AI generated transcript:
I don't want to spend every video that I make talking about myself or my business and how wonderful I am, but you could hear a but coming, couldn't you?
I will make one last video like that for the moment, maybe in the future I'll talk about this again, but from next week I'm going to talk about the basics, the very basics that you need
to succeed as a self-employed English teacher so back to basics that will be on Wednesday so if you're feeling oh how could I be as successful as Mr. Sherriff well you can if you start with the basics but today I'm going to talk more about me I guess what I'm thinking about is why I kind of maybe I'm justifying myself but why
Why I went this direction and why I didn't do another direction.
What I mean is very easily I could have designed my self-employed life to create a model school that I could then reproduce like a chain and a franchise and do that.
And that seems to be the way that so many people
So many successful and rich people do.
I'm thinking of like Shane English School, but any of those, you know, Berlitz, Nova, I guess, what are the others?
I forget the names, the initials.
Eon, is it?
ECC?
I don't know.
All of these, some better than other schools, but basically they're chains, right?
They've got a formula and they reproduce it.
They're sort of like McDonald's selling franchises.
That seems to be the model that, you know, if you're going to be successful, that seems to be the only way that you can do it, or it used to be.
I and my wife rebelled against that belief.
I didn't enjoy particularly working for a chain school, so why should I want to become a chain school?
Have you heard of the PETA principle?
This is the principle that all managers, or all people, are promoted one level above their capability.
If you're a really good teacher and you get promoted, then you become an administrator, and you're probably not very good at that.
And so, for a whole society, we're all one position
Out Of Place.
We should really go back down.
Go down a level.
But I digress.
That's one reason why I call this Free Talk... What do I call this?
Free Talk TEFL.
There's nothing to do with it.
One reason why I keep using the term self-employed teacher rather than business owner or entrepreneur.
I guess I am an entrepreneur, kind of.
It sounds too grand.
I still see myself as a self-employed English teacher, although I am employed directly by my customers and I don't work for any other companies anymore.
I used to work for a kindergarten.
I used to have a kindergarten gig and I used to do English rewriting of translations that kind of dried up, maybe with technology.
Well, the guy I was working for, I think he just retired basically.
To be honest, it wasn't particularly enjoyable work, but it was easy for me and, you know, it's hard to say no when somebody's dangling money in front of you for easy work.
Anyway, I digress.
I just, I feel funny saying I'm a company owner because I don't have any employees.
It's just myself and my wife.
I mean, the wife is, she's the president of the company and I'm the employee, kind of.
I don't really feel very entrepreneurial, but also I don't feel like I work for a company.
I'm in a nice position.
And that's what I'm trying to somehow suggest, that this is a possible future for you.
You could expand it.
If you have a successful school, you could replicate it and franchise it.
That's one perfectly legitimate way of doing things, but it's not what I want to do.
and I'm going to tell you why.
Number one, I didn't enjoy middle management.
I worked briefly in newspapers as a, what was my highest rank?
Chief, no, Assistant Chief Sub-Editor of the Derby Evening Telegraph.
Quite enjoyed the job.
but I did not enjoy being middle manager having everybody complaining from below you and no power and people above you complaining and you were just stuck in the middle.
I didn't particularly enjoy that.
So it meant when it came time to do this teaching English and we seemed to be making a go of it you know I didn't want to create a company that was super successful and then I hired people and then I became the manager and then I'm doing something that I've
If I'm not going to become a chain school
And I don't want to work for a chain school.
What other options are there?
Well, you know, by owning, you know, trying to go deeper by owning our property, by owning this place, not only is it our workplace, it's a place that we can choose to live in.
It's a place that we could retire to, or we could rent it out in the future if we stop teaching from here, or convert it into something else, you know.
I Have My Dreams, Coffee Shop, Art Gallery,
Even though, yeah, even though we haven't followed the usual procedure, we still have something to show for it.
And more so than if we were just a company employee.
It can be tough because if you're a company employee, you know, there are obvious promotions and pay raises that you get.
But I think a lot of them are just important on pieces of paper.
And oh, I'm a... I can't even remember my title.
What was I?
Assistant Chief Sub Editor.
How can you
Expect to earn more money in the future without working harder and harder Well, you do get better at one thing the work gets more efficient because you have all the material and you you know Teaching a lesson most lessons.
I know what's gonna happen I know how to explain the best way to explain whatever the grammar point that I'm doing because I've been doing it for so long That's one advantage But also I you can you can harness what you know as you get older
I've made a number of books, written a number of books, and that's a way of reaching out beyond just the number of people that I can fit in this classroom.
And I think we can harness technology now.
Just as a small company of myself and my wife, you know, our teaching, well of course I'm doing this TEFL, Free Talk TEFL thing, doesn't really generate any money.
But I use YouTube for my school.
We have a number of videos on there.
As I say, publish these books.
And I don't know, there are opportunities to expand what we do and to reach people through the Internet.
I'm not exactly sure how yet, but I'm fairly hopeful that things could develop big time in the future.
And those opportunities wouldn't be there if you were working for a company or if you're working for a company, the company
Next week
On Wednesday I go back to basics and I'll do probably 10 points about
the absolute basics for what you need to be successful as a teacher or do anything self-employed in Japan.
So look out for that next week.
Thanks for following me or whatever you do.
What do you call it?
Thanks for reading, watching, give us a like, leave a comment when you can.
It's really helpful to see what you're interested in or what you're not, what you respond to and what you don't respond to.
It's helpful for me to change the content.
37. A different future as a self-employed English teacher in Japan