The Light

Back in the days when the world was dark and life fought to survive. There were glimmers of light that shone through the grime and pierced the existence with a revived energy. Nothing could explain the light but its presence was deafening.

Plants would feel their direction being torn towards it, lonely wild animals would wander into the magnetised beams, and once gentle waters would reflect and shimmer in their new found brilliance.

This light then crept over the world and bathed the whole in a divine duvet of protection. The immense glory being all encompassing.

Then the most incredibly sad event happened. The light that had generated from within, began to fade away and slowly the influence began to drain from every living thing. Fields that were lush began to look withered and bleak, and the animals crawled back to their fearful hiding places. The dark ages were upon them once again.

Many years passed and many scholars attempted to understand the light, in a vain attempt to recreate it. But the light was never to be found. The darkness ensued.

But the light that stretched over the land had not been made by a heavenly source. It had not been generated by an ethereal instrument. The answer then came to the people that by then inhabited the world.

The light had come from within the people themselves. The light had been manufactured by their own brilliance, by their own optimism and enthusiasm. Everyone is born with their own sun and moon. The magnetism is controlled by the people.

Since this time, there have been five thousand long year passed, and many different vehicles and approaches, ceremonies and vanity have been provided to hold this power in the hands of a few. Gradually though the dawning of the light, the answer to where it came from, has materialised out of the modern gloom.

Life as a concept is there to be seized rather than forced upon. The truth has filtered through the greatest minds of our time, and is now once again in it's ascendancy. It does not matter which beat you listen to, or which books you read, or which clothes you wear. The light is always there, but it needs belief to turn it on.

In a scientific world it still requires a leap of faith in order to achieve the very basic command of oneself. To believe in oneself and believe that one can achieve anything is almost primal, but the dark times have covered this ability and prevent us from accessing it readily.

Life should be a prairie not a prison. We have a better standard of life than any other set of people in history and we are still not free. Why can we still not see the light?

The times were so recently so different that we still live in the same homes as them, but we still have no idea of what we should be grateful for. It is all in front of us, we just need to open our eyes and take the first step... And the light will return.

Portfolio Career - The New Plan

Since the last entry we have been on holiday and I have been concentrating on finishing the book. I am glad to say that I have now finished the book. BUT there is still maybe some extra scenes that I want to include, and I am committed to finishing these by the end of July.

This is the first milestone on this journey, and therefore important that I reach it before diverting my attention to other steps, i.e. Freelance Writing.

The other important thing to mention is the holiday that we went on a couple of weeks ago. It was to the Isle of Wight which just so happens to be the place where we are thinking of moving to. We coupled the holiday with a reconnaissance of the island, especially the special needs school for Sophie.

The school passed our tests regarding the safety for Sophie, but more importantly the 'feel' of the school. Everyone there was happy and kind, and all of the children were really happy to be there, and this is the most important thing on my list.

This was the only practical obstacle to relocating and this has now been cleared. Which is great because we can concentrate on making it happen, but it is quite scary as well because the plan is now real and I need to make it work.

So, to reiterate the plan; The book to be finished and begin to be sent out - September, Freelance Writing work to begin to be established - September, At least one paid writing assignment, or 10 free assignments - December.

It's full steam ahead, and all of this in parallel with my day job which in case I haven't mentioned before is full on as well. It is still my intention to secure a redundancy package and I am hoping to start these discussions in September.

So, that's it for now. I will finish my book and then when I begin the Freelance writing adventure I will track the progress on here. The journey with the book is a very creative process, and hard to track, all I can say is that it is close and when it is finished you will be the first to know.

Also, as an aside, I have completed the swim and raised a staggering two thousand pounds in a fortnight for the Neo-Natal Unit at Stepping Hill Hospital.

Portfolio Career - Bank Holiday Weekends

What a lovely weekend, and absolutely no further towards a Portfolio Career. I've spent the last three days with Claire and the kids and we've had a great time. A Bank Holiday weekend is about recharging and reaffirming what is important, and what all this is about in the first place.

I have been desperately trying to get Claire's birthday present ready in the evenings and this has been a mini project. It has taken so much longer than I first expected, but if you knew what it was then you wouldn't be surprised. But, the fact that I have been 'working' in the evenings made me think that this is the type of thing that I am aspiring to.

I have enjoyed the birthday present preparation because I really want Claire to enjoy it, and for it to be just right when she opens it. This can therefore be compared to a task that I love that I am doing for money instead of giving joy.

