What am I not seeing?

# Chapter 168

Choosing your specialization and making a living at it. This is far more difficult to do than it is to write on this digital paper. While I have been doing my specialized kind of work for decades, and full time for the last eight years, it has never had to pay me or support me before. I had another stream of revenue to do that. But now I am to the place where I need to join the ranks of those who live off what their passion and creativity and specialization can produce for them. I am not reading many thrilling stories about what this is going to look like. Seems like there are lots of starving artists out there.

Clearly we need to move in this direction with wide open eyes and clear vision. Not only does this require a prudent person to have excellent vision and foresight, but also the willingness to consider every possible variant. For example, my specialization is with non-profits and International Workers, people who have very little money to start with and jealousy guard what they do have so that it does the greatest good. While they may desperately need what I am offering, it will never trump the hungry people knocking at their doors for food and resources. This is why I have depended upon the outside stream of revenue to pay the bills for years, because the people in my specialization are poor and on the edge to begin with, paying me will be the last thing on their list of to-do’s, no matter how valuable I make myself.

So I can continue the second stream of revenue once it has been shored up - is that even possible in the Coronavirusworld? Or I can work an outside job - which I just tried valiantly for the last three months and it failed beyond words. Or I can change my mix of clients to reflect a more balanced portfolio of business and mission clients - looks good on paper but execution has proved to be elusive so far. I have tried at various levels of intensity to do all three of these approaches with very limited success. What am I not seeing?