Presented below is a 6,000 word proposal email I wrote on the 25th April, 2014 and sent to my peer Tom, who I had collaborated with in the creation of the Fencing documentary we produced as part of the documentary module in our final year of undergraduate university.
In this email I proposed numerous pursuits all based around the primary objective of actually getting off our arses and doing something constructive with the knowledge we had acquired at university!
The basic idea was to combine our filmmaking practice and knowledge to form an entrepreneurial content production entity that would produce regular output for eventual monetisation once we had our brand established and had our audience fully invested.
Tom suggested that we meet up and when we did meet up the response I received from him was one of fear.
It was clear to see that what I was proposing scared him shitless.
The Tom I met up with on that day was a vastly different Tom to the one I had worked with six months previously on the Fencing documentary.
Clearly the demands of post university life had taken a toll on him (I had been there myself).
In Tom, I saw someone who was incredibly stressed and also weighed down by the expectations of his parents.
Ultimately Tom informed me that he couldn’t get involved in what I was proposing because he was moving to London to pursue a traditional media career.
I was actually glad Tom declined to get involved because he displayed a serious lack of imagination and I definitely didn’t need traditional media career thinking!
Although we wished each other success and the went our separate ways.
The best thing to come out of this email is that the writing of it clarified my focus and strengthened my resolve to pursue that focus.
The seeds for everything I have done since – especially regarding my MTA Portfolio and creative practice (see my Creative Technologies Sandbox) – are all laid out in this email…
Hello Tom,
Apologies for the delay, yesterday was a complete write off!
Okay, let me begin by saying that what I am about to propose is completely bonkers, but it is the only way forward. I am going to be throwing quite a bit of information at you, but just stay with me, what I am proposing is very much about embracing the bigger picture and think very radically.
I do want to do some more filmmaking, but I want to undertake further filmmaking with a long game in mind; in short, I want it to be a financially sustainable and supportive element of my life.
What I am proposing is long-term, not a one-off (that was Uni), I am talking empire business here!
I have spent the last 10 months figuring out how to actually make this a reality.
The Driving Force
When I finished university, I was fucked! I could not go home, because I did not have a home to go back to. I could not stay in Bath, because I had only a temporary residence and my money was running out. I had no job and acquiring one was proving to be near impossible (even with my high marks!). I could not move out of Bath, because I had no money to do so. June, July and August of last year was a pretty trying time!
However that dire period actually proved to be the best situation I could have found myself in, because, while I was every I was pretty much screwed in every way imaginable, I accepted the logic of the situation – that I had been given a completely blank slate.
Most students, when they graduate from university:
- Will go home and, more often than not, they will become un-motivated and get stuck in a rut at home.
- Will take the first full-time job they can get their hands on: a job which is more than likely completely unrelated to what they actually are passionate about doing and by the time they realise they want to get out, they have got themselves into a logistical and financially depended situation where it is almost impossible for them to get out.
- Will jump back into further study and will either do very well out of it or will become more fucked because of it.
This was something I realised during my black summer (and it was a BLACK summer); when I realised this, my blank slate of not having a home or a job suddenly became the greatest opportunity I had ever been given!
It was an opportunity to figure out what it was I wanted to do (life + work) and to figure out how to go about making my ideal life-work-style a reality (on my own terms). As soon as I realised this, at the beginning of July, everything changed – everything became about completely disregarding the cop-outs and the half measures, everything was absolutely focused on making the dream a reality. It was an opportunity to completely rebuild my life from the ground up.
The first thing I did is throw everything out: friends, family, the status quo, preconceptions, etc. These I could factor back in later on my own terms, but for the time being I needed to completely isolate my blank slate so that I could define it into my very own foundation to build upon. Therefore, I took my degree – a proclamation of my practical and theoretical, creative and academic interests and passions; ultimately, a proclamation of my dream – and I made that my foundation. It was symbolic of a promise I made to myself – make or break – since last July everything I have done has built upon that foundation and it has not been easy.
The first thing I did was to research the state of the creative economy in the UK. I spent the whole of July doing this, looking at:
- What was out there
- Where creative hives were located
- Where the money was being made
- Where the funding was coming from
- Basically, where the opportunities were to be had or to be made
Hence, why I am now living in Bristol. I knew I could not stay in Bath or move elsewhere; therefore, I said, “just choose somewhere (the best place possible) and then figure out how to get there.” It is slightly annoying that after a month’s research the most promising location to move to, proved to be only 14 miles away! However, I am glad I did that research because it gave me a first hand overview of the creative economy in this country – it’s fucked! But ripe for new opportunities to be created!
