I just stumbled on this article about John Evans, a 74 year old from Derbyshire who has made something of a name for himself by balancing VERY HEAVY OBJECTS ON HIS HEAD.
It's rare that something inspires the urge to write immediately, but this was one of those 'why have I never heard of this bloke moments', and (rightly) was ranked number one for most watched on the BBC news website.
Apparently he's got 98 world records for balancing things on his head, most famously the mini (fair enough!) but also:
- milk crates
- jugglers (well, one juggler)
- And my own personal favourite - 265 pints of beer.
(source)
John developed this skill when working as an assistant to brick layers - he put a sponge in his hat and used that and a board to balance 20 bricks at a time on his head and then 'run up ladders'.
So I guess the whole balancing heavier and heavier objects thing just evolved naturally out of this.
As he says, he's over 20 stone, only got one eye, is diabetic, but it's his will power and determination that's got him through, and he's raised hundreds of thousands for charity in the process.
Unfortunately he also says there's no money it, for the time it takes - apparently the insurance is a bitch. I believe him!
But what I do like about this is that it illustrates the importance in life of 'finding a niche' - clearly John is loving his very unique skill - he may not make money out of it, but he has got to tour the world, not to mention the immense Kudos that goes with this, I mean let's face it, this is just AWESOME!
I wouldn't put myself in the same league as John, but it kind of reminds me of what I've done with my main blog on Sociology - that's a definite niche, it's small, being one subject, it's age-specific, it's focussed on exams, in the grand terms of education it's tiny, but it's also successful and helped me to quit work.
So although I'm now going the other way, and enjoying learning lots of new physical skills and kind of de-nichefying, I'm minded now to maybe pick on skill to develop harder, I'd quite like another niche, not so much for the money, but just to be either entertaining or useful!