Fortunately he didn’t listen. Instead he figured that if he could devote time to doing what he loved, he could make money – even if it was less than what he was earning at a CPA. Bob was right on the first count. When you love what you do, it’s hard not to make money. What Bob didn’t realize at the time was that his “crazy” idea would wind up making him more money than he’d ever dreamed of.

You see, today Bob’s company, Replacements Ltd. is the world’s largest supplier of discontinued china, glassware, flatware, and collectibles. It all started when Bob bought a part interest in a Greensboro, North Carolina antique store. A customer asked if he could find some missing pieces for her china set. He did. And then an interesting thing started to happen. According to his website:

“As friends learned of his interest in china and crystal, they asked him to be on the lookout for particular dinnerware patterns they needed as well as pieces they had lost or broken. Bob quickly found himself devoting more and more time to his hobby, often staying up until the early morning hours to fill orders. Bob stored the china and crystal in his attic, while his bedroom served as his office.”

When the Small Business Administration (SBA) refused him a loan saying his idea would never work, Bob convinced the owner of a commercial building to rent him retail space. He got the word out by placing small ads in magazines.

His crazy idea worked! In his first year he grossed more than $150,000 in sales. In 2002, sales exceeded $69 million and in 2008 (the latest figures available) sales exceeded $85 million.

Now, the company’s 455,800 square foot facilities house an inventory of nearly 13million pieces from over 340,000 patterns, employs some 500 people, and serves more than ten million customers worldwide.

So much for the wisdom of friends, family, and the even the experts at the SBA!

Speaking of finding support, try to imagine what Katie Wainwright’s family and friends had to say when she told them she wanted to pick up dog poop for a living.

You read right. In 2003 Katie started Doggy Doody Disposal in my home town of Agawam, Massachusetts. The company provides “doody scooping” or bagged doody removal for clients in western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut.

In addition to residential clients, they also service commercial property owners, pet related businesses, golf courses, parks, realtors and more. The company credo is “We do doody so you won’t have to.” And as a dog owner myself I appreciate the added touch of keeping their client’s informed of any changes in their dog’s doody. I mean who does that?!

These are just a couple of the countless other “crazy” ideas that have proved the nay sayers wrong and helped catapult the idea maker out of a job they hate into a life they love. The next time you get a crazy idea for a small business do two things:

First, get a notebook and label it Crazy Business Ideas. In one section, collect examples of crazy idea that have worked. In another keep a running list of your own crazy money making ideas.

Next, seek out people who will support your idea. Unless you come from a family of entrepreneurs, chances your supporters aren’t in your family or immediate circle of friends. Where will you find them? You don’t have to own a business to join an organization inhabited by entrepreneurs. Although I have zero interest in inventing a product, I once joined a local inventors group because I love the energy of being around can-do, make-it-happen type people.

Similarly, you don’t have to be a business owner to join your local Chamber of Commerce. Many communities also have some sort of association of small business owners that meet on monthly basis.

As the great actor Katherine Hepburn once said, “Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting.”

Some of the most interesting means of support begin as a crazy idea. The key is to keep coming up with them, then when you find one you love, recognize that the only sane response is to go for it.

If Your Dream Has Stalled, Then It’s Time to “Manifest This”

By far the highlight of the recent Suzanne Evan’s event in Orlando was the premier of a Hollywood-quality film by Blue Melnick called “Manifest This.”

The movie (which Suzanne executive produced) challenges the “imagine it and it will come” premise behind the hugely popular DVD The Secret.

Because of the humor it would be easy to call the movie a spoof. But in fact the film includes serious interviews about the real secret of success from people who’ve earned plenty of it. Yes you hear from super-success coach Suzanne Evans, marketing expert Joe Polish, the fellow who handled masterminded the marketing of The Secret.

But also you hear from people like…

…Barry and Fran Weissler the producers behind hit Broadway revivals like Chicago, La Cage aux Folles, Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and many more.

…Larry Winget, the five-time New York Times/Wall Street Journal bestselling author of such books as You’re Broke Because You Want To Be: How to Stop Getting By and Start Getting Ahead and Your
Kids Are Your Own Fault: A Guide For Raising Responsible, Productive Adults has appeared on PBS, MSNBC, FOX, Larry King Live and more. When you see the movie you’ll understand why Larry is known as the pit bull of personal development

…and me!

