We recently connected with Jim Padgett and have shared our conversation below.

Jim, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Looking back, what’s an important lesson you learned at a prior job

I have learned many lessons over my lifetime with a diversity of jobs worked. One of the greatest I recall is twelve years I spent with one company. These twelve years were the last I worked before “retiring.” This particular job helped me decide how I was going to take care of my family and myself for the years to come on a plan to “retire from regular work.” I did not want to spend all the years of my life tied down with a drudgery of something I did not feel was rewarding. Everything to do with that job I disliked. I seldom received respect from my boss. I performed as if on a string, jerked and tossed as a mindless robotic puppet. Forbearance of my strength to persevere every day for a predetermined goal, taught me one of the greatest lessons of life ever learned.

I decided I was not going to live my life with someone else telling me what I should do every single day. No longer would I do the bidding of a boss’s command, fetching a ball thrown further each laborious return. I planned ahead. I thought through what it would take to reach a goal; a new milestone, a next chapter, a time when I would begin to do what I wanted the rest of my life. I reached that point to act by decision, at the age of forty-four to “retire,” with God’s guidance and my wife’s help. I prayed, planned, saved and invested my earnings ahead of time for over five years. At forty-four, I left working for someone else. I reached a great milestone in life not regretted. Atop a pinnacle in life, I became my own boss.

Jim, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Creative thinking opened a door of opportunity to start a business. That entrance gathered around me. My ideas flowed. People view, read, and enjoy what I do. Working for myself brings me great reward. I am an artist, published novelist, Copyright and USP Trademark owner and Digital Painter. What I do as an Artist helps me maintain what I need and want as my own worth in life.

Trudging with regular jobs only provided a means to an end. I wanted to create and maintain stability in life. I have a happy marriage with my wife of twenty-nine years. A statue mold of contentment with her career choice, working with her same employer over thirty years, remains very rewarding for her. My father also remained working with his sole employer over forty years. He instilled within me a regimented diligence for consistent respectfulness regarding whatever I did, a strong work ethic, and for stability in my life and for my family.

I am very happy as a business owner. I have been my own boss over twenty-two years. Life presents many challenges and choices we make every day. My daily decisions are determined by what I want to do with myself. To work for a boss or be your own boss, only matters for finding the greatest joy to reach an intended result with what we choose to do.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

When I retired from working with other companies at the age of forty-four, I knew I wanted to further my education. My BBA from 1980 did not produce the income I thought it would. The level of a Master’s degree could widen the scope of opportunities for my entrepreneurial ideas. The world of Art opened to me. I never understood when art around the world began or how it was created. My graduate academic studies from year 2000 to graduate MA in “Humanities and Human Science”, UHCL, 2005, concentrated in Art History and Literature.

I trust and believe in Jesus Christ and I love studying all mankind. Artwork created about Jesus, His history in the world, and creation of world art in general have always interested me. I never gave this the attention I wanted until retirement. My study of Humanities and Art History brightened a heroic light bulb, so to speak, and I mastered a thesis with writing an adventure and romance novel during my academics. It is called, “A Family’s Portrait; An Original Novel.”

The satisfaction of success with this paperback provided the side-hustle I needed for my now fulltime business of Digital painting. Many of the sixteen chapters of the novel are non-fiction. There are many milestones I passed through my characters and settings, portraying my family and I living in Southeast Texas. I added imagination and humor to the chronological chapters to keep it flowing with interest. Thus, the book had to be published as fiction. Quick and easy dialog add to the story’s escapism from reality.

With the whim of an idea, I pondered a beginning to Digital art painting. In my mind I saw the bright color I wanted for the front and back of the book. My first digital paintings were the front and back covers. Creativity of the story, dialog and Digital paintings; the entire novel, provided the side-hustle I needed for starting my business of Digital Art. My true niche in life, furthering my happiness and sharing it with others, is a wealth of contentment.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Several pivotal times have occurred during my life. Earlier mentioned, my wife Lou, and I have been together over thirty years. A true and sincere marriage is a profound ordinance of God and a second greatest experience for all my earthly life. Acceptance of Christ as my eternal savior fifty-four years ago, was my first. Volition and re-direction within myself at age twenty-nine brought significant changes for me. (The great age of forty-four I spoke previously.)

I did not want to turn thirty. I never settled with peacefulness. I enjoyed living alone. I was my own boss as well as I could be, earning an honest wage. My business degree enlightened my thinking away from my confusion of lifetime decisions that year. I suddenly felt responsibility as I never had. No longer could I carouse all hours, travelling with every penny I did not have. Credit cards were my enemy. The age arose for me to think beyond today, tomorrow, next week, year, the next, and so on. I made the choice from changing nothing, to change everything.

I spent near a total of fifteen years working in six oil refineries along the Houston Ship Channel. (My total refining oil experiences neared twenty-seven years.) I felt as, “Jack of everything and a master of none.” My life as a shambles, I began to think of what might be my “long-term goals.” A term loosely misunderstood, I grossly define long-term as, “Ideas for persons who wish to live an old age.” In 1979, long-term meant to me, “longer than one year.” Many people do not stay with one employer for one year.

My last refining job, I landed before my thirtieth birthday. I focused entirely on longevity working with that employer. I started a very good wage for that period of time. That last job employment remains my last regular job. This major milestone “pivot” before age thirty helped me endure to become, “Boss of my own business.”

Contact Info:

• Website: www.paintingsbyjim.gallery www.agora-gallery.com/digital
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