At long last The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women came out. At one point it was on three Amazon top 100 lists but the stats change hourly so now it’s just on one. I’m grateful to all the speed readers who took the time to write a review at Amazon and for to everyone for helping spread the word.

The next day I did a 19-station satellite radio tour from my couch before taking off to speak to the engineering department at the University of Colorado-Boulder about overcoming the impostor syndrome (rampant on college campuses).

I arrived early enough to be able have lunch at the Dining Hall at Chautauqua. Being there brought back SO many wonderful memories of the Making Dreams Happen workshop I’d put on there back in 2003 with the phenomenal Barbara Sher and Barbara Winter. It truly was life changing. I was so inspired I’ve been thinking about a reunion! If you were there — call me!

It had snowed in Boulder earlier in the week and the combination of fall leaves on snow was exquisite. I hiked for maybe a mile until I saw the “What To Do If You See A Bear Or Mountain Lion” sign and a big ol’ paw track. I decided shopping was safer.

(loved the advice to fight back)

I bought so many clothes at the Goodwill I had to buy a duffle bag to get them back to Massachusetts where I proceeded to fly into the freak October blizzard that dumped a foot of snow on New England. Suddenly I lost my love of snow on autumn leaves.

After driving around numerous downed trees and power lines requiring a series of long detours I finally arrived home to find I was locked out of my house. Fortunately I was able to pick up Cokie at his new sitter Patty’s (that’s him sleeping with four of her six dogs on her bed… he’s the black dot in the middle).

So I turned around and drove to my Dad’s. He and his girlfriend had no power either, but at least it was a roof and a fireplace. Boy, you don’t fully appreciate how much your business demands electricity and phone service until they’re gone.

Four days later the power went on just in time to attend the annual Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts dinner. The keynote was Jennifer Buffett (Warren’s daughter-in-law) who spoke about the positive global impact of funding projects that improve the lives of girls and women. When I asked her what I could share with my readers, she said to send you to the video on www.girleffect.org

Sadly this is also the week I send off my trusty assistant Lisa Tarrant who along with her creativity-to-spare husband Mark and her brilliant daughter Haley are moving to New Mexico. I’ve known Lisa for going on 20 years when we worked for the same company.

That is until I drew her into the world of self-bossers and she’s never looked back. Her first day on the job was the Making Dreams Happen workshop! What an initiation!

Sparing no expense I took the family out for a hot dog at the famous Nick’s Nest restaurant (more of a hot dog joint).

Here’s Haley saying goodbye to Cokie and here they are when she was first born and he crept his way up my shoulder for a little babying too.

Even though I know Lisa will continue to work with me and we only got together maybe half a dozen times a year, I loved knowing she was right off the highway on my way to the airport. Lisa you are one in a million. You changed my business and thus my life for the better. Here’s to the next Work at What You Love retreat in New Mexico!

Oh, and I also celebrated my 57th birthday last week! No wonder Goodwill offered me the senior discount.

During a recent visit to the dentist, my hygienist Anne asked about my recent speaking tour in California. When I told Anne I’d spoken on the Impostor Syndrome to thousands of people at numerous universities, including Stanford, her response was, “Wow, you must be a real expert.” While that term doesn’t always resonate with me, I suppose I am an expert.

But what does it mean to be an “expert”? Naturally you do need to know something about the topic at hand. But how much knowledge do you actually need to consider yourself an expert?

The Expert Trap

If you’ve ever read a job description and automatically disqualified yourself because you didn’t have one or two out of a long line of competencies or the necessary experience, passed on an opportunity to speak on or otherwise showcase your knowledge because you “don’t know enough,” or not started your own business because you are not yet “an expert” then you may have fallen into the Expert Trap.

The common belief that you need to know 150 percent before you’re remotely qualified to step up the plate is a huge dream stopper. Striving to be THE expert is the knowledge version of perfectionism. And as with perfectionism, going for total knowledge can at best slow you down and at worst bring your dream to a screeching halt.

The problem for people who fall into the Expert Trap is that they suffer under the misconception that there’s some clear line of demarcation between expert and non-expert — and that they’ll somehow know when they’ve reached it. We tell ourselves, “If I can just get enough knowledge, experience, or training, then I’ll be an expert.”

And herein lies the rub — you can never know it all. It’s like the commercial where a man beams that he’s reached the end of the Internet. What makes the ad funny is its absurdity. The Internet is so vast and ever-changing that if you lived a thousand years you’d never reach the “end.” It’s the same with knowledge. There is no end. You can add to your understanding of a subject but there will always more to learn.

The Expert “Myth”

You’re especially prone to the Expert Trap if you mistakenly believe that competence and expertise are one and the same. The belief that, “If I were really competent, intelligent, qualified… I would know more” keeps far too many people from striking out on their own.

A lot of men fall victim to this same self-limiting thinking. Yet my early research, coupled with twenty-plus years of anecdotal evidence, suggests women are more prone to equate competence with knowing it all.

Apparently I’m not alone. A few years back I wrote a letter to the editor. In it I described how a man who finds himself confronted with something he’s never done before is more likely to “wing it” while a woman in the same situation often expects herself to know it all up front.

A week after my letter appeared I got this email from Dan Pink, author of Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind:

I just read your letter-to-the-editor in Fast Company. Great work! My hunch — speaking as a male all too willing to opine without sufficient facts — is that you’re spot-on. That at least is what I discovered during several hundred interviews with independent workers over the last two years…kudos again on telling it like it is!

Just to be clear — expertise in and of itself is not a myth. After all, we all know people who are undisputable experts in their respective fields. The myth is:

• believing that being an expert means you have to know everything there possibly is to know about a subject  
• believing you will someday be able to announce triumphantly that you have reached the end of knowledge and are “done”
• believing that if you don’t know everything there is to know, then you know nothing at all
• believing our inner voice when it says, “If I were really smart, then I would know how to do this.”

