of publishing has been that quality books
that have a small, but often very eager audience might simply disappear. But no
more. Self-publishing has taken on a new face with the Print-on-Demand

189
process. Do a search on the internet for ‘self publishing’ and take a look at the
offerings of companies like iUniverse and xLibris.

3) e-Books
I’ve already talked about this type of e-book, but it’s such a great idea it
bears repeating. The hardware required to carry “real” e-Books around with you
hasn’t become wide-spread yet, so I wouldn’t worry about trying to use fancy
technology. In fact, you can type up your book in Microsoft Word and when it’s
just right, hit a button that saves it into something called “PDF” by a company
called Acrobat, and presto! Your book will look like a real book right on the
screen! (With a table of contents that links to the chapters, to boot.) Then you can
give your book a URL location (a site with an address that usually starts with
“www.”), send out emails to interested parties, and let them read it for free. Or
you can send a “teaser” that will make them want to read it, and charge them
online for the privilege of getting that URL. (See “N” for Newsletter.)

No books to wrap and ship. Nice and easy—after writing the book, that is.

Support groups
If you’d like to help people who share your interests and/or problems (or you
just relate well), how about organizing and running support groups? Support
groups are needed for all kinds of people, such as artists, solo business owners,
parents of small children, freelance writers, inventors. Contact any group you’re
already in touch with and offer to create a support group where people can
discuss their concerns and get some help from each other. The groups can meet
once every month in person to talk, and perhaps more often in a private chatroom

190
or a dedicated bulletin board on a site you’d set up. They could meet periodically,
perhaps in a restaurant or after hours in a schoolroom or boardroom to hear
experts on any subject they asked you for. You could create and monitor a
listserv for them as well. Think how nice that could be if you were working solo
in your own business or in a field where you knew no one. You could toss out a
question in the middle of the night and get a bunch of answers in your email
inbox by morning.
You might want to call your groups “clubs” (such as The NY Artists Club)
and charge for membership, but you’d have to offer a very inexpensive fee for
starters: you want to draw in enough members to make belonging worth
everyone’s while. You could also offer individual telephone coaching (see “C”
for Coaching). If you develop a reputation for being very helpful, you’ll soon
have a waiting list for telephone consultations. And every good solution you
come up with could be written up into a good email to send to the whole list.
Once you have an association you can start offering services by searching for
group health insurance, group buying power, etc.

School, start your own

In the July 2003 issue of Inc. Magazine there’s an article about someone who
started a business school in his home. (“The Little Green Schoolhouse” by Ellie
Winninghoff.) Gifford Pinchot didn’t like what business schools were teaching,
so he started his own. It’s called the Bainbridge Island Graduate Institute near
Seattle, where students study environmental sustainability and social
responsibility in the context of entrepreneurship and innovations. It took him
only six months to get up and running because instead of spending time and

191
money on a facility, he apparently focused solely on state certification and
bringing in a top-notch faculty. The photo in the article shows him sitting on the
rug of what looks like a cozy living room with his students. I have a phone call in
to him to find out if he’s teaching in someone else’s home. If he is, his costs are
probably rock-bottom.

Sell what you make or do

You don’t have to be a door to door encyclopedia salesman to make money
selling, and you don’t have to think of selling as sleazy or coercive, either. In
fact, unless you inherited a huge amount of money from a stranger, you have
been selling yourself—your goodness, your smartness, your abilities or
something else—to parents, teachers, friends, athletic coaches, casting directors
or employers all your life.
You can sell things you make with your hands, things you already own,
things you get from others, and of course, you can sell things you do. And you
can sell these things in interesting and unusual ways. What are you good at? It
doesn’t have to be your passion or your life dream, just something you find
yourself doing rather well. Now take whatever that is and make it into something
sellable. I know a frustrated actor who’s only good at two things (besides acting):
playing guitar and making balloon animals for his nephews. It took him a while
to figure it out, but now he makes most of his living performing at kids’ parties:
yes, playing guitar and making balloon animals.

Have you been told your banana muffins are the best this side of the
Mississippi? Can you knit? Make patterns for stuffed animals? Do makeup or

192
paint faces at parties? Now think of all the places you might sell what you’re
good at. How about at street fairs, home sales parties, craft shows, at basketball
games or picnics in the park, to artists or bankers or plumbers or the small shops
in your neighborhood.
If you like to bake cakes, for instance, consider creating novelty cakes that
celebrate any old thing and show them to local bakers: baseball cakes for Little
Leaguers or a grownup who is a baseball nut. (Ditto with any sport of course. I’d
love to see a basketball cake! Or a swimming cake!) If the bakers won’t talk to
you, put a cake in the optometrist’s or shoe-repair shop’s window to celebrate the
5th year anniversary of their store. It can help bring in business and if you make
the cake big enough, the owner can offer a piece with coffee or milk!

Try answering these questions just for the brain exercise and see how many
things you can come up with.

WHAT CAN YOU MAKE OR DO? WHERE CAN YOU SELL IT?
-home movies, from camera to DVD -to parents of graduating grade
-Victorian goodies school students
-great cookies -to restaurants
-woven rugs -on the internet
-sculptured pieces -at crafts fairs
-perfectly trained dogs -at toll booths
-sound recordings -on ferry boats
-photos -outside tourist bureaus
-portraits -on Craigslist
-etc… -from a pushcart
-from a van

193
Here’s what I thought of when I made my list:

1) Set up a table with computer and a camera with good lights at an antique
trade show or swap meet and put people’s items on the internet. You can
write up the description, manage the sale and keep 25%. They’ll feel
more secure and you’ll have a lot less work to do if you have them keep
the item so they can mail it to the buyer. You can also offer them online
or telephone classes for learning how to do it all themselves.

2) If you’re a cheap clothes junkie and you know where to get the
cheapest, best clothes in town but your closet is full, how about finding
an old fashioned open truck that goes up and down the streets in the
suburbs like they used to do 100 years ago, or like the ice cream man
does now, and offering your clothes for sale by calling out on your
loudspeaker? You can do this with children’s toys, video and computer
games or giveaway pets from the ASPCA! You can even play music on
the loudspeaker like the ice cream man does!

Storytelling
Some people are enchanting story tellers. It’s a gift. They often ask me how
they can earn their living as storytellers and some decent ideas have surfaced at
some of my Idea Parties:

1) Perform at school assemblies. Schools have a budget for hiring

educational acts to perform for the student body.

194
2) Present at corporate events. More and more, corporations are seeing
what teachers and grandparents have long known: that storytelling can
be the best way to teach anything. To find out more about corporate
events in an area that interests you take a look at www.go-events.com.
It’s actually a search engine for nothing but events in fields like
Apparel, Building and Construction, Environment and
Lifestyle/Entertainment (which includes Wedding and Bridal!) Contact
any interesting organization and see what they need. Tell them you can
adapt their material to a storytelling form and ask if they’d like you to
present at their next conference. (Corporations are cautious. It wouldn’t
hurt to have a five-minute video of yourself in performance.)

3) Teach parents how to become better storytellers. Everyone now

knows how important stories are to building a child’s imagination. But
many parents feel they don’t have the ability to make up good stories.
Share your talent with others by teaching, either through a website with
storytelling techniques and examples (that would be a perfect way to
sell your stories if you’re a writer), or through classes and/or lectures,
which could be the basis for your own book or tape series.

195
 T
Telephone consultations
I love working with people on the telephone and after trying it, clients love
phone sessions too. There are unexpected benefits: I have more time to write and
even local clients have an easier time scheduling a session if they can arrange for
a 3 o’clock phone appointment with me.
If you can offer a service that doesn’t require your physical presence,
consider setting up phone consultations. You can either set them up via email or
do your first consultation in person and later ones on the phone. Be sure to let
people know you’re available to do sessions on the telephone. Many people
prefer it.

Teleclasses
Teleclasses are getting to be big business. Most coaches do the lion’s share
of their work with clients on the telephone. Teleclass technology gives me an
opportunity to set up conference-call meetings with people from all over the
world at the same time. Because no travel is required and I can schedule the
meeting in the evening, I can do lots of exciting and productive work that my
schedule wouldn’t allow otherwise. And an added benefit is that the sessions can
easily be recorded and made available to others.

196
 I hold three kinds of meetings on the telephone: I work with individuals to
help them find and achieve their dreams as usual, but in a teleclass there’s an
audience. Listeners—who are either hoping to find solutions to their own
obstacles or are coaches who want to study my methods and improve their own
techniques—can contribute ideas or information during the session and ask
questions when the session is completed. I also have Idea Parties on the
telephone, with as many as 100 people listening in. The first ten people to
register tell their wishes and obstacles and all of us try to come up with solutions
to help them. With a group that large, we usually find out exactly what each
person needs to know. If you sign up for the next Idea Party, you move up in the
line. Finally, I teach real classes on the telephone, on different topics like
“Resistance,” “Scanners,” (a Scanner is a person who wants to do many things
and can’t settle on one) or how to create a career like mine as a writer and public
speaker. I also do training courses for coaches and Success Team leaders using
the teleclass technology.
You can do the same with your teaching or consulting. I rent my own
telephone line (it’s called a “Bridge Line”) rather inexpensively. You can find
many such opportunities on the internet. It’s possible to create a business that
takes place entirely on the telephone.

Most people who do this choose to combine telephone work with their
computer, and you should consider this as well. You can have a simple,
automated system that allows you to

send out emails announcing your class

let people pay on the computer so the money goes directly into your
bank account

197
 send them an automated response telling them where to call, and
send an online receipt with all the information they need.

