SANDRA CLARKE
  • home
  • about sandra
  • workshops
  • digital art
  • book shop
  • best life
  • past projects
  • travel
  • artist statement
  • c.v.
  • disney
  • school programs
  • patterns
  • press
  • cottage gallery
  • textile arts gallery
  • product
  • Murals + Mockups
  • Evan Clarke
  • Link Page
  • Suffragettes Paper Kit & Ephemera
  • free stuff

trends spotting is my superpower

9/9/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
In 2010 I stumbled across CreativeLive, an online teaching platform for creatives.  Their model is offering free LIVE online classes and workshops and sell the recordings afterwards.  Subjects range from photography, to entrepreneurship, to arts, design, and makers.  It was awesome!  During the free live classes I participated in the chat room and made new creative friends that I'm still in touch with. 
As I took one class after another, I thought, 'Online classes are the future, I need to join this magical industry.'
In 1998 I started teaching fitness classes.  During a workshop for fitness instructors, my boss mentioned that she had to find a fitness instructor to teach children's classes.  My daughter, Emily, was 4.5 years old and starting kindergarten September 1998.  By her December 5th birthday that year, I was teaching children's fitness classes during Emily's school hours.  This lead to teaching children's art classes.  Teaching fitness to adults a couple of evenings a week and teaching children's art and kindergym classes while Emily was in school worked out perfectly.
​By 2010 when I found CreativeLive I was ready to move some of my adult in-person classes ONLINE!  
During a CreativeLive class an instructor mentioned that she taught on Skillshare and she sent everyone a link to a free Skillshare trial.  
I joined Skillshare as a student and learned how to turn a few of my art classes to online art classes.
I re-branded a couple of times as my teaching evolved from teaching art to teaching art business and social media marketing.  
I spent several years on Skillshare, but it wasn't generating the full-time income that I wanted.  
So I started looking for other ways to earn income doing things that I liked doing.
Around that time I read that China's middle class was growing quickly.  I said to my husband, "What I need to do is figure out what Chinese middle class families want to buy and sell them that!"
I was also looking to continue working from home so that I could continue being available for my kids.
My research took me to teaching online English classes to students in China.  I had the credentials, experience, and enthusiasm to teach online ESL classes.  
In retrospect I realized that I was able to recognize earning trends.
I also got into new venture trends at the perfect times, long before industry saturation. 
My job or career criteria remained the same; flexible hours, excellent pay, and above all -- it had to be joyful.  Building online classes generated passive income -- courses I made in 2014 still pay monthly royalties -- not a huge amount, but enough to buy two beehives, eleven chickens, and four bunnies for my homestead this year. 
My ESL work was more structured with defined schedules, but I set the hours that I wanted to work.  
When the pandemic hit all of my in-person classes were cancelled, postponed, or adjusted to online courses.  The art business courses that I created were busier than ever before leading to new contracts with art councils, galleries, and colleges. 
As the pandemic appeared to have reached it's climax, people started to see the other side of lockdown.  They are prioritizing post-pandemic life to include fulfilling their Bucket List.
Right around the time I looked into my crystal ball of what will trend post-pandemic. The Chinese government stopped foreign teachers from teaching online to young students in China.  I wanted to replace my lost ESL time and income with a post-pandemic Bucket List item.
TRAVEL.
Although we are early in post-pandemic vacation planning, I decided to dust off my TICO certificate (to sell travel in Ontario, Canada one must be TICO certified -- which I am -- saving that information for another blog.)
I enrolled in several courses to update my travel industry knowledge and joined a well respected travel company.  
The next trend is travel.  Not any travel -- unique travel that blends personal interests with scenic and beautiful destinations.  Bucket List travel like hiking around Machu Picchu, knitting on Scotland's Fair Isle, or making a Faroese shawl on Faroe Island, visiting places from favourite novels, learning to weave in Peru, yurt building in Mongolia, painting on the Left Bank, taking a sculpting lesson in Florence, Italy, the birth place of Michelangelo.  That is the next trend.  
So tell me -- what is your Bucket List dream vacation and activity?
0 Comments
    Join The eMail List