Not only is it humanly impossible to “know it all,” but the misguided pursuit to do so can kill a dream before it ever begins. As Suzanne Falter-Barns asks, “How many of us linger forever in endless training and classes, waiting to get really good at something before we plunge a single toe into the submission/rejection pool?”

Just as with perfection, the pursuit of expertise can become a convenient excuse for never moving forward. The reality, says Falter-Barnes, is that “You cannot become a master until you actually take the leap, do the work, make several thousand mistakes, and live to tell about it.” Adding, “Experience is truly the only thing that makes experts so expert.”

Finally, next time you’re rattled by not knowing it all, let yourself off the hook by remembering the wise words of Mark Twain who said: “I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, ‘I don’t know.’”

As for me, I’m fresh off almost a week in the Big Apple and the National Publicity Summit where I was pitching my expertise about how to overcome the impostor syndrome and of course to tell everyone about my upcoming book.

It would take this entire newsletter and then some to tell you about the amazing people I met at the Summit so I’ll hold that for a future issue.

After day 3 of the National Publicity Summit a few of us went to an Irish bar to celebrate

I got to meet and learn from producers from all the top shows… The Today Show, Good Morning America, The CBS Early Show, The View, Regis & Kelly, ABC News, Anderson Cooper, Rachael Ray, The Wendy Williams Show. What an honor.

Plus, I had a chance to pitch story ideas to editors and freelance writers representing a host of magazines including Time, Essence, More, Woman’s Day, Glamour, Entrepreneur, Family Circle, not to mention hosts of radio stations from Atlanta to Harlem.

Was I nervous? You bet.

My two-and-a-half minute pitch changed many times over the course of three days. Now I need to work on getting on television shows in smaller markets like Boston and Denver – something I discovered all the national networks look for before booking experts.

The big news of course – drum roll please…

Is that after nearly three years of blood, sweat, and tears (and very little sleep) my book came out yesterday all across the U.S. and Canada

Thanks in large part to all of you who supported me with your orders, at one point (it changes hourly) The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women made it to onto three different Amazon Top 100 lists – including #8 of the Top 100 Women in Business books.

I can’t thank you enough.

My schooling in sound bites begins with a bang today with back-to-back satellite radio interviews in major markets all over the U.S. What an adventure.

You’re intelligent and successful… at least that’s what everyone says. So how come you don’t always feel that way?

Instead of feeling satisfaction, with every achievement you’re filled with anxiety you’ll be unmasked as an incompetent fraud…

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In case you don’t know me I’m Dr. Valerie Young author of the new book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It.

When you sign up for one of the limited spots in the upcoming 5-week Confidence Project you can feel like the bright, talented, self-assured person everyone else sees…

You can stop feeling crushed by failure, mistakes, and constructive criticism…

You can beat the Impostor Syndrome with its ever present fear of being “found out” and say good riddance to all the stress that comes with it…

And you can discover how to free yourself from needless self-doubt and find greater personal, professional and financial fulfillment than you’ve ever experienced!

Over 40,000 People Have Attended
This Enlightening Workshop.
Now For the First Time You Can Too

Every year hundreds of people contact me wanting to attend one of my seminars.

Unfortunately up until now, unless you work or go to school at an organization which was hosting me to speak to their audience, you were out of luck.

But now – for the very first time – you have the unique opportunity to be guided personally on a 5-week journey to confidence.

Tapping directly into my 25 years of experience, you will:

• Understand what the so-called “Impostor Syndrome” is (and isn’t) and more importantly how it plays out in your own every day life
• Discover 7 perfectly good reasons you might feel like an fraud (Hint: It’s not all in your head) and what you can do if you fall into one of these “at risk” groups
• Hear what Ted Koppel, Daniel Boone, and Project Runway winner Christian Siriano know that could forever change how you think about the advice to just “fake it til you make it”
• Identify your personal Competence Type and see how it’s been setting you up to feel less capable than you really are
• Recognize why success can actually be more anxiety-producing than failure and how to tell the difference between fear and ambivalence
• Discover once and for all how to stop the perfectionism, procrastination, and self-doubt that’s been standing between you and your highest goals

5 Week Teleclass
Every Monday
Beginning October 17th
12:00-1:00 p.m. Eastern

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due out October 11, 2011

It’s here! The “official” book cover! What do you think? Leave a reply and let me know!

View From the Other Side

This week I want to talk to you about how curiosity is central to the process of changing course. But, for any of you who are curious about what’s happening here…

In August, I learned I’m a 4-out-of-5 match to be a bone marrow donor to a 61-year-old. I feel blessed for the chance to help someone in this way. Ironically, he’s the same age as my mom when she passed. There are a lot of hoops still to jump through before the actual procedure. I should know more in a few weeks but assuming all goes well, I’ll head to Mass General Hospital sometime in the next 4-6 weeks.

On a far more minor health note, the poison ivy on my hands finally cleared up. Note to self: No more weeding.

Earlier this month I led a workshop for over 100 students from Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University in Nashville on overcoming the Impostor Syndrome. I loved helping these bright, soon-to-be medical professionals to feel as competent as everyone else knows they are. This Friday I’ll do the same for grad students and faculty at Michigan State.

Speaking of workshops — I wasn’t sure my speaking and writing schedule would permit me to offer another Work at What You Love workshop & retreat this year. But, after going back to watch the videos from the June workshop, I knew I had to. So I did a bit of shuffling so I can again welcome eight career seekers into my home in November. (If you’d like to come, see Featured Resource below for details).

