Tag: business

Do you want to be a full time writer? (poll question time. Yay!) Morning Stretch.

Posted on by T. Maxwell-Harrison

Obviously writing full time is going to take the fun out of writing. Plus you will literally have no other choice but to treat it like a full time job, 9-5 everyday. People think they can just write when they want and class themselves as writers, true to an extent, but those aspiring to write full time have no chance because it is a full time job. You have to write everyday to make money, time not writing is going to cost you. You’ll end up without any money. Even if you do pump out a lot of work, there is no guarantee you’ll earn enough to sustain yourself. It is saddening to see so many young people start to become ‘writers’ because they had a good idea, and then later find themselves without money trying to convince people on twitter they are writing full time. I find that so-called writers are spending a lot of time on twitter and other social media. I don’t, but over the last two weeks I have spent more time on there in the hope to see irregular posts from authors. Most of them are on there posting **** all day everyday. They are obviously using their phones. I don’t have a smart phone thank goodness, save me and my soul from the mundane. I just don’t get it, are they actually writing, or spending all their time imagining writing? I am not going back on there for some time. It was well over something like 9 months before I posted something again.

Zoo

Posted on by T. Maxwell-Harrison 
The smallest flock of animals that you ever met

and the friendliest of elephants you will ever pet

waiting for them to beget one another 

such happy faces and big smiles

making all the dough, not so worthwhile

falling into the trap of love for the job

rising so early full of energy

making a core duty to be the best

yet, being replaced by a big mess

tricked into the wrong move

a lot of things began to move, south

into a puddle of dirty water...
... when I returned

to death

to betrayal

pain and hope

my undying soul

shot in the mouth

still, managing to walk around

why did I bother letting you bastards in.
You think that we all want to play this game

just so you can make all the blame

worth while

I don't give a damn about your indentations 

or your delusional procrastinations

but leave the good people to their own dreams

where it means, a lot to them
under the thumb 

pulling the trigger on the gun

the only way out

white flash

not a lash

no more, got to dash.

Can I Take Your Order? Place your order if you dare (2)

Posted on by T. Maxwell-Harrison

Welcome back to Café Bleu. Since we last met back in September, when my café first opened, things have changed dramatically. We originally received a meager 2 star review from the people in high visibility jackets.

Since then, we have bolstered cleaning, food hygiene procedures and quality of service and more importantly food. Now, rather than offering simple dishes like pie and chips, we branched into more exclusive dishes, such as the special house café Bleu lunch. It has proven very popular and is a best seller along with the house coffee munching elephant, a blend of the finest coffee beans in the world. Prices had to increase initially, but after 6 months we found we could lower prices and still retain a healthy profit from sales.

Have a look at the menu above and decide if you would like to order. You can order below:

We managed to scrape a rating of:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The next time we will be reviewed will be around August. Staff here at Café Bleu are keen to please and happy to welcome you to the restaurant. We provide a top class service and customer care is at the heart of what we do. We love you all coming to eat here, and will look forward to seeing you in the future. All the best, Café Bleu.

What are the benefits of being self employed?

Posted on by T. Maxwell-Harrison

This was originally going to be titled the ‘benefits of working from home’ but I realise now I can incorporate that into this post anyway. You may also be interested in my post ‘how to dream big.’ You can also check out my short post on me now studying/working from home.

Alas, today I’m going to go over some excellent reasons why being self employed. If you live in England you can check out this Gov article on being a sole trader – https://www.gov.uk/working-for-yourself.

There is a lot of independence to be gained, and a lot of fun also. You might be earning £23,000 a year working in a desk job sorting a lot of papers. Compare that with having the freedom to work your own hours, be your own boss, and earn whatever you want. Self employment, or being a sole trader, is a sure fire way to get an unlimited income potential. You earn an amount of money both proportionate, directly, to how much you work and what the demand for your services is.

  1. Home Working and Having a Lot of Fun – If you already work from home, or study from home, as I am doing myself at the present moment, although I have a week off starting from tomorrow… a week of work still. So, you get to just do your work in the hours that suit you, whether that be 9 – 5 or 12 – 2pm, you have complete freedom when it comes to home working. You might be able to set up a home based internet business, or run a small business from home where you also store actual inventory – in other words you keep stock in your property. Of course, don’t forget to register with the appropriate tax people, self employment still means paying income tax. I suspect a lot of people are making more than £1000 a year from side hustles, which means they will have to pay tax.
  2. Unlimited Income Potential – There is no limit on how much you can earn from self employment. In fact, there is more income potential as you aren’t in a job where you work fixed hours for someone else, ending up getting nowhere. Self employment en mass is the future, a future where people earn the amount they want and deserve. You see it everyday or hear about people, just leaving well paid jobs to start their own business, work from home, or go solo consulting and then popping up years later as millionaires. Don’t go thinking it’s based on demand though, income cannot be guaranteed through demand unless you have a niche and well valued and sought after skill or service. usually income is dependent on the amount of work you do. This is in turn related to the demand from customers.
  3. Do Your Own Thing – You only have to pay your taxes and national insurance to appropriate levels. It’s real freedom. In terms of what to do for self employment, as already mentioned, you can start a home based business, or a small business, you can sell goods from your home. This can include goods and products you make yourself, like candles, soaps, paintings, pottery, furniture, food, gift cards, anything! If you have skills that are sought after, utilise them for goodness sake. If I pass my course, I’ll be loaning myself out at £50 an hour for legal advice to start with on a freelance basis. To be honest, I can do that now because people with a degree, or relevant qualifications are automatically more likely to have those skills and knowledge that people want. Used to work in an estate agents and want to do this yourself.

