#Careers #Passion #Hobbies #Business
Do you have a hobby you wish was your career? Career and life coach Julie Morris switched from a career that was hell to one that’s now heaven for her. Share your thoughts, experiences, and questions by recording them on my Anchor by Spotify page — or comment at HappinessBetweenTails.com — or email me. Like what you hear? Buy me a coffee. http://buymeacoffee.com/SupportHBT
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The first step toward a dream can be the hardest. Blogger Julie Morris is also a career and life coach. She thrives on helping others live their best lives. It’s easy for her to relate to clients who feel run over by life because she’s been there. After years in a successful (but unfulfilling) career in finance, she decided to bust out of the corner office that had become her prison. Today she helps busy professionals like her past self get the clarity they need to live inspired lives that fill more than just their bank accounts.
Here’s her advice for turning a passion into profit…
3 Tips on How to Expand Your Hobby into a Career by Julie Morris
Whether you want to start a side gig to earn extra money or want to start a full-fledged business, you need to know that not everyone is cut out to be their own boss. While it sounds like a great idea to set your hours, work for yourself and not answer to anyone else, starting a business is quite an undertaking. You need to be sure that you have the right characteristics for owning a business and that your products or services are marketable and can turn a profit.
1. Ensure You Have What It Takes to Start a Business
Running your own business is anything but easy. You’ll face financial and professional challenges, make decisions at a moment’s notice, handle customer complaints and poor reviews and manage your taxes and expenses. To determine whether you’re cut out to start a business, Plexus has identified the several signs that you were born to be the boss. If you don’t have all those qualities, never fear. You just need to know where there may be gaps in what you’re capable of so that you can hire others to help fill them.
3. Understand Your Tax Responsibilities
It can be so exhilarating to start your own business that you can forget your tax responsibilities. Plus, the government needs to see that your hobby counts as a legitimate business in order for it to be classified as such. The difference between a hobby and a business affects your taxes quite significantly, so make sure when you leap into business ownership that you have solid records and are doing all you can to fit the business mold.
It’s take a lot to turn your hobby into a livelihood, but with the right planning and strategy it really is possible. With a little extra elbow grease and tenacity, you could change your life.
Do you have a hobby you wish was your career?
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A few days ago, my husband came down with Covid. That’s the reason my intro here is short and why I haven’t worked much on my novels. We don’t know how he got it — we’ve got all our shots and he’s been masking. We both had it January 2021, right before the vaccines came out. So far, that time was far worse. My mother is visiting out-of-state family, so he’s quarantining in her apartment. He’s headachy, fatigued, and coughing. Fortunately, today his fever is a little lower than it was yesterday…
Volunteers Needed: Shira needs feedback on the book she’s writing about how Do Better works, as well as the project itself. Find out more at h-e-r-e.
A budding historical fiction novelist, she’s published, “Stayed on Freedom’s Call: Cooperation Between Jewish And African-American Communities In Washington, D.C.” The following actually happened to her…
That was what Mona thought. I knew better. That was an old sound, from a lifetime ago. One I thought I’d finally escaped. I should have known better.
I looked out the window, counting five men holding smart phones up toward the screams. Then my feet moved of their own accord. It was only from hearing a muffled shout as the door slammed behind me that I knew I’d left the flat. The rain had just ended, and the pavement was still wet. My feet pulled me to the source of that sound. Not the shouting, not the screaming, but the one I remembered so deeply that it still hid under the table with my inner child. The sound of a head hitting a wall.
There it was again, but this time, I could see them. Both of them. The woman’s head sounded like a watermelon when she slammed against the wall, sliding down those slimy bricks to finish crumpled on the filthy paving stones. Her eyes were open wide, looking stunned and frightened, as a giant advanced on her from the ten or fifteen feet from where he’d launched her. My stomach churned as the pain of that impact coursed through my own body, as if I had been the one tossed like a sack of rice into that wall.
Looking at the giant, I wanted to flee, abandon this woman to her fate. But my feet had a will of their own, carrying me right into the one spot where I didn’t want to be: about 5 steps between each of them.