The other big news is — drum roll please — I submitted to Crown Publishing/Random House what I *hope* is the final version of my book — working title The Confidence Project. Woo Hoo! As happy as I was to have met this monumental goal, I won’t breathe easy until I hear what my new editor thinks.

I say “new” editor because as some of you may recall, I handed in what I thought was the final version of this same book exactly one year ago… only to arrive in New York and learn my then editor — the same editor who helped make Tim Ferris’s The Four Hour Work Week and other books mega-best-sellers — was leaving the publishing world for television.

As disappointed as I was, you just have to roll with these things. My new editor had a different vision for the book. So three revised outlines later, and a lot of editing, and we’re now looking at a September 2011 pub date! Lesson re-relearned: Things always take longer than you think!

Speaking of lessons…

Learning is All Just a Day at the Fair!

William Arthur Ward once said, “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” Little wonder then that the most successful people are also the most curious.

This week I’ll make my annual pilgrimage to The Big E. For those who haven’t been, The Big E is an enormous multi-state fair encompassing all six New England states that happens every September in nearby West Springfield, Massachusetts.

Andrew Rice, professional sheep shearer and farm consultant, Brattleboro, VT

Young people and old alike travel from several states away to show their livestock

Crafts demonstration at Storrowtown Village

Thanks to the Avenue of States I can “visit” all six New England states in about 90 minutes. Each state has its own building with tourism exhibits, local vendors, and my favorite — food!

Annual staples are the clam fritters in the Rhode Island building, lobster rolls and baked potatoes in the Maine building, and apple pie with cheese in the Vermont building. Of these, which do you think consistently has a line of eager customers wrapped around the building? I’ll reveal the answer at the end of this article.

Mostly I’ll be doing what I love most — being deeply curious. In my case, that means learning as much as I can from the interesting entrepreneurs and other characters working the fair.

Before I come back with even more stories, I thought it would be fun to revisit some of the people I met last year as well as the valuable lessons you can learn simply by being curious!

Don’t Be Sheepish

Tom Colyer of Greenwood Hill Farms

Last year I spent a lot of time chatting with retired Navy Captain turned merino sheep rancher Tom Colyer of Greenwood Hill Farm in Hubbardston, Massachusetts. Being curious led me to discover that…

• A whopping 80 percent of the lamb that is sold (and therefore eaten) in the United States happens to come from Washington, DC north to New England. To me that signaled an opportunity for someone to creatively work with the various state sheep councils to encourage chefs in other parts of the country to put lamb on the menu.
• You can dye wool with Kool-Aid (you can get a free guide “how-to” guide at the Greenwood Hill Farm site).
• It’s a lot more profitable for people who raise sheep to spin and sell their own yarn than to sell the wool in bulk.
• There’s a big demand for sheep shearers to service smaller farm operations. Time magazine even did an article on the effort to train more shearers. And, according to Tom, some of the best shearers are women.

Lesson: It is amazing what you can find out if you just talk to people. Based on what you read, what are you curious to know more about?

The “Crazy Tomato Lady”

Marybeth Draghi the “Crazy Tomato Lady”

In the Connecticut building, I met an exhibitor named Marybeth Draghi from Little Acres farm in Glastonbury, CT. Marybeth’s delicious heirloom tomatoes have earned her the title of “Crazy Tomato Lady.”

She’s grown her business from a small stand to selling her tomatoes at three Whole Foods stores (two in West Hartford and one in Glastonbury), at the famous Stew Leonard’s chain in Connecticut and New York, and has more chains and outlets in the works.

Are you curious how Marybeth landed these major accounts? I was. Are you ready? She asked, and the store manager said yes.

Lesson: Speak up. Ask questions. Talk to people about what you do… or hope to do. The door to opportunity opens when you open your mouth. What would you be curious to ask Marybeth?

Cleaning Up in the Soap Business

From the Blue Heron Soap booth, I learned that, like a lot of businesses, this one was born out of necessity. Owner Peggy Manthei’s daughter had sensitive skin. Her search for a solution led to tinkering with her own soaps and years late,r Peggy and husband Carl continue to make all the soaps personally.

Money questions can be a little more delicate but my curiosity got the best of me. “Is it really profitable to truck all this soap from Minnesota for a 3-week fair in Massachusetts?” I asked. The young man grinned from ear to ear and said simply, “We get $6 a bar.” Enough said.

Obviously the fair circuit is an effective marketing strategy. According to the show schedule on their web site, this year alone they’ll be in North Carolina, Chicago, Tennessee, South Dakota, and elsewhere.

Lesson: When you think about marketing your product or service, do a cost-benefit analysis. If your marketing investment is $1,000 but you have the chance to make $2,000, then you’re ahead of the game. What about working the fair circuit are you curious to know?

Doggedly Pursuing a Passion

From the young man at the Annie’s Pooch Pops All Natural Dog Treats booth, I learned that a business you might assume to be local and/or online exclusively actually has quite a mobile marketing strategy. Between Annie, her son, or her son’s friend, they sell at over 200 of these kinds of fairs and shows a year!

But it was from Annie’s website that I got the bigger story. Like most businesses, this one started small and grew. In the beginning, all the baking happened in Annie’s kitchen. For a while they rented a restaurant kitchen during off hours. “Cooking from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. wasn’t easy,” says Annie, “but the crew, with additional help from friends, began to see treat sales take off. After six months and no sleep, we moved into a converted 4000 square foot barn in Northern New Jersey horse country where we remain today.”

Lesson: Starting any business requires sacrifice and hard work. Period. Ask yourself. “What do I love enough to work that hard to grow?” What would you want to ask Annie and her team that I didn’t?

