Who is Sean Aiken?

Sean Aiken is a normal human being like you and me. When he was aged 25, he was not sure what to do after graduating from college. He had to think about his future.

For many of us, thinking about what to do next can either scare or excite us.

Sean was more scared than excited of not knowing what kind of job was the right and best for him, because he didn’t know. How could he know, after being lead in school and parents who looked after him?

At this time he needed to think about himself, what he thought is right for him.  But what do you do if you have not got a single clue what works for you? Well, Sean had an idea after getting frustrated with all these job titles he found in newspapers and elsewhere.

He decided to work only for one week for someone for a whole year. This makes 52 jobs in one year.

Was this possible? Who is employing someone for only one week? Can this work?

It worked.

Sean managed to find 52 jobs in one year. He traveled 46,685 miles, and slept on 55 beds, couches and floors. Oh, and he wrote a book about his journey, called:  “One-week Project: one man, one year, 52 jobs”  

 I have read it, so I can tell you something short about it.  It’s not a guideline how to find these 52 jobs, that’s for sure! He explained all the jobs he did in a short version or in a long version depending what Sean liked most. But it’s not only about the jobs. We also learn something about Sean’s fears and mind thinking, about the travelling and meeting a lot of different people.

This made the book very interesting to read, because for many of you, you will find something of yourself back in him, like I did.

This was something which reminded me of myself and it was right at the beginning I’m afraid:

 “And there I was, twenty-five years old, living in my parents’ basement, and still without a clue about what I wanted to do with my life…. I knew that unless I still wanted to be living in my parents’ basement at age thirty, I had to do something. “

I don’t know in which position you are right know, but for me I can say, changes scare me a lot and to finally jump is not easy but it is possible if we really want it.

A quote I really like:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

P.s.: In the end Sean didn’t find his perfect job but he learned a lot and that it's OK to not know what you want to do, but you have to do something.

Look at Sean Aiken’s Website

Get his book  

Smile

=Wiga=

Finding a Sponsor

Having decided how long to make each job experience, the next “thing” I had to work out was how this project could be financed. This project isn’t about making money, it is to gain work experience in different jobs. 

Work experience is golden. However, how can I achieve my goal of 12 jobs in 12 months and cover essential living costs?

  

         While doing some research on the internet I came across the word sponsor. A sponsor is basically an individual or corporation which contributes money to support a particular cause in the form of a sponsorship. Could it be that I could find a sponsor for this project? With a sponsorship, the essential expenses would be taken care of and in exchange I could expose and promote the sponsor to a wide audience.

         The different types of sponsorships I came across are here:   

Anotherpassion

Businessknowhow

Problogger

These sponsorships aid different groups of people. I decided that it is worth trying to find a sponsor. A list of potential sponsors that I thought would be interested and have a connection with my project was created and I am currently in the middle of composing a proposal letter that outlines the project and its benefits. The following websites have been particularly useful.

Ehow

Wikihow

berniecolterman

Please send me links and ideas as to how to go about financing a project such as this. Perhaps you could help me finding a sponsor for my project or maybe you are interested to be my sponsor?  Alternatively, people can donate food, sleeping or transport expenses to help me get by. Undoubtedly, it is going to be a tough year achieving my goal of 12 jobs in 12 months and cover essential living costs.  

=Wiga=

  

Which way to go?

One week or One month? 

In the early planning stages of this project I couldn’t decide how long to make each job experience. The decision was between a week or a month. 

Often in life one needs to make decisions, but how does one decide which way is the best, if you haven’t tried it out yet? Well there are many options. One option is: looking for others who have the same problem and how they solved it. Another option is: bouncing thoughts/ideas off someone to see how they would solve it. I’ve choosen the second option asking people what they thought, because as far as I know no one in Germany has done a project like this before.

So that’s what I did. I used the social network „Facebook“ to ask as many people (friends and family) as possible in a quick simple way. On facebook you can start a survey by using an application called “questions” and ask what you want. Later you can see who answered what and analyse it. This is what I asked:

„I am planning a project for next year (starting this november) to find my work passion. I would like your views. It's going to be either the: one week job-i.e 52 jobs or the one month job ie.. 12 jobs. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Your votes and thoughts would be incredibly helpful.

The results were really interesting and helpful. As you can see my project is now called „The One Month Job Project“ rather than „The One Week Job Project“.  

Not a single person choose the “oneweekjob”. This was a surprise to me, because I already had read Sean’s book „The one-week job project“, in which he describes his 52 jobs in a year and being happy with it. So I asked again: Why?

The most common answer was: “You can’t learn a thing!”

So I decided that my project was going to be called „The One Month Job Project“, in which I will work for one month rather than a week. This is because I felt that xyz was the most important to me. This is obviously a different way to Sean’s “oneweekjob-project”. I am hoping it will be the right length of time. Over the next year I will engage in other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to connect and interact with people. Thanks everyone who took part in my first survey!

=Wiga=

It's never too late to make a difference

Hello and welcome to my Blog.
Thank you for visiting. I hope you will enjoy reading my blog posts and maybe you will even be part of my journey. It would be lovely to hear from you.

=Wiga=