Then August became about:
- Securing a part-time means of employment to support myself and my research in Bristol – I work 2 night shifts a week at Primark folding t-shirts and putting out stock. During one 9 hour shift I will average about 20 miles in exercise and
- Convincing a relative to stake me for the deposit and first months rent I needed to secure somewhere to live. By far this was the hardest part and which I only managed by the skin of my teeth – this really was the final countdown!
September I moved to Bristol. Then it became about figuring out what other areas of research I was going to need to do in order to make my dream life-work-style a reality and that it what I have been doing since then – my research has become my very own full-time job.
The Truth of the Traditional
In addition to plugging the gaps in my own knowledge, my research has been focused on figuring out to exploit all of the un-tapped opportunities within in the creative industries and within the ever diversifying field of filmmaking AND how to make a living from it.
For an overview, have a look at this and scroll down to (2) Ways 2 Interface and Self-Sufficiency, under My research: all for one and one for all (it’s quite near the bottom) and/or have a look at my LinkedIn profile.
My research is very wide-ranging, from anthropology to entrepreneurism, and it has been an exhausting process (in comparison, final year was a picnic), but exciting because I have come to realise how to turn the dream into a reality and this is how you do it:
Firstly, forget Hollywood, that system is useless, it is a system concerned only with reboots and comic book franchises – brands the studios know the public will buy into; at the amounts the studios produce these films at they can not afford to bank on anything else. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have commented on how if one of these big budget films were to REALLY bomb at the box office, it would do the same to Hollywood what the financial crisis did to the economy. Additionally, Spielberg struggled to get funding for Lincoln – one the world’s best known, award-winning filmmakers struggled to get funding for a film about one of the USA’s best known and beloved presidents – if that does not sell you the hopelessness of the Hollywood system, then I do not what will!
Re-think everything you have ever been told about the aesthetics or business of filmmaking – filmmaking and, in particular, independent filmmaking, in the 21st century is a blank slate.
It really is, never before have there existed so many potential opportunities to access filmmaking and produce the types of films you want to make. However, no one is going to give it to you, no one cares; in order to access these opportunities, you have to be willing to create them from scratch and from the ground-up and you have to be absolutely relentless with your goal – ruthless even! No more half measures.
Success in filmmaking today requires you to approach and to develop each film project as if it is its very own start-up. It requires you to think radically and to think outside the traditional filmmaking box. The traditional filmmaking box has gone – forget it. Blank slate.
The reason why so many aspiring filmmakers do not do anything with their filmmaking skills or their passion is because the traditional practice and education of filmmaking has sold them a lie – a very romantic lie. It is the lie of the 9-5 filmmaking system that, once you are in, will take care of you – it will handle the funding and the distribution, so can just do the making.
It’s bullshit! It’s a myth that needs to be crushed. The system is not like that, if, indeed, it ever was.
To be a successful filmmaker today requires you to approach filmmaking as an entrepreneur – that’s the truth of it.
Forget the system, make your own system – make you own filmmaking and creative industry.
The one is this country is fucked, so its time to set an example of how to go about building a new one.
It will be hard, but it will also be highly fulfilling. I promise you.
The Reality of Today
While my research and everything else I am currently doing is born out of passion, it is equally born out of frustration (if you have not noticed already)!
Frustration with ignorance, complacency and a system that just does not work!
I have had enough.
Now, I want to make a very clear distinction here.
Currently, there are many filmmakers who nobody has ever heard of making films and doing okay, but only barely okay. Why? well:
- They will seek funding from traditional means and they will really struggle to do this; eventually they will find funding from a number of sources and will trade in a percentage of the profits and creative control for the funding.
- They will go off and make the film; maybe the funders do not like something and will ask the filmmakers to change it, this will repeat itself a number of times.
- The filmmakers will then get someone else to distribute it and again give up a percentage of the profits and by the time film is released they have given up so much of the distribution percentage to funders, distributors, middlemen, etc., the fillmmakers basically get nothing back.
- Then they move onto the their next project and… oh, no money – they start the process all over again.
- Fucking ridiculous!
