Ken T.

Make Money Selling On eBay

Dougie in Scotland writes:

Hi Patrick and Dear Old Dad,

I thought I would write to you to let you know of my banjo adventures over the Christmas and New Year period. It feels strange in a way, to write because I don’t know you but you are in my home every day all be it through Tangier Sound and Youtube, and I feel that you are good friends of mine.

I want to thanks you guys again for your lessons and wonderful outlook on life.

I got a couple of the lino prints from yourselves a few months back, so I took them to a local guy to get them framed. One for myself and one for a Christmas present. The guy in the framers was very interested to hear about your hearing problems and how you had overcome the situation. He is learning the piano at the moment but is struggling a bit with music theory, so I told him all about you and your website, and suggested that he download the How and Tao book as there was some great music theory that is easy to understand in it. When I returned to pick up the framed prints, he had been on the site and told me it was very helpful. I think he was interested in the lino prints too and think he was going to contact you about them.

The framed print that I gave as a Christmas present was to a “banjo student” of mine, Heather. She was in tears when she opened it as she thinks you guys rock. Told me it was the best Christmas present ever.

A few days later I had to get new tyres on my car as we have had lots of snow here. It wasn’t easy to get anybody that stocked the size I needed over the holidays but managed to track somebody down through another friend. I phoned him up and he told me he would do it and give me a good deal if I gave him a banjo lesson ! My friend must have told him I played a bit of banjo or something. I am not good at playing in front of people I don’t know but I took your advice and just got on with it, didn’t think about me just the music. It was a bit bizarre, I was sitting in a garage next to Land Rover painted up like the General Lee in Dukes of Hazard, sitting in a wheelchair, giving a stranger a banjo lesson. The guy was over the moon with what I showed him, just the basic strum and a couple of chords. It turns out that he has had a banjo for about 3 years and couldn’t play anything on it. He was trying to learn from a finger picking book……..say no more! I told him about your site too.

Later in the week I was at a music shop in Edinburgh to get new strings, the guy in the shop was asking me about banjo’s. He had got one for Christmas. So I told him about your site and you books and things. He was delighted.

Another friend of mine got a banjo for Christmas so he phoned me looking for a spare 1st string as he had burst his, so we got together and I showed him a few things as well and told him about your site. He got a finger picking book with his banjo, I suppose we all start that way until “Patrick shows us the way” I tried to show him the basic frailing strum but he is keen to do things his own way. He strums the top strings with his thumb, middle strings with his index finger and bottom strings with middle finger. I can’t make sense of it either but he says that is the way he wants to play so why not!

A few days after that one of Heather’s friends at work found out that she played the banjo and was asking all about it, he was planning to get a cheap banjo from e-bay. Heather asked him and myself round to her house, so we gave him a banjo lesson and I gave him a loan of a banjo to get him started, a copy of How and Tao, and your website address.

So as you can see it has been an busy time here with banjos.

I don’t feel in any way that I am good on a banjo, I am just learning and I have yourselves to thank for what I play.

I hope that all goes well for you and your family in 2010.

Keep doing what you do best and don’t ever change. I have to agree with Heather, you guys are COOL.

All the best, and God bless

Dougie

According to The Economist, within the next few months, women will cross the 50% threshold and make up the majority of the American workforce. And based on a new research study just released from the Pew, one out of five married women are more educated and earn more money than their husbands.

Yet despite these strides, AOL Sphere points out that working women are facing more challenges than ever before. Since more men than women have been downsized, the remaining women are often asked to pick up more of the slack at work. And despite the fact that the average male partner shares more household and child rearing responsibilities than perhaps his father did, women still manage the lion's share of these responsibilities. One woman interviewed in the AOL Sphere article summed it up best when she said “Working women need wives.” And she's not the only person who thinks working women need wives or at least an equivalent.

As I plod along trying to successfully manage my existing client projects, cook an evening meal, source new prospects, help my son with his earth science project, execute on a marketing plan, scrub a toilet, write my next book, and read about the 371 best colleges with my soon to be college bound daughter, I do sometimes think how nice it would be to have a wife to help me out and wonder if you can get one on e-Bay. But since that doesn't seem to be an option and the demands of work and family don't seem to be changing anytime soon, here are some suggestions for making the most of work and family responsibilities.

At work:

1. Document your accomplishments all year long. Keep track of new responsibilities you are assigned or the ones you inherit after others are downsized. Jot down some notes periodically about projects you completed successfully and be sure to document how you helped the company you support make money, save money, save time, grow the business, or keep the business. In a year where the average salary increase is predicted to be 2.5%, it is in your best interest to keep track for what you have achieved. Doing so could differentiate your performance over that of your peers and be the difference between a 2% and a 5% increase at review time. If you are going to work hard, you might as well be recognized for it.
2. Embrace new responsibilities as an opportunity to grow. When new projects come along, try to see them as a new opportunity rather than just more work. The new responsibilities might give you the opportunity to become the resident expert or “go to guy” on a particular subject. Being the expert on something makes you a more valuable employee and less replaceable.
3. Learn how to become an expert at delegating. As your responsibilities grow, look for ways to delegate more and mentor junior members of the department. Doing so will allow you to take some things off your plate and focus on more strategic work and make your team members feel that you are interested in their professional development.

At home:

1. Catch up on work while your family works. Sit at the dining room table with your kids after dinner while they do homework so you can monitor that they are doing it and answer any of their questions. Use this time to catch up on some of your own work such as email and reading. This can actually become a nice family ritual and something that the kids will look forward to because even though they are doing their homework, they will appreciate the fact that you are nearby.
2. Find activities that your spouse and your kids can do together that don't include you. Some dads like to coach sports teams and others like museum outings. Work with your spouse to come up with some activities that can be exclusive to him and the kids and use your down time for you. Go to the gym, catch up with friends, or take a nap. Do whatever you need to to re-energize.
3. Use online resources to get chores done. The Internet has made shopping 24/7 a reality. Whether you need to shop for groceries, house-ware items, or clothing, just about everything can be found online and you can shop at odd hours or ones that are more convenient for you. In addition, some online food markets offer tasty and healthy choices for already prepared meals at reasonable prices and this can be a boon to working moms struggling to make a home-cooked meal every night.
4. Cut yourself some slack. None of these suggestions will work perfectly every time. And during some periods of your life, work and family will be more challenging to balance than others. For example, if you are the parent of an infant and working a full-time job, you will be tired and something will slide. If you need to get dinner from the drive through window every now and then, don't beat yourself up over it. And if your house is not so spotless that you can eat off the kitchen floor, will anyone really be any worse off?

Earn extra money from home doing what you are already doing for FREE!

We can all use a little fast cash from time to time (or all the time!). Try these 13 strategies to line your pockets this week.