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In order for a nomad to also be an entrepreneur, the career they choose to develop must be portable. It can’t be tied to a physical location by clients, by technology, by products, by visas, by whatever……

Writing has long been the most portable of all careers. Even today, when we think of travel and entrepreneurship the image that pops into most people’s minds would be that of the travel writer or some other type of non-fiction article or book writer or  published author of some kind. Writing gives nomads the flexibility to earn money anywhere, and doesn’t tie a nomad to a specific technology – if your computer gets lost or stolen, or stops working, you can always use a pen and a notebook or a napkin or any scrap paper to write on.

(I can hear a number of you, dear readers, expressing a collective “Well, Duh!!, but please bear with me for another moment or two)…………….

continued on the Writer Nomad’s Skills page at http://www.agelessnomads.com/the-writer-nomads-skills

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Everyone is born with natural talents but no-one is born with the skills needed to take advantage of these natural talents.

Natural talents tend to be associated with activities that are so easy for us to do that we do them without really having to think about them or make much of an effort. Natural talents include such attributes as: artistic, creative, entrepreneurial, detail oriented, mathematical, imaginative, innovative, mechanically minded,  practical, literary, persuasive, articulate, etc.

Natural talents on their own don’t really count for much. They are merely unfulfilled potential without the development of skills.

By developing a ’skills portfolio’ you can identify patterns that can help you discover your natural talents, as well as help you identify skills that you would like to develop in order to fulfill specific personal goals.

What Are Skills?

I’m glad you asked that question. Skills are learned and practiced abilities. They are influenced by our natural talents. Skills are much easier to develop in areas we have a natural talent for. However, even without a natural talent, skills can still be developed for activities and topics that a person has an interest in.

As an example, if a person has  a natural entrepreneurial talent , they still need to develop specific entrepreneurial skills, such as developing a viable business plan, finding clients, marketing, etc., for the natural entrepreneurial talent to be of any value.

On the other hand, if an individual has a personal interest in becoming an entrepreneur but they don’t have a natural entrepreneurial talent, they can still become an entrepreneur by learning and developing entrepreneurial skills. The process of becoming an entrepreneur will take longer and be more challenging for a person who does not possess a natural entrepreneurial talent, but it is still doable.

5 Basic Skills Groups

For anyone interested in undergoing a major transition in their life, it is a good idea to begin by identify our current skills set, including those associated with our natural talents. Knowing our current skills set can help us identify activities we want to include in, for example:

• a new lifestyle we are trying to design (including a nomadic one); or
• a new career we are trying to break into; or
• a new enterprise we are trying to develop.

The catch here (and there is generally a catch with this type of activity) is that identifying skills, particularly those associated with a natural talent, is not an easy task.

In her book, The New Zealand Guide to Transferable Skills, Christine Dekker identifies and defines 5 basic skills groups that are very useful at helping people identify what skills they have developed.

These skills groups are:

1. Physical/Practical
   1. Working with things and the physical environment; using your hands and body skillfully.
   2. Examples of physical/practical skills include: assembling, building, fitting, fixing, installing, maintaining, repairing, restoring, ordering, using.
2. Creative/Artistic
   1. Working in a visual medium or with words or sound to express ideas/emotions; using imagination; being innovative.
   2. This group can be divided into: words and ideas; visual; performing.
   3. Examples of creative/artistic skills include: (words and ideas) writing, symbolising, interpreting, modifying, expressing, scripting (visual) color coordinating, decorating, fashioning, styling, forming, drawing, (performing) acting, composing, entertaining, modeling, role-playing, staging.
3. Communication/Interpersonal
   1. Working with people; any interaction or information exchange between people; using language; understanding.
   2. This group can be divided into: ‘key’ communication skills; teaching; relationship-building; facilitating/leading; problem-solving; marketing.
   3. Examples of communication/interpersonal skills include: (‘key’ communication skills) answering, briefing, articulating, writing, reporting, describing, enquiring, conversing; (teaching) advising, coaching, disseminating, explaining, training, instructing; (relationship-building) affirming, appreciating, nurturing, team-building, guiding, empowering, listening, supporting; (facilitating/leading) brainstorming, chairing, directing, motivating, stimulating; (problem-solving) arbitrating, conciliating, mediating, negotiating, reconciling, resolving; (marketing) advertising, representing, selling, convincing.
4. Organization/Management
   1. Bringing resources/people together; making something work together as a whole; using initiative and vision; having an overall picture or goal.
   2. This group can be divided into: to do with time; to do with resources; to do with people and tasks.
   3. Examples of organization/management skills include: (to do with time) forecasting, planning, predicting, scheduling; (to do with resources) allocating, budgeting, grouping, purchasing, sorting; (to do with people and tasks) administrating, coordinating, delegating, monitoring, networking, recruiting, reviewing, supervising.
5. Information Processing
   1. Working with facts, figures, concepts; using thinking/computing skills.
   2. This group can be divided into:’key’ thinking skills; language and ideas; facts and figures.
   3. Examples of information processing skills include: (‘key’ thinking skills) comprehending, thinking, studying, perceiving, reading, judging, listening, identifying; (language and ideas) appraising, preparing, conceptualising, defining, reporting, editing, summarising, theorising, revising; (facts and figures) analysing, auditing, assessing, compiling, estimating, evaluating, recording, quoting, processing, mapping, measuring.