Check out the trailer and sign up to see the LIVE replay Friday, April 6th at 8pm.

They’ll not only discuss the making of the film, but different ways to use new unconventional media to market yourself, and your business.
Click Here to Watch the Trailer and Sign Up

If I had to sum up the last few weeks in just two words it would be Water and Wow.

Water…A mid-March trip to the charming seaside town of Woods Hole on Cape Cod fell on the first of a string of record-breaking summer-like days. So after speaking on the impostor syndrome at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, I drove around in my usual “Hey let’s see where this road goes” style.

Wow… I resisted the urge to hop the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard and instead stumbled on the Cornelia Carey Sanctuary. I spent an hour exploring the delightful bay-side nature trail built on a peninsula. Heaven!

More Water, More Wow

On to Florida!

First stop was Delray Beach and lunch with my friend and president of the American Writers and Artist’s Institute Katie Yeakle. I’ve been to several AWAI events in Delray but this was my first tour of their offices.

One of the bigger Wows came in the form of a serendipitous voice mail from a close friend I’ve known since junior high — who I might add, never, ever calls me on my cell phone.

Dianna moved to Pittsburgh some 20 years ago so I don’t get to see her as much as I’d like. Turns out, not only was she in Florida, but she was headed to Delray Beach for dinner!

That inspired me to call another mutual junior high pal now living in Boston. Not only was Gail also in Florida, but, unbeknownst to either of them, she and Dianna were staying within a mile of one another.

Gail was down to be with her mother, Stacia, who was dying of cancer. I’ve known them both since I was 13. By some miracle, Dianna, Gail and I were all on the same dot on the map on the same day and got to all be together. I’m so grateful to have gotten to see Stacia just three days before she slipped away to her great reward.

More water

Next, a quick few days visiting my sister Debbie and her family at their lakeside home in Melbourne. My brother Mark drove over from Orlando and we met up with my nephew at a local Cuban restaurant. Major food wow!

Seems like yesterday Jason was five! How did that happen?!

More Wow!

There is nothing quite as exciting as watching a friend positively soar.

I’d attended my friend Suzanne Evan’s first “Be the Change Event” in 2010. There were around 300 attendees. Two years later, over 650 enthusiastic entrepreneurs were on hand for what was a truly remarkable training event.

Joining me as my guests were nine recent graduates of the Profiting from Your Passions® Career Coach training program. What a great group!

Me and PFYP Coach Marty Marsh

PFYP Coaches Ken Ellis and Janet Thompson

PFYP Coaches Marty Marsh, Candy Kaiser, Mary Mendoza

In addition to learning a massive amount of information about how to market their business for rapid growth, coaches joined me in offering mini-brainstorming sessions at the Changing Course booth.

Of course the star of the show was Suzanne Evans herself seen here with her parents in the Hell Yeah Lounge (Suzanne’s trademark phrase) and welcoming sponsors at the tradeshow.

And Cokie? Between hanging with his best gal Mercy and dreaming about when he’ll see her again, suffice it to say, every day is a Wow Day for Cokie!

For starters…

It’s good enough right now!

So many people seeking to change course want to make sure they get everything — their web site, their logo, their business card — just right. As a consequence they never launch.

Recently I came across my very first Changing Course business card. I printed them myself from my computer onto flimsy perforated paper designed for this purpose. I did it on the cheap and they looked it.

It was a wonderfully visual reminder of the need to start where you are with what you have. Your first anything will never be as great as your future everything. As success coach Mike Litman says,
“You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going.”

Don’t let the turkeys get you down.

I recently did my first ever webcast presentation. That meant that for an hour I had to act natural delivering a PowerPoint presentation while speaking directly into the camera perched on top of my computer. In other words, they could see me but I couldn’t see them.

The webcast was for a prestigious organization called the Conference Board. I was already nervous. Then I learned that rather than their typical 75-100 registrations, I’d be addressing a faceless audience of 375 executives.

I’ve been in business long enough to know that whether it’s delivering a presentation or starting your own small business or doing just about anything, there will always be the occasional turkey out there trying to ruffle your feathers.

In my case it was literally — turkeys!

Just as the webcast was about to begin a pair of mating turkeys decided to spend the next hour one foot from my ground level window and thus in my direct line of vision.

For the entire hour, the male strutted back and forth fanned his tail feathers all in an attempt to attract the female. He definitely distracted me. But she was like, “Whatever dude.”

