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Guest Article
Creative Hookey: Or Five Ways To Learn And Earn By
Staying Out Of School
By Barbara Sher
1. Nerve
Otherwise known as talking your way through a door with
nothing going for you but talent, cheek, and desperation. If you know what you’d
be good at, there’s nothing lost and often much to gain – by walking into
wherever you want to be and presenting yourself.
This is the way my own career got started. When I came to
New York, I had a B.A. in anthropology. Now there is nothing on earth more
useless for getting a job than anthropology. You find me an ad that says,
“Wanted: B.A. in anthropology.” I’d like to see it. I was what you might call
highly unemployable. But I had to find a job that would feed my kids, and I was
naive enough to hope for one that wouldn’t starve my soul. I had the intuitive
feeling that I would probably be good at working with people. So I screwed up my
small supply of courage and answered one of those ads that said, “Experience
preferred.” I noticed that it didn’t say, “Required,” and anyway I figured that
the experience of walking around on earth for thirty years ought to count for
something. The job was a counselor in a drug program, and I talked my way into
it – probably because they needed manpower as badly as I needed the job.
I walked in there at nine in the morning with my knees
shaking. By 5:00 P.M. I knew I hadn’t been wrong. I might be green, but I was in
my element. From there, one thing led to another. While I was still working at
that job, I started group therapy. Within a year, I became an assistant-trainee
of the head therapist. And then four of us split off from him and started Group
Laboratories. Over the next eleven years I made a tidy living doing group and
individual counseling; I was a consultant at three medical schools, teaching
their psychiatrists and psychologists; and I got invited to speak and give
creativity workshops all over the country. None of this happened because I had a
piece of paper. It happened because I found the right swimming pool, squeezed my
eyes shut, and jumped in.
2. Volunteering
In a world of professionalism, where money is the measure
of seriousness, volunteering has gotten something of a bad name. It’s supposed
to be amateurish, dilettantish, the sort of half-committed play-at-work that
society matrons do on alternate Tuesdays. I want to set the record straight
right now. Volunteer work is one of the best ways there is to get your feet wet
and gain experience in a new field – whether it’s the zoo, a hospital, a school,
a museum, a neighborhood newspaper, a political campaign office, or family farm.
You don’t need credentials or prior experience. You don’t have to pay them a
cent for your training. But what’s best is that volunteering gets you started
doing what you love right away, even if it’s only once a week. Or – if you’re
trying out a tentative goal – it lets you get the living feel of a profession
before you commit yourself to full-time work or training. And it equips you with
experience, contacts, and references that will be useful if and when you do
decide to make that commitment.
Three years ago, Diane was a 24-year-old secretary with a
B.A. in nothing special. Her secret dream was to be a city planner. She was
totally unqualified; all she had going for her was a passionate love for New
York City. She loved to walk around and savor the flavors of the different
neighborhoods, and she wished everyone could see and appreciate the city the way
she did. But that special quality of vision wasn’t going to get her into
graduate school, and in any case, she couldn’t afford to quit her job and study
full-time. Even night-school classes were beyond her pocketbook. For the
clincher, New York City happened to be going broke just then, and the city
planning department was firing people, not hiring them.
That’s a pretty staggering list of obstacles. Nonetheless,
today Diane has an M.A. in city planning and a high-paying job with a major
corporation. She works for the relocation office, introducing recently
transferred executives and their families to the resources and delights of their
new home. How did she do it?
In a brainstorming session, Diane came up with something
she could do right away, and for free: take part in the local planning-board
meetings. She was so outspoken and enthusiastic in those meetings that within a
few months, everyone from block association leaders to city councilmen were
calling her for ideas and advice. By the time she felt ready to apply for
school, she knew most of the people who really make things happen in the city,
and they all wrote her recommendations. She was awarded a full-tuition
scholarship to Hunter College!
After one semester, she was hired into a teaching
assistantship that paid her way. Diane was now not only studying and teaching
city planning – she was already doing it every week on those local committees.
And by the time she finished her Master’s, her contacts and reputation were so
widespread that she was offered a job in the first corporation she walked into.
3. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
The most ancient and natural way to acquire skills and
knowledge is by hanging out with someone who’s got them – watching, asking,
helping. Before schools were invented, doctors, lawyers, and great painters all
learned their trades this way. Psychoanalysts and carpenters still do. It’s how
I learned to be a therapist. There’s an element of apprenticeship in any good
education – but in many fields you can set up an apprenticeship for yourself.
My feeling is that there’s hardly a person on this planet
you couldn’t walk up to and say, “I’ve followed your work for a long time, and
I’d really like to learn from you. I won’t cause you any trouble. I’ll empty
your wastebaskets, I’ll clean your workshop, I’ll carry your gear. I just want
to be near your mind.” It’s a rare curmudgeon who wouldn’t be flattered and
receptive. Most highly accomplished people want to share what they know with
other great minds. Seriousness of interest and a willingness to help out are the
only real qualifications. A young potter named Juan Hamilton became the
assistant and close companion of the great painter Georgia O’Keefe. Agnes Nixon,
reigning queen of soaps and creator of (among others) “All My Children” and
“Another World,” got her start sharpening pencils for Irma Phillips, who
pioneered the soap opera form.
There are formal programs that have been set up to connect
willing “masters” with would-be apprentices. But you don’t need a formal program
to put you in touch with someone whose work you love. You don’t even have to go
in cold with a letter that may or may not be answered.
4. Start From Scratch: The
Independent Alternative
Another way to start out on your path without a degree is
to simply sit down, draw up a plan for a mime class, political seminar, walking
tour, art-therapy group, or editing service, and put your ad in your local
paper. That’s the wonderful thing about doing what you love: you can do it
wherever you are, because your resources are really inside yourself. All you
need is talent, personal experience, love – and a carefully worked-out idea, or
program design. How do you think Weight Watchers got started? Jean Nidetch
wasn’t a doctor or a nutritionist. She was a lady who wanted to be thin. She
designed a package for other people like herself and turned it into a
multimillion-dollar business.
Whether what you want to be is rich and nationally known or
just to hold weekly discussion groups in your living room, remember that the key
to survival and success for any independent program is an angle. What you’ve got
to do is find and fill a specific need that nobody else has thought of filling.
That’s what Jean Nidetch did. A therapist I know designed a series of seminars
called “Who Takes Care of the Caretakers?” for therapists, counselors – and
mothers! Jake, a marine biology freak who didn’t want to go to grad school,
started a seaside nature museum for kids and got a grant from his city.
5. The Generalist/Popularizer
I wish I could think of a better name for this one – maybe
“the go-between.” It’s a strategy for anyone who’s fascinated by the poetry of a
technical field but hasn’t got the knack or the patience for technical training.
Many professional people can use help communicating their
ideas to the public. They’re specialists in physics or nutrition or
international law, not in the graceful use of the English language. If you can
write, or even just organize ideas, you can get up to your ears in any field
without a degree. A 20-year old college English major who wanted to be a member
of the first space colony decided to start by doing magazine interviews with
scientists like Carl Sagan and Gerard O’Neill. A housewife interested in
nutrition developed a newsletter for the food industry on federal labeling
regulations. Writing, editing, interviewing, starting a specialized newsletter
or cable-TV talk show – any of these could be wonderful ways to gain admission
to a world you love without the expensive ticket of a Ph.D.
Those are just a few examples of the kind of direct,
ingenious routes to your goal you can dream up if you take conventional “wisdom”
as a challenge instead of a finality. We’ve been talking about credentials and
schooling, but the same goes for any obstacle that looms large on your Problems
List. I can’t brainstorm every kind of goal and problem for you… But I don’t
have to. You have the prime source of all the ideas you’ll ever need right
between your ears.
This article was adapted with permission from
Wishcraft by
Barbara Sher.
About the Author
Barbara Sher is a business owner,
career counselor, speaker, and the bestselling author of Wishcraft,
I Could Do Anything, If Only I Knew What It Was,
How to Discover What You Really Want and How
to Get It, and Live the Life You
Love. Her newest book, It's Only
Too Late If You Don't Start Now, How to Create Your Second Life at Any Age,
is a highly unconventional look at the second half of life. Her hilarious
hour-long
PBS special by the same
name has been submitted for an Emmy nomination and is winning accolades wherever
it is shown. To learn more about Barbara visit
BarbaraSher.com
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