It seems from reading some of the work-related threads, that I am not the only one who often feels burnt out with the job/career that they have found themselves in.
An interesting barstool conversation last night got me thinking - would it ever be possible to spend some amount of money (my buddy threw out ‘$10,000’ as a starter), to learn and perfect a skill well enough to make a living teaching it?
For example, I enjoy playing golf - but a good day for me is when I break 100. No way in hell is someone going to pay me to teach them the finer points of the game.
But would it be reasonable to expect that scraping together $10k to put towards months of lessons / rounds / more lessons would result in my being able to make a living as a golf instructor? Or are there certain skills that you are either “born with” or “not born with”?
What about playing the guitar? Personally I’ve always wanted to learn the guitar, but right now I’m at a point where I could probably play ‘Three Blind Mice’ one note at a time; and though I’ve heard that there are such things as ‘chords’, I am not familiar at all with how they are played.
Would it seem reasonable to put $10k towards the same plan (months of lessons / practice / lessons, etc), and come out on the other end a qualified guitar teacher?
I’m sure there are hundreds of other examples of skills that one could make a living at, that would be more exciting than spending the better part of your 30’s and 40’s as just another ‘number’ in the cubicle drone machine. I’m just trying to figure out if it’s reasonable to spend the money to ‘learn’ a new career at this point, or if maybe it’s just a case of “the grass is always greener…”
For those kinds of skills, I don’t think the key to doing well would be natural skill or lessons so much as putting in the time on practice.
If the $10k meant that you could live very frugally and quit your job for a while so you could use those eight hours a day to practice your swing or some chords every day, you’d likely be a pretty good guitarist or golfer by the end of it. Unless you have a motor disorder that gives you particularly awful coordination, I think anyone can learn to be competent enough to teach others the basics, even though you may never be one of the Elite.
My boyfriend is a pretty accomplished guitarist (even in a group of people who play guitar for a living, people will say he’s pretty good, so I don’t think it’s just my bias ). However, even though he has all the knowledge of how to play, he’ll still say that he feels embarrassed about playing if he hasn’t had time to practice recently. I think some people have more natural talent than others do, which may make it come easier to them, but in many cases I think natural aptitude is only a starting point and you have to be willing to practice to become really good.
I think ten thousand dollars and a few months is a laughable low amount to invest in learning a skill with the intent of teaching it–especially if you want to earn enough to live on, as opposed to picking up some income to balance your expenditures on the hobby.
Also, I think that for a lot of instructing jobs like guitar teachers, knitting teachers, golf pros, you need a network and a certain amount of reputation. Raw skill is helpful, but not sufficient.
So my friend the violin teacher works with small children at the church, and plays violin whenever someone asks her to, so that when people talk violin, her name comes up. I don’t know how much she earns, but I have reason to believe that her husband’s salary goes a lot further towards the mortgage and the car payments.
And I read posts on Ravelry-- a knitting and crochet community–all the time from people who want to sell stuff they knit or crochet or spin, and mostly the answer is “You can do it, but don’t expect anything resembling minimum wage for your time”.
Knowing a skill, no matter how well, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to teach it any case. Teaching well is a skill in its own right - or even a gift.
If you use the money creatively, you could certainly do it. For example, you could easily live for two years in Guatemala learning Spanish with that money, and if you were dedicated to it, you’d come out ready to teach it.
But really, money isn’t the key issue that keeps us from learning new skills. The bit commitment would be the time and dedication.
There are several different questions included in the OP, and they have different answers. First, it’s possible to perfect a skill well enough to teach it to others even without spending $10,000. I make jewelry as a hobby and have occasionally taught workshops for money, but I never had any paid lessons myself. As lavenderviolet said, putting in the practice time is probably more important. I would guess that there are a number of people teaching guitar lessons, etc., who are mostly self-taught themselves but became good through practice. Natural talent would certainly help, but again I would think that is less important than practicing.
Whether it would be practical for you to make a living as a guitar teacher or golf instructor is another question entirely. First, it’s possible to be a good guitarist or golfer but a lousy teacher. Teaching is a skill too. Second, I’m not sure how many people are currently able to support themselves as freelance instructors for hobbyists. I wouldn’t think that’s a really lucrative line of work even in a better economy, and given the way things have been these past few years I’d imagine a lot of people who used to take guitar lessons and golf lessons have cut back or quit. I absolutely could not support myself teaching jewelry-making lessons as a freelancer. If I got a job teaching at a community college or something then maybe, but I doubt I’d be doing more than scraping by. If you wanted to teach music in an academic setting you’d be competing with people who actually have degrees in that area, and you’re unlikely to get those kinds of qualifications for $10,000 in a few months.
