Tag: enterprise

A Day in the Life of Me: a Portrait of a Careers Advisor as a Young Man.

LIPA students go on to get involved in a wide and wild variety of activities once they’ve left the Mother Ship. Here, Alex Rivers (Community Music, 2004-07) reflects on his work in his school’s careers service. Whether behind a mic or a djembe, Alex believes in music not just as performance—but as connection, resistance, and radical care. His motto – “Don’t underestimate how powerful your music can be—even if no one claps.” – is something he learned at LIPA and has informed his music ever since. He supports his musical ambition as a part time careers support worker in a Liverpool secondary school, not a million miles away from where he graduated all those years ago.

A Day in the Life of Me

The world of work looms large for children these days. They may think they’re safely ensconced in the heaving bosom of their primary school; they may feel immune in the cut and thrust of the corridors of their secondary school; but the truth is the World of Work is always beckoning to them from an ever decreasingly young age. Before too long, infants at nursery will be incalculated with the rights and responsibilities of being a corporate citizen.

This is of course very good news for those of us who have chosen the career path of Careers Advisor. Once upon a time we were locked up in the staff room of the average secondary school and only let out to play once the youth had turned 15, but these days we are called upon to enthuse the youth about the World of Work the moment they set foot in a primary school.

This is an excellent state of affairs for us Careers Advisors as it means our careers have a longevity only dreamt of by our forefathers. The professional Careers Advisor now has a genuine careers path with opportunities of progression, professional development and foreign travel. Now, instead of suggesting that the youth tread gingerly in the footsteps of doctors, soldiers, and engineers, we can advise our youth to follow in our footsteps and become Careers Advisors in their own right when the time to consider their careers is up.

There are some that look askance at such a piece of professional advice although I can’t think why. Not everyone can become professional doctors, footballers or community artists so it is right and proper that we lay out all the options to the sweaty youth who are perched on their seats in front of us.

Just this morning I was faced with an oik called Gerald who had no idea about the World of Work. He knew nothing of what his next best step would be, being the best he could be or fulfilling his potential. All he could do was stare at his mobile phone and mutter incomprehensible monosyllables out loud.

So, what better option for him than to become a fully paid up member of the professional Career Advisor class? I quickly suggested this to him and immediately his eyes lit up. He stood up tall, looked out of the window, and flushed with the vocational call of telling other people how to live their lives, strode purposefully out of our meeting cupboard and into the playground. Later on I hear that he has run his first after school seminar on employability and the needs of the modern employer.

Another good day at the office? I would say so.

Alex Rivers is a Liverpool-based community musician, songwriter, and educator whose work lives at the intersection of music, healing, and social justice. He has spent over 15 years designing and delivering participatory music projects with young people, refugees, people in recovery, and others whose voices are too often unheard. His 2021 debut solo album, Where the Echo Lives, draws on stories gathered from the margins—songs shaped by community workshops, late-night jam sessions, and lyric scribbles shared in confidence. Beyond the stage, Alex is the founder of SoundGround, a non-profit dedicated to creative access and youth empowerment through music. He’s led international projects in Berlin, Athens, and Belfast, trained hundreds of arts facilitators, and continue to advocate for inclusive, trauma-informed practices in the creative industries. If you want to contact him, please leave your contact details here and I’ll pass on your interest.

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Out now on iBooks! The ideal Christmas present for the aspiring entrepreneur in your life!

Starting a business is much like working an allotment. You have a seed of an idea; you nurture it in a little clay pot until it struggles into the daylight; you stress about providing it with enough manure in the form of funding so that you can eventually transplant it into the wicked, wider world of the adult vegetable patch with all its attendant predators, parasites and pitfalls. With any luck your seed of an idea makes the journey from an innocuous looking seed into a strapping begonia which flowers annually with the minimum attention from you, allowing you to tend to other seeds or sit back and bask in the glory of your potato crop.

Often though, that process of business incubation is all too fraught and too many seeds of business ideas fall on the rough ground of customer disinterest or are devoured by the foxes of enterprises which are faster and more cunning than you when it comes to protecting the febrile business that is struggling into the daylight.

This book introduces various tips and tricks which are designed to help you start and protect that business of yours. It’s an allotment because your business – anyone’s business – cannot survive alone but needs other businesses of different shapes, types and flavours to flourish. An allotment allows for cross trading, cross fertilisation, mutual collaboration and the sharing of ideas in ways which might sound misplaced in the context of a cut and thrust, capitalist market place: but one thing all entrepreneurs know deep down is that they can’t do what they do alone.

They need the input of others, whether this be in the form of shovelling up the shite, digging protective trenches against the voracious slug or simply holding an umbrella over you as the sun burns down on your life long desires. They need manure – obviously – but also need a collection of sharp and blunt tools, good quality soil, an
absence of wasps nests and a good supply of that magical ingredient, water. So simple, so obvious and yet so mysterious – water is to the allotment what vision is to the business.

There’s no guarantee these tips and tricks will work; but if at the very least you can see your business start up as your very own allotment – and not your own private back garden – there is every chance your business will make it through the winter and be around next summer for you to sit in and admire your burgeoning brassicas.

Of course, starting up your business is also very much like trying to steer your life, irrespective of whether you’re in business or not. So, I hope this book helps you navigate your life as much as they are intended to help you tend your beautiful business idea.


Happy Allotmenteering!