The filmmakers who are doing really well are the ones who:
- Have a following a.k.a. their target audience, which they would have worked hard to build and connect with. The filmmakers are known and supported by their following a.k.a. a tribe who will buy into what they make and will promote it accordingly.
- Raise their own money through multiple crowdfunding campaigns and further grow and strengthen their following as a result.
- They make their own films completely independently of any interference and they make the process of making the film a part of the overall marketing campaign for the film, they include their tribe in the experience.
- They self-distribute their films online and in the real world in variety of different packages and experiences and they do it completely independently of any middlemen. In short, the filmmakers retain the majority of the profits.
- Their tribe goes: “that was great, what are you going to make next?”
The really great independents create their own infrastructure and momentum of enticement for the projects they produce. They keep trying out radical ways of doing it better, they engage with new technologies, they are highly proactive and intuitively innovative and they absolutely have made their passion their full-time obsession – they are entrepreneurial.
Jeanie Finlay is a very good example of this.
As I have already said, being successful at filmmaking requires contemporary filmmakers to get to grips with the entirety of the creative and business side of filmmaking: it sets them out from the crowd, it ensures longevity and adaptability in an industry and technologically growing world that is constantly changing and the overall trends are going this way anyway.
Crowdfunding – I think this one needs no introduction. I have been heavily researching this one since September: the logistics, the marketing and most important of all – the psychology behind it. I am a very strong believer in the potential of crowdfunding, I have discovered an awful lot about it!
I am itching to do my own crowdfunding project, we’ll come back to that…
David Nicholas Wilkinson – a very intelligent person – founder and current owner of the Guerilla companies and Distrify, he has been distributing independent films very successfully for 20 years. I was at a talk he did back in October in which he said in the next 3 years he is going to be out of a job, because more and more filmmakers are latching onto the fact that they do not need someone else or a platform to promote and distribute their films. Increasingly, Wilkinson is telling filmmakers who come to him this same fact, because he knows it is hopeless to fight the changing trend. Now that we have the internet and more and more emerging technologies, filmmakers can much more easily promote and distribute their own films. This is another area I have been researching; especially how to engage your audience with real world distribution packages. The secret? Immersion, see secret cinema and pop-ups, etc.
Outsourcing – if you need some graphics, special fx, etc. done and you do not know how to do it, opposed to getting some in the UK to do it, outsource it to another country and get it done much cheaper and probably to a higher standard. You can outsource almost any task today, thanks to cloud file sharing and how cheap increased storage space has now become sharing large materials is no longer a problem. I keep telling people if you want work become a freelancer and get yourself in to the growing outsourcing sector (more research), they don’t listen.
The reality of today – blank slate. A canvas on which you can create your own film experience and infrastructure – that’s the reality of today, that is how you become successful at filmmaking and keep filmmaking.
But crucial to this success is not just making films and building a start-up infrastructure of funding, marketing and distribution around it, its the infrastructure you build around the infrastructure and which you can carry from project to project and which, ultimately, tells and sells your essential creative philosophy.
The Proposal
It’s all about branding: telling and selling a story (more research).
Have a look at this – this is crucial:
4 creatives all from bath have started this up in December and they already have nearly 10,000 followers on twitter – 10,000!
I have been watching these chaps since Christmas, silently watching, because they have really got it almost figured out.
They have figured out something that a of other creatives and filmmakers have not figured out – in short, they are promoting themselves and their different POVs in relation to an overall affiliation – a shared ideal, that ultimately transcends all four of them put together. Them as individuals, while crucial, is not the reason they are doing so well, it is the fact that they have shaped a strongly principled brand, ideal and affiliation to operate under and, crucially, it is a brand that taps into the contemporary problems and shortcomings of the creative industries, that is why they are doing so well – it’s all down to the ideal at the heart of their endeavour.
They have defined and refind their essential message and now they are using that philosophy to sell themselves through connecting to like-minded people.
You asked me once, why film audiences have now gone nuts for superhero films.
Ideals.
People love ideals that are universal, that stand for something that they can connect with, that they can aspire to and that change things for the better.
And what does a superhero embody – an ideal.
And the studios know this hence we they keep giving us more and keep rebooting tried and tested ideals from the past.
Every single successful brand or franchise that has ever existed has represented an ideal, whether it is Apple, Coke Cola or James Bond. Film studios were the same, back in the studio system era, they each made and sold a particular type of film – a particular idealistic experience for the viewer to inhabit.