You may not have mating turkeys outside your window. But there will always be people or situations that intentionally, or unintentionally, distract you from your goals.

Don’t let them. No matter what or who gets in your way, press on despite the distractions.

Finally, speaking of keeping going….

Allow yourself to be where you are… then keep going

When I was in Orlando, I ran into several people who’d attended one of my “Work at What You Love” workshops. One was Tracie Hall from Detroit.

It’s hard to forget Tracie because she was so determined to change the course of her life that in 2006 she and a couple of friends drove all night to Kennebunkport, Maine to attend the workshop I did there with Barbara Winter and Nick Williams.

She’d made so much progress that a few years later I invited Tracie to speak at the “Work at What You Love” workshop in Madison, Wisconsin. When I followed up on her progress a few years later, Tracie replied that things were good — but provided few details.

Now I know why… While in Orlando, Tracie told me she had an epiphany. She realized she’d been avoiding me because she was ashamed that she was not further along the entrepreneurial path.
I know what it takes to totally transition from having a boss to being your own boss. Especially for someone like Tracie who has a high-demand and high-paying job. So I never judge where someone is — or isn’t.

What broke my heart was the shame.

When you hide out because of shame you miss so many opportunities. More importantly, as the Hindu yogi Kripalvananda once said, “Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart.”

There’s no shame in going slow or hitting a road bump or for that matter, in taking a break altogether. The only shame is in giving up on yourself and your dreams.

I’m putting the finishing touches on the next “Work at What You Love” Workshop and Retreat happening June 20-24th here at my home in Montague, Massachusetts. (For those considering flying in, the Hartford, CT airport (code BDL) is closest.)

To ensure everyone gets time with me, there are only 12 spaces available. Details should be available next week. Click here if you want advance notice add your name to the list.

After an amazing week in sunny Mexico with some of my best friends in the whole world, I have to admit –it was tough coming back to the cold.

Of course Cokie wasn’t happy to be left behind. At least he got to still enjoy one of this favorite treats – sweet potato skins.

Before I get to the vacation part I must say I love Mexican entrepreneurs! Ethical, encouraging of sales but not overly pushy, and evidence of their good humor was everywhere.

My favorite sign promised free margaritas all day tomorrow. Wonder how many gullible tourists come back only to find out the offer is only good tomorrow?

The 5000 square foot penthouse apartment was unbelievably gorgeous. Hammocks for everyone on the huge wrap around porch where we ate every meal.

A wonderful woman named Jenny not only cleaned for us (well, as much as five women who kept a tidy house would allow) but she cooked too. Where else can five people get a delicious authentic Mexican dinner for $50 total? She made so much food that it lasted nearly three meals!

We did some sight-seeing. But I could have just as easily hung out with Martha Beck’s new book on the private rooftop complete private lap pool. Full moon, star-filled sky, sound of the ocean waves, margarita… ahhh.

My friends and I joke that the biggest decision we had to make all week was, “Where to lounge… at the beach, in a hammock on the porch, on the roof deck…” Tough life.

Now do you see why I had such a hard time getting back into the swing of things?!

But I did dive back into work and with a bang!

An enthusiastic group of 32 people registered for the first ever live webinar version of the Profiting from Your Passions® career coaching training program which meant I had a lot of prepping to do.

The yearning to change course from having a boss to being your own boss is truly universal. Attendees in the 2012 class hail from as far away as India, Italy, the UK, and Australia. Some were attending literally in the middle of the night. Talk about dedication!

Apparently all my hard work paid off.

So far I’m hearing feedback like, “priceless,” “hidden gem,” “More than I could have asked for,” “divine weekend,” “it changed my life and inspired me AND my family,” “worth twice what I paid,” and “it’s clear that a tremendous about of work went into this program and I am so grateful.”

Little do they know it is I who am so grateful for them and for all of you.

The weekend intensive is over and the weekday class is completely sold out.

If you’d like to be added to future Advance Notification list, click here.

Stressed? Laugh it Out

By far though, the best part of my vacation was the company. Five old friends all coming together from different parts of the country for our own “Big Chill.”

One I’ve know since grammar school, another junior high school, and two from college. Laugh! Oh my God, did we laugh. Soooo good for the soul.

If you don’t believe me ask Rev. Susan Sparks.