These systems can cut your administrative work to almost nothing (and, if
you’re like me, administration is the only part of a teleclass that’s not fun.)
There are websites that list telephone classes by dozens of people and even
offer teleclasses on how to run teleclasses! Take a look at www.teleclass.com to
get a general idea, then do a search on the internet. You’ll be amazed at the
variety you’ll find.
p.s. There are email classes, too (go to “O” for Online Classes).

Travel
If you love faraway places but don’t have money for travel, think about these
great ideas:

1) Fly for free

Get a credit card that gives you frequent flyer points for every purchase
(including additional ones if you actually buy a plane ticket) and use it to pay for
everything. Just be sure to pay it off before the end of every month. I met a
woman who paid her taxes and her kid’s tuition (even her rent) on credit cards
and traveled all over the world for free. It works. I often fly on business and get
frequent flyer points for each flight (plus the points the credit card gives me for
buying the ticket in the first place), and I love racking up those miles! I just
returned from a round trip to Greece and one to Turkey, and gave a relative a free
trip to Indonesia—and I still have miles left! (Take a look at www.flyertalk.com

198
to find out about different programs offered by the airlines. It calls itself “The
world’s most popular frequent flyer community.”)

2) Pick up and go
I recently read an interesting book, Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at
Large in the World, and I recommend it to people to would love to travel the
world but can’t imagine how they could possibly do it.
The author, Rita Golden Gelman, describes herself as an affluent (even
spoiled) person when she first hit the road. She illustrates brilliantly how
someone from a protected life can travel with a backpack and very little money
and discover how safe, interesting and enjoyable the world can be. In her words,
“I’ve been living and loving my nomadic existence since the day in 1986 when,
at the age of forty-eight, on the verge of a divorce, I looked around and thought,
‘There has to be more than one way to do life.’” Read her book and you’ll never
again say you wish you could travel but you don’t have enough money. She has
a website you should check out: www.ritagoldenenglelman.com).

3) Join the Peace Corps

I’ve heard very good reports about a book by someone who did, and the
reviews alone were enough to make me order it. It’s called Living Poor: An
American’s Encounter with Ecuador, by Noritz Thomsen. (You can get it from
Eland publishers at www.travelbooks.co.uk or do a search for used books on the
internet if they no longer print it.) When he was almost 50 the author sold his
farm in California and joined the Peace Corps. For four years he lived in a poor
village in Ecuador and wrote this book about his experiences. The book got rave
reviews from the New York Times Book Review and these words from the San
Francisco Chronicle: “This is one of the best kinds of writing and one of the most

199
difficult; the writing that disappears as you read, leaving you with a feeling that
you are listening to a man talk; even more important, that you are listening to a
man telling the truth.”
You don’t have to join the Peace Corps and commit to a long stay, however.
There are many overseas opportunities that may appeal to you. Search the
internet for overseas volunteer opportunities. I found a fascinating site called
Charity Focus. Take a look at http://my.charityfocus.org/my/login/.

4) Travel as a Courier
Go to www.travconnect.com and read (for free) the first chapter of book by
David Tinney, President of Adventure Travel Service, Inc. He says, “[I’ve had]
43 free international airline tickets in the last four years. All I’ve paid is the
taxes, less than $63 dollars to Europe.” This site came up under the ‘courier’
search but may have several other strategies including “…turning expenses into
free travel.” He claims you don’t have to own a travel agency to do this. The
book is called Why Not Fly Free?
www.sinacity.com features a book, “Fly Free, Stay Cheap!: ‘How-To’
Strategies and Tips for Free Flights & Cheap Travel” by Vicki Mills; Platypus
Publications, Inc., June, 1998 ($9.95).
www.flyingsecrets.com features “Fly for Free, with Online Version of our Air
Courier Booklet.”

DISCLAIMER: All of the above sites are random selections from the first page
of a Google search for the terms ‘courier + fly free’ and I can’t vouch for the
material offered. But it’s a good place to start looking for ideas.

200
 Trade magazines
If you’ve been trying to find something you’d really love to do, write a list of
everything that has ever remotely interested you—even if you’re certain it
doesn’t earn money of any kind, ever. I can almost guarantee there’s a magazine
devoted to that activity, full of articles by professionals in the field (who are
getting paid for what they do). Check them out. Your local library might have
them or will be able to find them for you on the internet by entering the name
(puppeteers, cartoonists, Mompreneurs). There are worlds out there you don’t
know about and you could stumble on something that makes your heart beat
faster and discover some passion that has eluded you.
When you know what you love, trade magazines are the best way to get an
insider’s look at the industry as a whole. People who are connected to
organizations get important benefits. How do you get connected? Check those
trade magazines to find out when and where the next conference, trade show or
expo will be and be there. Just sign up and walk in. Listen for awhile until you’re
ready to ask some intelligent questions and then start talking to people. It could
change your life. If you’re not good about talking to strangers or you’re afraid of
feeling like an intruder, drag a friend along.

Theatrical Manager
Almost every actor I speak to says the hardest part of what they do is getting
good management. That always gets me thinking about the possibilities. Here are
three solutions:

1) if you’re an actor who can’t get a manager, train one; or

201
 2) if you want to be a manager and turn a good actor into a successful one,
find someone you think is talented and ask what he or she would need in
a perfect manager. Actors know a lot about what’s required and they
often know the names and telephone numbers of agents, casting
directors and theater owners a manager might need to contact. Your
actor can train you to be a great manager; or

3) do both, because they help each other enormously. Continue with your
acting career and add a management career as well. I know a very
creative actor who was so good at figuring out the ropes (like finding
publicity opportunities, using well-placed press releases to fill the seats
in theaters, managing introductions with casting directors and
discovering parties where the best networking went on) he ended up
finding as many opportunities for himself as for his client, and gained
great objectivity for what actors should do in the presence of people
who were important to their careers (such as agents and casting
directors.)

Incidentally, you can manage a band, a model, an artist or photographer or

just about anybody. You can also manage a small business and make it
successful, like the fairy-godparent every small business owner dreams of. You
just have to figure out where your talents and interests lie, and how many clients
you can handle; then you’ll have an idea of what to charge for your services.

202
 U
Usher
If your secret fantasy is to do nothing but go to theater or concerts, there is a
way you can do what you love without starving to death. You can probably find a
job (at least a part-time or temporary one) as an usher at live performances. It’s
an interesting world and you might love it. I’m sure there’s a waiting list to usher
at major opera houses and theaters, but you can get your start at any performance
hall. With that on your resume, you can make yourself available to even the
classiest performance halls if you’re ready to jump in at the last minute when
someone doesn’t show. You can easily work your way up from there if you’re
efficient and agreeable.
When I was in high school I was an usher (we called them usherettes at the
time) at the Beverly Canon Theater in Beverly Hills. I saw lots of movie stars
who came to see art movies, and I got to dress up in a kimono with long sleeves
and a pillow behind my waist. Every night for six months I saw and heard dozens
of ten-second fragments of the Kurosawa film “Rashoman”. Each time I’d guide
latecomers to their seats with my flashlight, I’d hear a few moments of the music,
different voices snarling or pleading or chanting, and catch a glimpse of the
screen—but never long enough to read the titles, so I had no idea what was being
said. But being an usher made me feel like a part owner of the film—a real
insider—and it opened up a whole new world to me. Anyway, all my friends
were there and we had a very good time being ushers. (And I’ve heard that

203
director Quentin Tarantino got his start as a clerk in a video rental store, so you
never know…)

Events for the Unattached and Unmarried

Someone could start a first-rate business creating interesting, low-stress
events for unattached people. Many singles I meet really have a rough go of it.
It’s hard enough to make the time to socialize and when they do they often find
the typical singles scene either boring or downright degrading. Come up with
something interesting for singles and you’ll be busy, earning money and doing
good in this world. To keep costs low (so you can charge enough for your
services to make some money), try a potluck dinner and a home-made film
festival of great date movies from the past. If you come up with truly jolly ideas
for events, and then get a decent mailing list and write decent copy to promote
yourself, you will be very successful.
Cocktail parties and single’s mixers are excruciating for some of the best
single people in the world. How about a “work party” that goes out in the spring
to beautify the local parks? I once heard of an organization that once a year
selected a privately owned, run-down house and on a certain day in July had all
its members show up with any tools or building supplies they had (they got good
contractors to join in, and donations from places like Home Depot, as well). On
that one day they’d descend on this house (the owner had been warned, of
course) and up to 200 people would begin to repair the roof, fix the plumbing and
fixtures, as well as the yard and any picket fences in sight. Some people who
considered themselves unhandy set up a picnic table and brought food and
beverages for all concerned. Others drove vans and pickup trucks back and forth

204
during the day. Within 24 hours, the interior and exterior had been repaired,
painted and looked wonderful. (I bet they sometimes came back a second day!)
Now imagine if everyone involved was single. That’s a great way to meet
people, and to see what they’re really like. You’re not looking for the “fine-
dining and candles” set, though you can throw one of those events from time to
time as well.
Create an online center with the best novels, movies (why not throw a
weekend film festival?), a list of restaurants that deliver, a video on how to dance
the forbidden dance, tips for decor or places to buy romantic sheets. (See also
“L” for Love consultant and “F” for Fix someone’s life, starting with their
apartment.)

