The day and age of the massive corporations that take care of us from beginning to end are over. 

That’s just a reality. Workforce change is upon us. It is time to look for alternatives.

As a 50+ worker, you must expand your options

Allow me to show you the way.

 

My name is Julian Mather, I'm 55 and I've been selling my knowledge online for almost a decade.

I never feel like I'm working. I'm creating, building, sharing things I love with people who feel the same.

You can do this too. Maybe for fun. Probably for money. Or like me, you might tailor-make the perfect career for yourself.

 

                    

Reveal Your Hidden Knowledge

Let's do an inventory of your hidden knowledge assets and discover if you are sitting on a potential stream of income

In the decade or so that I've been earning income online something struck me along the way. The 20 to 30 year olds are taking the lead with this but they have relatively little experience to impart. 40,50,60 year olds don’t even know about this and they have rich experience that is going to waste.

You know more than you realise. We all undervalue our knowledge. How many times have you thought ‘there’s nothing to what I do’ until you have to teach someone new to it. You are a wealth of information to people you have never met.

Sure, you can present yourself as the expert if you can answer yes to just one of these questions

  1. Have you worked? 
  2. Do you have hobbies?
  3. Do you have passions?

BUT and this is a big BUT ...

you do not have to be an expert. You can authoratively teach from a different perspective.

What are you interested in yourself that you haven’t done?

You can present yourself as the student and share what you are learning and add your own flavour...

or you can curate information into one place and save people the time of doing it themselves. People will pay for this convenience...

or you can interview people on video and curate these together to form a video course. You can strip away the pictures and use just the audio to make a ‘listen on the go’ audio course from the same interviews. You can have these audio recordings transcribed (economically) and these words will form an eBook.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are no rules to any of this. It's exciting and it's available to anyone.

Let's Find Out What You Know But You Don't Know You Know

 

Choose a topic close to you. Now go through this list of primers one by one. Think what you would say if someone were to ask you any of these questions? Watch your hidden knowledge start to reveal itself.

Big Picture

  • What do I know in step by step detail?
  • What am I passionate about?
  • Why this has this been useful to me?
  • Some things you could do with this knowledge?

What do you need to start

  • Things / tools you need to get to begin?
  • Places to go to get these?
  • Which of these are worth getting? 
  • Which ones should you avoid?
  • The very first step you need to take…

Where to find extra information

  • People to listen to
  • People to avoid
  • well known people in this field
  • Shortcuts to save you time
  • Shortcuts to save you money
  • Mistakes to avoid
  • tips and tricks
  • Commonly asked questions
  • Common misconceptions
  • your personal stories to illustrate points and ideas
  • other people’s stories that you have heard
  • The differences between what the text books teach and how the real world is
  • Things you would change and why you would change them
  • The top 5 things I would tell someone new
  • The one mistake you must never make …

How would all of this look if you were to break it down into chapters of a book? How big would your book be? If you say small you are lucky. People don't want big these days. They will pay you more to get them to where they want to be faster.

If you say your book would be big then you are in luck too. You can break your knowledge down into multiple courses.

Remember you don’t have to be an expert, you can curate this information. You can interview other people to add depth and insight.

Still reckon you don’t know that much about your topic??

Have You Got Your Free Checklist Yet?

Use this handy checklist to quickly unlock and reveal knowledge that could earn you money. You really do know more than you realise.

What Sort Of Knowledge Do People Pay For?

This is one of those rare times I can use a common maxim and for it to be entirely appropriate. The list is endless. Quite literally that is the case.

Hobbies

  • How to groom dogs
  • How to play slide guitar
  • Dancing for those with two left feet
  • How to set up for low impact camping
  • How to research effectively

Work

  • An insiders guide to [your profession]
  • How to pass the entry exam to [your profession]
  • An insider's guide to job advancement in [your profession]
  • How to write a resume for [your profession]

Family / Social

  • How to host a great dinner party on a budget
  • How to mediate family arguments
  • How to look after ageing parents

Personal

  • How to manage your painful skin condition
  • How to deal with a partner suffering depression
  • How to survive a divorce

What’s next?

How am I doing so far? Have I half convinced you that you might have something in your head that others would want to know about? 

First I have a question for you? Have you ever created anything online before? The reason I ask is that if you haven’t you are in for a surprise. The speed you can implement ideas online is fast. Very fast. If you have worked in a typical employer/employee structure all your life then you’ll be used to having to ask permission before embarking on a new idea. Not online. Online there no gatekeepers. You can run with your ideas. Often it’s only your typing ability that slows you down. Many including me find this intoxicating. Depending on what your idea is and what your existing skill set is you are anywhere from days to months away from being able to have someone put money into your bank account for the information you currently have under lock and key in your cranium.

Another diversion before we get to the what you can do with your idea? Not everyone needs money for their idea. Not every mid lifer in career flux is under a financial squeeze. Many might prefer to just share their knowledge for social good and making a difference. Many will find personal fulfilment and improved mental well being just from having a new focus at a time when it is really needed. So what follows can be used for profit or pleasure or a bit of both.

First some ways to package  up your thoughts ...

 

Video Course

You can create a video course with as little as your smartphone or your built in webcam on your desktop or tablet.

Audio Course

Let your experience speak. Very popular as anyone can pop on headphones and learn as they are on the move.