I realized that I’d carried an old umbrella with me out the door. At least those Kung Fu lessons had had one result: they kept me from rushing in where angels feared to tread entirely unarmed. Then again, my next thought was that this flimsy brolly was more like a liability against that big drunk guy. I took a second of comfort in hoping that as a foreign PhD student, at least the NHS would cover my hospital stay if I didn’t manage to duck fast enough.
“Move!”
I flinched as the sound wave from the giant’s lips struck me. It felt just like the impact of furniture breaking against the wall that night. When the giant stepped closer to me, my feet moved me back the same step, but my body refused to budge. That brolly, I now realized, was balanced in my left hand behind me, just like a short staff. My stomach had turned into a solid ball, no longer churning. As I saw him look at me, the giant’s eyes suddenly grew wider. If he hits me, it is going to hurt. But then why did he seem to be afraid of me?
“Move!”
“No.”
Who said that? Oh, wait, that was my voice. So why did the giant look confused?
“Thank you.”
I risked a glance backward. That sobbing voice had come from behind me, as the woman I was foolishly blocking wept, her tears mingling with the rain on the wall as she’d stared up at me.
Focusing on the giant as I’d learned to do in so many sparring classes, I drew a deep breath, preparing. But the giant stood frozen himself, staring at me with some odd drunken mixture of contempt and fear. Both were clearly written in his face, as well as the frustration of being denied another chance to strike the woman on the ground behind me. What was he waiting for?
“You prick.”
He was treating me like a man? He really must be drunk. Then I realized that I’d dropped into an automatic fighting stance. He wasn’t that drunk, then.
“Ok, but you should be ashamed of yourself.”
As those words tore themselves from my throat, I began to tremble so violently that I thought I’d begin crying like the woman at my back. The giant looked so confused that I could practically see the gears turning in his drink-addled mind. Then, a tall woman stepped between us, her back to me, placing a hand flat upon the center of the giant’s chest. I found myself letting out the breath I’d not known I was holding, and heard movement behind me.
I turned to see the two young bar girls helping the woman, finally, up off of the pavement, and taking her inside the pub. As I looked back at the giant, he had backed away, the tall woman’s arm guiding him to the curb.
I stood straight, now in tears myself from the relief, and from the shock. I was still four years old, still hiding under the table, while furniture still shattered, as my mother screamed in the other room. But this time, I had not stayed hidden under the table.
This time, I had come out to help.
Lost in these thoughts, I turned down the bar girl’s offer of a drink. As Mona came over, saying something I couldn’t hear, I wondered where she had been during all of this. Recalling her nights of coming home drunk, I realized that she had been standing there, 20 feet away, the entire time. Now I could see her in my mind’s eye, standing off to the side, just watching. As the five men and two bar girls had stood by and just watched.
All standing idly by while… And all but the young bar girls were bigger than me.
When have you surprised yourself by your bravery? When did others disappoint you with their cowardice?
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Tails? Click the Spotify podcast link above. And please give it a follow.Marianne Williamson, activist/author of, “A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A COURSE IN MIRACLES.” Photo by Supearnesh – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
As a kid, I worried that setting myself apart would invite criticism, jealousy, and ostracism. Girls, I was told, must be cute and sweet so they’d be attractive to boys. Women, so it went, were destined to be wives and mothers, no more, no less.
Fears continue to gnaw at me. Now they’re sophisticated, requiring constant vigilance to upend them. Art begs an audience. When art is personal, it’s difficult to not give a damn what others might think, not to mention how wicked my own self-doubt (like when it comes to working on my novels-in-progress) can be. An hour after I was awarded an Emmy, a stranger asked me how the honor felt. My reply was blather. He reminded me that I had indeed won it…
Williamson is correct to point that that being our best benefits everyone. When I’m upset about my goals, I remind myself of her wise words.
Now for a blogger who does what he can to make sure none of us hold ourselves back…
To help himself and others to be happier with themselves, ten years ago he created a blog that’s an encyclopedia of LGBT+ celebrities. To date, he’s written over 500 well-researched biographies!
He explains, “… many people are not aware that most gay men look and behave like straight men, my blog is useful for them and for my peers who have not yet realized that there is no reason to be ashamed. I know most people are not gay, but it feels great to know that so many great people are gay / lesbian. Learning and writing about their lives is one of my favorite hobbies.”
roijoyeux adds that over the decade he’s been posting, his site, “evolved very quickly in the blog you know today, showing to people that gays are not all drag queens, effeminates or perverts, since many great artists, stellar athletes and other admirable celebrities, are gay.”
