AI-generated transcript:
What are the pros of teaching English for yourself, being a self-employed English teacher in Japan?
I can think of quite a few good reasons, but they all come down to the basic point, which is DIY, do it yourself.
I think it's a philosophical position that you have
I mean I feel very comfortable doing things for myself and I've got used to it after doing this for over 16 years and maybe it takes a while to get used to that way of thinking but once you get used to it you know it's so refreshing
I don't have to clear anything I want to do with a boss.
If I want to write a new textbook, I just write a new textbook.
If I think what we're teaching is not very good, stop teaching it.
Do something else.
Yes, I do have a boss in the sense of my wife, but that's true whether you're self-employed or not.
but I don't have to clear everything you know okay there's one person to talk to and it's good to have you know the wife in the business because it's good to be challenged on some things and you know yes you should do things yourself but sometimes you have a crazy idea and it's just good to run it by somebody your wife you know a trusted advisor a significant other
So that's good.
Doing things yourself, you get used to it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I wouldn't go back to working for a company, I don't think.
I don't think I could.
So that's the major point, doing it yourself.
There is also, it must be said, a very important thing, there's more money.
If you're doing things yourself, you know, I see, I'm a member of some Facebook teaching English in Japan groups,
Oh man, people moaning about the low salaries.
Yeah, some of these salaries look really awful.
You'd frankly be better off working at 7-Eleven, I think, some of these ones.
Salaries are not that bad if you run your own business.
If you think about how much, think about it from the other point of view, from the customer's point of view.
How much is the customer, is the student willing to pay for English lessons?
and work from it that way around and then you realize well okay the weekly lessons in this area you're looking at 8,000 yen plus a month and if you work out how many kids you can get into a class or how many adults you can get into a class and you realize you're not being paid a salary but you're being paid a big chunk of this money yes there are expenses of course
What are the pros of teaching English in Japan for yourself?
What are the pros of teaching English in Japan for yourself?
What are the pros of teaching English in Japan for yourself?
because it's just the way it's just the nature of the business nature of being self-employed if you're self-employed you get the majority of the money now it doesn't work out and that sounds oh great you're so rich it doesn't start out that way you have to build up your business and it may take a long time it's taken me 16 years to get to be comfortable to the stage where I can make these kinds of videos and talk about oh you should do this and do that you know
It wasn't always so comfortable.
The first two or three years, money was pretty tight.
But once you work out what's going on, there is more money, more security in it.
People think, oh, I've got self-employed, it's so dangerous.
Well, in the same way that, you know, like investing in the stock market, oh, it's very dangerous.
Yeah, if you're buying individual companies and you're being silly and you want to make a fast buck,
No.
Yeah, that is dangerous.
But if you think long term and you make sensible decisions and you keep working at it, investing in the stock market, investing in your own business, and I mean that in the sense of putting more time and effort, building up your business little by little, doing a better job day by day,
The result is, after a couple of years, after 10 years, you're in a much better place than you would be if you didn't, if you were just staying in your regular company.
I think.
I mean, you know, each to their own.
But don't let anybody tell you that it's more dangerous to be self-employed, more risky.
Yes, at first.
But over time, it's not.
Finally, another pro is you do your own schedule.
You make your own schedule.
So yes, you have to adapt to what the market demands.
You can't just teach children's lessons late at night or children's lessons early in the morning when there are no kids because they're all at school.
But within reason, you can make your own schedule.
If you don't like working weekends, don't work weekends.
If you don't really hate working evenings, work out a way to do all your lessons during the day.
Do you hate doing morning lessons?
Do you wish you were up late at night?
Okay, work in the evenings.
Figure out who you can teach that suits you the best.
you know most most days I don't have much in the mornings usually I do like 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock my first lessons 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock so I prefer it that way I have a slow morning start and I think wistfully about all those employees on the trains going into Tokyo packed in like sardines and I think hmm not for me
Yeah, the downside, I have to work late into the evenings, but I choose to do that as my kids have got older.
When my kids were younger, I was having meals at home, all three meals at home when the kids were little.
Now they're getting older and I don't see them for the evening meals, but I wouldn't anyway, they're off doing their own things.
And I managed to keep my weekends free, so that's important to me.
So I have free weekends.
Now things might change.
I might decide I want to work the weekends and have weekdays off.
I could do that.
It would take a while to change my schedule and to change the kinds of customers, the kinds of students that I have.
But there's the point.
It's the DIY.
I don't have to clear that with the boss if I decide this doesn't fit my lifestyle.
Okay.
I'll make the changes.
You can too.
So when you're
When you're running your own show, you can decide what's important to you and what isn't, and just do the important stuff and don't do the stuff that isn't.
You don't have to please the boss.
These are fantastic things, especially as you get older, as I'm sure you know.
Okay, are there any bad points?
Of course there are.
The biggest one is you just can't call it in.
You can't just say, ah, I don't feel like doing it today.
No, you're gonna call in sick.
No, you are responsible and you have to keep going.
But I would argue that's true of any company too.
If you keep calling in sick, eventually you lose your job or you don't get a promotion, you don't make the money.
So it's not really different.
Just that you're more conscious of it, I think.
If I have a bad lesson or do or didn't put my all into it, I feel really bad afterwards and I think, oh God.
I hope they don't quit.
And you'll get feedback in the sense that if you consistently mess up, you will lose students.
In the early days, I lost a few from doing stupid things and not doing a good job.
That's not a problem now because I'm very conscious of what at least I think is a good lesson and what you have to do.
That might be a topic for another video.
The basic point is it's better when you do it yourself.
Yes, you have to be more responsible, but you get the rewards.
That for me is worth it.
I look at the people on Facebook and I think, oh man, I'm glad I'm not in that world anymore.
And I hope they can get out of it too.
Follow the
Some of the advice in this freetalktefl.substack.com and you can get out too if you choose to.
Okay, thank you.
Good luck.
Have a nice weekend.
See you.
46. What are the pros of teaching English in Japan for yourself?