Written Course

Many people prefer to read. Once your knowledge is down you can easily do an audio or video version later.

And you can do a a mix of any or all of the above.

These courses can live in: 

  • online learning marketplaces like Udemy and Lynda
  • or you can be an independent publisher of your course.

If you go the learning marketplace option then the learning curve for you is faster, the technology and process is simpler and people find you just like people in a real world marketplace browse until they find something they like. The downside to this option is you don’t get all the money. The company leasing you your online market stall gets a fair whack of it.

Now the DIY option.  This is where you become an independent publisher of your course. A steeper learning curve for sure and you need to market your course yourself. That is you have to bring the people to you. It’s more like you setting up your own stall in a busy mall and having to get your potential course buyer's attention. This is definitely a longer game. The benefits though are uncapped. The money is all yours. You can react to opportunities instantly. There’s fewer add on costs as you pay for them upfront. This option is far more exciting. This option leads more naturally to starting an online business for yourself. This is the option I chose.

 

Focus On Your Strengths

All the knowledge you need is just a click away.

All the skills you need can be learned. If you don’t want to learn then these skills can be outsourced to someone else to do for you.

Inexpensive Set Up

Equipment wise you only need a desktop computer ( a tablet will do in a pinch ) and an internet connection.

You can upgrade of course. Costs are about 5% of what you would have paid 20 years ago. There is no better time to do this.

Now What Happens?

The best case is that you wake up one morning and there is a deposit into your bank account. I cannot over emphasise the thrill of this.

My first deposit into my account was $12. It was the first time in my life that I had received money and I didn’t have to turn up to work and directly exchange an hour of my time in return for an hourly rate. The wage earner in me had an epiphany there were other ways to make money. The entrepreneur in me woke up.

Where could you take this? Some of you reading this will have the right mix of knowledge and timing and drive and your financial situation will change by large measure. Some will create a stream of modest income and will go onto to repeat this entire process on another topic of interest to them. They will then have two streams of modest income. Rinse and repeat. 

Some will not have financial success but will relook at what they have done, ask for assistance, tweak here, tweak there and then start generating income.

Others will not stay the distance and pack it all in. They will have educated themselves with knowledge and skills relevant to every minute of the coming decades. Maybe their time hasn’t come yet.

 

Things Start To Grow

And you know that money that’s coming into your bank account magically while you sleep, that’s not just money. It’s more, way more than just money. That is people. Living, breathing people. These are people you never knew but now do. You now have their email address. Maybe you started up a private Facebook group as well so your course members could share their concerns and talk things through. You can now connect with your course members.

They will ask you extra questions. They will give you ideas that you hadn’t even considered. These questions and ideas all become the basis for another course you can create. If they liked your first one there’s a higher than likely chance they’ll buy another from you. Rinse and repeat.

One on One Coaching

Then some of your course members will come to you saying they are really stuck and need extra one on one help. Well, using a free Skype account you conduct one on one training sessions with them for a fee. Our time is the most valuable thing in the world. None of us get any more, any less than a prince or a pauper. Your time is valuable so you will charge accordingly. Now you have another stream of income from personal coaching.

Build Upon Your Strengths

Maybe now you are finding your voice within. You are believing to you have more to say, more to give, more to be.

Like writing?

Then you can blog. Blogging is just the online version of publishing a magazine. So easy to do and set up these days.

How about a podcast?

Maybe writing pains you? You get writer’s block. Podcasting is simply the online version of your own radio program. Rarely do you get speaker’s block. Again, really quite easy to set up.

YouTube = TV Channel

If you are happy being in front of a camera (and that can be learned) you could create your own Youtube channel. A Youtube channel is the online version of having your own TV show.

Expand your reach, generate more course members, more contacts, more ideas.

Many feel inspired at this point to write a book if that’s your thing and get real world speaking engagements if that’s your thing too.

There is nothing to stop you doing each and every one of the steps outlined. I have and I’m a pretty average guy. I’ve learned that it is rarely my ability that prevents me from doing any of this. Again you can learn what you need to know when you need to know it or just get someone to do it for you very economically. What has almost exclusively derailed me or stopped me is my mindset. That voice in my head that tells me I’m not good enough.

Truth is I am good enough. So are you.

Here are some FREE resources I've created just for you ...

Create your own Family Podcast

 

Here's fun way to explore the technology and do something for your family at the same time. I've taken the complicated world of podcasting, broken it down, simplified it and repackaged it in a way that makes it accessible and useful.

Family Podcasting is a great way to capture the heart and soul of your unique irreplaceable family story.

Family Podcasting gets the whole family involved, the soft coos of newborns and cranky cantankerisms of Grandpa (that we really will miss) and every family member in between.

It's a great way to record your family history before it disappears and have it safe online for your entire family to access.

Plus it's a great way to dip your toe into this new technology.

I've made a free 10 part video course just for you...

 

A Wonderful Introduction To Podcasting Waiting For You

12 easy to understand lessons. Watch it on your laptop, tablet or phone

Give Me FREE access

Tell Me What You Want?

I'm planning out more wonderful courses tailor made for 40 50 60 year olds. Let's chat. The more you share with me, the better I can help you. What's on your mind?

email me: [email protected]

Thankyou. I look forward to working with you on your tailor made career.