Finding the Unexpected

There were also a few surprises at The Big E. For example, also in the Connecticut building was a guy selling something you would not normally expect among the alpaca socks and maple syrup vendors. But there was Kirk Sinclair alongside a stack of his books, Systems Out of Balance: How Misinformation Hurts the Middle Class.

According to his business card, Kirk is a “Middle Class Advocate, Social Systems Analyst, and Rabble Rousing Bard.” He’s also the “token middle-aged guy” in a rock band that plays at local colleges and a very active blogger.

Seeing his book reminded me that the previous year I bought a book written by a woman who’d traced the history of her Native American grandmother. She was selling it from a card table in the alley way between two state buildings.

Lesson: It pays to show up in surprising places. For example, you could offer piano lessons at the farmer’s market or negotiate with a local clothing or paint store to conduct a puppy training demonstration at a well-blocked-off section of their parking lot. Just like the internet — marketing and sales is all about traffic!

Okay did you guess what is, hands-down the most popular food item at all six state buildings? It’s the lowly — but loaded — baked potato. When you consider how little potatoes cost, it would be interesting to see how a baked potato vendor truck would do! Something that seems quite popular in the UK and New Zealand!

I’ve been an entrepreneur on and off for the last 25 years and worked with women entrepreneurs for some 15 years now. So I was not the least bit surprised by the findings of a recent Kauffman Foundation study called “Are Women Entrepreneurs Different From Men?” As is the case with most things human, the study found male and female entrepreneurs to be more alike than different. But there are differences.

Before getting into some of the key differences and the lessons they offer you as you journey on your own entrepreneurial path I need to make one thing clear: Not all women act or think the same and the same is true of men. Whenever you talk about gender differences you are to some extent “genderalizing.” So with your permission, I’ll will use “women” and “men” here as shorthand but know that when it comes to gender, race, age, and the like, there are never absolutes.

Provider Pressure

The Kauffman study confirmed what I’ve been saying for 15 years. Namely, men feel a lot more family or financial pressure to keep a steady, traditional job. Even though I have plenty of male followers, it’s also no secret that more women read my newsletter, show up at my seminars, and sign on to work or study with me than men.

There are a couple of reasons for this, including the fact that women tend to focus more on meaning than money. Men’s self-esteem is more connected to making money. So it only makes sense that my message of “work at what you love” and The Life First-Work Second Approach to Career Change^® is going to resonate more with more women while the “get rich quick” gurus are going to draw more men.

But it’s also more complicated than that.

Even those men who desperately want to follow their own road, to pursue both passion and profit, don’t always get the support they need. Families in specific and society in general are more tolerant of women leaving a well-paid job to pursue a passion. But a man, even one stuck in a truly miserable job situation, is often expected to just “suck it up” for the sake of his family. And that sucks.

Networking and Support

Another no-surprise study finding is that women entrepreneurs tend to value professional and personal networks much more highly then men. You certainly didn’t have to convince the 60+ attendees at last week’s Women Entrepreneurs of Saskatchewan, Inc conference in Regina.

I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at what was not only the organization’s annual conference but its 15 year celebration bash as well. It was a time to learn from – and with – each other, to celebrate member milestones, to network, and to inspire one another to grow and prosper both as individuals and collectively as women entrepreneurs.

In addition to proudly touting the organization’s impressive history of supporting women entrepreneurs financially and otherwise, CEO Laura Small was not above a bit of clowning around – nose and all!

The urge to merge with others may also explain another Kauffman study finding. When recruited by a co-founder, nearly twice as many women (56%) than men (31%) were motivated to become an entrepreneur.

I’ve seen women’s hunger for community firsthand in my own business. Last week I once again opened the doors to the Profiting from Your Passion Career Coach Training program. This time around I gave people a choice. Purchase the complete program or get the complete system plus the opportunity to network and get and give support to other aspiring coaches on this same path. Even I was surprised when 7 out of 10 people opted to upgrade to the Coaches Inner Circle.

Granted, we’re talking here about a lifetime membership with numerous ways to connect with me and other coaches in training literally around the world – online, on the phone, and at in-person meet ups. But perhaps the reason why so many women – and indeed men – find the chance to connect, collaborate, and brainstorm with other like-minded souls so important that we’re willing to pay for it is that, as entrepreneurs, we understand there is a return on our investment.

It’s been found, for example, that people who are “lucky” in business tend to put themselves in more social situations. This in turn positions them for fortuitous events and opportunities to enter their lives. People who reach out and connect with others also experience less depression and fewer health problems.

A Matter of Experience

If you read between the lines, there’s another key difference to extract from the Kauffman study – namely, that generally speaking, women view competence differently from men. Females in the study, for example, rated experience as more important than their male counterparts.

I’ve long observed that same phenomenon with my coaching clients and workshop attendees here at Changing Course as well as in my work on the Impostor Syndrome. Men are generally a lot more comfortable with the idea of figuring things out as they go along. They recognize they don’t need to know everything before they can launch their business. Instead, they understand that they can earn while they learn. If things don’t go perfectly the first time (and they never do) they know they can correct course as they go.

Women on the other hand feel like we need to have a fancy degree and years of experience before we dare hang out our shingle or start charging for our services. Those who fall into the expert trap always have one more book to read, one more course to take, one more practice client or volunteer stint before we can “legitimately” call ourselves a an expert. This elusive quest for the end of knowledge, this expectation that one day we will wake up and declare, “Now, I am an expert!” keeps far too many women from ever leaving the gate, never mind getting close to the finish line

In a similar vein, the women business owners in the study were more likely to cite “protecting intellectual property” as a key entrepreneurial challenge. Again, no surprise here. There are men, of course, who like to keep their entrepreneurial cards close to their chest. But as a rule, I find it’s women who are most fearful that someone is going to steal their idea or rip off their digital content without paying for it. Many are so afraid that they never take action. Sadly, it also means their brilliant idea or product will go to the grave with them.