I can work around the kids when they are at school, or in bed, and still be there for those good times in between. Those good times that unfortunately are so seldom in my current existence.

I really enjoyed yesterday because we all went into Manchester, and spent three to four hours there not really doing anything. We went to see a photography exhibition, Dorothy Bohm, but that was it. We decided to buy some lunch in M&S and eat it on a bench watching the world go by us, and then later we had a coffee and watched a different world go by.

It felt like such a lazy day, even though it wasn't due to the walking, and we were all together sharing the experiences for the whole time. It made me think of how England has changed in my lifetime. I have written about this before, but I still think we are quite lucky to have this coffee bar culture in England. It has come from the continent, and the idea of relaxing in public is a concept that I have always loved from earlier holidays. Now we can enjoy this without having to travel first.

I love watching people walk past, real characters, and making up stories about them. My curiosity about their personal circumstances, asking questions to myself about why they are wearing that particular hat, or where they are rushing off to. I could do it all day long, and if it wasn't for Claire then I probably would have. I think Dylan has started to get the bug as well, a young man walked past with a big Victorian beard, and he all of a sudden jumped up, laughing and pointing. Very funny.

So really, this is the part of my balanced portfolio of life that I am trying to increase. Surely this can be achieved. If as well, I can accompany it with work that I love, and the ability to help others, then jackpot.

I'll know I've made it when I have a box at St.Marys, and we are all there enjoying lunch before the match.

Anyway, I have digressed a little in this entry, but this is due to the incredible length of time it is taking to edit the book. I am going to have to up my effort, and start working in the evenings as well, in order to get it finished to a point where I can finally start getting it out there.

So, as always, I will keep you up-to-date with my lack of progress as well as my progress, and hopefully I can start to report more of the latter very shortly.

Portfolio Career - Well-Being

The most important part of a Portfolio Career, for me, is the ability to choose the components of the portfolio. Like I've mentioned before, you would only choose things that you enjoy and that bring you a reward. This would in turn create a contentment in your everyday life, and you would really start to enjoy life.

Another term for this is 'Well-Being', and there has been a book called Well-Being by Tom Rath and Jim Harter which explains the factors that go towards achieving it.

Gallup, as in the company that run Gallup Polls etc., have analysed statistically the components that go in to well-being. They have concluded that there are five key areas:

Career Well-being, the job, or what you do each day.
Emotional Well-being, your relationship with loved ones.
Physical Well-being, your fitness, your health
Financial Well-being, how comfortable you are, having enough to support your lifestyle
Community Well-being, what sense of belonging that you have with a group of people.


Each of these in equal volume will work towards an overall sense of Well-being. Interestingly, 66% are perfectly happy with one of these, but only 7% are happy with the balance across all five.

This directly applies to what I am trying to do with this whole journey into a Portfolio Career. I want to improve my Career Well-being, and Financial Well-being, whilst maintaining the others.

When I read about this, it really resonated with my purpose. So much so that I am going to draw up a kind of Balanced Scorecard, in which I will list the activities that I do currently and allocate them into one of the five pots. I will then score these and calculate totals.

Then I will estimate a level that I am aiming to reach for each pot, calculate the gap, and plan what to do about it. I am hoping that most of the work that I am doing at the moment will go along way to plugging that gap, but it may pull out something that I have taken my eye off.

Portfolio Career - Steps for Freelance Writing

The next stage to achieving a Portfolio Career is to start to establish the income streams. One of the potential income streams that I have identified is Freelance Writing. I think I will enjoy this area of work especially if I can concentrate on the appropriate categories.

Freelance writing is becoming a real boom industry at the moment due to the explosion of the internet. The amount of new information that will be produced in 2010 will be equal to the amount of information that has been published in the last three thousand years put together.

This is possible due to the volume of websites that now exists on the internet. All of these websites need content in order to stay relevant and attract people. If they attract people then they will earn more money in advertising.

So, the market for the writing of this content is huge. Due to the business models of websites they do not have in-house writers that are paid on their staff. They raise a request online for freelance writers to bid on and, depending on the level of expertise and quality that they are after, they will make a choice. There has been a rise in the freelance writing market places where projects are offered up and bids are collected.

In order to win a bid the writer must suggest a competitive price for the work, but also ratings are given to each writer, and also profiles of the writer can be viewed in order to give the employer an idea of quality. These three factors will go towards a decision being made. Obviously, therefore, if a writer is established and has many articles under his belt, all with high ratings, then they can demand a higher price due to confidence levels of quality.

