Can an Old Skill Become a Marketable Skill?

A client of mine disappeared for a year. Today, he was back. Why did he disappear--he says that he needed a break from jobhunting..but what he was really doing is being proactive in another area of jobhunting....developing his skills. In his case, he took an old, unused- for- a- while skill and started practicing it again, and earned a little money along the way. How did this benefit him? He redeveloped something that he had done early in life, he gained a new network, he added to his nearly empty coffers, and most important of all, he has a new career path. He was proactive, and good or him.