Lessons for the Aspiring Self-Bosser

Whether you are a man or a woman is not what’s important here. What is important is that if you really want to be your own boss, you learn from others’ experience. Here are four things I took away from the “Are Women Entrepreneurs Different From Men?” Kauffman study:

1. Actively seek out ways to get – and give – support. Start or join a Mastermind group (as I write this I am sitting on the patio outside my room in San Diego on the eve of just such a group). Find a business buddy you can work with. And remember, support goes both ways. Support any men in your life who, like you, want to step away from the demands of the job world and into entrepreneurship.

2. When you start a business – or you do anything new for that matter – expect to hit some road bumps along the way. But instead of focusing solely on the challenges find ways to celebrate your own milestones both big and small. This year also marks the 15^th year for Changing Course. It is amazing to think that I started this business when I was 40 and I am now 55. Time to plan the party!

3. Stop endlessly tinkering with your website, endlessly editing your book, or waiting until you complete one more course. You already know more than you think you do, so just get on with it and trust that you’ll learn as you go.

4. Finally, if the female entrepreneurs in this study are any indication, it’s pretty clear that a lot more women would venture into self-employment if they could do it in partnership rather than alone. Hmm, sounds like a great opportunity for someone to start a business partner matching service!

What do you think? Are women entrepreneurs different from men? What lessons do you take away from the Kauffman study findings?

Last week I delivered a keynote presentation to 250 university and corporate professionals in Baltimore. They were there for a conference on how to encourage more women and people of color to enter and then succeed in the field of engineering.

My presentation was titled, “How to Help Students Overcome the Impostor Syndrome.” I was not the least bit surprised that the people I helped most were the adults in the room — most of whom have PhDs!

Sheila Edwards Lange, Vice President and Vice Provost for Minority Affairs and Diversity at the University of Washington and keynote corporate sponsor rep Wayne Robinson, Talent and Recruiting Manager for Nucor. Sheila is getting ready to introduce Wayne who is getting ready to introduce me. Gotta love conferences!

The Impostor Phenomenon (more commonly known as the Impostor Syndrome) was first identified by psychologists Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes in the 1980s. Impostor feelings involve more than a simple lack of confidence. After all, everyone experiences bouts of self-doubt from time to time and especially when attempting something new. But for impostors, self-doubt is chronic. It’s normal to be upset by a bad performance. The impostor experiences shame.

It’s also possible to doubt your abilities without believing that you ultimately succeeded because of some sleight of hand or that you’re fooling others. For instance, you could have normal jitters before getting up to give your first speech. If you do well, this in turn makes you feel more confident about speaking in public the next time.

But the impostor doesn’t think this way. Because no matter how well you did or how loud the applause, you always think you could have done better. Or you dismiss the success all together thinking, “Oh, I just had a good audience.” In other words, doing well does not result in any real bump in confidence because you don’t feel you earned the success in the first place.

Your perceptions of what it takes to be competent, has a powerful impact on how you measure yourself and therefore how you approach achievement itself. And if you feel like an intellectual fraud, then there is an excellent chance that you have been operating from a definition of competence that is so grandiose that not even a certifiable genius could ever hope to attain. And it’s time to change that.

The first step is to determine your dominant “Competence Type.” Are you…

• The Perfectionist. For you everything must be flawless. To be less than perfect or to have an off day, an off-presentation, an off-anything, is simply unacceptable. For you, the competence equation is Success = Perfection.
• The Rugged Individualist. For your achievements to be legitimate you believe you have to do and figure out everything yourself. If someone helped you get the job or if you were part of a team, in your mind your contribution no longer “counts.” For you, the competence equation is Success = Solo Achievement.
• The Expert. You measure your competence on how much you know. And there in lies the rub. You will never “know it all.” So you will never see yourself as fully competent. For you, the competence equation is Success = Knowing Everything.
• The Natural Genius. Competence is measured in terms of ease and speed. The fact that you have to apply yourself or that some things come more easily than others “proves” you are not a bright as others. For you, the competence equation is Success = Innate and Effortless Genius.
• The Extremist. You know you are capable of greatness because, like all of us, you’ve experienced those flashes of brilliance. As such you expect to maintain that level of thought and action all day, every day. So when you have those “I felt so stupid” moments you are very unforgiving. For you, the competence equation is Success = 24/7 Genius.
• Superwoman/Super Student. You measure yourself based on being able to juggle and excel in multiple roles. In addition to over-achieving in your work, you hold yourself to impossibly high standards in all aspects of your life… home, parenting, relationships, physical appearance, academics, community service. For you, the competence equation is Success = Doing it all.

Any one of these Competence Types can sabotage your dream of profiting from your passion. Why? Because working on a dream, any dream, means being willing to:

• Ask for help and advice (a lot)
• Not know all the answers (ever!)
• Make mistakes (constantly!) and learn from them
• Experience the highs and lows of feeling super smart and super dumb (get used to it!)
• Recognize that perfection is often impossible and rarely necessary (to say nothing of over-rated!)
• Know that no one — including you — can do it all (nor should you try!)

Jennifer White wrote, “Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead.” Woodrow Wilson said, “I not only use all the brains I have, but all that I can borrow.” And Will Rogers reminds us that, “Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.” If your definition of competence is holding you back, then make today the day you begin to foster a healthier, more realistic definition.

If you’d like to learn more about the Impostor Syndrome and how you can feel as bright and capable as you really are, click here. You and your dream of profiting from your passion will be glad you did!