Now a person alone can represent their own ideal that can go on to connect with similar minded people, but if you really want to connect to a larger following of people (which is what you need if you want to successfully distribute a film) then you need to create an ideal that is independent of yourself and is therefore selfless and universal and, ultimately, will transcend yourself. Steve Jobs knew this, I know his image is all over Apple today, but if you go back to the beginning, it is just Apple, Steve Jobs is no where to be seen, because no one cared about Steve Jobs, the consumer only cared about what his product promised for the user.
This is what I am proposing – that we forge something similar to (y) creatives, not the same, because they have done that and I wish them the best of luck, but we form an ideal to encapsulate both of our filmmaking and creative inclinations and passions, we make it independent of each of us and we make it very open and very honest, what I am proposing is a cross between a production entity, an ideal, a manifesto and something that really sets an example of the future potential of the creative industries. In short, we make an ideal that does not shy away from the challenges of the contemporary film and creative industries, but which says, we are going to take this one, we are going to figure it out and we are going to make it work – we are making a stand of what we believe in. It can act as reminder for us, something for others to aspire to and keeping it open and independent of our identities means that we can get others involved. That is the point, in its universality, it needs to be something that can grow.
When I started to consider this idea a while back I knew it was something that I could not do on my own and I thought of you as the perfect co-founder because you are the only person I know who can actually see the tangible potential in such an idea and will bring a whole plethora of original ideas to the table, opposed to just looking dumbfounded or agreeing with me because I seem to know what I am talking about (I probably don’t).
Also, as we discovered on the Fencing doc, we act as a very good count-balance to one another, which is exactly what this idea needs if it is going to be something that transcends beyond both of us and becomes universal.
“proof of expertise in most fields is shown with group affiliations, client lists, writing credentials, and media mentions, not IQ points or Ph.D.s.” – Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Work Week, 2007:171.
However, I am not saying that we form a company, what I am proposing for the time being is just:
- throwing some ideas around
- defining something we both agree upon, making it universal, but representative of both our interests
- coming up with a name
- getting someone to make us some graphics and a logo
- start a facebook and twitter account and take things from their.
The internet is the wild west of the 21st century, it’s streets are lined with gold just waiting form someone to come along and scoop it up!
Or if you want a more fitting comparison, think back 100 years to silent era of film when productions companies, films, stars, practices and conventions were being formed, left, right and center – the industry was in a continual form of technological and artistic flux. That is exactly what is happening now with technology and the internet. We are literally at the beginning of film industry 2.0. You could even think of my proposal as equivalent to forming a new film studio in the silent era.
To be successful, you have to think big and you need to make a stand and you need to proclaim what you stand for and make your promise public so will stick to it no matter what… a bit like what I did after graduating from university.
The South West of England is currently very hot for the creative industries – that is why I have moved to Bristol, there is a lot of potential in Bristol and in the surrounding areas. Outside of London (which is big for any industry) the South West represents the less competitive alternative that has stuff happening, but is still ripe for new opportunities to be created.
The old film industry is gone – the traditional system is dying, it is time to take charge if the new one. Forming an affiliated ideal is how we stand out from the crowd, how we acquire a considerable following and how we set a new standard – completely on our own terms.
Almost always I am watching someone else orchestrate a botch-up and I am standing there thinking: “I could do this so much better.” I do not know about you, but I am done working for someone else.
Which brings me onto the projects and longer term plans I have in the pipeline that are absolutely prevalent to the proposal I have just put forth…
My larger long-term plans
Documentary
I want to make documentary, so lets get that out there. I have no idea what it is about, but there is definitely something there waiting to be expressed, I just do not know what it is yet. However, I know I want to maybe do a feature length one. Do not get me wrong, I do want to do fiction (and I do have a number of ideas), but for the time being a documentary is easier to fit into my schedule because it is more malleable and workable as a side project. If we do go ahead with the affiliation idea then it is important to have some pretty hefty projects to back it up. But I can tell you now, if you do want to get involved in this, once I have the basic idea figured, I will define my target audience (first thing you need to have down if undertaking a crowdfuning project) and do a crowdfunding campaign to ensure that all travel expenses, living wage, equipment, etc., is paid for – from here on out filmmaking is about fulfilling a passion while earning a living – no more half measures!