Start an Uncles Association

Is there such an organization? No. But there should be, so why don’t you
start one? If your brother or sister has a baby you have a splendid opportunity to
become a true Uncle. To fulfill the delicious stereotype of being an aunt, a
woman needs to be colorful, even wacky, and intervene on her niece’s or
nephew’s behalf when their parents are being...well, parents. Uncles, on the other
hand must travel to foreign lands and bring back amazing and hair-raising tales
(preferably about their personal involvement with alligators or small airplanes),
as well as exotic objects like fake shrunken heads or shark’s teeth. They must
also be able to teach their nieces and nephews some exotic art, like 12-string
guitar, chess or ululation. (Ul-u-late: verb, to howl or wail in grief or jubilation).
If your sibling’s kids live in the city, yodeling might be good enough to impress
them.

205
 The special needs and training for first-time uncles hasn’t (to the best of my
knowledge) ever been undertaken. Who tells uncles what size clothes to buy a
baby or youngster, what’s considered hip among the nine-year old set, where one
can get an electronic drum set with headphones for under $1,000...stuff like that?
It could be an industry, with a website, newsletter, bulletin board, Frequently
Asked Questions and an affiliate program if you send viewers to sites where they
can shop for books (and trips to the Antarctic!)
Somebody ought to do it. It’s needed and it’s fun: you can create a special
Uncle’s Catalog of books and CDs, video cameras, ant farms and Go Fish! card
games to send to your whole mailing list. It’s surely an idea whose time has
come.

Used Book Dealer

Sell used and rare books on the internet

Until recently, used book dealer always sold their books in stores or at book
fairs, or mailed out printed catalogues of what they had in stock, but one day I
found a dealer in travel literature who sold his books from his apartment.
“They’re not all here,” he said when I visited him. “I have a warehouse in
New Jersey, too. I once had a store but the rents got too high so I was limited to
book fairs.”
“And now you sell books from here?” I asked, assuming all his customers
came to his home as I was doing.
“No, I sell them from there,” and he pointed into another room where, on a
nearly-empty round table with a lace tablecloth sat a laptop computer.

206
 “Really?” I said. “You can sell enough books on the internet to keep you
going?”
“They paid for this apartment,” he said. Considering real estate prices in the
neighborhood, I was impressed with that statement.
Selling books on the internet is old hat now, but he’s still doing fine online
and I can appreciate why. Though I love spending time in dusty, old bookstores
and have searched through them in every town I’ve visited, it was unusual to find
what I wanted. I remember the hours spent in vain looking for certain books,
knowing in my heart that the books I wanted were sitting in some bookstore in a
city I’d never visit. Bringing the buyer to the seller is a tough problem in this
business. Or was. Once I got on the mailing list of a website connected with my
interest (it’s geography and history of mountainous regions if you’re getting
curious), I found the books I needed in bookstores in Australia, South Africa, and
South Carolina, too.

Used Anything Dealer

I won’t go into this one in detail but you do know that if you’ve got the time
and the patience you can go to swap meets and junkyards—or drive around your
town the night everyone puts out the big stuff for the trash pickup—find things,
fix them up, and sell them at flea markets, swap meets, antique-ish stores, and on
eBay. It’s a lot of work, but if you enjoy it, you won’t mind; I know retired and
unemployed couples who do well because they share the work.
Now think about some unusual ways of selling used things in person: You
can travel to flea markets around the country, sure (nothing new there) but what
if you had a traveling flea market? I never heard of one of these. You could

207
create a Caravan of many vehicles and carry your flea market anywhere.
Advertise in the local papers and show up on the given date. Set up in open lots
or schools or even parking garages that empty out on the weekends (like New
York’s weekend 6th Avenue flea markets on 26th street).
The key is either to go where there are no organized flea markets or to bring
things that aren’t easy to find locally. In big cities you can bring flea markets full
of kitsch from the hinterlands. (Also handmade items, old typewriters and
peculiar-looking furniture might go over big.) To small towns you might bring
lightly used electronics or health foods—well, not used health foods, but you get
my point—or whatever is uncommon in rural areas.

V
Victorian items and Victorian settings
These are very appealing to many people. I regularly receive a catalog of
Victorian goodies to buy—some of which are a little vampiry and Gothic novel-
ish, many which are simply loveable and for which I am a total sucker—like
dolls and water pitchers. Here are some jolly ideas that might wake up that total
sucker in you—and, more to the point, wake it up in other people who are willing
to buy from you. You can create gifts or household articles, give Victorian
garden parties, take people on tours of Victorian homes, have a monthly program
of Victorian films or TV series. (Some of these things you can do for special
groups, like corporations or singles or seniors.)

208
Have a Victorian weekend in the country
Have you heard of those murder mystery events that are held (often for
corporations) as entertainment for groups of people? Take that form, remove the
murder and add a Victorian tale. Find a beautiful old home available for renting
or a bed and breakfast (preferably one with a veranda and somewhere to stroll)
and create a program. You’ll need some actors to play cameo appearances of
brothers back from India, doctors who stay for dinner and hold forth on literary
matters, a resident aged matriarch with an iron will. You can provide light
costumes, such as shawls and hats for the ladies, jackets with boutonnieres for
the gentlemen. While there will be breaks in which people can be themselves,
you should have hour-long sessions (at meals, on some walks) in which there is a
story line—of the type where improvisation is possible. There will be generalized
roles for each person to draw out of a hat (the jealous one, the brilliantly
successful one, the shy genius, the eager swain, the cynic who wishes to marry
for money, the old family friend who knows there is no money, etc.)
And (Oh, I do love this one) you can do it on a train instead of at a house!
My mom contributed that idea, because she remembers people doing exactly that
in the 1930’s. (And what’s wrong with a Ferry boat? Or a side-wheeling giant
paddle Mississippi River Boat! Bring the video cameras.) Regardless of location,
in the evening people can relax, watch a Merchant-Ivory film or an episode of
“Upstairs, Downstairs” or sit by the fire and play cards, drink sherry and talk
among themselves, maybe even have a small dance.
You can publicize this idea cheaply by going on local radio and TV, and/or
you can get a sponsor—or more than one—who’d like the opportunity to
advertise their product and be seen as a good guy. You need a website and a
mailing list if you really want to get good momentum going, but you can

209
probably start out with flyers posted to bulletin boards around town. (Wouldn’t
this make a great fundraising benefit? Offer it—at a fair price—to
philanthropies.)

Selling Victorian Crafts

Lots of people produce crafts, but finding a way to sell them is often a
problem. You can sell through a catalog or try to get department stores to carry
your work, but that means you must produce hundreds of each kind of item. For
most craftspeople, this is no fun at all. Like painters and sculptors, each piece
they work on is meant to be one of a kind. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to open your
own showroom, have people come to you (without spending any money on
advertising) and keep the full price of anything you sell? For most craftspeople
this means being limited to crafts fairs or selling their work on the internet. But I
just read about a group of women who came up with an inspired solution that
avoids both of those methods.
A number of years ago, two women were looking for work they could do at
home because they had disabled children. They began creating Victorian items to
sell. They bought pieces at thrift stores and re-fashioned them into one-of-a-kind
items, crocheted pretty doilies and tea cozies, made shawls and lampshades, and
found and matched up vintage china tea sets. One of them started doing Victorian
tea parties for her friends using these items, and soon the invited friends were
purchasing them.
After a while, a few other talented women joined these two and together they
were so prolific they soon had hundreds of beautiful items and nowhere to sell
them. They didn’t have the money to rent a boutique, and with children who had

210
special needs, they couldn’t sit in a store all day in any event. What they needed,
they decided, was a big private show four times a year. But, where?
Their solution was ingenious. Four times a year, one of the members (with
the help of all the others) moves almost everything in her home into the garage
and her home becomes the showroom for that season. What goes into the nearly
empty house? Every corner of every room is filled with tapestries, hand-painted
tables, dried flower arrangements, lamps made from beautiful pitchers, lace-
edged fans, groups of small, festooned and beribboned lampshades for
chandeliers, statuary and refurbished porcelain dolls with new costumes, restored
doll houses, decorated straw hats and cleaned and mended vintage clothing,
tapestry covered footstools, lace antimacassars, fringed window shades with
tasseled pulls, clocks and mirrors, odd little repainted tables and every other item
the women have been working on in their homes for the previous three months.
They dress up quite grandly for the occasion—wearing long dresses and fine
hats—and serve tea in the garden with a photographer in attendance for
customers who want photos to take home. They have hundreds of fans, some
who plan their vacations around the dates of these home shows. They’ve been
doing this for almost 15 years and have a mailing list of over 3,000 people. For
photos and info, visit their charming site at www.grandvictorianboutique.com.

Van-based businesses
If you have a van or can get one, there are a lot of business opportunities out
there. You can offer delivery services in your neighborhood, open a bookmobile
for kids or romance novel fans, or set up a mobile computer lab. In fact, you can
take almost any idea in this book at put it “on wheels”. I’ll bet you can come up

211
with many more ideas based on where you live and what skills or resources you
have. Here are some ideas to stimulate your creativity.

Pet Taxi Service

If you’re not interested in walking the dog, then maybe you might take him
for a ride! Is there anyone in your town who does this? If not—and you really
like animals—this might be a great job for you. You’d be taking the cat to the
vet, picking her up and bringing her home. With so many families away for the
day, this is a well-needed service. Think of the elderly, who can’t take their pets
to get their shots or checkups. You’ll need a setup to safely transport the
animal—a large space or cage in your van, a place to hook up the leash so your
charges don’t suddenly jump out when the doors are open, that sort of thing.
Carry some promotional materials to leave in veterinary offices, pet stores and
the dog park.