My Year in Pictures and What It Taught Me That Can Help You Too

By Valerie Young

I talked to a friend recently who, despite starting out the year with the best of intentions, feels really discouraged about how little she’s accomplished on her goal of bringing a product idea she has to market. “I had such great hopes that this year would be different,” she said with a sigh. I knew how she felt.

Once the euphoria of getting a six-figure book deal with a major publishing house wore off, I realized I’d seriously underestimated how much work this was going to be. After all, I’ve been speaking on the Impostor Syndrome for some 25 years. And I’d long ago self-published my own book, “How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are.” But as I soon discovered, self-help is a particular genre with a particular format — one that was very new to me.

I’d spend days working on a few pages only to discover what I’d written was confusing, redundant, boring or all of the above. So I really do know what it’s like not to be as far along as you’d like. But still, I plugged along.

“What have you done so far?” I asked my friend. Rather sheepishly she replied, “Nothing,” Guess what? When you do nothing, you get nothing. This conversation got me thinking about my own year. I knew I’d accomplished some things, but amazingly I am still working on this book after almost two years!

Where Has the Time Gone?

I’m a visual person. So I thought it would be fun to put together a pictorial review as I have become addicted to taking photos with my iPhone. Along with the photos are some lessons learned along the way — lessons I hope inspire you to take action on your own deferred dreams.

April 2009

When I wasn’t out helping salamanders cross the road so they wouldn’t get squashed I was of course writing my book.

With the stress of the book writing I was actually grateful for all the times I had to jump in to help my neighbor Suzanne coax her very determined bull “Eric” back to his own pasture. No easy task since Eric much preferred the company of Phoebe and Molly, the Scottish Highlander’s temporarily being boarded in the pasture across the street.

April was also the second time I offered open enrollment for the self-paced version of the Profiting From Your Passions Coach Training Program. Over 40 new coaches signed on from as far away as the United Kingdom and Australia! What an honor.

Lessons: I re-learned how easy it is to feel overwhelmed or even discouraged when working on a big project. Besides taking the bull by the horns it helps to take frequent long walks. That’s when those confused thoughts start to come together.

May 2009

I love win-wins. But I love win-win-wins even more!

In May I took a break from writing to bring 15 Profiting From Your Passions graduates to Ryan Lee’s first Continuity Summit in Stamford, Connecticut. I know Ryan, so I was able to get the group in for free in exchange for being on-site “idea joggers.”

Attendees won because they could brainstorm with a team of people trained to help them think outside the box about how to monetize — or in this case to “continuitize” — their interests. Ryan won because he got to offer his 1000+ attendees this cool bonus for free.

And the coaches won because they got a guest pass to the entire three day training on a topic that can only make them better brainstormers for their clients. Plus, they were treated to a private pre-Summit session where Ryan himself taught them how various continuity models can be used to create recurring streams of revenue.

Lesson: When you help others they want to help you in return. Investing in your education is investing in your business.

On the family front, my nephew Thomas graduated high school and is now at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Don’t let the photo fool you. He’s 6 foot 6 inches.

Lessons: When you help others, they want to help you in return. Investing in your education is investing in your business. Make time for the young people in your life… they grow up so very fast.

June 2009

My people don’t do humidity. So Florida in the summer is not my thing. But then I saw Russell Brunson was doing a marketing seminar in Delray Beach. With a September book deadline fast approaching, I really didn’t really have time to go. But I’d seen Russell speak at Ryan’s event and knew I could learn from this guy. The fact that it was Delray Beach gave me an additional incentive to have lunch with AWAI Executive Director and friend Katie Yeakle.

I’m a huge fan of AWAI. Whether it’s training people to make money as a freelance copywriter or how to get paid to travel via travel writing, photography, and import-export, or how to start a resume writing business or break into romance writing — simply put, they do great work. (Feel free to read my complete reviews of these and other self-employment options at ChangingCourse.com/cooljobs.htm)

Lesson: In addition to family and friends, make time to connect with people in your business life as well.

July 2009

After being on calf watch for months, baby Boris finally arrived! No he is not the illegitimate son of Eric the wayward bull. His real father is Vulcan, who went back to his home farm after fulfilling his fathering duties. I spent the summer happily keeping my eye on mother and baby while their owners were off building a new farm 30 miles away.

I also made another quick trip. This time to attend one of Yanik Silver’s Maverick Business Insider meet ups. Profiting From Your Passions Coaches Kate Fessler and Carrie Jeffers were there as well.

The first half of the day Yanik spoke to the group about branding and connecting with your customers. In the afternoon we were bussed to an indoor race track for a little team competition. The squirt guns were Yanik’s idea. You know, in case we got bored riding around a track in little go-carts. One of my team members was Mike Filsaime who, in addition to being a hugely successful information marketer, is also a really nice guy. I’m not exactly the race car driver type. But I did my best to try to win one for the team! I say “try” because we came in second to last.

Lessons: Continually stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone. Be grateful for small pleasures… and cows.

August 2009

With only four weeks to finish the book, August was a blur. I wrote from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. seven days a week. Can you say carpel tunnel?

Lessons: Everything takes twice as long as you think. A book, like any big project is always one step, one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter at a time.

September 2009

The last chapter was rough (understatement), but I hit my September deadline. A 3-day whirlwind trip to Manhattan began with a meeting with Heather Jackson, my editor at Crown. I assumed we’d talk about my book. Instead it was a farewell meeting. Heather told me she’d seen the handwriting on the wall for publishing as we know it and wanted to be ahead of the trend. So she was leaving to pursue a new career — bringing fiction to television.

I was happy for Heather, but, selfishly, sad for me. She’s had lots of best-sellers including Tim Ferris’s The 4 Hour Work Week. It was actually Heather who came up with the title.