Generous even at Happiness Between Tails, roijyeux quotes his role model…“If their lives can serve as role models to young men who have been bullied or taught to think less of themselves for their sexual orientation, all the better. The sexual orientation of those featured here did not stand in the way of their achievements…” gayinfluence.blogspot.com Terry from Virginia, who describes himself as “A diehard sapiosexual with an ever-curious mind,” started that impressive site in 2011.
Here, with the help of Wikipedia and Gay Influence, he introduces us to one of his many heroes…
Balenciaga, right, with the love of his life, Vladzio Jaworowski d’Attainville.
“Cristóbal Balenciaga, the King of the great couturiers, was… gay,” by roijoyeux
Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre, born January 21, 1895 in Getaria (Spanish Basque Country) and died March 23, 1972 in Xàbia (Spain) was a Spanish fashion designer and milliner.
Actress Audrey Hepburn wearing Balenciaga, and a couple of furry friends!
He is one of the greatest couturiers, unanimously recognized by his peers and nicknamed “the master” or even “the couturier of couturiers.”
If Balenciaga began well before the Second World War, it was during the 1950s that he completely transformed the female silhouette, making it evolve to finally reach its peak in the early 1960s. Among his loyal customers were the Queens of Spain and Belgium, Princess Grace of Monaco and the Duchess of Windsor as well as Jacqueline “Jackie” Kennedy Onassis.
First United States Lady Jackie Kennedy wearing a Balenciaga gown 1961.
The fact that Jackie Kennedy bought Balenciaga’s overpriced dresses upset her husband President John F. Kennedy because he feared the American public would think his spending was too lavish. In the 1950s and 1960s, Dior dressed the rich, and Balenciaga, the very rich. It was said at that time that a woman “went up” from Dior to Balenciaga.
Below are the most interesting details about Balenciaga’s life…
Youth
Balenciaga, who left school to work for a local tailor at the age of 13, opened his first store in San Sebastian (Spain) at 19. At the age of 24, he already had his own fashion house, a house of which he then opened branches in Madrid and Barcelona, where more than 350 employees worked.
The Spanish royal family wore his creations, but the Spanish Civil War forced him to close his stores in 1931 and go into exile first in London and then in 1936 in Paris, where he opened a fashion house on Avenue George V in 1937. The success of his Parisian house was immediate. Customers even risked their lives by going to Paris in the middle of the Second World War to admire Balenciaga’s creations.
Homosexuality
In Paris, Balenciaga openly lived his homosexuality. It was in 1936 in the French capital that he met the love of his life, Wladzio Zawrorowski d’Attainville, a Franco-Polish aristocrat who was then working as a hatter. It was Wladzio who helped Balenciaga find the funds to open his Parisian couture house. Then he became his partner.
Unlike Balenciaga, who had the elegance and class of an aristocrat but was the son of a simple fisherman and a seamstress, Wladzio was a true aristocrat, whose intelligence and wisdom impressed Balenciaga. The two men moved into the same apartment together, where Balenciaga’s mother also lived.
Balenciaga, right, with design house co-founder Nicolas Bizcarrondo, and Vladzio Jaworowski d’Attainville… and a kitten!
One of their employees, Elisa Erquiaga, explained in an interview: “Wladzio was extremely handsome and well-educated and we all knew [they were a couple], but no one ever talked about it in the house.”
The Franco-Polish man was the only person who managed to calm the anxieties of the Master, his lack of self-confidence and his obsessive search for perfection on, for example, a shoulder, a fabric, or how to elegantly hide the wide hips of [writer] Colette, one of his famous clients.
When Wladzio died in 1948, Balenciaga was so devastated that he considered closing his business for a time. He never recovered from the death of the love of his life and although he had homosexual affairs after Wladzio’s death, he never sought to find new love and became very secretive and almost withdrew from the world.
It was in 1968 that the couturier finally retired (at age 73).
Dovima, a fascinating pioneer supermodel, in Balenciaga, with Sacha, photo by stellar photog Richard Avedon, 1955.