Mobile Gallery
Under “S” (Sell what you make or do) I suggested using a van as a means for
selling things you create (like portraits, for example). This idea deserves more
attention, I think. It can be so difficult to get people to see and buy your work,
although the internet and open markets are a huge step forward from the
traditional store-based method and all of its heartache. But these also require
getting people to come and that’s not always easy. Why not take the work to
them? In general, people are fairly passive consumers but if you have an unusual
venue you can often grab their attention long enough to notice your work.
If you pulled up to a corner on a warm day, to a spot where people were
walking around, and opened the door of your van to reveal your unique
sculptures or hand made jewelry, you’d surely draw a crowd. (You might have

212
some trouble with the authorities if you were selling beer, or Levis in front of a
Gap store, but they are much more lenient if it’s your material.)
Of course, this is also a perfect way to publicize your work: get a paper to do
a story on your unorthodox style of art and selling...or hand out a flyer with your
philosophy and direct people to your website.

Volunteer
You’ve heard it before: volunteering is a great way to learn something new,
and make contacts with people who can help you with your dream. It’s true: even
if your dream is just to meet wonderful people, volunteering will still give you a
classy resume you might need some time in the future—and it will make you feel
like a million bucks because you’re a good guy and you’re doing something that
makes a difference to people. You could change some lives, and that’s nothing to
sneeze at.

IMPORTANT TIP: If you just don’t know where to start looking for a volunteer
opportunity that will suit your talents and gifts and make you happy, head over to
www.goodthings.com. You must never volunteer for anything that doesn’t meet
those criteria unless it’s an emergency, because you’ll be unhappy, resentful and
guilty—and you’ll do a lousy job; you’ll be hurting yourself and, worst of all,
you might give up on volunteering altogether, thinking (incorrectly) that it isn’t
any fun.

You can get a start right now by checking out these useful sites:
www.volunteermatch.com
www.volunteer.org (for international opportunities)

213
 www.worldvolunteerweb.org (UN portal to resources, information, news and
global networks)
www.interaction.com
www.idealist.com
www.careerinsocialchange.com
www.oneworld.net (a comprehensive British site covering organizations all
over the world dealing with every kind of problem.

Do Voiceovers
Have you ever gotten compliments on your speaking voice and wished you
could use that voice to earn some money? Then you’ve probably considered
getting into voiceovers. A voiceover is the voice you hear on radio and TV
commercials, or the voice you hear talking while you’re watching a documentary
on television, explaining that the cheetah is about to chase a wildebeest. If you
don’t know anything about voiceovers but you’ve fantasized being the voice of a
cartoon character on TV (or the subject interests you in some way), I’m happy to
be able to share this with you: there’s actually an incredibly helpful website
dedicated specifically to that, not run by a big commercial company but a person
who does voiceovers herself. The site is: www.avoiceabovethecrowd.com.
Among many other goodies, she has an “Advice and Links” page that can get
you started, and you’ll find a list of books that will show you anything you need
to know.
Her name is Karen Commins, and she says: “I do want to gently point out
that voice-over is not something that you can just ‘take a stab at.’ Like any
dream, it takes tremendous commitment and persistence…I created my advice

214
page on my website because so many people have written to me saying ‘I have a
nice voice; how do I do voice-over?’”

(Incidentally, Karen’s site is an excellent example of how one can offer valuable,
free information while bringing in income from affiliate programs, book sales
and services.)

WHERE SHOULD YOU START?

Ad agencies are looking for you because they make commercials. Television
production houses might want your services as well. The bigger markets like
New York are hard to break into but at a workshop I recently held in Des Moines
a man who stood up and said (in an amazing, deep voice) that his dream was to
do voices was absolutely rushed by three people in the business who wanted his
card, and the producer from IPTV, the public television station that was filming
the workshop, said he’d have gone up too because they always need voices like
that, but he thought he’d give the other people a chance.
So, while it’s not as easy as just creating a demo tape and sending it off to ad
agencies, marketing gurus and casting directors and then waiting for the offers to
roll in, don’t let anyone tell you this is a “pie-in-the-sky” career. Look at the
ideas given by Karen and others on my bulletin board and see what you think.
(There are even some good suggestions for people who live in New York!)

Read the theater news magazine, “Backstage”. (You can find it in

most big bookstores or on the net at www.backstage.com.)

Here’s another site to visit: www.voice-overs.com.

Do a search on the internet for “voiceovers” and you’ll see examples

of sites by people looking for voiceover work, companies who want

215
 to train you to do voiceovers, voice coaches, articles from “Variety”
(you can get a free trial subscription to see if it’s useful), and even a
site that offers a tutorial for recording a voiceover in an Adobe
program.

If you’re in a city with adult education programs, take some classes.

You’ll not only learn the ropes, you’ll probably find that your
teacher is in the business and might even be looking for good talent
to represent. To find adult ed classes in your city, check out ads in
your newspaper or the yellow pages or contact the Chamber of
Commerce.

Talk to performing artists and musicians or teachers in acting

schools. They’re in the same business.

These suggestions are especially brilliant:

Volunteer to do voiceovers for your public television station and get

your voice out there. It will look great on your resume. Also, voices
are needed in small towns for cable advertising on the local stations.
They might let you have a copy for your demo tape if you do
volunteer work for them.

If you live in a small town, contact an advertising account executive

at any radio, TV, or cable system in your area and tell them you’d
like to voice one of their ads if they ever happen to need a different
voice. As a TV producer in a small market said, “I’d love to have
someone fill in for me so it isn’t my voice on every other
commercial that comes on!”

216
 spinoff idea: Help others do voiceovers
One of the biggest obstacles for most of us is that we just hate selling
ourselves. On the other hand, we don’t mind selling someone else, especially if
we believe in their ability. That means that you can start a buddy system, or even
a small Success Team dedicated to people who need someone to agent and
manage them for voiceover work and do it for each other! You’ll have plenty of
courage and imagination for everyone else, and they will for you, too. You might
even include someone in the team who also has a sound studio and skills in
sound engineering or recording (or has people in his or her family who do), who
can help all of you make your own demos. Think of it: a group of five or six
people, finding the ad agencies and casting directors and promoting each other
until every single one of you becomes successful. If you do that, please call me
because I’m going to put you in my next book!

W
Website, yours
Do you have any idea how many incredible things you can do with your own
website? If you’ve been wondering why you’d want one, go back to the
beginning of this book and circle all the paragraphs with the word “website” in
them and read them again. You’ll begin to see the huge range of valuable
services a site can offer you.

217
 Yes, you should have one. You can start with a free website, just to get a
sense of what they are from the inside. Go to any search engine like Yahoo and
they’ll help you put it up. Yahoo’s web hosting site is called “GeoCities”
(www.geocities.com) and there you can create your own free website today.
Those free sites are not meant for commercial purposes, and they’re not what
you’d want to do business on, anyway. (GeoCities also offers full-powered,
professional sites which they’ll set up and maintain for a small monthly fee.
Check it out.) After a while, you’ll know something about how a website can be
laid out. Then you can go looking at the websites of other people. You’ll
understand what you’re seeing and be able to appreciate the power available to
you: to teach, to be found by customers, to create, to learn—there is no end to the
way you can use a website to help you do what you love. And make money at it.

There are so many uses for a website, I won’t try to list them all here, but

1) If you’re starting a business, or already have one, a website serves as

both your business card and your press kit. For so many years I
struggled to keep folders and articles and new materials all ready to send
out in press kits. My little home office got overwhelmed by having to
tailor and package each press kit for each situation, and half the time the
recipient would say it had gotten lost so I had to send another. That
ended when I got a website. Now, I just tell people to visit my site and
we let a lot of trees continue to stand—and have so many fewer
headaches than before. Even if you want hard copies of a press kit, and
brochures to hand out at meetings or conferences or trade shows, you
still need a site for people to go to when they want to know more, or to

218
 contact you without fear of the kind of high-pressure selling they might
get from a personal phone call.

2) For any kind of promotion you want to do, your website is a fantastic
marketing and sales tool. If you’ve written a book, for instance, you can
display the cover on the home page and let viewers see the table of
contents and sample pages. You create an order form so people can send
you money online and then you can mail them your book. How will they
know you have a website in the first place? You’ll write them an
email—a short one—with a link to your site. How can you avoid being
deleted as “spam” (internet junk mail)? By writing individual emails to
each person or by using your own carefully assembled mailing list. (See
“M” for Mailing List.)

3) When you want to offer your expertise to the world but you’re not ready
to go out there and deliver personal presentations (or no one will invite
you!), your website will let you feel confident while you practice. One
person I know wanted to be a public speaker and had a message that she
longed to share with the world, but she had extreme stage-fright and
described herself as an introvert. However, she had no problem creating
a newsletter/e-zine, full of short articles on her subject, and sending
them to people. Her site allowed people to email questions to her, and
soon she found she could put up a “Dear Abby” kind of column on her
site with the answers she gave them. After a short time, she began to run
private chat rooms on Instant Messaging—a live exchange where you
type your answers to questions as they come in on the computer screen.
Finally, she sent out a mailing (her list was connected to her site so
people could easily sign up on their own) announcing that she would run

219
 a live telephone presentation on a Wednesday evening on some topic,
with questions and answers at the end. It was such a success she’s now
eager to talk face to face with people as soon as she can arrange it. But
she’ll never give up her website. If she starts to give presentations
regularly, she’ll want a place that lists her upcoming appearances.