How do you know if you have identified a skill?

Skills can be so many different things. In the book mentioned above, the author listed over 300 unique skills. Each skill is identified as an action verb, and in the lists presented in the book each skill generally ended with an -ing.

To begin identifying your skills, try completing the following sentence:

I am good at _________________________.

Now that I have Identified a List of Skills, What do I do Next?

Use the skills you have identified in the 5 basic skills groups to develop a skills portfolio by identifying:

1. which skills you are best at;
2. which skills you enjoy using the most; and
3. which skills you would like to improve.

Now, using your skills portfolio, try answering the following questions:

1. Can you identify any patterns emerging from your skills portfolio? Any activities that you enjoy doing, have strong skills in, and can be used to enhance your lifestyle?
2. Are there a group of skills that you have identified that can be associated with a specific natural talent? Are there other skills that you can develop that will help you enhance this natural talent?
3. Are there skills that you can use that will help you identify activities you would like to try, new activities that you can use to help you design a new authentic lifestyle with?
4. Are there skills that you can build on in order to develop an enterprise with? One that you have already developed skills in so you know that you would enjoy doing, and feel confident you could turn into a successful money-making enterprise?
5. Have you identified any new skills that you would like to develop? Or old skills that you absolutely want to have nothing more to do with?

Tip: If you are having difficulties identifying your skills, ask friends, family members, co-workers, etc., if they can identify some of your skills for you, to get you started. We tend to devalue or overlook skills that are associated with natural talents because we find them so easy and effortless to do, whereas people who know us would easily be able to identify these skills for us.

TTFN

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Nomad’s tend to be a very solitary group of people. There is no official Nomad’s Club where nomads can meet and exchange ideas, brainstorm solutions to business issues or lifestyle issues, and talk about life on the road.

Oh, there are professional associations where you can discuss professional issues, and meet other professionals either for monthly meetings, or during an annual professional’s conference. But nomads and location independent professionals tend to live either in remote areas or are relatively transient, so monthly meetings and annual conferences tend not to become part of their “To Do List”. However, having a group that shares a common mindset and can offer you support is not a bad idea. Today’s modern nomads can easily become members of today’s modern tribes.

A Second Life gathering of a Tribes party. source: retinafunk, Flickr, Creative Commons

According to Seth Godin, author of the book Tribes, “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.” (p.1) So members of a tribe share a common interest or a common lifestyle ideal (like being a nomad or location independent professional), and share a way to communicate or be connected (like a forum, or a space in Second Life), and have collected around a leader (typically a change agent). There is much more to Tribes than this, issues like leadership and social change are important parts of Tribes, but more on those will be written in a future post.

For now, the important aspect of becoming a part of a Tribe is that they can play an important role in the success of any new virtual enterprise, or unconventional lifestyle – if you can find and connect to an appropriate tribe. Not a ‘good enough’ tribe, but a full-on appropriate tribe.

Finding a ‘full-on appropriate’ tribe takes a bit of looking. For example, I could look for a tribe that has developed around the idea of the impact that baby boomers are having on society, but that tribe wouldn’t be appropriate because a major issue that is important to me is the location independent lifestyle design integration of work and life. Or I could look for a tribe that has developed around the idea of the location independence lifestyle design integration of work and life, but doesn’t provide any focus on issues related to 50+ age groups. I could either make do with one or other of these tribes and try to integrate the issues that are missing, or I could begin to develop a tribe that integrates all aspects of what I am looking for and see what develops around me.

From a ‘full-on’ appropriate tribe, I should be able to obtain:

• support for the lifestyle, ideal, issue, that is important to me;
• feedback on how to do what I want to do;
• educational information on the common interest that connects the tribe; and
• a feeling of belonging to a community.

For anyone interested in connecting with a tribe of modern nomads/location independent professionals, check out:

• the Location Independent Clubhouse located at http://www.locationindependentclub.ning.com
• ning.com, http://www.ning.com,  for other communities/tribes that might also be appropriate for you. This is also a great community in which you could develop your own virtual tribe.

TTFN

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