This writing assignment, in a Q&A format, comes from a Seth Godin Freelancer course I am taking, titled “A Course for Freelancers who want to move up.” In line 1 Godin tells me to make my answers public, so as an obedient student, here they are.
(Do these exercises online, in public. Blog them or put them on Facebook. Speak up. Speak out.) WHO ARE YOU?
Q. Assignment What do you want to do? (Not your job, but your work, now, tomorrow, and in the future)* Who do you want to change, and how do you want to change them? *If you’re having trouble answering this, you’re going to have trouble moving up, because you’ve abdicated your dream to whomever walks in the door next.
A. I want to educate and help as many people as possible, by contributing to a wide and generous diffusion of knowledge and content. We need to open the floodgates of knowledge, questioning, and research. John Adams put it this way over 200 years ago: Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” “You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen.” “Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.” – John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law.
Q. Who do you want to change, and how do you want to change them?
A. I want to, with God’s help, change as many people as I can, by giving them a free flow of information and content knowledge, plus the confidence to think for themselves and in turn speak up and speak out for themselves. I want to help us all expose and avoid the “Emperor’s New Clothes” trick. The longer I live, the more I realize there are appointed or self-appointed “gatekeepers” who like to control the flow of information, control the “tempates” of how we look at things, and control the narrative.
Q. How much risk? (from 1 [a little] to 10 [bet everything]), how much are you willing to put at stake to make the change you seek?
A. 9. I already took a great risk in 2010, when I chose to resign from my safe job teaching in a government high school and launch myself into the world of entrepreneurship.
Q. How much work are you willing to do to get there? Be specific about the tradeoffs.
I am a hard worker. I try not to be a “workaholic,” but all my life I have been willing to put my shoulder to the wheel to do the work needed to get to where I needed to be. To keep a balanced life, I take time for relationships, exercise, proper diet and rest, recreation, and study. Going from an employee-mindset to an entrepreneur/freelancer mindset involves many tradeoffs. As a tenured employee in the government school system, I enjoyed essentially guaranteed employment and a set salary. I could predict to the exact penny how much salary I would receive by direct deposit on the 1st and 15th of each month. As an entrepreneur/freelancer, that security is gone. However, this brings to mind this gem from Helen Keller: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” What I lack in seeming-security I make up in freedom (and adventure). Maybe it’s the 50% of my blood that is Scots-Irish, a particulary liberty-loving, ornery race, but the longer I live, the more I value liberty.
Q. Does this project matter enough for the risk and the effort you’re putting into it?
A. Yes. I began my online ESL teaching in October 2008, and, praise God, the risk and effort keep paying off. Over the years we are helping more and more people improve their language skills and confidence so they can make their dreams come true. DreyerCoaching is making a positive difference for all those students and their parents around the globe who can keep learning English, uninterrupted, in the safely and privacy of their own homes. Twelve years in, not only do our online ESL programs provide a living for my family, but now a total of TEN households depend on DreyerCoaching, to one degree or another, for their monthly sustenance. We are making a positive difference for all those team-members and their families, as we can provide an ongoing source of income. As I write this on April 9, 2020–during Holy Week–much of the world’s economy has shuddered and ground to a halt, in the midst of pandemic fears and the accompanying shutdowns. Schools were suddenly shutdown so fast, teachers had no time to pack up their classrooms. Millions of students are at home while teachers and parents struggle to pick up the pieces and made-do. Seniors in high school and college have gotten cheated out of their once-in-a-lifetime senior memories and traditions. In contrast, plucky DreyerCoaching carries on–since almost all of our classes are already online and our teachers teach from their home offices, our students and programs have had virtually no disruptions at all. I have watched aghast as some 10 million in the US alone have lost their jobs in the past two weeks only–not to mention untold millions elsewhere across the globe. Famous, fabled companies with household names like Macy’s, J.C. Penney’s and Logan’s Steakhouse have laid off thousands of workers and closed their doors, perhaps forever. In contrast, last Wednesday I quietly sat at my desk and signed all our March paychecks, like normal. With God’s help, I will do the same at the end of April, and into the future. Yes, it’s worth it.