    Author

    Sandra Clarke

    Archives

    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021

    Categories

    All
    Activities For Kids
    Art
    Art For Kids
    Art Gallery
    Art Gallery Of Mississauga
    Award
    Award Winning
    Bee
    Beehive
    Bee Hives
    Beekeepers
    Beekeeping
    Bees
    Bucket List
    Butterflies
    Cabin
    Change
    Chicken Coop
    Chickens
    Chicks
    Children
    Chilldren's Activities
    Civil Rights
    Climate
    Climate Change
    Contest
    Coop
    Craft
    Craft Book
    Craft Books
    Craftivism
    Craftivism Manifesto
    Craftivist
    Craftivist Manifesto
    Creative Live
    Crochet
    Crochet Coral
    Crochet Coral Reef
    Crochet Coral Reef Project
    Daina Taimina
    Death
    Death Of A Loved One
    Diet
    Disney
    Disney World
    Ephemera
    Ephemeral
    Family
    Fast Fashion Rebel
    Fast Fashion Rebellion
    Fitness
    Florida
    Food
    French Paper Crafts
    Giveaway
    Global Warming
    Good Trouble
    Green Kid
    Green Kid Steam
    Grief
    Grieving
    Healing
    Heart Transplant
    Hurricane
    Hurricane Ian
    Hurrican Ian
    Hyperbolic
    Hyperbolic Crochet
    Hyperbolic Geometry
    Instagram
    John Lewis
    Junk Journal
    Junk Journal Ephemera
    Junk Journals
    Kid's Summer
    Knitting
    Maker
    Margaret Wertheim
    Misogyny
    Mourning
    Passive Income
    Peaceful Protest
    Port Orleans French Quarter
    Post-pandemic
    Rebirth
    Recycle
    Renewal
    Repair
    Repurpose
    Scrapbook
    Scrapbooking
    Scrapbooking Ephemera
    Scrapbooking Paper
    Second Hand
    Second Hand Clothes
    Seo
    Skillshare
    Slow Fashion
    STEAM
    STEM
    Summer
    Tags And Labels
    Teach Online
    Ted Talks
    Travel
    Udemy
    Vacation
    Victorian Paper Crafts
    Vintage
    Vintage Clothes
    Vintage Paris
    Visible Mending
    Weather
    Weight
    Weight Loss
    When Your Child Dies
    Win A Book

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Activities For Kids
    Art
    Art For Kids
    Art Gallery
    Art Gallery Of Mississauga
    Award
    Award Winning
    Bee
    Beehive
    Bee Hives
    Beekeepers
    Beekeeping
    Bees
    Bucket List
    Butterflies
    Cabin
    Change
    Chicken Coop
    Chickens
    Chicks
    Children
    Chilldren's Activities
    Civil Rights
    Climate
    Climate Change
    Contest
    Coop
    Craft
    Craft Book
    Craft Books
    Craftivism
    Craftivism Manifesto
    Craftivist
    Craftivist Manifesto
    Creative Live
    Crochet
    Crochet Coral
    Crochet Coral Reef
    Crochet Coral Reef Project
    Daina Taimina
    Death
    Death Of A Loved One
    Diet
    Disney
    Disney World
    Ephemera
    Ephemeral
    Family
    Fast Fashion Rebel
    Fast Fashion Rebellion
    Fitness
    Florida
    Food
    French Paper Crafts
    Giveaway
    Global Warming
    Good Trouble
    Green Kid
    Green Kid Steam
    Grief
    Grieving
    Healing
    Heart Transplant
    Hurricane
    Hurricane Ian
    Hurrican Ian
    Hyperbolic
    Hyperbolic Crochet
    Hyperbolic Geometry
    Instagram
    John Lewis
    Junk Journal
    Junk Journal Ephemera
    Junk Journals
    Kid's Summer
    Knitting
    Maker
    Margaret Wertheim
    Misogyny
    Mourning
    Passive Income
    Peaceful Protest
    Port Orleans French Quarter
    Post-pandemic
    Rebirth
    Recycle
    Renewal
    Repair
    Repurpose
    Scrapbook
    Scrapbooking
    Scrapbooking Ephemera
    Scrapbooking Paper
    Second Hand
    Second Hand Clothes
    Seo
    Skillshare
    Slow Fashion
    STEAM
    STEM
    Summer
    Tags And Labels
    Teach Online
    Ted Talks
    Travel
    Udemy
    Vacation
    Victorian Paper Crafts
    Vintage
    Vintage Clothes
    Vintage Paris
    Visible Mending
    Weather
    Weight
    Weight Loss
    When Your Child Dies
    Win A Book

© COPYRIGHT Sandra Clarke.
​ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • home
  • about sandra
  • workshops
  • digital art
  • book shop
  • best life
  • past projects
  • travel
  • artist statement
  • c.v.
  • disney
  • school programs
  • patterns
  • press
  • cottage gallery
  • textile arts gallery
  • product
  • Murals + Mockups
  • Evan Clarke
  • Link Page
  • Suffragettes Paper Kit & Ephemera
  • free stuff