How can you break in to this world of dangling pound notes? I have bought an ebook called Six Figure Freelancer and it describes the step-by-step process to establish yourself. Surprisingly it does not seem hard and because of these low barriers to entry, you can expect a large amount of competition. Also, as it is online it is opened up to the whole world and I will suffer from the impact of lower standards of living in developing countries. A person in India will charge a lot less than my hourly rate to produce the same work, and so I need to concentrate much more on quality. Once set up this should be okay, but breaking into it will be harder because of the lack of proof that I can back up my obvious quality. That obvious quality that purveyors of this blog could verify from the rooftops.

Steps required to take part:

- Register on the online market places
- Create a profile on said market places
- Bid for work, at first by either, 1) reducing the price, or 2) creating my own requests for work (clever)
- Once the ball is rolling, then create my own website that I can direct prospective clients to, and begin to establish regular income streams with the same people that begin to know and trust the quality that I produce.

Easy.

The good thing with all of this is that it can be done whilst I am still working 9-5.

I am concentrating at the moment on finally editing the book that I have written, and getting that to a stage where I will be happy to start giving it wings. Once this is done, I will then throw my energy into the freelance writing, and let you know how I get on.

Portfolio Career - Think and Grow Rich

Like a duck, the energy is all happening under the water at the moment in progressing my Portfolio Career. I bought the book called Six Figure Freelancer in order to learn how to initiate the freelance writing side, and with it came a bonus three books. One of these books is called Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill.

It was first published in the 1920's, and the content still appears as relevant now as it did then. The specific examples of industry and fortune making are out-dated, but the 'secret' behind them is still true.

The 'Secret' is something that is written about in a number of contemporary books that I have read, and something that I can definitely identify.

The law of attraction is something else that it's called, and NLP and Cosmic Ordering are also based on it.

The primary concept is that you must yield a desire to achieve a result. In order to build the desire into an obsession and follow through with perserverance, you must first know exactly what it is that you are aiming at. Once you have articulated in detail the eventual target, you must then use all of your energy in reaffirming that it is possible, and visualising the person that you will become and the life that you will lead.

The point is that as long as you are concentrating on one outcome the universe, or the ether as the book calls it, will deliver opportunities that to a ready mind can be seized.

The book highlights many examples of the day where people have used the 'Secret' to earn huge fortunes, including; Henry T Ford, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller. All of these people particularly had received no formal education, but they had a laser focused goal to succeed and thought of little else.

Now, why am I mentioning all of this stuff? Well, firstly it confirms what I have read elsewhere and I am taking on board some of the exercises that they advise, in order to concentrate my mind on achieving. But secondly, by analysing successful people you build into your own personality that quality of success. I will be using the teachings to achieve my dream life, which is a long way from any of the names mentioned above. I do not chase this type of dream, but my humble dream of being in control and free to make choices on how I spend my time, and be able to spend that time with who ever I want, can be substituted in it's place.

It gives me a renewed belief that what I am doing is not only possible but also the best thing that could ever happen. This state of mind is fearless, but must be nurtured to ensure sustainability. So onwards and upwards...

Portfolio Career - List of Options

The search for a portfolio career goes on, and I am now moving in to the arena of actually making some of these ideas a reality.

Through the analysis of my own preferences that I have been undertaking for a couple of weeks, I now have a relatively good understanding of the types of occupation that would interest me and are worth aiming for immediately. The fortunate thing of pursuing a portfolio career is that due to its flexible nature you can initiate part of the portfolio whilst still in a full time career.

Below is a list of some ideas that I brainstormed last week as potential candidates to put in to my portfolio. Some are for enjoyment, some are for money, some are for both. Some can be actioned straight away and some will require training or experience.

Freelance Journalist
Novelist
Parent/Husband
Social Economics Commentator
Actor
Phobia Therapist
Mentor
Life Coach
Tutor
Entrepreneur
Mystery Shopper
Extra
Director
Charity Management

Also, depending on where my life takes me, the other very real ambition that Claire and I have is to own a holiday let. It would be high-spec and be available and accessible to all. This means that it would also be able to cater for disabled families with specific requirements. This is a niche market but one that I would consider to be a largely unmet need currently. There would be large initial set up costs but then the maintenance and ongoing costs would look after themselves once established. This idea would also give us a rewarding feeling because of the families that we would be able to help.