Fiction Film projects
We’ll come back to these.
Masters – this one KEY!
Our uni offered me a new Masters course they have just started in Creative Technologies and Enterprise, when they first offered it to me last summer, I did not get it, I did not know why they were offering it to, it did not seem relevant to what I wanted to do and it did take me an awful long while to be won over. Contrary to popular belief or the marks I received, I do not want to become an academic; there are definitely advantages to having a academic skills, but I do not want to become solely an academic, which is why this Masters is so valuable (and why it is vital that I start doing some filmmaking again), because it is not a taught course in the traditional sense.
It’s a platform and a blank slate. Love a blank slate.
I have to do a creative project and a research project for it – they can be ABSOLUTELY whatever I want to do and they will tailor my tutoring in the course to fit accordingly. Ideally they should somehow utilise an emerging technology (but that won’t be a problem because that term just about covers every technology) and they need to be enterprising (I completely on that bandwagon). It’s a bespoke course and very radical. It is a very entrepreneurial inclined and because it is a Masters, both of my projects are expected to be an outstanding quality.
- The creative project – could be a film, documentary, an interactive documentary, etc. I am still throwing ideas around, but there is definitely opportunities and collaborations to be had here.
- The research project – will be empirical based, so it is about testing a theory. It is going to draw on my Ways 2 Interface project (that was always the plan) and it will have something to do with the emerging fields of neurocinematicsand cognitive poetics. I am still researching, but there is definitely scope to involve filmmaking in this one as well, as it will ultimately look into why the human conciousness finds story patterns so enticing.
However, I am only doing it part-time for two reasons:
- It means I won’t get stuck in academia and will be able to orchestrate projects external to the course; in fact, I am very much planning on taking what I am doing in the course out in to the real world and bring what I am doing in the real world back into the course. I only agreed to do the course when I was I told that not only I could use the course to further my own creative projects, but that is what would be actively encouraged.
- It means the course will be spread over 2 years. 2 years in which I can access the university’s equipment and resources AND I will now be able to get my hands on the Masters level equipment. Imagine 2 years of using the university’s equipment and not having to factor in equipment or insurance costs into our budgets – its a crime. You can bet you’re biscuit I will be scrounging off of the Feature Filmmaking masters they run as well.
If I am being honest, the second reason is the reason why I am doing the masters; the fact that I will get a masters out of it is just an added bonus. The course is working for me, I am not working for the course!
I will be further affiliated with our university – affiliations are key – the creative industry hive of the South West is something that our university has been very actively exploiting for its own ends for a number of years now. It is the reason for why it has been having a major rebrand and redevelopment over the last couple of years, its aim is to become a centre of excellence in the digital media and creative industry sectors (and because it is an area the University of Bath has not got a clue about), its the reason why they have built my masters course, it is the reason for why they now offer a number of creative computing courses, it is the reason they are launching a new BA this year in Film, Television and Digital Production that will be affiliated with the BBC (if only they had had that course going when we were there) and I have been told there are more on their way. The Uni is really breaking new ground at the minute.
Ultimately, this affiliation would feed into the affiliation I have proposed and this is not the only affiliation on the cards, there are a couple in Bristol I have been buttering up and that my Masters will allow me to access. NETWORKS!
Masters crowdfunding project
This is the one I am working on at the minute. I am going to crowdfund my masters and it absolutely scares the shit out of me!
£6,210 – that is what I need. THAT IS WHAT I NEED!
I am doing it via this platform: StudentFunder – the very first student crowdfunding platform!
I don’t know how much I am going to push for, as I do not have to pay for my masters in one go, but I am currently discussing it with the orchestrators of the platform. They are very keen for me to do it, because I an not just a student trying to get money, I am student who is very interested in exploring the potential of crowdfunding.
The fact of the matter is I need to get my own crowdfunding project under my belt to prove that I do actually know what I am talking about in regards to my crowdfunding research AND and it will act as testimony for any future crowdfunding projects I am involved AND if I manage to fund my master through crowdfunding which, quite frankly is not going to be easy, getting funding for a film should be a relative walk in the park.
But I NEED A PITCH VIDEO and this is where I am seeking your potential assistance, because my video can not be any crappy web cam affair [this became The Miracle of Crowdfunding and that is a whole other can of worms].