The benefits of anything are endless, self employment vs working for a company are truly superior. I never understood why anyone would work for a company on the basis that they will be promoted, earn more and after 50 years become a director or something. Think about it, you can become a director from day one with self employment. The reason I was attracted to becoming a barrister was because they are self employed and independent. Independence is an important word here, remember, you have to deal with it all yourself, unless you pay an accountant or rent an office or hire someone etc.

I hope light shines on you eternally. Thanks for reading.

How to Dream Big?

Posted on by T. Maxwell-Harrison

How do you reach for the stars? How do you put all the doubt in your mind into the waste bin? How do you believe in yourself despite what other people think?

I want to share some tips which I believe can motivate you to chase those dreams of yours and make them a reality. If you want to succeed in life you must have passion and desire in order to fulfil your fantasies. They are fantasies only until you act on them, turning the dream into reality.

  1. Having A Plan

Having a plan is not to everybody’s taste. A lot of people like to work off the cuff and be spontaneous. But plans and rituals are an everyday part of life. For example, people never expected that a couple of years ago they’d be forced to work from home, but they adapted, they worked from home on their computers, completing virtual work. Now, working from home is common place, in fact I would argue it is itself a new movement. There is still need for office and office workers, simply because of logistics and product management and all sorts of physical business stuff.

The point is, what was once mystical and mysterious to a lot, became common place. They now plan their weeks based on this new situation for them. They may plan more since they have more time at home. A plan can help to visualise a way out of a situation and help you project your reality into existence. The plan could be as simple as, ‘do it,’ or ‘go and help the homeless,’ or ‘become a businessman.’ Each is unique and will be unique to the individual. One more point, the plan is yours and you should not let anyone plan your life for you, never.

2. Putting The Plan Into Action

Is having a plan enough? No, of course not. Having a plan, well developed and approved by You, is essential, but the next crucial ingredient is actually working that plan into your life. Take the home working, you perhaps plan your week around this, you implement changes like what you do on a Monday afternoon. What do you need to do to put that plan into action? Are you finalising a business plan? Are you preparing to buy that Porsche? Do you need to work out a few final details before you action the plan?

You need to be able to understand what is expected at this point, because many people have plans that lay dormant and then after ten years, they pull them out the trash can and decide to work with it. You need to action it now, or whenever you can, if you want to be happy now. There is a lot of reward mentally when you succeed. Creating a business can be satisfying, and with all the home working, there are so many options when it comes to virtual working and companies. Many people make a living buying and selling online.

3. Being Able To Develop and Create

Now, onto the 3rd step! You have a plan which you have actioned or implemented into your life. You can’t sit back and expect what you have done to thrive and succeed without continuous input from you. Dreams are big and they require a lot of effort and determination. You can’t be lazy when it comes to continually developing your dreams. A business can’t continue to operate and succeed without changing and developing, and you need to do it. You also need to create new ideas and new ways to enjoy and experience life and your plans. If you have gone stagnant on your dream, change it up, develop it further and create a new experience. Look at gaming consoles, look at how far they have come from the 80’s to 2022! That is massive, the creators and developers at those companies continued to develop with the times and technology, so can you.

You also need a certain set of skills and personal qualities to be able to continue and succeed. You need resilience and determination, you should be focused on your end goal and should never be satisfied with a finished product or action. If you settle when you have an online business, how will you grow into something more memorable. Sadly, a lot of businesses don’t aim high, and are content to struggle on pretending that they are happy with what they make, whilst inside the owner is scared to evolve and develop into something more, perhaps they are scared of buying a physical store, perhaps they are scared of branching into another area because they don’t have the expertise.

4. You Need To Learn

You can sometimes create and action and develop a plan without learning anything new. Take for example my recent purchase of two lovely red eye tree frogs who have settled in well and are very active at night. I had to learn about this new species, in fact I had to learn about frogs in general, then tree frogs, then this species, then its requirements and care and food, and its habitat and other things. If you want to have the knowledge you need to read and learn, you need to research, you might decide you need to embark on some variety of course of other to help you reach your goals. It’s not a bad thing if you admit you don’t know about something. When someone wants to start that business, they may need to learn about accounting or creating a business plan. When someone wants to learn how to fix their Porsche, they may need to do a course at college to save on costs of long term garage maintenance.

Whatever your dream, there will sometimes be times when you need to admit to yourself that you don’t have the knowledge and that is okay. Want to be a famous guitarist, but can’t play? You know what to do, you need to learn how to play the guitar. Your dream may be as simple as wanting to be a gardener and competing in national garden competitions. Whatever the dream, you can succeed, even if you are working from home, as the internet is the number one source to learn nowadays with thousands of online courses, a lot of them are free.

What do you think about the 4 steps above? Do you agree or disagree with any? There is more to pursuing anything than the above 4 steps, it takes character and drive, it takes a soul that cares. It is easy to sit on the couch and watch tv and eat potato chips, when you could be busy creating a plan and working towards the end goal. The amount of time it takes to succeed is entirely based on what you want, it is subjective. When you decide you have done what you set out to do, then you can say to yourself, ‘wow, I did it.’

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