Becoming a Multi-Talent: Interview with Kieth Yap
Maybe you're like Kieth, talented at more than just one thing.In this episode we discuss how to manage your desire to develop skills in two distinctly different fields.
Maybe you're like Kieth, talented at more than just one thing.
Listen: 26min | Read: 7min
In this episode we discuss how to manage your desire to develop skills in two distinctly different fields. Kieth Yap is an contemporary visual artist and a school teacher.
Podcast Episode snapshot:
- Define and review your key strengths
- 'Following your passion' isn't always good advice
- Decide whether they are ranked the same or differently
- Within your skills, carefully choose sets of sub-skills
- Be responsible, yet take creative risks
- Skills from unrelated employment can be transferrable
- Find a niche requires patience
- Skills get utilised in a different order (and timing) to what we expect
Image: Supplied by artist
About Kieth Yap
Kieth contributes consistently to many academic, professional and community projects. He is principally a Draughtsman-Illustrator and has been doing so since he can remember. Printmaking, portraiture and transforming 2D into 3D encompasses his practice.
He is interested in a diverse range of materials, their properties and recently, looks to common stationary as the catalyst in the creation of Fine Art pieces.
‘Creative education is a powerful motivator. Self-expression is most important in the holistic development of students in high school. Engaging and capacitating within the subject of Visual Arts has purpose through the concept-to-product cycle … alongside their development of reflexive attitudes for later life.’
Kieth’s goal is to continue as a post-graduate, within the fields of Public / Special Education. At current, he works at Dubbo College and an Educator for the Biennale of Sydney, 2016.
Continue the conversation:
When's the right time to start a business or project?
Waiting for the perfect time to start your dream business? When you receive financial reward for doing something that gives you a sense of joy, while utilising your natural abilities, you know you’re in the right place.
your natural talents can unlock opportunity and reward.
Waiting for the perfect time to start your dream business or project? Give up. (Waiting, that is.)
Since the early days of high school, I knew that traditional employment wouldn’t be the main way I earned a living. Perhaps it was folding socks and undies at my first job aged 14-years-old, that made me think that a regular job wasn’t all that crash hot.
Wider worldview
Fast forward past socks and undies to life beyond high school, I took six weeks unpaid from work, and travelled throughout America in a friend’s band, travelling from LA to New York, and everywhere in between. My twentieth birthday was spent in Seattle, visiting the famous space needle, museums and restaurants that served the biggest meals I’d ever seen.
Travel and worldview are inextricably linked. During our time in the US, I met families in small regional areas where the cinemas closed during the day, to amazing musicians in underground New York jazz clubs. We also met leaders, business people and billionaires who owned private jets. Observing these stark contrasts made me think about my own ability to influence how I earned a living.
Start with what you know
Many in-flight magazines and security checks later, I returned to my home in Dubbo, Australia and developed a plan to go into a business of my own. Returning to original workplace, my spare time quickly became occupied with business books, design magazines, and doing free design jobs. I became obsessed finding a way to turn my natural abilities and talents, into a revenue stream. Starting with what I knew, creativity, seemed to make sense.
By age twenty-one, I launched a business with a laptop, first client and a paid creative project. I was finally in the game - using my skills to pay the bills! When you receive payment for doing something that gives you a sense of joy, while utilising your natural abilities, you know you’re in the right place.
Risk and reward
We all have differing thresholds for risk and reward. After opening a business bank account with $20, a person in a similar business told me there was no market for what I was doing, and that I wouldn't last 6 months. That was 12 years ago. If you're truly ready for the adventures of being self-employed, then you're inviting both risk and reward to be your constant companions.
Are you ready to start? Is now the time?
10 Questions to ask yourself before starting a business:
- What abilities do people recognise in me?
- What natural talents can I trade on?
- What problem could my business solve for people?
- Why am I starting a business?
- Am I prepared to spend the time and money needed to get it started?
- Do I have the energy, people and knowledge I need?
- Am I comfortable with risk and reward coexisting?
- Who is my competition?
- If it doesn’t work out, could I pick myself up and move beyond the setback?
- Can I test-run a business idea before quitting my job?
Do all you can to #LiveToAccomplish.
Copyright 2016 Nathan Shooter