4) Websites are fun! I gave my mother one for her 87th birthday (called
www.mymothersdresses.com) because I loved her stories and drawings
of the dresses she had worn through the years. I put her drawings on the
site and even an audio of her voice talking about each dress as she drew
it: (“Now this was Sarah’s blouse… it had beautiful gold stitching right
here along the collar and tiny cloth-covered buttons. But if I got up early
enough I’d pinch it to go to school. She always forgave me. With five
sisters we always said, ‘The first one up is the best one dressed!’”). I
had a techie add a photo album of her sisters and brothers, and of us kids
too, with our kids, and showed it to her on my computer on her birthday.
She liked it well enough, thinking it was a sort of slide show and
nothing more until my oldest son called her from Italy and said, “Happy
birthday, Grandma! You’re famous all over the world! My friends in
Bologna are looking at your drawings right now!” That impressed her.

I’m barely scratching the surface of what a website of your own can do for
you. You just do what I said when we started this topic: go back to the beginning
of this book and circle every paragraph with the word “website” in it and you’ll
see even more fascinating, useful ways a website can be used.

And then there are weblogs. Oh, how easy they are, and what potential they
have.

220
 Weblog
What if you don’t have or want the skills to put up a website and don’t want
to pay for someone who does? You can have a totally loveable new kind of
website that you’ll be able to run all by yourself without knowing a word of
computer code. I call it a website “for the rest of us.” You can create a weblog—
or ‘blog’ as they’re affectionately known–and I promise you’ll never look back.
A weblog is a site which is essentially an online journal or personal diary, and
you’ll find lots of them which are exactly that. Some of them might not do much
for you (“Here is Skootchy with her new catnip mouse. You can’t exactly see her
in this picture but she is so funny!”)
Are they hard to do? Well, someone has to show you how to get started, but
then it’s a lot easier than driving a stick-shift car or touch-typing. For an example
of how easy it is, take a look at gorgeous kilims as they’re woven every day in a
little Turkish village on a very simple weblog which you can find at
www.kilimwomen.com. This site is done entirely by the girls in the program and
last year they didn’t know how to push the ‘On’ button of a computer!
I had the best time following one blog of the journey of four young women
across the Taklamakan Desert in China, with their weekly photos and entries. (I
still can’t figure out how they sent their entries in from the back of a camel!)
And be sure to take the time to go back to “J” for Journal Keeper in this book
to re-read the section on creating weblogs for homebound or elderly people who
want to tell their stories—who they were on this earth, what they did and thought,
and what happened to them. I think you’ll be inspired.

221
 Be a Writer
Don’t assume you have to take up heavy smoking (and drinking), go live in a
cabin in the woods or a shack by the beach and open a vein every time you write,
only to find you probably don’t have a chance of getting published, much less
making any money. Do you have any idea how many jobs there are for writers?
Look around you: everything has writing on it. Someone was hired to do that
writing and a whole lot of people make a living at it. Writers are hired for ad
copy, magazine articles, brochures, resumes, business proposals, and the list goes
on and on. The internet boom made the writer invaluable, with web pages
needing to be updated daily and all the e-zines that require writers to do research
and create articles. It’s a great time to be a freelance writer.

Know your market.

Check out www.freelancewriting.com to get a sense of who needs what you
want to do. Writing is needed (and paid for) in places you’d never think of.
Corporations need employees to be able to create clear reports and memos. City
and state governments, hospitals and medical schools—any organizations you
can think of—need writers for their newsletters, grant proposals, correspondence,
brochures, information booklets and quarterly reports. Every ad agency would
love to have talented, reliable freelance writers waiting for overflow work.
Actually, almost every business or organization mentioned here needs people
who teach writing just as much as they need actual writers. And companies with
foreign born employees are in great need of someone to help teach English skills.
A writer can usually get a job like that without any teaching credentials if he or
she is already teaching writing in the company. From all accounts by people who

222
have taught such classes, they are extremely enjoyable and gratifying: the
students are very eager to learn and highly appreciative of their teachers.
If you know how to write, consider being a writing coach. If you’re
experienced you can meet your writer clients on the phone, through the internet
or in person if you like, and help keep them moving ahead with their writing
projects. But you can have a bigger hand than that in the writing. Becoming a
memoir coach (yes, that’s a real thing and someone is doing it: see “C” for
Coaching) allows you to help older people get their words on paper, many of
whom really do want to leave their stories for grandchildren to read one day.
There’s probably a great book in describing your experiences helping seniors
write their stories. For sure, they could fill a great website and/or weblog which
could entertain and inspire many people and bring in more gigs for you at the
same time. To get publicity you can interest journalists in what you’re doing and
get articles written about you. For example, you’d send an email to a columnist
with this teaser in it: “Bessie talks about how her great-grandmother met her
husband while milking a goat under a table in 1908 in a little village in the
Ukraine” and when they click on the link, they’re on your site where they can
read Bessie’s story (that you wrote for her). Whoever reads it just might start
thinking about how they’d like you to do the same thing for them—or their
grandmother. (All the interviews can be done on the telephone, remember, and
even recorded for all the great-great grandchildren to hear in years to come.) Of
course, now we’re getting back into that idea of a weblog autobiography I love so
much, and if you use the latest weblog technology you can also have video or
create a slide show of early photos from the author, and you can email all the
relatives for their comments and contributions from anywhere in the world. God,
I love that idea.

223
Learn how to write
What if you don’t feel you write well enough to try out these ideas? Well,
you can learn how from the convenience of your own home. If you’re not
familiar with the specifics of the writing arena you want to enter, you can learn
from some excellent teachers right from your computer—online, late at night or
at 4 in the morning, from Fargo, North Dakota or Papua, New Guinea. Search the
internet for writing teachers, schools and coaches. When I did that I found dozens
of them and I also got the chance to continue my enthusiasm for weblogs from a
writing teacher at De Anza College (http://faculty.deanza.fhda.edu/jocalo) and I
was fascinated to read what it’s like to be in a writing class from the perspective
of the teacher!
There are online writing classes galore, and you don’t have to sign up at a
college to take them. Gotham Writers’ Workshop (www.writingclasses.com), for
instance, has classes on writing anything from fiction and drama to travel,
memoirs, sitcoms and stand-up comedy.
No excuses anymore. If you’ve got a telephone and a computer—or a library
in your town that will let you use a computer—you can polish your writing skills
and write for a living.

Earn lots of money with your Writing

You can make a lot of money writing and you don’t have to write a
blockbuster novel, either.
And just in case you don’t read introductions, let me mention Robert W. Bly
again. He’s either got the secret for writing lots of books fast or he simply has the
metabolism of a chipmunk, but he’s smart and he’s a good writer. His
information is thorough and very useful. The book I have in front of me right

224
now is Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Make $85,000 a Year. Writer’s
Digest often publishes articles by him, and you should try to find a very good one
called “Teach and Grow Rich” written in Feb. of 1997, but still on target. Here’s
the lead: “With fees ranging from $100 to $4,000 a day, teaching writing often
pays better than writing itself. Here are some steps you can take to join the
lucrative speaking, consulting, training seminar and workshop business.”
Last but not least, a first-rate book, The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-
Sufficiency as a Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less, by Peter Bowerman
(Fanove Publishing, Atlanta GA). His dedication, incidentally, is to Bob Bly,
“who gave me the idea in the first place. You’re my hero.” He started his writing
career from nowhere, he says, and did very well within six months. You’ll
understand it when you see how well he writes, but that’s not nearly enough to
make it, and he’ll be the first to tell you. Fortunately, he gives a down-to-earth,
step-by-step method for being a successful writer-for-hire. And he doesn’t like
working long days or long weeks either, so his system is very doable if you want
time to pursue other things or have other commitments.

Ghostwriting
Have you ever thought about ghostwriting? I spoke to a ghostwriter who told
me something very interesting I want to pass on to you. She attended
conferences, listened to speakers and then, if she liked them, went up front
afterwards to ask them if they had written a book. If they said no, she offered to
do it for them. This was in the late 1990’s and prices may have changed, but she
said her assistants charged $5,000 to do a book, and she charged $15,000. (If you
get involved with a book packager, I promise you’ll have lots of work. They find
interesting people, put them together with ghostwriters, design the whole book
and give the finished project to a publisher, making life very easy for publishers.)

225
Write fiction
Even with fiction, smoking, drinking and agonizing are no longer required.
In fact, it can be a lot of fun if you do it with your friends. I know of a group of
women who sat down together and wrote two short murder mysteries set in their
own suburb, with housewives and mothers complaining loudly as they tracked
down the murderers. They never got a publisher, but they should try again and
publish their own books with a brand new kind of publishing company. These
days you don’t have to buy 5,000 books and keep them in your garage while you
try to sell them, because there’s a remarkable new technology called “print on
demand” or “P.O.D.”; and there are publishers who will print a beautiful book for
you at a very low cost and let you sell it any way you like. (You probably know
by now which that way would be: the internet and your own website.)

Self-publishing has made producing a book so accessible for anyone wanting

to make a small investment with a big return. Check out these websites to get an
idea if self-publishing is for you:
www.iuniverse.com
www.trafford.com
www.u-publish.com

226
 X
Xmas
Are you a pretty good singer? Do you know how to make nice decorations,
or knit cute socks...or bake a decent cake? Those don’t seem like big money
makers, but every year in December people who wouldn’t consider themselves
professionals make good money with their talents and hobbies for the holidays—
sometimes enough to support themselves for months!

Here are some ideas I’ve come across:

Singers in big cities make money at Christmas singing in churches, but
many of them stand on the sidewalk to sing their Bach and find some
good change in their hats. Or they sing at rich people’s parties for even
better pay.

Throw a Christmas ball and make it glamorous enough for people to pay
decent money for tickets.

