The Changing Course Newsletter 

 

Issue 102 October 27th, 2004

The free newsletter from http://www.ChangingCourse.com

Dedicated to helping you:
~ Live Life on Purpose
~ Work at What You Love
~ Follow Your Own Road

In this issue:

1. Featured Article: It’s So Much Easier Now, Barbara Winter
2. Featured Resource: FREE Ask the Expert Audio
3. Guest Article: How to Do What You Know You Have to Do
4. Products & Services You Might Like to Know About

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TODAY’S WISE WORDS
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If not you, then who? If not now, then when? ~ Hillel

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1. Featured Article
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It’s So Much Easier Now

By Barbara Winter

Recently, I heard Robert Stephens, founder of The Geek Squad, speak about his humble beginnings. “In the absence of capital,” he said, “creativity flourishes.” I almost jumped up and cheered, “Hey, I am living proof of that!”

Shortly after I started my first business, I boldly sent a press release to the nearest large newspaper. To my astonishment, I promptly received a call from a reporter who said she’d love to interview me and wondered if she might come to my office. I quickly suggested I come to her office. After all, I didn’t want to reveal my secret: I didn’t have a proper office.

We early home business owners worked largely undercover. Not only were we not taken very seriously, we also had to be extremely clever about finding ways and means to run our businesses. There were almost no resources other than a few books on building conventional, highly capitalized businesses. There were a few workshops and booklets available from the Small Business Administration, but I quickly learned from attending one of their programs that they didn’t take solo entrepreneurs seriously, either.

I was in business for almost two years before I met another woman who was self-employed. There wasn’t any Internet or e-mail, no personal computer or fax machine. Any books or seminars that might be considered motivational were targeted to corporate workers. No magazines or newsletters existed to share information that would help the joyfully jobless stay that way. I marvel that I survived. I’m not sure when things began to change, but I do recall feeling quite alone in this adventure for more than a dozen years.

Now hardly a day passes when I don’t read about or meet someone who is happily working on their own. Late last year, Nick Williams sent me an article from a London newspaper with the headline, “Huge Rise in Workers Who Go It Alone.” The article stated that last year in the UK an estimated 300,000 people decided to abandon their jobs to go out on their own. That’s an impressive number.

The US Census Bureau, in a report from the late 1990’s, shared this affirming information: “In the past, a homebased business was viewed as a side business operated primarily as a hobby or as a source of secondary income. The data contained in this study show that assertion to be inaccurate. The researcher's findings demonstrate how the home has become a hub of business activity, entrepreneurship, and business creation. Sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations added
$2.9 trillion to the economy, with homebased firms contributing $314 billion, or 11 percent.” The SBA reports that every year there are dramatic increases in the numbers of homebusiness operations. Who knew we’d become so trendy?

All this activity has another consequence: as more of us go down this path and share what we’ve learned, it gets easier for the next round of self-bossers to step onto the trail we’ve been busily blazing.
Magazines, books and Web sites offer more information than one person can possibly absorb. Best of all, much of this information is created by people who have run their own businesses and are passing along real life experience and advice, not dry business theory.

Technology, of course, has made an enormous contribution to the growth of businesses like mine. No longer dependent on our immediate area for customers, virtual businesses serve an unlimited marketplace.

It’s also made it possible for anyone to set up shop on an island, in an RV, or remote mountaintop, if they choose. City dwellers do, of course, run small businesses, but those who prefer a quieter setting can have the best of both worlds – a lively business in a bucolic setting.

Comedian Jon Stewart said, “The big break for me was when I decided this is my life.” I think this new epidemic of self-employment is being driven by an increasing awareness that we can all create our own big break. In a political climate that increasingly discourages individuality and original thinking, in an economic climate that teeters on uncertainty, thoughtful people are seeking fresh options – options that honor their creativity, add meaning and purpose to their lives, and allow them to go as far as their imaginations will permit.

I am both humbled and proud to have played a small part in this renaissance. I also know that even if I’d have remained alone in this homebased entrepreneurial life, I couldn’t have gone back to working for someone else once I’d tasted freedom and discovered the unsurpassed joy and adventure that comes only by taking responsibility for exercising my entrepreneurial muscles. I get deleriously excited thinking about future possibilities. Claude Whitmyer from the Center for Good Work nailed it when he said, “Is self-employment the ultimate right livelihood? I think the answer is yes.”


Barbara Winter is a Minneapolis-based entrepreneur, writer and speaker who has spent the past 17 years helping people discover their passions and turn them into profitable businesses. She is the author of the best-selling book, Making a Living Without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating Work That You Love, and the publisher of Winning Ways, the newsletter for people living and working with passion. Visit Barbara online at http://www.BarbaraWinter.com

Barbara is hosting two great teleclasses in November, How to Support Your Wanderlust and A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Published. Learn more at http://www.ChangingCourse.com/courses.htm

To learn more about Winning Ways newsletter visit http://www.ChangingCourse.com/winningways.htm

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2. FEATURED RESOURCE
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Real People – Just Like You – Share How They Quit Their Jobs to Work At What They Love

The ChangingCourse.com Ask the Expert Teleclass Series

If you weren’t able to join us, we’ve uploaded the audio recordings of all of our Ask the Expert Teleclasses including:

~ How to Travel and Earn

What if you could earn money while visiting white sand Caribbean beaches... wildlife sanctuaries in Borneo... Indian Ocean hideaways...Rome... Paris... London...? Listen in as Jen Stevens, writer and contributing editor for International Living and author of the “Passport to Romance: The Ultimate Travel Writer's Course”
explains exactly what it takes to earn a living as a freelance travel writer. Lori Appling, director of the American Writers and Artists Institute’s travel writing training program also joined this inspiring call.

