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September 18, 2008
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Valerie and her rescue dog,
"Cokie Roberts"
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By Valerie Young
This article originally appeared in Issue 192 of the Changing Course Newsletter.
We all know the story of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Swept away to the enchanting but forbidding Land of Oz by a tornado, Dorothy endures all manner of challenges in an attempt to achieve her one and only dream of returning home to her family in Kansas. It is not until the end of her frightfully wondrous journey that Dorothy has an epiphany. “…if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again,” she tells Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, “I won’t look any further than my own backyard.” More often than not, it’s the same way with career options.
Too many people either fail to see – or outright dismiss – how the personal experiences in their own “backyard” are ripe with possibilities for income streams or indeed complete careers. Every small business I ever had originated from some event, realization, or challenge I’d personally experienced.
In the early 80s, I took a course at the University of Massachusetts called Dynamics of White Racism with a dynamic and utterly passionate doctoral student named Judith Katz. To say the course had a profound effect on my world view would be a gross understatement. So much so that I didn’t just want to study with Judy Katz – I wanted to BE Judy Katz. (If you’re interested in the field of diversity training you can read an interview with Judith at http://DTUI.com/awards.html). That single course also set me on my future career direction.
A senior at the time, I went on to enroll in the same graduate school Judy was just getting ready to graduate from. A few years later, I was the founding coordinator of what is now the Social Justice program there. I paid my way through school as a self-employed facilitator conducting training programs on racial awareness and diversity for resident assistants (dorm counselors) at colleges and universities around the country.
When it comes to actually applying your experience to your work, who you are - your personality, your temperament, your skills - are as important as the thing you love to do. In this case, the key to my success as a speaker standing up in front of audiences as large as 400 to 1200 people about potentially loaded “isms” was my sense of humor. I used it to effectively diffuse tension, minimize unproductive guilt, and get everyone - regardless of race, gender, religion, physical ability or sexual orientation - to take the issues seriously and yet also learn by laughing at themselves.
I loved being a graduate student. The hours were pretty flexible and although I had assignments to complete, in a lot of ways I was my own boss. Things were going pretty well… that is until it came time to actually hunker down and write a 200-plus page dissertation. That’s when the self-doubt, procrastination, and intense feelings of intellectual fraudulence set in. It’s also when I stumbled upon a study in a psychological journal on the so-called Impostor Phenomenon by Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes.
No one could have felt like more of a fraud then I did. I mean who was I kidding? I was this 24-year old, working class, first generation college kid – and the only one to go on to graduate school – in a doctoral program with all these mature, much smarter, and far more worldly professionals. I mean, who did I think I was? I’m still not sure how I managed to slip through the admissions process undetected. But there I was. So rather than waste three years of course work, I realized I’d better finish what I’d started and get out before I was discovered.
That’s when it hit me. If I have to write the darned dissertation anyway, why not focus my own research on understanding perfectionism, fear of failure, ambivalence about success, chronic self-doubt and other self-limiting patterns and philosophies that seem to plague so many women and quite a few men?
Studying the thing that was the most troublesome to me at the time was what helped me work through it. The writing part proved to be every much the ordeal I knew it would be, but at least I knew I’d have a publishable document at the end. Researching achievement blocks and interviewing other women from different fields and stages of their careers help me to lower my own internal yardstick to a far more attainable human level. As exciting, I like to think that the over 30,000 people – men and women alike – that have attended my workshop on How to Feel as Bright and Capable as Everyone Seems to Think You Are have benefited from my experience.
From here, my career took a detour that led me, at age 30, to take my first real job-job. What a change from the comparatively care-free life of a perpetual student. Talk about your rude awakening. You see, my consultant friends at the time were pulling down the big bucks consulting to corporations. Most of my clients, in contrast, were colleges or professional women’s organizations.
So I decided to take a job in the corporate management development and training department at a Fortune 500 company so I could 1) demystify the corporate world (that took about a week) and 2) earn my corporate credentials to take with me when I returned to consulting. My plan was to stay in the cube world for a year, two tops. After a year and a half, I switched to a management job in strategic marketing and five years after that, there I was – well-paid but miserable.
When my mom passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack at the too young age of 61, I realized life was too short to not work at what you love. For the next year and a half, I spent just about every waking hour of my personal life plotting my exit strategy. Little did I know at the time that I would go on to take everything I was learning about finding your calling, about the beauty of multiple income streams, and what it takes to change course and turn it into my vocation.
There are lots of ways to use your own personal experiences, and the unique insights and lessons learned along the way, to guide you onto a new career path. Take some time to reflect on your own life and think about how you, too, might profit from experience.
September 3, 2008
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Valerie and her rescue dog,
"Cokie Roberts"
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By Valerie Young
This article originally appeared in Issue 191 of the Changing Course Newsletter.
Too many people who want to work at what they love seem to suffer from the misguided notion that there are certain “rules” that must be followed. Let me give you a quick example. At the beginning of every career consultation, I ask clients to describe their ideal life. To prompt their thinking, I pose a series of questions such as what time do you want to get up in the morning, would you like to work at home or outside the home, do you want to work with other people or do you prefer to work alone? The question that gets the biggest reaction is, “Would you like to have summers off?” Invariably someone will say, “Oh, can you do that?”