Be a Christmas coach for a small town and put them on the map by
creating and publicizing colorful events that will bring tourists from
miles away. If you can interest the Chamber of Commerce in creating a
great downtown event to pull everyone away from online catalogs so
they’ll buy from the local shopkeepers, they’ll pay your fee (and it can
turn into a yearly event with reliable income for you).

227
 Set up a Christmas Pageant Wagon to roll through towns, carrying
singers and actors for musical or theatrical performances like they did in
the Middle Ages. You might be hired to bring it to more than one town
during the holiday season and find yourself the owner of an interesting
seasonal business.

And here are some spin-offs:

You could get hired as a Christmas Coach (above) and get carolers ready for
first-rate performances, to bring cheer to any down-at-the-heels town that’s lost a
lot of jobs and just sinks further into the blues at Christmas. Maybe you could
actually help that same little town get on the map with a cottage industry for
decorations made out of something unusual and loveable, like salt dough
animals, angels, Santas painted, packaged and ready to ship, or some other
amazing Xmas industry! If the objects are interesting enough—or the story of
how the town is saving itself has warmth and what the media calls “human
interest”—you won’t have to compete with big catalogues because you can get
them in the newspapers and on TV. (If you’ve got a PR background, this will be
perfect for you. If you don’t, find someone who does!)
How about selling vintage children’s books that you’ve gathered from thrift
stores through the year…or creating children’s books that tell the story of each
town and how it has celebrated Christmas since it was founded? If you gather
stories and photos from the local townspeople and credit them on the pages,
you’ll sell out in every town.
Or how about expanding the book idea and opening a real Christmas
museum full of photos and items from everyone’s attic, showing how small town
America celebrated Christmas in the 1800’s?

228
 Somebody somewhere makes all those costumes for the Santas who stand in
front of department stores ringing bells all over the western world. If your town
had a clothing factory it might be interesting to find a way to compete with them.
Or how about having a Santa training school? You could train people who want
to play Santa, of course. I’m not sure what a paid Santa would need to learn, but
how about a Santa School for Dads—and Moms, too. Mrs. Santa needs an outfit
of her own and I’ve never seen one interesting enough to remember. They can
leave the kids with Grandma and give themselves the pre-Xmas present of a
weekend vacation at Santa School learning how to assemble the presents they
bought and how to say “Ho-Ho!” with the proper baritone. Or start a different
kind of Xmas industry, like making and renting or selling fabulous hand-
decorated sleighs and training a herd of small reindeer to rent out with them. Lots
of other Chambers of Commerce might rent them. Maybe schools, or Rotary
Clubs too!

Xanadu
Sometimes all you need is a word or a poem or an image in your mind to
bring out your best ideas. Take the fantasy idea of the place called Xanadu.
That’s where the poet Coleridge said Kublai Khan decreed a stately pleasure
dome. He didn’t get to tell us much more because he was (famously) interrupted
by a neighbor and never got around to finishing the poem, but what little he did
write was so gorgeous and haunting that it has fascinated people ever since. What
could you do with the notion of Xanadu? A symbol this strange and beautiful is
bound to be a great source of ideas. (In fact, if you do a search on the internet for
“Xanadu” you’ll find that it’s been used to name businesses, fiction, personal

229
hideaways and software that does data analysis for X-Ray Astronomy. Coleridge
would be amazed. It’s public domain by now so you can use it too. What could
you do with Xanadu?

Here are some ideas to get you started:

1) Run a class or workshop on descriptive writing. (Call it “Gorgeous

Writing,” if you want to attract some attention.)

2) Offer to bring poetry readings of the Romantic poets to people’s

Valentine’s Day parties.

3) Teach artists how to say no to people who knock on their doors when
they’re in the middle of working!

4) Take people on a tour of “Kublai Khan’s World”. He wasn’t just your

average 13th Century Chinese Emperor, you know. He’s the one who
hired Marco Polo to work for him and regretfully let him return home
to Venice after 14 years of good service (well, according to Marco
Polo, anyway.)

Xenophobia therapist
[xen.o.pho.bi.a (zee-no-FO-bee-ya) (noun): an intense fear or dislike of foreign
people, their customs and culture, or foreign things.]

I have relatives who fear and dislike people who are different from them.
While I personally consider these relatives to be much scarier than the people
they fear, the fact is that sometimes xenophobic people have to travel or even live

230
in countries where their jobs (or a family member’s job) require them to be, and
it would be wonderful for everyone if they got over their discomfort and dislikes.
So how on earth do you change this? Well, there are lots of clever ways you
can at least get the sharp edges off, and if you’re willing to tailor your program to
the particular reactions of individuals—in the way people help clients with a
phobia about flying in airplanes—you can build a decent reputation and get hired
by some corporations with deep pockets and the motivation to give you what
you’re worth to them.
I wouldn’t start with immersion, however. I’d fight fear with lovability. Start
with movies, the warmest and funniest movies made about the people in
question. I’d have cooking classes for the new kind of food, teach history classes
that show the feared people’s past in the best light. If you’ve got U.S. Westerners
heading for China, for example, you can awe them with the history of the
Heavenly Horses that sweated blood and bankrupted the Emperor of China
because he wanted them so much, and you can impress them with films that
show the astonishing riding skills of central Asians. You can interest
homemakers in the variety of households, and surprise them with the luxury of
Mongolian yurts. You can tell tales of heroes and heroines, play the music and
show the dances. You can highlight the fashions or the gardens.
Most of all, you have to show the individual people as they really are close-
up, and nothing can do that as safely and as well as telling stories and showing
documentaries or films. (For instance, who could help loving Hottentot Bushmen
after seeing “The Gods Must Be Crazy”?)

231
 Y
Yacht entertainer
People on yachts may love slow, lazy days at sea, but they get bored all the
same. If you left some nice flyers down at the Marina, or even held some free
outdoor events to draw a crowd and give the audience your flyers, you might get
hired as an entertainer of some kind, such as a story teller or even someone who
reads a great novel out loud. I bet there are people who wish they had read The
Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky but know they never will. You could
ensconce yourself in one of the rooms or on one side of the deck and read out
loud. (If it’s a round-the-world trip, take Proust!)
We’re talking yachts here, not sailboats, so there’s also room for you put on a
play using the guests as actors. That can be lots of fun for them. Or, if they’d
rather not get involved, you can also bring a cast with you and put on the play—
or a whole repertory, before being let off in Barbados and flown home.
Truth be known, there’s more of a hunger for intellectual fare out there than
you realize, and if you wanted to teach a class about opera or art, you’d probably
get some interest. I think the whenever “experts” are invited on cruises they’re
always in finances, investments, or cryogenics (that means getting yourself
frozen and waking up when your stock is worth more or some such thing) or just
more fashion/jewelry shows.
People who go on yachts also have children, so entertaining or tutoring kids
on yachts could be a great opportunity, too. To be honest, I can’t figure out how

232
I’d look that one up on the internet unless someone somewhere wrote an article
about it. You never know. Still, if you’re a sea-loving soul, your best bet is to
become known in a marina as a reliable person by the shopkeepers and others.
And then, to show off where you can be seen!
This is an odd enough profession to interest journalists if you bring it to their
attention, and if you get written about be sure to copy that article! It makes you
look...legitimate. Then attach it to your flyer. (Get into yachter’s trade magazines
and you’ll get some phone calls for sure!)

Create a Yam festival

Don’t laugh: I’ve heard about towns that throw Garlic festivals and Chili
festivals, which attract hundreds (or even thousands) of visitors every year. You
could do this in a number of ways:

1) In your town

2) Online for towns in rural areas that actually raise the things, to help
them get publicity for their yams

3) As a traveling festival through yam country, or as an addition to state

fairs. Have a cooking contest, sell recipes and cookbooks or help them
do it—teach kids how to carve yam faces, speak about the fabulous
health benefits, the zoo-geography and history of yams through the
ages, some fun anthropology (I believe it’s New Guinea, where the
paranoid cultures thought neighbors sang the yams away into their own
gardens).

233
 Yarn
Knit or weave with it. Buy and sell it. Or go far from home to some
inhospitable islands, work for sheep farmers until you can get your own spread
(which you could call “Haldane Farms”) and then start a label of your own (say,
“Black Sheep Designs”) and do hand-knitting, machine-knitting, design work,
hand-spinning, dyeing, crocheting. Write books and make greeting cards, make
looms and carve crochet needles.
Yes, it can be done, and it has been, in the Falkland Islands. If you want to
see a charming site and hear the story of the people who started Black Sheep
Designs on their own spread (with about five miles of coastline!) go to
www.falklandwool.com and treat yourself to a 20-minute vacation.
If you love yarn and spinning and knitting or other fiber arts, you’ll find a
long list of great links on this site, including some dedicated to sheep shearing.
(Also some British Antarctic Surveys and a Penguin Picture Gallery, to say
nothing of a local miniature horse farm!)

Z
Okay, granted, you’re not going to find that many ideas that begin with “Z”, but
there are some. Take a look at these ideas and see what else you can come up
with. (It’s good practice for becoming a real idea person!)

234
 Zoo keeper
How about a zoo astrologer? Or zoo manicurist? Or zoo Philatelist? Or
dentist? Beautician? Naw. But how about a zoo psychologist for animals in
cages? Betcha $5 there is such a thing!

Zarzuela
Zarzuela: a type of Spanish musical theater, usually comic, combining
dialogue, music and dance. Produce it for public schools to help kids understand
a new culture.

Zen board game

Create one to help people do the Zen thing: you know, be all there and don’t
get attached to outcomes and stuff. (I don’t know how you’d keep score, though!)

