How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

As Grayer mentioned, her palm reader indicated that she would be in for a major life change at the age of 55, one of the possibilities of those changes being that we will finally make it big with one of our money making schemes. It's true. Grayer and I have no fewer than 27 money making schemes up our sleeves, although I don't know why we call them "schemes." They're not schemes so much as poorly thought out business plans. And while I would love to list all those plans here, they're really good ideas, and I don't want anyone to steal them. (Obviously I trust everyone who reads this blog regularly with my life, but I don't want to be the Winklevoss twins to your Mark Zuckerberg. Although, come to think of it, I would totally take that multi-million dollar settlement...) Anyway, Grayer and I don't have a problem coming up with ideas. It's the follow-through (probably due to our complete lack of business know-how) that we have a problem with.

Until last week, when I came up with the most perfect, sure-fire, can't-fail idea yet. I was at work, working as a nanny (possibly the worst job on the planet), counting down the days until the job is over (TODAY!) and wondering how on earth I managed to take two different nanny jobs and get possibly the two worst families in the city to work for. I mean, I hear stories about people who really love the families they work for, but I have certainly not had that experience. Then it hit me. I will write my experiences down in a book. Obviously, this is not a new concept, and I had thought of it all before, but suddenly everything became much clearer. The concept, the story-telling, the plot-line, everything was suddenly there. I actually forgot that I had two kids in the backseat of my car my mind was working so fast.

As soon as I got back to their house, I grabbed the first piece of paper I found (graph paper) and started furiously scribbling down ideas while pretty much continuing to ignore the children. (They have video games, they only need me to drive them around and feed them.) I was so excited, I texted both Grayer and the cute neighbor to tell them I wouldn't have to worry about paying back my impending grad school loans, as it was sure to be a best seller. I got an equally enthusiastic response from Grayer, as I knew I would. I did not receive a response from the cute neighbor.

When I talked to him later that evening, I was seriously disappointed in his lack of enthusiasm for my future Pulitzer Prize winner. "It takes a lot of time to write a book," was his response. Seriously? I called him out on his non-enthusiasm, and he went on to talk about how much goes into getting something published (he's an academic, so he has papers published all the time). I was pretty pissed off. I mean, there's a 97% chance that I will never have anything published, but throw me a bone here. If anything, this is only motivating me more. I just want to prove to him that I can do it.

Before you go condemning the cute neighbor, just know that afterward I told him exactly how I felt about his lack of support, to which he apologized profusely, and told me that I should do it, especially later in the summer when I'll be at home at my parents' house with absolutely nothing else to do while I wait to start grad school. And I will. Look for it at a bookstore near you.