Death and posterity
When Balenciaga died in 1972, Women’s Wear Daily magazine wrote “The King is Dead”. He died very rich, owner of several houses and apartments in Paris, at La Reynerie near Orléans, as well as in Madrid, Barcelona and Iguelda, in his native Basque country.
According to the Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia, the greatest gay couturiers of the 20th century are Balenciaga and Dior, followed by Yves Saint Laurent and Jean Paul Gaultier and in Italy Giorgio Armani and Giani Versace.
Balenciaga’s work influenced many couturiers, such as Oscar de la Renta, André Courrèges who worked in his studio, Emanuel Ungaro and Hubert de Givenchy whom he helped. The Balenciaga brand, which nowadays belongs to the French holding company Kering, is currently under the management of Demna Gvasalia, after the departure of Alexander Wang in 2015, who succeeded Nicolas Ghesquière in December 2012.
Are there ways you hold yourself back?
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Photo of Menendez brothers with their father, Jose, whom they murdered.
Justice — trials, how our system works, lawyers, juries… all these topics have been on my mind since I recently completed doing jury duty. Since the week before I started it (here are Part 1 and Part 2 about it), I’ve wondered about the Mendez brothers. You know, those rich guys who killed their parents back in the late 1980s. This video I checked out from my happy place, a.k.a. any public library, explains their story.
The brothers somewhat physically resemble my two older brothers, plus we three were raised “tennis-y.” Our household wasn’t hellish in the way of Lyle and Eric’s, but controlling and cruelty and looking the other way existed.
Please don’t get me wrong: a) my brothers aren’t killers and they’re nothing like the Menendez — and b) I believe murder is despicable.
Unlike the Menendezes, we didn’t suffer rich-people burdens. Here’s one man’s take on growing up “in tennis” for some players at the nosebleed rungs. Our dad wasn’t a powerful movie mogul, and we weren’t indoctrinated to keep up with the Beverly Hills set. There are benefits to being an apartment-dwelling plebeian. Tennis earned my brothers college scholarships. As for me, I set out on my own the moment I graduated high school, determined to sooner resort to prostitution than go back.
As a writer, I began as a journalist, then later attended a course on fiction. A classmate, Vonda Pelto, wanted to learn story telling for a recount of her former career as a psychiatrist at the downtown Los Angeles jail. Her primary function was to prevent serial killers from dying by suicide. How’s that for irony? (Here’s an enlightening article about discussing suicide.) Her patients ranged from Charles Manson and porn star John Holmes, to “Hillside Strangler” Ken Bianchi and “Freeway Killer” William Bonin.
Clearly, those killers fall into a different category than the Menendez brothers.
Almost every day in Los Angeles is sky perfection.
Back to jury duty…
For a thumbnail of what I posted about jury duty so far, picture “Car Problems” as my middle name. Was it mere coincidence that the morning my mom lent me her car, in front of the courthouse was a man in a t-shirt with a “check engine” logo?
Every trip to and from downtown was a winding tour of Siri workarounds to Los Angeles traffic. Siri kindly even warned me of traffic cameras. The Spring Street Courthouse is snuggled among the Toy District, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Union Station, Grand Central Market, the Bradbury Building of “Bladerunner” movie renown, and more. Slogging along freeways to get there and back would have been unbearable without my beloved audiobooks.
It’s years since I’ve visited the area. Sadly, the number of people who live on the sidewalks has exploded. Flimsy domed homes shelter people along corners, alleys, freeway overpasses and underpasses. I don’t know an end-all remedy, only that “them” is “us.” Whenever I left my juror chair, I kept my little backpack near. How is anyone mobile enough to find a job, see a doctor, take a leak, do anything, when their worldly goods are housed within a nylon tent parked in the middle of a city?
The trial I worked on involved an RV park, privately run yet publicly owned, endeavoring to evict a couple.
On one hand, one of the two renters had recorded park employees, those not wearing mandated Covid19-preventative masks. They used the evidence to report them to the health department. On the other hand, staff accused the renters of impeding their work and bothering fellow tenants by failing to consistently leash their dog.
Sculpture of “Young Lincoln” by James Hansen, 1939, located at Los Angeles Spring Street Courthouse.