Zombie
Play one at children’s parties (not all kids want a loveable clown you know).
Sew and sell zombie costumes.

235
 EPILOGUE

Are you becoming an Idea Person? If these pages have helped you start
thinking more creatively, I’ve achieved my goal. I hope you can now see how
many ways there are to do what you love (and have fun doing it) without
breaking the bank, getting a loan, taking huge risks, going after expensive, time-
consuming credentials or making terrible sacrifices.
Even if you felt you had no clue what you want to do, I’m guessing these
ideas have helped you rediscover what it is you love. How do ideas help you
figure out what you love? As I’ve learned through almost 40 years of working
with individual clients, hearing fresh and original ideas, seeing unexpected
solutions to the problem of how to do what you love in the real world, these
make hidden dreams step out of hiding and loudly announce themselves.
You see, dreams that seem impossible become invisible. When I ask people
what they’d love to do and the answer is, “I don’t have a clue,” I know they’re
wrong. They think they’re telling the truth, but they aren’t. Everyone knows what
they love. Most of us love many things. It just seems so totally impossible to do
them (without starving to death) that dreams fall off the radar entirely and when
we look at the screen, it’s empty.
The purpose of presenting you with all these ideas—some a little wacky,
some so good I bet you’ll be doing them before long—is to make you realize that
you don’t know what’s possible! Unless you know what’s being done out in the
real world, and what could be done, you’ll never remember what you really want
to do with this one wonderful life of yours.

237
 And now you’ve heard of craftspeople using their homes for showrooms, of
actors earning money in hospitals, and booklovers making good money on the
lecture circuit, of people who want garden centers, spas, bed and breakfasts,
animal refuges achieving their dreams without money! It’s my dream that seeing
those stories and those ideas has made a believer out of you: Yes, you can do
what you love! Yes, you can do it without starving to death!
Be sure to read the Appendices that follow. If you’ve been circling words
and assigning H-Levels to them, you’re ready to run them through a simple but
fantastic process I’ve created (and of which I am very proud) called Idea Soup,
that will take you from these ideas to doing what you love, in just a few clear and
easy steps. It works! So don’t stop here, keep reading.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this book half as much as I’ve enjoyed writing
it. I had too many ideas to put in one book so I’ve already started the second one.
Keep your eye on my website (that’s www.barbarasher.com) and on Genius
Press too. Let’s keep your mind open, active, having fun and open to all the
amazing, creative, delightful possibilities that exist so you can do what you love.

238
 APPENDIX 1
H-LEVELS

“Pleasure is a sign of the true functioning of our powers.”

Marcel Proust

Many of us, when we go searching for our dreams and ways to support them,
don’t put happiness is high on the list. Or we assume that it must wait until other
things have been taken care of. But the most successful people know that
happiness is something you have to put into your life right this minute, the way
you have to put gas in a car to make it go.

This deceptively simple method will guide you unerringly in the direction of
what you really want and will help you avoid being sidetracked by what you
‘should’ want.

Any time you consider doing some activity or come across a new idea, ask
yourself this KEY H-LEVEL QUESTION:

ON A SCALE OF ONE TO TEN, HOW HAPPY DOES THAT MAKE ME?

That’s all you need to know to understand H-Levels. When you read
anything in this book, keep a pencil nearby and circle anything that seems to
have an H-Level of 7 or above. When you’re finished you can go back and look
at what you’ve noted and it will tell you a lot about what you want, and what
your gifts are.

239
 Making a practice of the pursuit of happiness is a craft. You need to know
that happiness is what you want and that it's not only allowed, it’s essential.
Using happiness to determine what you should be doing with your life is the
smartest and most practical thing you can do. Why? Because what you love is
what you are gifted at. Any activity that makes you happy is using your talents.
Your only job is to find out what makes you happy. Being constantly aware of H-
Levels will soon show you exactly what that is.

240
 APPENDIX 2
IDEA SOUP

You’ll be happy to know I have devised a very powerful (and easy) system
for figuring out exactly what you want to do. Just put anything you enjoy through
these steps:

1) Name anything you enjoy (or ever did). That means it had an H-Level
of 7 or above.

2) Ask yourself: what do/did you love most about that activity? (Again,
what you pick must have at least an H-Level of 7 or above.)

3) What would you most like to avoid in this activity, or in your life in
general?

4) What resources are available to you? (Do you have a van? A spare
room? Speak Swahili? Have plenty of time or enough money to get by
for a while?)

5) Take your answers to an Idea Party (instructions are in Appendix 3—

Idea Parties). Remember, this book is one kind of idea party, so be sure
to look through to see if I’ve included something that requires a van,
Swahili, etc.

6) Create a support team for yourself to keep you moving, step by step,
until you reach your goal. (Instructions are in Appendix 4—Support
Systems.)

241
 APPENDIX 3
IDEA PARTIES

They sound great, don’t they, even if you’re not sure what an Idea Party is?
Here’s how you do it...

1. FIND GOOD PEOPLE

Each time that you meet someone you’d like to know better, give that person
your name and phone number and invite them to your Idea Party, even if you
don’t yet have a date or location. Hopefully, you’ll collect a few new names and
phone numbers. Call everyone. The first person you speak with can be your
buddy. She’ll help you pick the date and location and call people she
knows. Don’t hesitate to ask your friends, family and coworkers to come to
your Idea Party. Just say, “I’m having an Idea Party. Want to come?” and
you’ll get surprisingly positive results. You can have as many as 15 or 20
people at this party, and the more varied their backgrounds, the better.
NEVER PERSUADE ANYONE TO COME. You only want people who want to
be there. That usually screens out the “show-me” types, who don’t make the best
brainstormers.

2. TELL EVERYONE TO BRING FOOD AND SEND THEM STRAIGHT TO

THE KITCHEN
I strongly advise that the party be potluck. When people arrive, they’ll
break the ice best by going straight to the kitchen and putting out their
food on the dishes you’ve provided. This will give everyone the feeling of

243
working together right from the beginning. Also, bustling around in the
kitchen looking for the right utensils creates an atmosphere that is a
perfect warm-up for an Idea Party: playful, informal, with easy problems to
solve.

3. BEGIN THE BRAINSTORMING

After everyone has a plate and is sitting (on couches and chairs, the floor,
or around a big table), the brainstorming begins. Have pads of paper and
pencils available. One by one, each person can ask for some help with
brainstorming (or feel free to pass if they choose). Here’s what they will
say:
“Here is my wish:_________,
and here is my obstacle:_________.”

Each speaker should present only one wish and one major obstacle. Explain
as little as possible, so there's plenty of time to get suggestions. Each
person gets 5 minutes unless there are fewer than 6 people, then they get 10
minutes. You want to keep the pace snappy.

4. TIMEKEEPER’S TIPS
Don’t worry if there doesn’t seem to be enough time; everyone can talk after
the brainstorming when they break for dessert and coffee. Timekeeper’s tip:
use a timer, one that makes a loud “Ding!” when the time is up. You don’t
want to be the bad guy who stops people from talking. BUT IF EVERYBODY
TAKES TOO MUCH TIME, SOMEONE WON'T GET THEIR CHANCE. The
whole brainstorming shouldn’t last more than 1½ hours. If you’d like more
instructions on how to brainstorm, see page 126 in Wishcraft, my first book.

244
5. BREAK FOR DESSERT
After everyone has had a chance to get ideas, the brainstorming is over. But
the party goes on. Return to the food table for dessert or coffee. This is
when people will get to know each other. By this time, they’ll have some
questions for each other, or more advice than they had time for during the
brainstorming. Be sure to leave enough time for this part of the evening.
It’s an important part of the process.

6. FINALE
When the evening is over, expect to get compliments on this party, because
Idea Parties are fun! Ask people to leave their names and numbers if they
want to be called for the next Idea Party. And if they want to host an Idea
Party themselves, that's great! Go to their house next time!

7. THROW ANOTHER IDEA PARTY IN A MONTH-AND WATCH YOUR

LIFE GET BETTER.
At every Idea Party, you’ll meet new people. Idea Parties are a sensational
way to get to know the best people in town, and a warm and stimulating way
to do some first class networking. Never underestimate the difference it can
make in your life to meet someone who can hand you a piece to your puzzle.
You could find out something that changes your life in this best and oldest
way of socializing.

8. FORGET SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Isolation is the dream killer. You don’t need a positive attitude or
self-confidence to make your dreams come true. You just need a lot of

245
friends who want to see you get your dreams. With that support, your world
will turn around.

I often have idea parties on the telephone. Get on my mailing list so you’ll
know when they’re scheduled. Go to www.barbarasher.com and click on
“mailing list” and sign up. Your name will never be given to anyone else.
Promise!

246
 APPENDIX 4
SUPPORT TEAMS
What follows is a streamlined version of the Buddy System, my technique of
joining forces with one or more friends to meet your goals. Whereas a
Success Team typically has six members and meets once a week for two hours,
the Buddy System allows you to use the same principles on a smaller scale.

1. PICK A BUDDY
The person you pick can be your best friend, but she or he can also be
someone you know casually from work or aerobics class. Some people are
happiest working with a bosom friend; others find a close personal
relationship too competitive or too cozy for business. Your buddy SHOULD be
someone you respect and can count on to stick to a short-term commitment. She
or he can be working in the same field as you (as two actresses I know who
rehearse and brace each other for auditions), but it’s at least as much fun if your
goals are wildly different.

