003 The Downshift Project – Carrots & Slugs & Mothers, Oh My!
The Downshift Project episode 3 – Carrots & Slugs & Mothers, Oh My!
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Hi,
I just listened to your podcast & job woes. I hate to sound like a cliche’ but I think the underlying issue is the mood.
on startups & technology
Moving from enterprise development to web development or iphone development could amount to an enjoyable 6 months of your spare time, depending on your mood. But making iphone apps yourself at home because you’re strapped for cash sounds like a recipe for disaster. From what I hear, a lot of the apps are small companies (1-10 people) that are putting out apps at a serious clip. Some make money. Some don’t. A lot of times they see an app that made a splash, get ideas and have their own out in 2 months. I don’t think you can do that unless you like iphone apps a lot. Quite a bit of technology based entrepreneurship is like that, probably including working for a startup.
If you are a programmer you can probably learn AJAX or flash or whatever pretty fast. These technologies are not harder then other ones. They certainly have a lot of freely available resources & community support. But I think web apps are an enthusiast’s game.
On other ideas
You mention other interests as well as having wanted to be self employed. You seem to see this as 180 on technology. Sure, it can be. But it doesn’t have to be. There are a huge number of small businesses that could be great businesses if they only had some internet & technology savy behind them. A lot of them are by nature the kind that appeal a lot to few people. It could be a matter of being able to put together an online shop. It could be a matter of being able to put together an online community. It could even be a matter of being able to sort out orders, inventory & things without papers flying everywhere (you should be in home territory here). Find a businesses like this run by a nice person and see if you can come up with a partnership or JV or some sort of arrangement.
That might let you bring your technical background to the table some place where it is needed, but you’d be ‘techie-lite.’ It might combine multiple areas of interest. You wouldn’t be so far behind the scenes that everything outside your narrow area is irrelevant.
That last point is important. Part of downshifting in a broader usage is (in my opinion) becoming more of a generalist. That applies to going from enterprise software development to small web development as much as it does to going from mushroom production to subsistence farming. It’s also part of the joy (this is a matter of taste, I suppose). When you’re in a giant corporation, what do you car if you’re working on a database for a bank or an airline? Does a love for aero technology make much difference? If you are running a mostly online greenhouse business, loving greenhouses is probably a prerequisite.
An idea
I’m going to throw up ad idea. It’s not intended as a serious idea. It’s just supposed to be a lame proof of concept.
Your polytunnel build was a bit of an epic. But to me it sounds like fun building it. It also sounds like the basic building components not too pricey (does it use irrigation pipes?) It’s the kind of project that you don’t know how to start.
How hard would it be to set up a Saturday morning workshop where you can learn to set one up in your own property? Hands on. At the end of the day you can decide if you want to buy a kit or not. You can even decide to just go buy one somewhere else. You could probably get a good markup on a kit if it came with a course for putting it together. I imagine you might also find that you can get kits together at a very competitive price. maybe you make money on the course. maybe on the kits. Maybe you get paid to have you students put up the tunnels somewhere they are needed.
Here’s one possible setup:
I imagine it’d be best to piggyback this on some sort of existing businesses. Maybe a garden supplies shop or farm hardware or something like that. It would help with materials. It would be a good way to advertise. There would be somewhere to call/go if you need a replacement pipe or sheet or something.
You would need a way of getting people to know about this without spending too much on advertising. Knowing about how online communities work would be a real advantage.
It would need to be fun. It would need to be a day out with the kids. there would be barbecue (maybe biscuits & tripe or whatever you poms eat). It could evolve into all sorts of things from an online shop to a workshop empire.
Here’s why the shop owner didn’t set this up themselves:
Small businesses usually have a backlog of ideas they want to try out. They are too buried in other stuff to do it. With the bosses hand in every pie, they usually don’t have staff or a culture where they can delegate these kinds of things.
Small businesses usually don’t know how to innovate in marketing. They know how to gradually improve whatever they do well. Tangents are harder. The internet opens up a lot of potential doors. But most don’t know what to do with them. They don’t trust consultants & cannot risk a 20k consultant binge that ended up failing.
Here’s my point
Maybe employment isn’t that important to you. That’s cool. part of what down shifting implies is being able to earn little and be happy. Get your esteem somewhere else.
It doesn’t sound like that is the case with you. Sounds like you want something cool or lucrative or both. All of the things that can be fun in employment from being a pioneer in Buddhist counselling to an iphone-app startup founder to an entrepreneur of some sort, all of these things require the right mood, if that’s the right word. Grumpy is incompatible with creative because it is the opposite of invincible and capable.