After being a trial attorney for 10 years, Sparks felt called to the ministry. But she never lost her sense of humor. So in a fun example of combining multiple passions, Sparks joined a rabbi and a Muslim stand up comic on the Laugh in Peace tour.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500202_162-57324948/no-joke-rabbi-minister-and-muslim-share-jokes/

“The church comes first,” Sparks says. “That said, both careers are a ministry… Laughter is holy gift we receive at birth, yet one we tend to lose over the years. My call is to encourage people to remember that gift through the pulpit and the punch lines.”

My trip was a good reminder that building laughter into our lives is as important as making time for exercise for recreation or, for that matter, work.

So my new morning ritual includes exercises while watching reruns of the Golden Girls. (Kind of like me and my girlfriends in Mexico!) I’d forgotten how laugh-out-loud – and in many ways, ground-breaking – that show was.

Where will you get your laughs this week?

Get Creative About Making Money

Successful artist Ann Kullberg always loved to draw. But when this single mother of two discovered professional-grade colored pencils it wasn’t long before her art was winning awards.

Ann knew that drawing alone wouldn’t pay the bills – at least not right away. So in the early years, she supplemented her art by substitute teaching and cleaning houses. Ann also got busy coming up with creative ways to spin her love for drawing into income. Thirteen years later Ann travels the country teaching classes, does commissioned portraits, has a contract to write a second book, and is designing colored pencil by number kits for beginners.

Ann also came up with the idea of having her own on-line magazine where professionals and novices a like sign up for book reviews, critiques of artist’s work, business and art advice, workshop listings and more. In the first four months over 200 paying subscribers signed up.

Do Your Homework

Get a notebook and label it “Shopping for a Living,” “Knitting,” “Fly Fishing,” or whatever your particular hobby might be. Then start filling it with the research you’re going to do on all the ways people are getting paid to shop, knit, or fly fish.

Associations are a great source of information. For example, if you’re into crafts you’ll find a wealth of information at the National Craft Association’s Web site including a list of craft and trade shows, a small business center, and a directory of wholesale reps. Love writing and history? Check out the Association of Personal Historians.

Book stores are filled with how-to and business-related books for just about every hobby you can think of. My personal off-the-beaten track favorite is a little book titled Knitting With Dog Hair: Better a Sweater From a Dog You Know and Love Than a Sheep You’ll Never Meet. (Don’t laugh. I read about one knitter who has a six month waiting list for her $300 sweaters.)

Along these same lines, there are niche magazines for just about everything. Check out the magazine section of any large bookstore and you’re bound to find publications like Cats & Kittens, Canoe & Kyack, and Gold Prospecting. Be sure to peruse the ads for clues as to how other people are making money from this interest area.

Get Busy

After you’ve filled your notebook with lots of neat ways to turn your hobby into your job it’s time for action. Break your larger goal down into a series of small, manageable steps. Block out time at night and on the weekends to start working your plan. Before you know it, your work will feel like play!

Over the course of 16 years I’ve heard from thousands of people struggling with so-called career “problems.” These problems invariably involve reasons why they can’t (or won’t) pursue their true passion.

I don’t mean to be dismissive of anyone’s feelings. Clearly to them these things certainly *feel* like problems.

It’s just that when you view the world through the lens of optimism and creative self-employment as I do, you discover that most opportunities come disguised as problems.

This article began as a response to a deluge of FAQ coming in from people interested in “profiting from your passions” career coaching I do. Half way through my response I realized that the same mental roadblocks that keep the people you’re about to meet from pursuing this particular path are really no different than for most of my readers seeking to change course. Fortunately, the solutions are universal as well.

In fact, these problems are no different than those I hear from anyone on the fence about making the leap from having a boss to being their own boss.

The good news is most problems that seem daunting are actually pretty easy to solve.

Easy To Solve Problem #1:  “I have too many interests”

Kate has lots of interests – none of which have anything to do with her work as a financial analyst. She describes herself as “addicted to scrapbooking,” spends hours happily researching things online, and before she got stuck with a two hour a day commute, was an avid golfer.

Another one of Kate’s passions is being a cheerleader for following one’s passion. She writes:

“I’m always looking at possibilities and trying to help my friends or co-workers or even total strangers who know they’re on the wrong path.” Adding, “One friend who is a cat lover calls me the answer lady because I’m constantly researching cool things she could do in the cat world”

The idea of people actually paying her to do what she’s been doing all along for free is, in Kate’s words, “too good to be true.”