STORY-CENTRIC
That is the theme of my campaign.
As the masters is essentially just a blank slate, I needed to find an inherent commonality and selling point in my application of it and, as I have already discussed the application and the telling of stories will be central to my research and creative projects AND everything else I am currently doing, so stories are the central theme.
My thinking is it needs to tell a mini-story in which I present my case while exploring what a story is – so pretty simple. I am currently jotting down a few ideas. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated – it needs to have a ferocity and vibrancy – if I say I am a filmmaker and will be doing filmmaking in my masters and then I deliver some crappy web cam affair it will not reflect very well.
It does not need to be perfect, but it needs to showcase potential, which is why I thought of you, I need an eye that knows what it is doing and will build on my ideas and will be quite experimental. Ultimately, if the pitch video can stand on its own outside of just being a pitch video that would be even better.
It is also a favour I will gladly return.
Like I say once I am in the course, I have access to whatever the uni has to offer for 2 years and they have even said they can order equipment in!
This is not pressing, but I do need at least 30 days for the campaign and couple days buffer in case I need to get a career development loan from the bank to make up for any gaps or just to cover the first instalment of my masters.
But let me know what you think.
Final point: my masterplan
Due to the high marks I got last time round, everyone is convinced that I had a masterplan, I didn’t. “I’m going to get a First” – that was the plan. And it really was make or break.
However, this time around I want to work smarter, not harder.
Hence, this time I do have/am forming a plan – this has been the whole point of my research: to figure out how I can become self-sufficient and live life doing my passions.
I promise you now that everything I am doing and have proposed here is connected and part of that plan – I would not have suggested it, if I did not think any of it was possible.
The research has been going since I graduated, but the process of doing has been going since December and I have made a very real effort to formulate a plan of how I will brand myself, exploit myself and, ultimately set myself up and there is a deadline – my master is 2 years and by the end of those two years I want whatever self-sufficient enterprise I am going to do up and running. I do not know if the affiliation idea is the that ultimate thing (I am still figuring it out), but it is part of the process.
I do not know what your own personal plans are in regards to your filmmaking, but I would champion you to become fully self-sufficient and I am proposing that we combine our resources and make the affiliation a representation of that. Affiliations and networks are what drive human progress. However, I am not saying that the affiliation will overwrite your own plans or intentions. Let me explain:
In regards to my own creative academic enterprising brand, I have been building it for a while now, it is not full there yet, but what I have done is gone back to my foundation – my degree – and said okay what are the major strengths and things that interest me the most: theoretical and practical a.k.a. academic and creative. Hence why I now have:
Ways 2 Interface – academic me
Something to do with Film – creative me
Like my masters, stories are the commonalities between the two and between now and starting my masters they are going to be showcasing a lot of content! When I start my masters, they will very much feed into and off of it.
And as I have been doing with my research, as I have proposed here and as I will be developing in my masters – the enterprising aspect is going to come out as well.
I am currently building a website for that: peterobrien.me – and that will be able to act on its own; in addition to acting as a banner for the other two. You see, I have created affiliations out of myself and this is point, becoming a successful brand is about exploiting all of your strengths and becoming all pervasive.
My affiliations do criss-cross, but they also work just fine on their own – that is how I am looking at this affiliation-ideal idea. It represents something that is shared, but will not prevent all involved parties from pursuing their own pursuits.
I see the affiliation as a promise, a reminder and an ideal – something to keep us on the straight and narrow (to keep us filmmaking) and to inspire others to achieve there potential as well. There is currently a huge gap in the market for this type of thing at the moment. Creatives are being told they need to be radical, innovative and entrepreneurial, but nobody is showing them how to go about doing it; especially, in the filmmaking sector.
That’s it.
I have come too far, WAY TOO FAR, to stop now.
The research I have conducted over the past 10 months has completely changed my worldview – I am not the same person who graduated in July – I can now see that any endeavour is possible, it just takes bit of figuring and a lot of hard work.
It’s a fucking bitch getting it off the ground, but it does pay off in the end.
If you are not already doing so, I would urge you to take the plunge and make your filmmaking and whatever it is you want to do absolutely work for you – life will never be the same again. In the end, life is too short, not to pursue your passions.
The only way forward is to just get stuck in and define your own course along the way.
Thoughts?
All the best,
Pete
p.s. apologies for the delay, but this has taken me ALL day to write!