So, this is the list so far. At the moment there are two jobs that I can and will strive for whilst still in full time employment. 1) Freelance Journalist 2) Novelist.

To answer number two first, I have finished the book and I now need to go through the edit before anyone else can even think about looking over it. I am ongoing with this and I aim to have it in much better shape by the summer.

To the freelance journalism end, I have bought a book on how to get started and make a success of it. So I shall see how successful the book is and comment on it after I have read it. My intention is to start earning money as soon as possible with this though, and get the ball rolling.

I will keep you up-to-date with progress on both of these things in the next post, and I will also be keeping my eye open for any other opportunities that are congruent with my other ambitions.

Remember, all great achievements and earnings of money started with an initial idea. Do not under estimate this phase of the revolution.

Portfolio Career - Values and Psychometric Test

The next part of the selection process in identifying the best careers to put in to my Portfolio Career, is an exercise that will pull out the values that I have concerning work.

As we grow up we are exposed to many external influences and messages, all of which have an effect on our beliefs, preferences and priorities. These are then formed in to our value systems which uniquely shape our decisions and our perceived happiness. These values are better defined than attitudes and opinions, and more firmly set in who we are.

There are techniques that can work at changing these conditioned values that we all have, and if we need to change a value then Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a fascinating series of techniques to do so. However, even in order to initiate that journey you must first define what your values actually are.

In understanding which values are important to us and which are least important, we can help ourselves to understand what decisions will make us happier.

If I had understood my values ten years ago, then I would certainly not have chosen to go in to an Accountancy career, which goes very little towards my key values.

The exercise that I followed is quite simple. In the book "And What do You Do?" by Barrie Hopson and Katie Ledger, it lists 32 values and asks you to rank them in to five categories; Very important, Important, Quite Important, Of Some Importance, and Not Important At All. The aim is to have no more than eight in any one category, and no less than five.

My most important values are below, ranked again in order of priority:

Communication
Independence
Helping Others
Creative
Status
Money

My least important values that do not matter at all to me are below:

Promotion
Place of Work
Well Known Organisation
Routine
Competition
Precise Work
Physical Challenge

So, in itself, this is a vaguely interesting exercise to help me understand what I knew already inside, but this has articulated it for me. The real purpose of this though is to again act as a directional guide in making the decisions about which roles to chase after eventually. This, in the same hand with the achievements exercise, will provide a steer.

Psychometric Tests

The best personality test that I have ever completed is the Myers-Briggs personality type exercise. There is plenty of information regarding this on the internet, if the reader is interested.

There is repetition here in terms of the purpose of such a test. Many people under value these tests and consider them a waste of time, but this is more an indicator of the type of personality of those people. I personally think that, again, they can give you a great insight in to exactly what type of a person you are and act as a wakeup call. It is uncanny how accurate the description is for my personality type, and this helps to reaffirm the direction that I want to go in.

My personality type is ENFP. Each letter means something, and as mentioned before if you want to you can Google it, but the description and guidance is the important bit.

First thing to note is that this is one of the rarest types, only 2-3% of the population. There is a whole load of information, but a summary is below:

Warm and Enthusiastic
Live in a world of possibilities
Ability to inspire and motivate others
Talk their way in or out of anything
Love life
Broad range of skills and talents, and can turn their hand to most things
Strong sense of values
Importance on being genuine
Great people skills
Need to be liked
Intuitively understand people after a short time
No importance on detailed, maintenance tasks
Can make rash decisions on people that are unfounded, due to the strong sense of intuition
Need to master the skill of completing a task.

Incidentally, I agree with all of this, and some of the explanation behind these headlines really made me think that it had me to a tee. It also goes on to suggest preferred occupations of other people with this type. See below:

Consultant
Psychologist
Entrepreneur
Actor
Teacher
Counselor
Politician/Diplomat
Writer/Journalist
Television Reporter

As you can see this is an interesting mix of roles, but one that really excites me, and there are some in there that I wish I had moved more into years ago.

Anyway, that is for another post. The next time I will be getting into the actual list of potentials that I have come up with, and then I can start chipping away at them.

Portfolio Career - Achievements

In order to achieve a Career Portfolio and leave behind the corporate world, an important step in the process is selecting the individual roles to fill the portfolio. I am working through the exercises in a book called, “And What Do You Do?” by Barrie Hopson and Katie Ledger, and this suggests a couple of approaches that will help to clarify the areas that you actually enjoy, are important to you, and that you are actually good at.