I don’t think there are good options that are downshift options but are not one of these. This is really hard. Harder then finding a job, but you need to find your inner cocaine.
Hi- thanks for the awesome reply, you must have spent an age putting that together, I really appreciate it.
Your second-to-last paragraph catches me by surprise. I consider my primary goal to be able to earn little and be happy. The ‘be happy’ part implies that I should either spend as few hours as possible earning that little, or I should pursue something for which I have a passion and don’t care about the hours I spend.
I don’t *think* I want something lucrative or cool per se, except where that would mean I needed to work less. But that’s a very interesting observation and something I’ll watch myself for to see if it’s true.
On the iphone idea – I think you’re right, I don’t have the passion for it, and although I could develop the skill, I don’t think it’s going to happen, unless it’s to build an application I personally have a particular use for.
I’m not really an entrepreneurial sort of person in general because I like to understand everything about a problem before I attack it, and most entrepreneurs of my experience are wilfully blind to most problems they will encounter – it’s the very ‘flaw’ that allows them to be so gung ho and ‘invincible’.
I like the metaphor of the inner cocaine. I will continue seeking it.
thanks again!
Tess.
Tess,
No problem. I had a reaction to your podcast in my head. Writing helps me think.
The reason for my second last para is this: you went through some ideas that you seemed to wish you were pursuing. They all sounded like something that would be fund to tell people you do over drinks. Nothing wrong with that. But it does suggest that you are seeking esteem from your job.
If I were a Budhist counsellor I might encourage you to see this in context of ego. Financial downshifting in a nutshell is reducing your income, your expenses, & pursuing a simpler lifestyle that doesn’t require so much money & stress. Maybe mental downshifting is a useful concept also. Reducing your ego (just going with the Budhist terms) income simultaneously to your eg needs.
“sounded like something that would be fun..”
I understand. I think the reason they sound ‘fun’ is that if I was content just to make money from a boring job I would just carry on doing what I had been doing. Why work 40 hours on flipping burgers to pay the bills when I could just keep my existing career that was already taking up all my time and making me unhappy but pays far better? So any new path i consider has to be something I’m passionate about and find interesting.
I think you are spot on about mental downshifting. Personally I feel mental downshifting is the entirety of the exercise. I’ve been mentally downshifting for half a decade, the physical aspect only follows from that! I had very strong identity caught up in my original career which is why it took so many years to leave it. I have no feeling that I’m attempting to recreate that in any way. In fact, I’m quite relieved to discover that i don’t, so thanks for challenging me on it :)
What’s your experience of downshifting? Have you done it? Are you considering it? How did you feel about the work you were doing before? And after?
ps I certainly concede that having spent most of my life building an ego around the clever things I can do, there will always be the risk that I’ll unconsciously attempt to do the same thing with whatever I turn my hand to next, be it fun or lucrative or neither.
When we’re looking inward or at someone we know well, it’s very hard, maybe impossible, to know if something sounds enjoyable & satisfying or if it sounds like something good to build an identity around. On the other hand, if we look in bulk at the people around us by overhearing snippets of conversations on a train to mass media to our circle of acquaintances, we can be pretty sure the identity/esteem motivation is not uncommon. Most people’s instincts tell them this isn’t good.
Trap?
Anyway, I guess the mental down shift can have all sorts of different manifestations. But I do imagine a 25 hr week in a shop could be one. The idea being that this is a setup where it is easier to seek your identity elsewhere.
me?
I’m probably in the process of upshifting if anything personally. But I’m not very motivated by money & my expenses are low, not much higher then my Uni days about 3 years ago.
“This has got to stop” and “property rights”! The change in tone and, I would guess, state of mind between this and 4 leaps out of the speakers!
I used slug pellets three years ago and both my dogs ate them – one died and the other nearly died. I was totally unaware that dogs would eat’em (I had already used them with no problem, but these were a different brand so perhaps the others had pet repellent in them) and there was nothing on the packet, no warnings, zero. I loved the pair of them, Camilla, who died, was a fantastic dog so I have never felt so damn sorry in my life, Perla, her sister, survived for a year but eventually contracted cancer – perhaps related. They were 11 and 12 years old respectively, so fortunately they had a good run, but I can’t stand slugs at all because they always remind me of my stupidity and my loss.
Hi Derek,
I don’t really like to go back and listen to the previous podcasts because so many things change between them it feels weird to do so. It’s interesting that you noticed a big difference between 3 and 4…
What was the ‘this has got to stop’ bit about?
“this has got to stop”, (your words not mine) I think you were talking about staying up until the early morning hours discussing philosphy and stuff with FDR people, if I got your drift correctly.