I love doing yoga so I spent $2500 and now I am certified to teach it, and do so every Tuesday. I wouldn’t call myself an expert necessarily but I am a pretty good teacher. I’m not making a living from teaching, though… not yet anyway. It’s definitely possible.
ETA: You don’t have the be super-skilled at a certain thing to teach it.
But the OP doesn’t want to be an expert, they want to be able to good enough at it to somehow derive a living from it. A lot of teachers know slightly more than the people they’re teaching about a subject. They don’t need 10,000 hours preparation for that.
I’m currently a business consultant based on 20 years of work in Japan, for which I’ve gotten paid, not for having paid any money myself, but I don’t think the OP is looking for that.
As far as golf or music, you would need a certain amount of aptitude and a lot of practice, but it would be possible to learn enough from a combination of lessons, reading and watching others to pick up the skill well enough and still not spend $10k.
Sure, I have a friend who supports himself full time right now making & selling chocolate and chocolate making lessons. I’m pretty sure he’s spent less than $10,000 on it so far if you discount the cost of materials for the chocolate he actually sells.
Is he the best chocolate maker in the world? not really. Is he good enough to be personable and charming while babysitting a bunch of yuppie housewives for $50 a head? It appears so. Before he went into chocolate, he worked as a designer at a San Francisco startup and I suspect his social media marketing skills had more to do with his success than his chocolate making skills.
I’ll throw out SCUBA diving instructor as a possibility. Unlike stuff like golf or playing musical instruments, you just don’t have to be that good as either an instructor OR student to be “good enough for now”. Your more important attributes as a SCUBA instructor would be physical fitness, a lack of fear of the water (above or below), an ability to NOT panic in an emergency, and the mental ability to learn and retain proper procedures to implement (that just aren’t that complicated) during emergencies as well as regular operations. And the ability to ALWAYS follow the rules. None of those have anything to do with money.
Without thinking about it much, teaching folks how to sail (particularly those very small sailboats) might fall into the same category. And perhaps a fair number of other outdoorish activities.
When you are a rank beginner, IMO you really don’t benefit much from the fact you have the Tiger Woods of the “sport” instructing you.
Oh, have another example. I do alot of paddling/canoeing. Now I know some really good canoeists. When they go down a windy creek with obstuctions everywhere they can make that canoe dance. The motions of the boat and the paddler are both fluid and their actions look effortless. Which is great. But a rank beginner just needs to be shown how to not flip the boat over, steer the boat so they don’t crash into the bank or go down the river sideways/backwards half the time, and how to “read the water” to make use of the current and avoid obstructions in/barely under the water. I know a couple of folks that make a living teaching paddling/guiding trips. I’d say if you spend a year paddling both days every weekend for a year, studied all the how to books and videos on the subject and you had some inate talent regarding physical activities (ie, you aren’t a complete clutz) and can “teach”, that after that you’d be good enough to teach rank beginners and there would be fair chance they would get their monies worth. You could do that for well under 10k.
Some things just aren’t that fun if you aren’t pretty good at em. But plenty of other things are. I think those are the type of things you can teach without being greatly talented or having invested vast sums of time and money into.
I just got a call from someone last week who was “talking to so-and-so (the mother of a kid I do theater with), who mentioned your name and happened to have your phone number; I hope you don’t mind, but are you available for piano lessons.”
I put out a small amount of ads, but as far as I know, all of my students have come through people I know.
Also, IMHO, to be a good teacher at anything, you’ve got to have enough experience to have made a lot of mistakes and figured out how to get around them. There are so many different subtle approaches to anything, and most young practitioners of anything (young with the discipline, that is) are only comfortable teaching the exact same path that they took. Years of experience practicing the craft enables a person to broaden their approach, and teaching methods.
If you already have a private pilot certificate, you might be able to get your instructor rating for $10,000. I haven’t looked into it, but I suspect that number is higher nowadays.
Once you’ve spent the money and put in the requisite hours, and taken the multiple tests and check-rides, you can aspire to have a job that only pays you when you’re actually with a student (too bad if it’s raining!) and pays very little. Still, I’ve heard it’s a nice way to starve.
I recently footed the bill* (most of it) for my son to go from Private to Commercial, and all the instructor certificates. Waaaay more than 10K. But I’m including time-building to the requisite 250 hours under Part 61. I think your estimate is pretty close, assuming your candidate already has 250 hours under his belt as a Private Pilot.
*I instructed up to Commercial, other CFI’s took over from there to avoid the single instructor “monoculture”.
). However, even though he has all the knowledge of how to play, he’ll still say that he feels embarrassed about playing if he hasn’t had time to practice recently. I think some people have more natural talent than others do, which may make it come easier to them, but in many cases I think natural aptitude is only a starting point and you have to be willing to practice to become really good.