Frisbee: That Lucrative Pie Tray

I've made some very good friends when I joined an Ultimate Frisbee team some years back. One of my former teammates informed me last week that Walter Frederick Morrison, the inventor of the beloved flying disc, passed away at 90 years old.

His story reminded me of an earlier post about a friend who made money by tearing a rusty and dilapidated boat and sold it as scrap metal for 20 times its original price. It takes a complicatedly simple form of creativity to see anything potential out of that, the same way Morrison heard the kerching ring in his head after seeing the empty tins fly back and forth across university lawns.

See, it all began when Morrison decided to turn the remains of Frisbie Baking Company's pie tray into something officially fun since university students would toss the piece of tin after eating some pies. It looked like fun and soon it became a past-time. That was around the time people were captivated by the UFO and flying saucer hype.

Then, something clicked in Walter Frederick Morrison's brain who was then a building inspector in 1948.

The first plastic Frisbee was invented with his partner, Warren Fransiscioni. Although the partnership didn't pan out too long, Morrison proceeded with his Pluto Platter --- the first basic form of today's Frisbee. Wham-O toys liked what they saw and bought the rights from Morrison. Wanting a cooler sound for better marketing, they borrowed the name from the by-then defunct baker, proceeded to larger production and began the 50 -year old love affair with the world-famous flying disc that goes by the name of Frisbee.

Wham-O sold over one hundred million units before selling the toy to Mattel.

Morrison was awarded over one million dollars in royalties.

All these started because of William Russell Frisbie's pies in the 1870s :)

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Doing Something With Nothing

It seems I've morphed into the sounding board for friends taking giant leaps as they depart from the 9-to-5 towards the great unknown. The first thing that I end up blurting out is this:

"Can you deal with moments of doing nothing?"


See, going freelance is pretty much like being an entrepreneur. You are your own industry, and you sell your most valuable commodity: time and talent. As with any business, there will be both peak and low seasons to deal with.

I noticed every freelancer has his own groove. Some start off with a bang, while others gain steady momentum at a laid-back pace. Once a project has been completed, depending if there's another job pending, there is that chance of a lag time. I find that the challenge of being freelance is minimizing that duration, or obliterating it completely by packing your schedule without spreading yourself too thin.

Off-hand, there are things that can serve as temporary solutions to the excruciating wait:

1. Explore other areas that are somewhat connected to your field.
Are you a contributing writer? If magazines are booked until the next issue, try doing some side-editing for a friend's small company. Going freelance means being very resourceful. Provided that you are not selling yourself short, know the limits of your own fees and keep in mind that there will be moments when no price is too small, especially since something is definitely better than nothing!

2. Build connections and use your chat time wisely.
If you find yourself stuck with lots of time in your hands, chat friends up online and bounce ideas off each other with potential projects. If you plan on going freelance, keep in mind that establishing yourself in a good network of friends and even former colleagues provide a great source of insight and potential leads. Make full use of your time and try to create something, even in your head, and see how you can make it fly. Nothing is impossible so even the most seemingly unattractive (or outrageous) venture could prove to be potentially lucrative.

3. Turn trash to cash.
That adage "one man's trash is another man's treasure" holds true for a friend who saw a dilapidated boat in its rusting and deplorable state. He bought the boat, had it torn apart and sold as scrap metal for over 20 times more than its original cost. This could also apply to someone who may turn down a project only to benefit someone else. If you are simply at home just whiling your time away and a friend offers to pay you less that your typical hourly rate to merely sit as a receptionist for less than half a day, I say go for it. Should you turn it down, someone else shall scoot over to do the job and make full use of the fees to pay for good meals for the weekend, one month's worth of mobile bills or housing dues.

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All Boxed Up?

There's something symbolic about this.

A good reminder that it's time to get out of the box :-)

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