But Kate is worried. “What if I take your course only to find out it’s not THE passion?”

The Opportunity

First, I deal with clients on a weekly basis who have been so beaten down by their 9-to-5 grind that they no longer even know what they love to do.

So loving lots of things is actually not a bad “problem” to have. It means you have options.

Still Kate is afraid that by saying ‘”yes” to one thing, she’ll be closing the door on other options.

Barbara Sher literally wrote the book on so-called “scanners”. It’s called Refuse to Choose. Trying to pick just one interest she says, is like trying to decide which kid you’re going to feed! They’re your passions so you have to find a way to feed them all!

Being an “outside the job box” career coach or teaching scrapbooking or leading golf trips doesn’t need to be the one and only thing Kate does.

She can do any one of these things for 3 hours a week, 10 hours a week, 20, 30… Or in the case of the golf outings, it could be a few times a year.

Not only will life be more satisfying but in the end you may end up making more money. Which leads me to the next “problem.”

Easy to Solve Problem #2: “Will I make enough money?”

Matt has been unemployed for a little over a year. As devastating as it was to lose his job, he’d been miserable in his programmer job for ten years.

“I always wanted to be my own boss,” he tells me. “But I never had the nerve.” Matt is inspired by the idea of helping other burned out programmers find their calling.

His big worry: “Will I make enough money?” Sound familiar?

So often we get hung up trying to come up with that brilliant business idea to replace our salary that we miss the opportunity.

The Opportunity

Money is always going to be a concern.

The solution is to understand both the beauty and the functionality of Barbara Winter’s brilliant concept of creating multiple income streams.

When I started out, I had two profit centers – my job at the time (which my friend Suzanne Evan’s encourages aspiring self-bossers to think of as your “business loan”) and one eBook. Now I have at least seven.

Instead of feeling pressured to make $75,000 a year doing one thing, think in terms of doing say three things that each generate $25,000. In Kate’s case, these profit centers might be very different.

For Matt, they could all relate to the same central theme of helping other programmers escape the job box. In addition to having individual client’s he could do group coaching or offer workshops.

He could also research or do interviews with programmers who’ve started cool side businesses and create an information product called “21 Fun and Profitable Ways Recovering Programmers Can Make Money on the Side.”

When you realize that in order to hit your first profit center goal of $25,000 means only needing to bring in a little over $68 a day, it feels more doable. Heck I could probably sell stuff in my basement on eBay and make that.

And remember, you don’t need to do everything all at once. Start one profit center. Then once that’s got some head wind, launch another.

Bonus tip: Unfortunately too many people spend all their time fretting about whether they can make $100,000 that they never end up doing. If that’s you, why not see how much fun you can have making your first $100 and go from there.

Easy To Solve Problem #3: “Is there really enough of a market for this?”

A few years ago I received this from Joanne:

“I work in a large dysfunctional organization. There’s a big shake up going on and lots of bad management decisions. Everyone is miserable — including me. I’m the one everyone comes to for advice about how to get through this mess but I know they aren’t the types to quit their jobs to follow their bliss.”

“I desperately want out but I’m just afraid there’s not enough of a market out there for this kind of work.”

Even though Joanne is worrying specifically about the market for outside the job box career coaching, the same advice applies when considering any potential business.

Opportunity

Let’s review… Everyone around her is miserable… and Joanne doesn’t think there’s a market for people who can help burned out cubicle dwellers get the heck out?!?

Determining market potential is basically a number crunching exercise. Let’s just take Joanne’s own company as an example.

If there are 100,000 employees and only 5 out of every 100 were open to exploring creative ways to make a living without a job – that’s 500 people in her company alone. The same thing is going to be true for employees of the hundreds of thousands of big corporations around the world.

In fact, according to the Kaufmann Foundation, baby boomers are the fastest growing group starting businesses. As one of my trainees just told me, “I want to finish the program for one simple reason; with 10,000 Baby Boomers a day turning age 65 the market is incredible.”

Then there’s the fact that everyone looks to Joanne for advice.

Of course, as Joanne points out, not everyone is eager to jump on the entrepreneurial wagon. In fact, she says many of her co-workers are afraid to even change departments within their same company.

Here again, problem or opportunity?

What that tells me is Joanne has an additional pool of potential clients with a different challenge. After all, not everyone understands how to survive corporate life never mind thrive there. Joanne does. And remember people already look to her for advice.