The first exercise focuses on the achievements that you have had in your life, and the Motivated Skills that were used in achieving it. The point being that if you have used these skills to motivate you to success in the past, the chance is that you are naturally stronger in these skills. Although the corporate world would have you believe that you must work on developing your weaker attributes to become stronger, the truth is that if you concentrate on doing the things that you do well even better, then you will excel in that field. Also, if you are employing those skills that you are good at then you will be more motivated because you will constantly feel that sense of reward and achievement.

If you do the things that you are good at, then you enjoy what you are doing, this means that you are motivated, and this means that you will succeed; and the cycle then becomes self-fulfilling as you expect to succeed, you do.

So, I listed out the personal achievements that I could think of, which is actually quite hard. I found that the memories I tend to remember are the ones where I failed, and the achievements were buried much deeper under a cover of self-deprecation and a blanket of modesty. We tend to concentrate more on the failures in an effort for it not to happen again, and gloss over the achievements and just move on.

The achievements can be in any walk of life, not just your occupation, and the list I had in the end totalled around twenty. Some went right the way back to school and others related to more recent successes. The three prompts that the book mentioned in order to think in that frame of mind were; 1) You believe it you did it well, 2) You enjoyed it, 3) You were proud of it.

My achievements varied from School Plays and Swims, to Finance Projects, to Exams, to being a Dad, with a broad range in between. You could say I’ve been good at many things, or you could say that I’ve been scraping the barrel here, but the interesting point for me was what my perception was with these things in particular. Most of my achievements have not come easily, they have all taken a bit of pain, but ultimately the reward when it all pays off is fantastic and everlasting. This is something that I can take away for free from this exercise, the fact that perseverance is needed in anything in order to really succeed.

Anyway, the book then asks you to rank your achievements and select the top seven to score in a matrix versus the Motivated Skills that were used in completing this achievement. There are about thirty motivated skills listed and I averaged about eight skills used per achievement. Without going through the whole thing, the common skills that were used in my achievements, and therefore those skills that should be my natural strengths are as follows:

Came up five times
o Communication

Came up three times
o Solving Problems
o Motivating and Leading
o Working Creatively
o Managing Time
o Strategic Thinking
o Performing
o Helping Others
o Assertiveness

I think that these are a true reflection of the areas that I would consider motivate me to do a good job, and also the areas that I tend to concentrate on in any job that I have had. It also articulates some of the frustration that I have in my current role because I do not get a chance to use some of these skills. You can probably tell which ones.

This will now become valuable information about myself that I can bear in mind as I move along this journey towards selecting occupations that really fit with what motivates me, and that simply - I will enjoy.

Later this week I will post the results of an exercise that I have completed on my fundamental values, and I will also show the results of a psychometric personality test. All of these exercises will be directional, and some interesting conclusions are generated.

Portfolio Career: First Milestone

The journey to reach a Portfolio Career has just reached a significant milestone. I have some incredible news to tell the world. News that the world never thought would be told. Not since Moses stood upon the craggy top of Mount Sinai holding a couple of rocks, have the world awaited such a proclamation.

The first stage of the first stage of my plan was always to write a novel. I have been writing this for a long time, too long really, but now finally the first draft is complete. I penned the last sentence yesterday, and I can now confirm that the last word is 'together', and the butler didn't do it.

I know how much this news will mean to you all, but to me it is a significant point in time. I will now plough on with the edit, and effectively re-write the entire book.

This venture began back in 2008, and although I have taken quite lengthy sabaticals, the important point that I wanted to prove was that I could stick to one thing for a long time, and complete it. This has now been achieved and the edit will take a long time, but psychologically I have proved something important to myself.

The other point that I have proved is that I actually quite like writing. Especially 'made up' nonsense. It's my own world where everything happens because I want it to, and nothing can hurt you. I have found this extremely therapeutic, and I now need to keep up the persistence to get it to the next stage, which is the unveiling of it to other people. A scary proposition but an inevitable one if I want it to be published.

So, that's it for this update. An important milestone, and next week I promise to continue with the progress being made with the identifying of potential portfolio careers.

Catch 22 - Take 2

Just a quick update to mention that the proposed shift of work from me to some other poor insignificant has been completed. There were no problems at all with the request. I had positioned it in a way that hopefully did not sound like bleating but had reasoned justification to it. I now have to work on a transition plan to move it over but after that, it will definitely free up more time.

