What is the cost of enhancing your media career? Lekan Otufodunrin writes on what you may need to pay for and what he has paid for enhancing his skills.
On May 24, 2019, I led a workshop on exploring media jobs potentials as part of the regular training sessions offered by the Media Career Development Network, which is a mentoring, training and coaching organization for journalists and other media professionals.
One of the suggestions I offered was the need for every professional, irrespective of how new or old one is in any profession, to invest in his or her career.
The investment I had in mind was paying for useful resources that can enhance one’s skills on the job and make it possible to maximize as many opportunities as possible.
While there are many free resources to access, there may be instances when one has to pay any amount required to get the knowledge we need to become what we want to.
If the knowledge really matters to you, you have to find a way to pay, however expensive it may seem, even if you have to lend the amount required.
Paying for resources we need to enhance our career is a worthy investment which must be a priority on the list of what we spend on.
The payment could be for relevant magazines, books, video and audio tapes, seminars, training and other courses.
Last week, my daughter got me to register for an E-course/3 Month Group Mentoring For Authors & Content Creators. The course fee was initially N50k, but we got the chance to pay the N35k discount offered by the organizer of the programme.
I said we paid because my daughter gave N20K out of the amount because she seriously thinks there are things I could learn to enhance my present mentoring and content writing work despite my over thirty years’ experience as a journalist.
Considering the exploits of the young lady behind the course, I am convinced that I need some of her ideas and skills to up my game and earn the kind of money I need now that I am self-employed.
For some time, I have been resisting the promptings to be a registered member of the medium, a platform to read and write big ideas and important stories for $50 a year! I finally did on Wednesday as I could no longer bear not to been able to read some key articles due to my limited access as a non-member.
Now, I can read as many articles as I want to and be the best I want to be in my knowledge based endeavours.
Years ago, while I was on a sponsored training in London, I paid for membership of a global association which has been very rewarding for my career with lots of travelling opportunities and resources.
I had the choice of being scared by the Pound Sterling amount, but I am glad I made the investment that has kept yielding up till today and will still do many years more.
So, my advice is, if you must pay to become better at what you want to do, what you are doing and get maximum opportunities to enhance your career, please do. If you cannot afford the very expensive ones, find the ones you can afford.
You may have to pay now to learn what you need to learn. When you become an expert, somebody is going to pay you for what you know.
The choice is really yours between expensive (knowledge) and cheap (Ignorance)