Q. Is it possible — has anyone with your resources ever pulled off anything like this?
A. In a real sense, what we have been doing is unprecedented. I can basically count on one hand the number of white people in my hometown of Roanoke, Virginia (metro area some 200,000 souls) who can speak Mandarin Chinese. This knowledge of the language and Chinese culture, which I gradually gained over ten years of living in Taiwan, is essential to what I have been doing: leading an online ESL academy matching US native-speaking English teachers with Chinese speakers who want to learn English. AND, thanks to the efforts of my lovely wife, she is teaching English-speaking Americans how to speak Chinese. No human mind devised this. It all comes from the Hand of the all-knowing God. I went to Taiwan planning to stay one year, but stayed ten. When I went to Taiwan in September 1989, the English language did not yet have words like “world wide web, email, online learning, video conferencing.” The Berlin Wall was still standing and Mainland China had reopened to the world a mere ten years earlier. Looking back from our vantage point of April 2020, I see I was placed in the right place at the right time.
This question above reminds me of the bumblebee. Modern aerodynamics and engineering “prove” the bumblebee is too large and heavy for its relatively small wingspan to fly. However, no one bothered to tell the bumblebees, who just keep flying and going about their business. This question also reminds me of Psalm 50:10 in the Bible: “for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.” This tells me, God has unlimited resources. If I truly believe my efforts are God-inspired and God-directed, then I believe God will provide from those unlimited resources to keep this enterprise going.
Updated 7-14-2020:
Q. What do people buy when they buy something from you?
A. They are buying high-quality classes that teach them about English and life in the USA.
Q. Leave out the easy, repetitive, generic stuff… What you are doing that’s difficult?
A. Reaching across 8,000-some miles and vastly different cultures and languages, and reaching to individual people and families to help them and make a positive difference in their lives.
Updated 8-31-2020
If you could choose an archetype or extreme (edgecraft), what do you want your brand or work to be known for?
calm, confident, friendly, knowledgeable, passionate, responsive, trustworthy, accepting, caring, dependable, giving, warm, adaptable, understanding, happy, intelligent, loving, organized, energetic, helpful, patient, relaxed, kind, intense.
List 5 ways you could express these attributes.
1. Only ask teachers with impeccable language and teaching skills to join our team: that keeps us knowledgeable, trustworthy, intelligent, etc.
2. By having only teachers who are masters at our craft, that keeps us: calm, confident, friendly, warm, and relaxed. In other words, we do not have to be afraid of being “found out,” if we have no teaching weaknesses to cover or compensate for.
3. We seek to personalize our instruction and bond with our students, not just quickly “go through slides and read a generic script” as we teach. This personal touch makes us: friendly, warm, caring, accepting, etc.
4. A recent devotional challenged its readers to “love what you do and do what you love.” By only inviting teachers to our team who LOVE teaching and helping people reach their full potential, that makes us: passionate, giving, energetic, loving, and happy.
5. By staying small and with small classes, we avoid classes that look like a “cattle call” and stay: personalized and responsive.
Updated 9-14-2020:
Clearly articulate what promise you make to those that give you permission.
I promise to send factual information about the English language and life in the USA.
What makes your marketing anticipated, personal and relevant?
It is relevant because either our social media guru Scot or I write the content, and we are native speakers of American English living in the US right now.
To some people at least it is anticipated, because with each email, I am pleasantly surprised to see a number of people who open the email at the exact minute it goes out. There are always a few more that open it within the first two or three minutes after publication.
How and what can you organize and connect?
In today’s world, many people are busy and feel lonely and disconnected. We are looking to organize and connect a global community of people who are interested in knowing more about the English language and life in America.
List people within your sphere who are disconnected. What do they want? Who do they want to be recognized by, trusted by, or learn from?
Many people, both students and parents, feel disconnected. I believe they want to feel a personal connection and “touch,” even if we are separated by thousands of miles and across an ocean. They want to be recognized by a professional English-teaching organization and learn “real English” from us, not just tips and shortcuts to pass a test.
5 blog topics your market would find surprising, insightful, provocative, useful.
- American holidays
- How to use vocabulary words correctly
- How to pronounce words like an American
- Current Events in the USA
- Ways to effectively improve one’s overall English skills and confidence
Now that you know where you’re going, break it into small steps and assign actions and dates to each step. As Zig used to say, “See you at the top.”
- Invest 30 minutes a day, M-F, reaching out to find prospects; contact 10 new prospects by 9-23-2020
- Read Zig’s Secrets of Closing the Sale by 9-30-2020
- Write something to add value, daily, M-F, starting 9-15-202
- Send out 2 emails to our clients each week; send out 7 by 9-30-2020