She could expand her consulting practice to work with people individually or run workshops for people on how to navigate the stress of working in a dysfunctional workplace or going through a big organizational change.

Joanne could also help people who suck at positioning themselves for promotions or moving into more interesting functions within the same company.

You can do this same exercise for just about any passion. Not sure there’s enough of a market to buy your signature cheesecake or pay you to handle their social media?

Ask all your Facebook friends to tell you on a scale of 1-10 how much they love cheesecake or are comfortable in their ability to leverage social media to grow their business. If even 10 percent go with 8 or higher, you’ll know there’s a market.

Keep in mind too you don’t have to serve everyone in the world – just enough to start earning some money.

Wayne Dyer said, “There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.”

How can you turn your problem into an opportunity? And what one thing will you resolve today to realize your own dream of making a living at what you love?

Ironically, the ability to quickly translate problems into opportunities is one of the techniques these students master in the Profiting from Your Passions® Career Coach Training program.

Seats are going quickly for the February training. I’m not sure if I’ll offer this program again this year. To learn more about whether getting paid to brainstorm is right for you, go to http://profitingfromyourpassioncoach.com/

Stay at home moms, recently downsized or retired folks, returning vets, recovering attorneys all have one thing in common…

They’re hungry for ways to make money without a j-o-b.

If you’re bullish on self-employment, naturally think outside of the job box, and want to start or grow an existing coaching business doing what comes naturally, then in literally a few weeks you could be earning income as a licensed Profiting from Your Passions Career Coach.

I recently shared this short video with the 400+ people who’ve already expressed a keen interest in being a part of the next training.

You’ll discover the 3 key characteristics you absolutely must possess to effectively help others see ways to turn interests into income.

The video also answers to some of the most pressing questions received so far from the coach training survey.

And, you get to meet my dog Cokie Roberts. too!

Registration for the next Profiting from Your Passions Career Coach Training doesn’t open until next week.

Information truly can set your clients (and you!) free.

On this informational webinar, I’ll share 5 of my most frequently recommended resources.

These are the kinds of game changing resources that help my clients go from wishing they could make money without a job to doing it!

There’s a reason most people don’t know about these resources.

That’s why you’ll also discover 10 important ways in which Profiting from Your Passions career coaching differs from traditional career or life coaching.

Monday, January 23rd
12:00pm Eastern

Please understand that I want to be able to ensure I can adequately support everyone who registers. For that reason, spots are limited.

So if you feel called to help others to find their calling, I strongly suggest you sign up here to get your name on the “first in line” list for priority notification when the doors open sometime next week.

Katharine Graham said, “To love what you do and feel that it matters, how could anything be more fun?”

For those of you who’ve been reading this newsletter since 1995 or even for a few months, this may seem obvious. But I assure you, not everyone is on the same page.

That point was really driven home a few years ago when I hosted a small dinner posted for a few friends.

One of my guests was taking a Spanish class. So I mentioned the invitation I’d received from International Living magazine to speak at a conference in Panama for people who want to live and work overseas.

Before sitting down for our dinner, I gave my dog Cokie his. As I mixed up a concoction of chicken and sweet potato, I reminisced about a delightful woman I’d recently met while in Paris who makes her living as a professional dog chef.

As we retreated to the living room for dessert, one of my guests picked up a copy of Sir Richard Branson’s biography on my coffee table. Much to her surprise it was autographed.

That of course required an explanation of how I wound up being part of an intimate “pick Richard Branson’s brain” roundtable followed by VIP seats atRock the Kasbah, Branson’s star-studded annual fundraiser for his mother Eve’s foundation.

(Click here for a cool video about her work helping impoverished women in Morocco to start small businesses.)

My friends have no idea who entrepreneurs like (counterclockwise) Ali Brown, Mari Smith, or Eban Pagan are.

But they definitely were wowed that I got to chat with the surprising T-I-N-Y Paula Abdul and was front row for Natasha Beddingfield, Estelle, Adelle, and Gavin Rossdale.

Then a friend and I traded compliments on earrings. She had no idea who made hers. Mine came from an impressive young Canadian jewelry designer and entrepreneur named Rachel Mielke.

I met Rachel while speaking at the Women Entrepreneurs of Saskatchewan annual conference after which she invited me to tour her nearby studio.