It proves how it is possible to take a little bit of control back even when working for an oil tanker. One thing that probably, in fact, is easier to do in a bigger company. The benefit of anonymity.

The other unexpected reaction to this push back was that it has appeared to have increased my currency. I have had a lot more respect since and an understanding that I am in control of my piece. Although, the politics in my company are such that even if they didn't think much of it they wouldn't tell me. I couldn't care less about this side of it though.

I now need to start to concentrate on trying to identify, investigate and establish these income streams that I have talked about. The first step is therefore to identify possible options. I don't think I will find the perfect blend of options straight away. But, hopefully I can find enough suitable contenders that will give me the impetus to believe that this will work.

So, next entry will be a list of flexible roles, jobs, projects, activities, ways of life that excite me. A completely unrelated list of vocations that I have either always been interested in, or I think may suit me. Then I can rattle through them to work out if they are realistic or not.

Catch 22

When you're stuck in the work life that you hate, how do you free enough time to concentrate on the changes that you want to make? Although the easy answer is to forget about the current job and find the time, it isn't that easy when you have to make really sure that you don't get sacked from that current job in the mean time.

I was working last night until 10pm, and that was not because I enjoy work. I had to do something because if I didn't then it would end up causing more problems later, and I then end up in the problem. How can you make your life easier in the short term whilst ensuring that you don't have to do it at all in the long term?

I think that the straight forward answer is simple hard work. If you want anything to change then you have to find the time, you have to free stuff up as much as possible and you have to focus on the key activities. Do not waste it when you do have some free time.

Today I am going to go in to work and explain that I need to get rid of some of my workload. This would not have been an option before because I would have risen to the challenge and kept my head down. But now I need to continually concentrate on where I want to get to, and although my pride at work will take a dent, there is no shame in not carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.

My role, like probably most peoples in large or small companies, is as big or as small as I can take or get away with. In my large pharmaceutical anonymous company they have reduced the finance staff by half across the globe. The work that remains has not changed but they pass the work on to the remainder and see how they cope with it. A common misconception that if you pretend that you can cope with it then it will look good on you is rubbish. If anyone is doing too much then the quality of the output will not be sufficient and you will get no thanks at all.

Today I will ensure that my responsibilities are reduced so that I can be sure to deliver a high quality in what's left. The only way that companies no if they have too much for the workforce is by listening to the workforce. If the workforce are martyrs then there's no chance.

There's only two ways that too much work can affect you - it can make you ill, or it can make you push back. I think that the point is that you have to remain in control of your life. No-one else will ever do that better than you. Things don't just get better, something has to change first.

On the subject of the new quest to establish new income streams, I have now bought a book all about Portfolio Careers. Apparently there is an actual name for it, and one million people in the UK already have them. I have taken two online questionnaires and one in the book, and it turns out that I am the perfect person for a portfolio career.

I have never known one thing that I want to do, but I fancy a number of things. I want to be able to be flexible in my work life and earn money around other things. Due to getting bored quickly I need different roles that will keep me energised and passionate. I need to be able to chop and change, and I actually quite like that anyway. Some of the vital skills needed is confidence (which I have never had a problem with), networking, self-marketing, time management and multi-tasking.

The traditional view of someone working 9-5, 5 days a week stems from the Industrial Revolution one hundred and fifty years ago. It was brought about through productivity analysis, companies could get more out of a human resource by making them concentrate on one activity continually. (Specialising) This never helped the person.

Through the advent of computers and the ability to work from anywhere, there are more opportunities today to reclaim flexibility. Everyone I know can work from home, but instead of making the most of those hours saved in the rush hour traffic, they just work two hours longer a day. Who wins there?

What finally convinced me of this direction being the one, is the analogy that was made between this way of life and Mr.Benn. My favourite cartoon from childhood where he would disappear into the fancy dress shop and transform into a different role every day. I think that there must be some subliminal seed that was planted when I was a toddler, because as soon as I heard that it all made sense. I want to be an astronaut, and a chef, and a clown, and a knight, and a deep sea diver. I've now to work out how I can for money.

The New Revolution

As some of you know, if there is anyone that still reads this, I have been somewhat tardy with my blog writings of late. The reason I am putting this down to is two-fold; 1) I have been writing my book, and I want to dedicate as much time to this as possible, 2) the blog was about my general life and I wrote about which ever whim took my fancy. It was dependant largely on mood as well as news worthy activities that I had encountered.