2. WEEKLY BUSINESS MEETING

Agree to meet with your “buddy” each week for at least one hour at a regular
time. At first, this may seem like just one more demand on your poor schedule,
but you’ll find that the hour will immediately pay for itself in increased energy
and efficiency. Each of you should keep one rule firmly in mind. For one hour,
you’re not going to talk about the great movie you saw last week, or the coming
elections; you're going to stick to business. The temptation to socialize will be
great. Use a timer, and resist it.

247
3. PICK A GOAL
At your first meeting, each of you should set a first goal that seems
reachable within three to eighteen months (depending on how long you're
willing to commit yourself to work together), such as “get a raise,” “make
up a portfolio and slides and show art galleries,” or “sell at least one of
my needlepoint designs to a boutique.” Pick a goal you really want, even if
it seems improbable or scary—not something you feel lukewarm and safe
about. Your desire to achieve the goal will be your chief energy source. On the
other hand, don’t aim too high too soon. If you’ve never drawn a line in your life,
“become a commercial artist” is too big a goal to shoot for; “enter and
successfully complete a life drawing class” would be more like it.

4. SET TARGET DATES ON A POCKET CALENDAR

You can always change the dates if they turn out to be unrealistic, but you
have to have them or you’ll procrastinate. The later of your two target
dates is your joint target date. You’ll agree to keep meeting until both your goals
are met.

5. PLAN BACKWARD TO THE FIRST STEPS

Starting at your goal, plan backward (“Before I can go to medical school, I
have to apply and get in; before I can do that I have to pass pre-med courses;
before I can do that I have to find and enroll in a college that
gives them at night”), until you arrive at something small and manageable
that you can do within the coming week to set you on the path to your goal
(“This week I will request catalogs from all the local colleges”).
If you have a creative goal, such as writing a children’s story, make your
“first steps” small enough so that you’ll do them. The point is to get

248
moving. Carol, the head of personnel in a major department store, was
confident in her job, but timid when it came to her lifelong dream of
learning to paint. She doubted that she had enough talent and was reluctant
even to try. Her buddy, Donna, a secretary and would-be city planner,
cheerfully gave her her first week’s assignment. “Bring in five bad drawings of
your cat. And they’d better be bad!” The assignment got Carol laughing—and
drawing. Enrolling in a class would come later.

6. SCHEDULE FIRST STEPS FOR SPECIFIC DAYS AND TIMES IN THE

COMING WEEK
If either of you has something especially difficult to do, which you might be
tempted to avoid, schedule a morale-booster call from your buddy for right
beforehand. (You can call him or her back afterward and say, “I did it!”) Booster
calls should be limited to three minutes, out of respect for the value of each of
your time frames. (In real emergencies, though, your buddy might be willing to
come with you right to the interviewers door, or sit in the next room working on
his or her goal while you practice the cello.)

7. THINK THROUGH OR REHEARSE ANY UNFAMILIAR THINGS

YOU'LL HAVE TO DO
How long will it take you to dress, and get to the audition? What are you
going to say in that phone call or job interview? We often think we lack some
mysterious thing called “self-confidence,” when the real problem is that we don’t
know what we’re doing. Advise each other on how to be informed and prepared.
You’ll find that you have more common sense for each other than you do for
yourself.

249
 Now you are both ready to go into action—promise to report the results to
each other at the next meeting. You’ve just done something very important.
You’ve created a structure of expectation outside yourself that will help keep you
on track. As it’s much easier to do something when you’ve got a boss, a teacher,
a deadline, your buddy is set up to expect you to do the things you want to do,
but wouldn’t do just for yourself.

8. SECOND BUSINESS MEETING (AND ALL SUBSEQUENT MEETINGS):

REMEMBER, NO SOCIALIZING UNTIL BUSINESS IS OVER
Using a clock or timer, each of you gets half an hour. For the first five
minutes, report on what you did (or didn’t do) and what the results were;
then talk about any problems you ran into, or ways you’re stymied about what to
do next. You may need to divide this problem-solving time into two parts:
Creative Planning: If you’re discouraged, depressed, or scared, you may not
be able to solve practical problems until you get negative feelings out of the way.
so if you need to, take ten minutes or less to gripe your heart out. Make it as
mean, low-down, dirty, and even funny as you can. “I hate my goal. I’m going to
give it all up and run away with the exterminator.” During this time, your buddy
should simply listen, or cheer you on—not try to cheer you up. When you feel
better, you can move on...
Brainstorming: You and your buddy should now come up with as many
inventive solutions to your problem(s) as you can, including outrageous ones.
Don’t censor. You can always weed out the “joke” ideas late—even they often
contain the seeds of brilliant solutions. Legitimate subjects for brainstorming
include: how to raise money; how to get inexpensive, or free, equipment,
materials, or services; how to solve the problem of child care; and anything else
you can think of.

250
 Sara, a painter on a tight budget, who wished she could buy a house with lots
of studio space, brainstormed with two friends, and they came up with these
ideas:
Join forces with other artists to rent a big house.
Find a dilapidated house the city is selling cheap, and fix it up.
Enter all the sweepstakes that have a house as a prize (joke idea—but
some competitions do award property to whoever writes the best essay
sent in with a small entry fee).
Find a lonely, old person in a large house who needs a companion.
Offer to be a caretaker on someone's country property.

As it turned out, one of Sara’s friends knew someone who had a house in the
country. Sara's friend called the man, who said he already had a caretaker—but
he had a neighbor in the country who traveled a lot, and who might let Sara live
and paint in his house if she would take care of his dogs.

9. SCHEDULE
Save the last five minutes of your half-hour to plan out and write in your
calendar what you'll be doing the next week.

10. EXPANDING THE GROUP

Once the “Buddy System” starts working, there’s no reason you have to
confine it to just the two of you. If two heads are better than one, how
about more? (If you have more people, of course, you must limit their time to
fifteen minutes or so.)

251
 About Barbara Sher
Barbara Sher is a business owner, career counselor, and the bestselling author
of five books on goal achievement and teamwork. She has presented her
seminars and workshops on teambuilding, goal-achievement and negotiation
skills to people across North America and Europe.

She has appeared on national and local radio and television, including Oprah,
The Donahue Show, The Today Show, 60 Minutes, CNN and Good Morning
America.

Her first book Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want has sold well
over a million copies. In 1972, Sher invented Success Teams—small groups in
which members work together in weekly meetings to identify their dreams and
help each other make them come true. The teams were an instant hit. By 1976,
she was running workshops to help people create Success Teams throughout the
United States and Europe. Today, Sher’s teams are operating in universities,
career centers, Fortune 500 companies and in entrepreneur associations in Nepal,
Siberia, Israel, Canada, Thailand, Australia, and Bulgaria.

When Sher discovered that many people didn’t know what they’d really love
to do, she began hosting problem-solving sessions, developing dozens of
powerful techniques that freed people from “goal-paralysis.” These techniques
have been developed in all her following books, workshops, tapes and courses.

Her third book, The New York Times best-seller, I Could Do Anything if I
Only Knew What It Was, an explosive bestseller was followed in 1996 by Live
the Life You Love in Ten Easy Step-by-Step Lessons, which won the first award

252
ever given for “Best Motivational Book of the Year” by the Books For A Better
Life Award Commission.

Her fifth book, It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now, How to Create
Your Second Life at Any Age, has turned ideas of midlife on their ear and her
hilarious hour-long PBS special by the same name has been submitted for an
Emmy nomination and is winning accolades wherever it is shown.

Two more PBS specials have followed: “Live the Life You Love/Map to
Success,” a two-part show and “Barbara Sher’s Idea Party.” All three of her
shows have been called “standup comedy with a message.”

Presently, Barbara Sher consults with clients in her New York office, speaks
in front of organizations around the world and travels to her second home in
Central Turkey where she has started a foundation called Hands on Hips, Inc., to
teach e-commerce to the village weavers.

You can find more information at www.barbarasher.com

253
 WRITE ME!
Have you got a great idea you’d like to share with world? Or a story about
yourself or someone you know who went after their dreams in an unusual or
original way? Open your inventive mind and tell me your ideas and stories. Let
the world know your ideas, what you’ve done, what someone else has done, or
what you think somebody really ought to do.

I’ll read your letter personally and if I can use it in my next book, I’ll contact
you at once to get your release (or you can include permission right in your
letter). What will you get in return? If I use your idea I’ll send you a free copy of
the next book, I’ll put your name in it, right after your entry (unless you want to
stay anonymous) and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have
probably helped someone make their “impossible” dream come true.

I’d love to hear from you. You can write me at

Barbara Sher
Box 20052
Park West Station
New York, New York 10025

or email me at : [email protected]

Thank you,
Barbara Sher

254
TO ORDER BARBARA’S BOOKS AND TAPES
I’m adding new titles every month. To find everything and stay up to date,
come to www.barbarasher.com or www.geniuspress.com.

Here's what’s available now:

Books

Wishcraft
I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What It Was
Live the Life You Love
It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now

(All these titles can be found on amazon.com or at your local bookstore.)

Courses
Dare to Live Your Dream, a 12-audiocassette course
Discover Your Dream Course Workbook with audio CD
Making Dreams Happen, a 23-CD set with Barbara Sher, Barbara Winter and
Valerie Young

(Come to www.barbarasher.com or www.geniuspress.com for these audio

courses.)

Videos
Barbara's PBS shows can presently be yours by pledging your support to
your local public television station. Check to see if they're airing Barbara's show
in your town (and if they plan to bring her out to do a workshop!) These videos
will become available to the public on Barbara's websites when they are no
longer being used as pledge gifts.
For more information: [email protected]

255