I’m a huge fan of the hit television show the Shark Tank where entrepreneurs pitch venture capitalists to give them money to grow their businesses.

So you can imagine how impressed I was that Rachel had successfully pitched her business on the original CBS’s show known in Canada as the Dragon’s Den. And by the age of 29, she had been invited to attend a 2008 pre-Oscar Luxury Gifting Lounge in Los Angeles

As my guests were leaving one of them noticed my tube of lip balm “Chicken Poop Lip Junk.” With a name like that, I had to tell them about my recent interview with another determined entrepreneur named Jamie Tabor Schmidt of ILoveChickenPoop.com.

Everyone told her that you can’t name lip balm Chicken Poop. As it turns out, the novelty name is the reason they buy and why Jamie got her product into a huge national chain like Walgreen’s.

That was the moment my friend Joanne exclaimed, “Wow, you live in this total other world, don’t you?”

I honestly didn’t know what she was talking about. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you just got back from speaking at a travel photography course in Paris. You’re speaking in Panama. You meet these fascinating people that no one else ever seems to meet. It’s like you exist on a planet all your own.”

As I looked around the table at my guests – a district court judge, the training director at a university, a clinical social worker, and a college professor – I realized that I may not live on a different planet, but in a lot of ways I do inhabit a very different world. It’s a place I’ve come to think of as the World of Possibilities.

Life in the Real World

Sadly, most people operate in a world they proudly refer to as the Real World. You can always tell when you’ve met someone who has never lived in – never mind entertained – the World of Possibilities.

All you have to do is start talking about how happy you are when you’re baking and how you’ve been thinking of starting a cookie business…

Or you talk about how you’d absolutely love to run tours to Provence, France…

Or that you have a life-long dream of moving to the country and starting an organic farm…

The first thing you’ll notice is that Real World people look at you like, well, like you’re from another planet. Which, compared to them you are.

Next they are quick to recite with great certainty all of the reasons why your ideas are completely unrealistic.

After all, having never started a business themselves and knowing zilch about either selling cookies or running tours, being from the Real World they nonetheless deem themselves authorities on what is and isn’t possible.

And to underscore your other world status they will flatly tell you that you just aren’t operating in the Real World.

They mean it as a dig. What they don’t realize is that this is actually a very good thing.

Because when you dwell in the World of Possibilities you know these things are doable for one simple reason: People are doing them!

The World of Possibilities

Look around and you’ll see people who have figured out that a dream + effort = profiting from your passion.

People like 55-year-old Marla Romash, who after an amazing career in politics felt the urge to do something new. Today she bakes cookies with a political theme.

Or MaryJane Butters of MaryJanes Farm. What began as a passion for organic farming has morphed into her own magazine, retail stores, a bed and breakfast, a line of food and other products, a farm school and much more

Or Cynthia Morris who, after leading successful tours to France for years literally wrote the book on how to lead tours for fun and profit (if Cynthia’s name sounds familiar, she was part of a panel discussion along with Barbara Sher, Barbara Winter, and me that’s part of Making Dreams Happen.)

It’s likely that you have a foot in both worlds.

A big part of you knows in your heart that it really is possible to open an artist’s retreat or design your own skin care line or find some way get paid to research holistic healing techniques.

But the gravitational pull to “be realistic” keeps pulling you back to the Real World.

When I started this business in 1995, I could never have imagined speaking in Panama or reviewing travel photography courses in Paris or getting to pick Richard Branson’s brain or running my own career coach training program or meeting people who run the most fascinating businesses…

And yet, here I am doing all of that and more.

And so can you.

Dale Carnegie once said, “We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.”

The vacancy sign is always out in the World of Possibilities.

Whenever you start to think your dream is not possible, find someone who is successfully doing the thing you want to do and follow them. I guarantee that this road will lead you to a lifetime of satisfaction, well-being, and even greater possibilities than you could ever imagine.

Being realistic is not all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, as hip-hop artist and actor Will Smith reminds us, “being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity.”

NOTE FROM VALERIE:

Welcome to my world…one that’s about to get even bigger. That’s because next week I’m opening registration in my new 2012 Profiting from Your Passions® career coach training program.

I’ve put together a short video that spells out some of the key qualities and characteristics of people of my fellow Possibility Dwellers. Whether you’re curious about what it would be like to get paid to brainstorm business ideas as I do or not, I think you’ll enjoy video. Click here to watch.