I did get to meet my new editor Suzanne O’Neil. Suzanne was busy with other books which gratefully bought me time to go back and rewrite the last chapter.

The main reason I went to New York was to be a part of a fun-filled romp Carrie Wilkerson organized for top affiliates Suzanne Evans and me. In addition to being interviewed for Carrie’s online TV show, we saw Wicked, and took a trip to Vayner Studios to meet and interview social media phenomenon, star of Wine Library TV, and author of the best-seller Crush It Gary Vaynerchuk.

The trip capped off with a quick interview with a producer at WPIX television who’d seen some of my tips in a recent issue of More magazine. She and the videographer asked if I’d ever thought of creating a TV show! I was flattered… and intrigued.

No there were no sheep in New York. These shots are from my fabulous day at The Big E which is a big state fair but for all five New England states. I spent a lot of time in the animal barns and chatting with my very favorite people — entrepreneurs! For a fun read check out the my Big E article at ChangingCourseArchives.com/issue217.html

Lessons: Honor your deadlines, do mix business with pleasure, and talk to and learn from entrepreneurs anywhere and everywhere you find them.

October 2009

More book editing. I did get to a Red Sox game. The Angels were ahead by three runs. It was already close to 11 pm on a “school night.” We had a 90 mile drive ahead of us. So my friend Char and I decided to leave just before the last inning.

Big mistake. The Red Sox came back to tie the game. Then with two outs and the bases loaded, “Big Poppie” hit a home run.

Lesson: Tough it out because, like they say, “it’s never over until it’s over.”

November 2009

The month began with a wonderful birthday dinner compliments of Lisa and Haley. Just getting to hang out with Haley is a gift alone!

After Haley, the highlight of November (okay my entire life) was being a part of a very intimate Q&A session with billionaire adventurer and social entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, Virgin Records, and countless other companies under the Virgin name.

We only had an hour with Branson. But in that time we could ask him anything we wanted. I decided to pick his brain about my grand plan to train thousands of people around the world to be Profiting From Your Passions coaches. I won’t take the time here to relay the full exchange. What I will say is he thought my idea was, and I quote, “absolutely brilliant!”

That was great of course. But I was really impressed with his answer to Eben Pagan’s question, “What’s the difference between the mindset of a millionaire and a billionaire?” Branson replied there really isn’t one. Rather success always come down to being a good listener and respecting people, adding, there are a lot of people in the world who will never get to be rich through no fault of their own. I knew then I liked him.

Our meeting with Branson was a fundraiser for his non-profit organization Virgin Unite. which was holding their annual Rock the Kasbah star-studded gala later that night. Despite the glare of the television lights, I managed to get some shots of Branson with actors Jenna Elfman and Sharon Stone. Once inside, I chatted briefly with an incredibly nice and surprisingly tiny Paula Abdul. The food was incredible and I had front row seats to Natasha Bedingfield, Estelle, and Gavin Rossdale who rocked the house. What a treat!

It was fun being dressed up and hanging out with some really impressive entrepreneurs. People like Q&A session organizer Joe Polish, who’s raised over a million dollars for Virgin Unite, Yanik Silver who has already booked a spot in the Virgin space shuttle, and entrepreneur and thought leader Eban Pagen. I had a wonderful chat on the taxi over to the gala with the very down to earth CEO of Virgin Unite and fellow Massachusetts native Jean Oelwang.

I knew I’d see everyone who’d been at the Branson meeting earlier that day. I never expected to be at a big Hollywood gala and actually run into other people I knew! People like Mike Hill, Ali Brown and Mari Smith, Russell Brunson, and countless other entrepreneurs whose work I know and admire. Oh, and did I mention I wore my grandmother’s gown from the 1930s? She passed five years ago this week. She would have loved to have seen me in that dress!

November ended with a long awaited vacation to Mexico.

What I needed was total R&R. Kind of like Cokie here in his blanket — total chill.

But what I got was a go-go vacation that left me more exhausted than when I arrived. Oh, and did I happen to mention my people don’t do humidity? Still I loved the animals, the spectacular sunsets, the people and the culture.

Lessons: Some millionaires and billionaires are jerks, but most are really decent people — just like anyone else. Be grateful for blessings big and small and work with what you’re given.

December 2009

December 4th I closed on my first investment property — a five bedroom, three bath house for only $103,000. The catch? It needed a ton of work. We’re talking burst pipes, rewiring, an unintentional walk through closet, ripping out filthy shag carpet with my friend Ange.

It was hard work, but after so many months working on the book, it was incredibly satisfying to work with my hands for a change. It’s hard to see the total before and after but this will give you a glimpse.

Speaking of transformations… By the end of fall enrollment period, a total of 27 new people went from wishing they could find a way to get paid to brainstorm cool business ideas to making the commitment to join the expanding Profiting From Your Passions coach community. With students and graduates now from as far away as Singapore, Kenya, Norway, Australia, the UK, Barbados, even Kazakhstan its clear that this trend of making a living doing you love without a j-o-b has gone global.

Boris and the rest of the cow family moved to a new farm. I’m not sure who cried more — me or him. Okay, it was me.

Lesson: Take calculated risks then work hard like heck to make them pay off.

January 2010

I was insanely busy serving as general contractor to get the house ready for the renters. But boy did I learn a lot! The best part was I got to help out a family with three young children who’d been burned out of their home two days after Christmas. They’re rebuilding less than a mile away and needed to find a temporary home so their kids could go to the same school. I feel like this connection was meant to be.

In the middle of all that drove to the other side of the state to speak to packed auditoriums of graduate students at MIT and Harvard. Having gone through the doctoral process myself I know how easy it is to feel like everyone else is brilliant and you’re just a fraud.

