It has been a torrid time of late. Another of the clan passed away and I have not been dealing with it terribly well. In the last 8 years we have lost a member of each of the 4 generations that were here back then.
It started with my son, Callum, whose death has left more questions than answers. My Mum was next 4 years ago from cancer, then my Grandma less than a year later… although she was very old so that one doesn’t cut so much. Then, a couple of weeks ago, my eldest brother was taken from us at 48 years old. He was a big part of my life, our family and a constant source of advice and inspiration.
I really am kinda lost.
What I want to do next in my life is going to be heavily coloured by his influence. I was building up a concept for my future that I was going to talk about to him soon, unfortunately that is no longer an option… so I am talking to everyone else about it instead. Neil’s genius will be missing from developing the concept further which is going to be hard.
So… the idea… the concept.
I want to take the one thing that I am good at and develop it. My last remaining talent that hasn’t been ignored and left to wither I guess. Photography has been my passion for a long time, and I want to share it. My main forte is landscape photography, although I can turn my hand to most things successfully, and so I plan to launch this and slowly move towards a career change (aka financial suicide). The main income generator to make this happen is teaching others, running courses and guiding others to unique locations.
Quite a lot of people are doing similar things these days, but I don’t think the market is saturated. I also have a USP in mind which, to make happen, is going to involve quite a lot of training and qualification gaining for myself. I basically need to become an outdoor instructor!
Part one of this plan is going to start this year with a Mountain Leader (Summer) course my aim, I want to extend this with a Mountain Leader (Winter) qualification… and possibly a Mountain Bike Leader… and even further out perhaps heading into canoe and/or sailing too. As things progress there is more to add to this plan until it becomes a viable lifestyle and around that stage we need to decide exactly where to base it. I have thoughts on that, but given it is going to take a few years to get set up with the qualifications and a few practice runs those ideas may have changed!
It is exciting, slightly scary, and invigorating.