Management had a slicker lawyer and employees willing to smooth over their sloppy record keeping. The tenants brought neighbors (via an extremely problematic videoconferencing setup) who stated they loved the dog and the couple.
Ah, the dog! Mike was old, pudgy, and wore a vest that suggested he was an emotional service provider (any dog is, no?). I first noticed him when he snored from the opposite end of the vast courtroom. Basically, he slept and sometimes slurped water.
Hearing testimonies is nothing akin to dynamic TV shows and high drama movies. Questions get reframed in endless ways so lawyers can reveal details otherwise not allowed. Did I say it was boring? Many jurors were there only because they heard rumors that not showing up can result in a $1,500 fine.
This case ran four days, not counting the Friday of jury selection. Monday was a holiday. Tuesday through Thursday were for evidence disclosure, a process rendered mind-numbingly. The last Friday morning was for the lawyers’s closing speeches. Here again, imagine what money buys in terms of lawyers.
Management’s was organized and smooth.
The residents’s insisted on using an overhead projector that blinked his pages onto the screen so annoyingly that I half-closed my eyes. To his credit, he opened with a salient point; each side had recorded, antagonized, and vilified each other. Amen.
Then it was time for a shortened lunch. Then deciding whether the tenants ought to be evicted.
Hand on any religious tome you prefer I swear on, I had every intention to review evidence and turn over every rock.
Sculpture of “Law” by Archibald Garner, 1939, located at Los Angeles Spring Street Courthouse.
Twelve jurors: roughly fifteen questions to vote on. The list was one of those affairs of, “if you vote this, answer this or skip this…” Each question required only nine votes to pass.
Within some questions, the word “substantial” was used. Was the residents’s rule-breaking and annoying of neighbors “substantial”? Four months earlier, after they were served a seven-day notice to clean up their acts, did they? Substantially? Definitely, but fellow jurors noted that management had spied near-catatonic Mike off-leash once or twice.
A juror reminded us that the residents bothered neighbors over the past year when twice they called the cops. First, when one renter was assaulted by a stranger, then later when she spotted the assaulter lurking.
I asked the juror, “If a sick neighbor needed to summon an ambulance twice over the last year, would you evict them?”
She nodded her head.
Except for mine, the votes were unanimous. They voted so quickly, and with so little discussion and consideration of evidence, as if they’d made snap judgements, I wonder if justice was truly served.
So very many people in Los Angeles live in tents or in cardboard boxes.
I’m told the renters can appeal and it was their choice whether to have their trial judged by a judge or a jury. It was an honor to serve, and I learned a lot, though not what I’d expected.
Maybe in the end, like with the Menendez brothers, it boiled down to looking into faces and choosing whether they deserved another chance. TV’s Columbo only needed to solve crimes, not decide whether they were redeemable…
What do you think of our trial system? Would you choose a jury or a judge to decide your case? Do you think the Menendez brothers have served long enough?
Me, leaving the courthouse.
Wait — a non-jury thing — I’ve already converted several blog posts into podcasts via the WordPress-to-Anchor function. Once Apple’s podcast app accepts them into its feed, you’ll be the first to know!
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Even in the best of times, relationships can be complicated. Sometimes we know something is wrong, but we’re not sure whether we should keep trying to make it work and whether the problem lies within our own actions or those of the other person. On her Looking for the Light blog, Melinda Sandor of Texas offers a link to a list of insights on how to ‘Keep Moving Forward’ in the worst of times…
When you’re in an unhealthy relationship, the best and obvious thing for you to do is leave. But sometimes that’s easier said than done. If you’re in a trauma bond, therapists say it will make leaving that situation even harder
“A trauma bond is an intense emotional bond between people that usually forms as a result of a toxic or abusive dynamic,” Samantha Waldman, MHC, an NYC-based therapist who specializes in trauma and relationships, tells Bustle.
A past history of abuse or exposure to it can make a person more likely to form trauma bonds. For instance, people who experienced some form of neglect or abuse from childhood may normalize this behavior as an adult because it’s what they “learned.”
As Dr. Connie Omari, clinician and owner of Tech Talk Therapy, tells Bustle, trauma bonding includes the tendency for a person to connect…
Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 