I also took a quick overnight trip to Miami to attend the annual Entrepreneur magazine conference. The entire conference was free thanks to sponsor UPS. It was wonderful to be around so many different kind of entrepreneurs with very cool businesses. I’ll introduce you to a number of them in a future issue. For now notice the joy in the faces of people who are doing their own thing. It’s contagious!

The totally cool part was that I got to pitch my business story to Entrepreneur editor Justine Petrucelli, meet editor in chief Amy Cosper, and chat with someone who’s work I’ve admired since he wrote his first best-seller in the 1980s, Guerilla Marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson.

But wait! It gets better! I was also interviewed by the MSNBC show Your Business. Before you get too impressed, they interviewed anyone willing to stand in line. Here’s the clip if you want to see it http://tinyurl.com/ycoz6fn Expert panelist Michael Port totally didn’t get my question (in his defense I could have been more clear.) Gratefully host JJ Ramberg did. I don’t think it’s my ticket onto Oprah or anything but it was fun to see myself on national television.

Another fast trip to New York for an amazing personal business coaching with Gary Vaynerchuk. Given that he charges corporations $50,000 a day I felt incredibly honored. What a brain that guy has! While I was there I met up with my agent and my editor at Crown where we (finally) set a publishing date for the book — August 2011!

Lessons: Invest in your education. Hang out with the people you want to be. Step up to the mike. Small steps really do add up. Be patient. Be grateful.

February 2010

Ah winter in New England. I for one find it beautiful.

It’s also nice to get away and Suzanne Evan’s Be The Change event in Fort Lauderdale was the perfect excuse to follow the sun. It was also a chance for another meet up with a group of the Profiting From Your Passion coaches. Some came as part of a special four-month marketing coaching program I’d arranged for Suzanne to lead specifically for my coaches. Others came as a guest of me and Suzanne. A few coaches missed the group shot but I tracked them down for solo ones.

Other than the one live training I held in 2008, all of the other Profiting From Your Passion coach trainings have either been conducted as a Teleclass or offered as a self-paced program. Even with all the additional support — the monthly calls, active forum, and the chance to team up in small study groups, I miss not meeting people in person. That’s why I love being able to provide these kinds of additional support, networking, and educational opportunities. The coaches get to connect with each other and I finally get to meet them!

Not everyone who wants to turn their interests into income wants to be a coach. So I decided to hold a workshop for people who are ready once and for all, to decide what they love to do, figure out how to make money doing it, and make a plan. But I was also tired of all the travel. So I held the first of two Profiting From Your Passions Retreat & Workshop right in my own home. I got to work more deeply with them and they formed a tight support team to stay on track after the seminar.

Lessons: Keep learning and growing. Go, do, give as much as you can. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

March 2010

One more Profiting From Your Passion workshop and retreat here at my home. This time we stopped by to meet and learn from a neighbor — executive coach and seminar leader Neil Yeager author of The Seventh Prism. Each group has its own personality!

And yet another chance to connect with even more Profiting From Your Passion coaches when I once again arranged for a group to attend Ryan Lee’s 2010 Continuity Summit. They had a blast and I got to show off the fancy new table display!

The next week, three of the coaches served as onsite “Idea Detectives” at Yanik Silver’s Underground Marketing 6 seminar. I was able to get them a free pass to what is normally a $2500 event and the attendees got some great laser coaching for free. The coaches totally rolled with the 007 theme of the Underground doing their thing in trench coats!

At the 11th hour I forfeited my seat at the Underground to attend Brendon Burchard’s seminar on building partnerships with non-profits and corporations. It was an outstanding seminar with lots of great information I can use when I launch my book. Sometime this year or next I also envision a national “Profiting From Your Passion Seminar Tour” with dream sponsors like Entrepreneur magazine, Staples, the Kaufman Foundation and other organizations interested in supporting entrepreneurs. Wish me luck!

Lessons: Go out of your way to meet up with old friends and make new ones. Entrepreneurs rock — if you aren’t hanging out with them now, make it your business to start now. Think big!

April 2010

One year later. Another spring and I am still editing my book and prepping for a series of speaking engagements. A keynote to university administrators next week in Baltimore, two for women entrepreneurs and accountants in Canada in May, and a potential series of workshops for several hundred women scientists and engineers in June in Germany.

I’m also continuing to find ways to build on my Profiting From Your Passions Coach Training Program. The changes in the economy has convinced me that this work is needed now more than ever. People finally get that there’s no such thing as job “security.” And with that understanding they’re more open to the idea of taking a chance on themselves.

Meeting so many coaches this year has given me some great ideas about how to make the training even better. So I’ve also been busily working on that. The last time I held an open registration period for the coach training was last November. So right now I’m taking names of people who want to be on a list to get advance notification of when the program opens up again later this month.

If you like the idea of getting paid to brainstorm, add your name and primary email address and I’ll be in touch soon when I have more details. ChangingCourse.com/first-in-line.htm

After a whirlwind year I’m also at an interesting turning point in my life. No I’m not leaving Changing Course. But after 15 years I am seriously looking for ways to do things differently.

And I need your help. I put together a super short survey to get your input on what you need to take the leap from having a boss to being your own boss — how I can best help you get there.

I would be honored and grateful if you’d take three minutes now to share your thoughts. All you have to do is click here.

Lessons: Constantly look for ways to improve your products and services. And don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.

Your Turn

How often do you look back to track your progress? I’m not talking about the obligatory New Year review. I mean really go back and month-by-month to see where your time and energy really went. What has your last year been like? What strides have you made in pursuit of your dreams? What lessons have you learned or relearned? How can you use these lessons in the service of your dream?

If you don’t like what you see, remember — spring is the time to break out and really mooooove your dream along. And for my friends down under, fall is a great time too!