For years I have acquired knowledge in a number of fields. Some I have lost interest in, others I was just curious, and some I have applied to being a professional, and others I have developed through hours of practice. I sometimes wonder "I have all these skills and knowledge, why can't I make a lot of money?". I read the short article linked to the image here and realized that I like most are "consumers" of knowledge, however without taking action to apply that knowledge in an area that earns an income the knowledge is wasted.
Enter Roblox and the wealth of opportunity it offers those who choose to acquire the knowledge. Initially I developed an interest in Roblox because my son likes to play the games. He asked me to play with him, and I did, because I'm his dad, however at the start I didn't really like the games. They felt clunky, unpredictable, and a bit repetitive. When I saw just how many games there were I asked "Who is making these games?". This is when I discovered it was the community of players/developers that make them with Roblox Studio. This peaked my interest, as I have always been interested in computer programming, and have studied many languages over the years. I discovered the language Roblox uses is Lua.
This was a language I had only had a little knowledge of using a platform called "Love2D"(very cool, if you want to give it ago!), however I digress. So I downloaded Roblox Studio and started to play around. Of course with all new software I want to "make something happen" but it was confusing. Time to educate myself. I went to the Roblox Developer forums. Now the forums do hold a lot of information, but the strange thing is that it seems to be a bit of a closed group, that requires you to "interact" with the posts, and at some point when they deem you worthy you are accepted into the fold. I still have not completed the secret tasks apparently, as I am unable to join.
I became frustrated with the forums as unless my specific question had already been posted I was unable to interact with others so looked elsewhere for my knowledge. The Roblox Developer Hub offers some great tutorials and tasks to complete, so I did them all. Still not enough. I looked online for courses that teach Roblox coding. I found 2, bought them and finished them both. By this stage I was starting to get the hang of Roblox Studio, and began to think about what I wanted to do with what I was learning. My main motivation was that I thought my son may want to learn as I was doing (although I think he just likes playing at the moment) so I used my existing skills to write my own tutorial website (not online...yet) mainly for my own reference, and to share with my son if he showed interest.
As the website grew, and my skills improved I started a couple of game projects (with no planning) that inevitably got confusing and I abandoned. A little dismayed, feeling sorry for myself I complained to my partner. She is a very optimistic person and suggested I make a video course about what I had learnt. Now in the past I have said things like "I should make a video course and sell it online!"....and then did nothing, until I said it again. This time however I decided to grab the bull by the horns and give it ago. I discovered that my biggest challenge was not my knowledge of the subject, or my ability to explain it, but it was recording myself on camera. Even after making the decision to make the course I procrastinated and made excuses for a week before I made a test video to submit to Udemy.
The video feedback was that my sound and lighting were good, but I had a lot of ums, and ahs, in my presentation. About what I expected as I was very uncomfortable in front the camera. I have taught for 20 years in front of thousands of kids, and adults face to face, but put 1 camera in front of me in an empty room and I developed anxiety!...but I got over it. Once I got over that hurdle I went on to record 47 video lessons over the course of a 3 week period. Got the course finished and finally published on Udemy. I am proud of the course and the fact that I actually finished the project and got it up for sale! After a month I have 20 students enrolled, and have begun work on my next course and releasing my own game on Roblox.
Now I want to point out that the process above has literally taken me 100's of hours. Hours of reading, watching videos, doing lessons, practice coding, and then monitoring student feedback, addressing their issues, and developing ways to promote my course such as this website and blog. Whether it be coding, cooking, music, or basket weaving if you want to make money from your knowledge and skills you have to put in the hours to make it happen. I am by no means rich from what I do, however I do get a lot of satisfaction from teaching others, and sharing what I know. What are you good at? What do you know that other people want to know? Ask yourself what you have to share and then in the words of Nike. Just Do It!