This meant that sometimes when I was in the mood to write, I couldn't because there was nothing to write about, and other times when I didn't want to write I had felt a duty to enter a blog entry because something grand had happened. This led to some strange entries, even if I do say so myself. In times of no real news, I would let my imagination play away and the result would be something peculiar at best and just weird at worst.

But the new blog will be different, not because I am going to write in a different way, or that I am going to be more disciplined (even though I will be as well), but more that the new revolution is something very real that I want to change about my life, and the blog is just a vehicle for me to track my progress. Therefore a specific theme for a specific blog, and coincidentally the title still remains apt.

I am going to change my life from the one that most people recognise me for. The life that probably, and scarily, defines me to people who don't know me, more than the other aspects of my life which sum me up better.

I, of course, am talking about the Corporate life that I have existed in for the last 12 years. The Old Accountancy Avenue. The Bean-counters Boulevard. The Corporate Crescent. That vocation that I have landed in, more through a laziness to think of anything else that I wanted to do, and a few failed dreams along the way, than an actual considered direction.

Guess what, I have found direction. My lighthouse is shining bright upon the rocks of the darkened bay, and guiding me away from danger. Now most of you that know me will, I am sure, think that you have heard me saying similar things roughly every year. Well, you may be right. This time, however, I have much more belief behind me, and also one other quality that will lead me to the Promised Land. Energy.

This was the problem that there always was with the band. Our energy levels were almost underground. I read somewhere recently that you only get back from the universe what you equally put in. Although this sounds quite spiritual, it is echoed in many places in one way or another. Even The Beatles sang, "The love you get is equal to the looooo-vvvvve you give."

The difficult dimension with the band was that there were 5 of us, and that is hard to pull in one direction. That isn't even including the wags, that honestly never wanted the band to succeed because it would have meant a life on the road, and not the ideal lifestyle for starting families. Although some of them wouldn't have said that in so many words, especially not Claire, the band knew it, and it was an invisible rope keeping us tethered to the hobby.

Now my new journey will be on my own, it is aligned with supporting a family, and it will provide many more opportunities than ever would present itself if I stay where I am.

A number of signals have been sent my way recently that have pushed me further and further towards action, rather than passively moaning about things.

1) A friend of mine that was 40 died a couple of weeks ago. I used to play football with him, he never had any vices, and he had 3 young kids. He hated working as an accountant and for at least 15 years he didn't enjoy life to the absolute maximum because he spent 40 hours a week in a rut. Then it was all taken away from him, suddenly. What a slap around the chops.

2) A long standing pension at my company, that people who had worked here since pre-1996 held, was taken away without any warning a month ago. This was known as the golden handcuffs. It was a final salary pension that encouraged loyalty from its members by keeping them here until they retire and they will be richly rewarded. By taking it away this promise is no longer there, even to those that were in the scheme. Those people that have worked for 20-30 years have now been slapped in the chops. Where's the loyalty from the other side. The answer is there is none. As long as you work for someone else then you can never be fully in control of your life. You will never have as many choices as if you held the strings yourself.

3) A variety of other signals that are small in isolation but at every one the message is heightened.

It seems as though now the whole universe is shouting at me to change. I realise that this is a symptom of focusing on a particular subject. Ever bought a new car and then seen that car everywhere afterwards? But, the message has reached the point where I have now screamed back, "enough already." (bit American, sorry about that)

So the time has come for a change, and I am the only one that has the power to make a change in myself. It's never going to be given to me.

The plan is this. I will use this blog to monitor my progress to an end goal of establishing a number of different income streams in a year’s time. I want to try a number of different things to assess the reward gained, the ability to ensure a kind of certainty around it, and also, more importantly, whether I enjoy it or it becomes a chore.

If the idea eventually is to continue in to the unknown with a number of these running simultaneously then by definition they need to be able to co-exist with each other. A good way of proving this is to jump into it while I am working 9-5 (on a good day).

In the next instalment I will aim to make a list of some of the ideas that I have had this far and hopefully come up with an approach to at least tackling number one. Also, you can expect to hear stories from the front line of capitalism as well. As this is the reason why I am chasing a new future, it is important for me to realise why I am leaving this security blanket. And I can't help myself either.

Until next time, Comrades. Peace.