~ Take Charge of Your Time and Life and Enjoy Success Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings As a Virtual Assistant

How many times have you said, “I wish I had a more flexible work day and more control over my time… and life.” If you want to work from home, have great organizational skills, like managing projects of all sizes, genuinely enjoy helping others, and have the desire to be your own bóss, then listen in as Stacy Brice, founder of AssistU introduces you to the fascinating world of virtual assistance.

~ Become a Freelance Copywriter

If you can write a simple letter, you could be in big demand, earning big money, writing just a few hours a day from anywhere in the world… a tropical island, a flat in London, or your own cozy home office. And who better to learn about what it takes to succeed as a freelance copywriter than the organization that wrote the book on it, the head of the organization that created the Accelerated Course on Six-Figure Copywriting? Katie Yeakle, Executive Director of the American Writers & Artists Institute and Krista Jones, freelance copywriter join us in this informative session.

~Want to Wórk from Hóme?

Home Remedies offers homeowners referrals to reputable home improvement contractors free of charge and the contractors represented in the network pay a commission to HRN for any work secured. If you've seen any of NBC's Dateline segments on unscrupulous home repair men (I would say home repair "people" but I've never seen a segment that featured a woman) then you can imagine what a relief it would be to homeowners to be able to easily find trustworthy and competent contractors. Get the inside scoop from Deb Cohen, founder of the Homeowner Referral Network about what it takes to succeed in this fascinating home-based business.

Listen to these informative sessions at
http://www.ChangingCourse.com/asktheexpert.htm

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INSPIRATION TO FOLLOW YOUR BLISS
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The greatest pleasure in life is doing the things people say we cannot do. ~ Walter Bagehot

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. ~ Shira Tehrani

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. ~ Galileo

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3. GUEST ARTICLE
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How to Do What You Know You Have to Do

By Sade Diya

You already know that you are in transition. Something has to give, or has already given. Very good – recognition is always a good first step. Then it happens: Fear strikes! It hits you right between the eyes. What are you crazy? How would you survive? How about the bills, the children, your social life, the world?

It happens to all of us; fear comes, disguised as the ‘voice of reason’! This is why, in some cases, being forced into a transition either through redundancy, early retirement or anything else that makes it virtually impossible to continue in your usual path may actually be a blessing. Anything that forces you to find your life path and ‘get on with it’ can only be considered that.

However, when you are not forced to make a decision, it can be a long hard battle against your own mind a lot of the times. First you begin to over-analyze or rationalize every single step until you finally give up on the whole idea or postpone it yet again. These are all symptoms of that centuries old disease called fear.

I have a favorite saying that when you feel fear, it reminds you that you are alive! Only the living is ever afraid – so take it as a signal to start living your life, the way you would design it if nothing else, including money, were an object.

In my job, I am often surprised to notice that many people who already recognize that they are in the wrong job or facing the wrong direction in life still find it hard to take that leap onto their right path.
There are millions of people ‘wandering’ through life not knowing what their purpose is, so if you are one of the lucky ones who have managed to determine what you were put on this planet to do, don’t talk yourself out of it! No matter how far away from it you have gone, it’s never too late to get back on track.

Here are three quick ways to get back on track:

1. Start to think about it: Have you given it some thought? A lot of the time, we ‘fantasize’ about what we would like to do but never really think deeply enough about it. What would need to change if you were to follow this dream? Who would you have
the most difficulty ‘selling’ the idea to (other than yourself, of course!), how might your life change because of it? Think about it; write it down. Thinking deeply about it will help you visualize it in real terms. It will bring it down from the realm of ‘dreams’ into your reality.

2. Consider “downsizing”: What part of your hectic life or lifestyle can you cut back on in order to accommodate your dreams? Can you radically cut back in order to have a bit of time to start something on the side that’s closer to it? Can you change from full time to part time work? Or volunteer in a field of your interest in your spare time? I once met a remarkable lady who was 60 when she finally dusted off her dream of being an aid worker in Africa. When I spoke to her she said doing the work of her dreams “took 20 years off” her – and she looked it!

3. Research: Until you actually find out real, hard-core facts about what you are planning to do, it will remain a ‘pie in the sky’. Making concrete plans and talking to real people who have ‘been there and done it’ will make it more real to you, which will in turn make it easier for you to plan your first step.

However difficult your transition is, doing nothing is not an option you can take and however small your initial steps seem, they all add up in the end. I encourage you to keep moving toward your goals and your dreams no matter what. Good luck!


Sade Diya is a Personal Life Transition & Success Coach, specializing in helping people move through major life transitions and using it as a launching pad to greater success. Founder and CEO of Transition to Success, she is internationally known as a Life Transformation Expert. For more information please click on:
http://www.TransitionToSuccess.com  or email her directly at mailto:Sade@TransitionToSuccess.com