On Self-Reinvention

Remember Winnie Cooper?

That was the the luscious girl-next-door from The Wonder Years. One would probably have to have been born between 1972 and 1976 to have watched this show.

Despite childhood stardom, it turns out that she didn't have the stuff for much of an adult acting career. Methinks it was possibly her incorrigibly *smooth middle*.

Anyways, she's reinvented herself as an author writing math books. I kid you not!



Apparently she's been a big hit. There's an extensive review of the above book here.

So who else has surprisingly and successfully reinvented themselves?

Eddie Murphy immediately comes to mind - from crassness incarnate to a children's movie star. But that's sort of a vertical move.

More personally, my real estate buddy in Naples, Fl also shifted gears - from trading options to real estate just in the past few years. Despite some serious initial turbulence, he's thriving now.

I thought I had a couple of other good metamorphic examples but now they escape me.

Most people are one-trick ponies, I guess. Anyways, for the past year or so I've been contemplating real hard how I could re-invent my own career. While I thoroughly enjoy the *challenge* of trading and I've developed a real fascination with the business world....after almost 14 years it's probably time to do something else. Flipping securities is a fruitless, hollow endeavor - especially when doing so for not insignificant debits!

This blog here has gotten me very interested in writing and media - though admittedly that's a business in real deflationary upheaval right now. But also, I've become quite taken with the field of REAL education. Homeschooling and other alternative approaches to *mind control* are in a nascent bull market. I've always, always been interested in what I thought was *teaching* - and figured I'd hit that field when I was old, bored, and comfy on account of the meager pay.

Little did I know that my blogging would lead me to the fount of enlightenment that is John Taylor Gatto.

And little did I know that having kids would accelerate my latent interest in education.

I've reinvented myself before. As a young teenager, I hadn't the slightest idea that my obsession with sports would be subsumed by competitive math. It just sort of happened; and was definitely for the best.

But take special note that *self-reinvention*, on a dime, is a risky and sub-optimal course of action.

Ideally, one should have many irons in the fire, at all times. Instead of being all-in one particular field or industry, I would advise young people to develop and maintain three or four income streams, no matter how small, from the get-go. Everyone should ask themselves what they'd do tomorrow if their job disappeared today. It goes far beyond merely - would they be able to cover their bills?. It's a momentous question of how they'd decide to spend their precious final years on this overheated planet.