I’m always tempted to say, “I don’t know, let me consult the official Work-Life Rule Book.” The thing is, I don’t know if you can have summers off or not. But what I do know is this – if the desire to have your summers free is not consciously on your mental radar screen, then the likelihood of it happening is next to nil. If, on the other hand, you were crystal clear that you’d love to take summers off, then you’d be in a better position to make a conscious effort to come up with ways to generate income that would allow for a lengthy work break.
This self-limiting belief that you somehow have to do things a certain way also hampers to a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs. For example, this week alone I’ve spoken with two people who had considered taking the
American Writers and Artists Institute course on how to become a freelance copywriter. The reason they decided against it was they didn’t want to have to write promotional copy for products and services they don’t believe in. Who would? I know I certainly wouldn’t want to pitch Dr. Zildo’s amazing watermelon diet or some shady work from home program.
But where is it written that you HAVE to take on clients you don’t like? I once had a client named Donna whose idea of heaven on earth is to have some kind of a portable income so she can spend months at a time with her daughter in England. Donna enjoys writing and even has a background in advertising. She’d considered the copywriting option in the past but again rejected it because she didn’t want to write about products she didn’t believe in.
Instead of letting this values clash be a show stopper, Donna needed to ask herself, “So, what do I believe in enough to promote?” For Donna it’s the whole mind, body, and soul connection. In fact, her dream job is to organize events for motivational speakers. Because it would be difficult living in a relatively rural area to make a full time living organizing events, we had to come up with a supplemental – and portable – income stream.
This meant challenging the idea that to succeed as a copywriter, or for that matter, in any business, you have to do things a certain way. What if Donna intentionally structured her copywriting business to focus entirely on motivational speakers and authors of mind, body, and soul type books? This kind of niche marketing offers a whole host of advantages.
For one, Donna would genuinely enjoy doing the research on topics she finds interesting. She’d also get a great deal of satisfaction from helping spread the word about concepts and practices she believes in.
Another highly practical advantage is that people in the same field tend to talk to one another. In football terms it’s known as going deep and wide. In my small world, I get to talk to like-minded souls like Barbara Winter and Barbara Sher. I’ve recommended good copywriters to them and they’ve steered me in the direction of great web masters and other vendors. In other words, when you niche market, ultimately you’ll have to do less self-marketing because your business becomes primarily referral-based.
Okay, so what misguided rules are you operating by? Do you think you have to come up with just one way to make a living? Think again. Think you can’t turn your hobby into your career, get paid to work with animals, or that changing course means having to choose between money and happiness? If so, check my ever-increasing list of Cool Jobs at
ChangingCourse.com/cooljobs.htm
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once said, “Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” How can you stretch your mind today? Once you realize that some misguided rules about work and life can, and should, be broken, a whole new world of opportunity can open up.
Do you dismiss your accomplishments as a “fluke” or “no big deal”? Are you crushed by even constructive criticism? Do you feel like you’ve “fooled” others into thinking that you’re more intelligent than you “know yourself to be.” If so, join the club!
I’ve been posing a series of questions that in some way relate to my new book on the Impostor Syndrome. Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.
I’d like to continue the conversation. But instead of another question here, I’ve put up a special Impostor Syndrome blog at http://ImpostorSyndrome.com/blog. In this blog, I’ll be sharing information and articulating themes related to my book in progress on how to feel as bright and capable as everyone seems to think you are.
It’s my first main-stream book and will be published by Crown Publishing, a division of Random House hopefully in 2010.
August 8, 2008
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Valerie and her rescue dog,
"Cokie Roberts"
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By Valerie Young
This article originally appeared in Issue 190 of the Changing Course Newsletter.
Now and then I meet someone (usually a young person) who tells me they really like helping with people, so they’re thinking about going into Human Resources or HR as it’s commonly referred to. They imagine themselves sitting in their large private office eagerly awaiting a long line of interesting employees with interesting problems in need of interesting solutions.
Ask most people who are already in HR though and they’re likely to paint a very different picture. Instead of spending time helping people, most people in HR spend the better part of their jobs days dealing with the "administrivia" of the business
world – hiring, terminations, benefits, pensions, payroll, and all too often, petty grievances.
A lot of jobs seem different from the outside. Think about your current career or job. Now that you’re there, is it what you thought it was going to be? Probably not.
Fantasy vs. Reality
Entrepreneurs are not immune to this "leap before you look" syndrome. Take the classic bed and breakfast fantasy. Clients often tell me they love the idea of selecting the colors and the furnishings, picking fresh flowers from the garden for the breakfast table, greeting the guests, and generally making everyone feel at home. Once the guests check out, they picture themselves settling into a big comfy chair with a good book or perhaps puttering in a Zen-like perennial garden. Utter bliss.
Once the real estate is purchased, most people don’t have the capital to hire others to do the cooking, cleaning, and bookkeeping. As a consequence, once the decorating is done and the garden is planted, they realize they’ve become a combination short order cook/chamber maid/bookkeeper!
Every business has its more mundane parts – especially in the beginning when you’re bootstrapping your business or are a "solo-preneur." But still, the goal is to love more of the work than not. So, before you leap, you need to check out just how wide the expanse is between fantasy and reality.
How do you test out a business idea? Well, if you truly do want to run a bed and breakfast (and for people who are natural hosts, there are lots of wonderful aspects of running a B & B) the best way to get your feet wet without taking a financial soaking is to become a B & B sitter. Just like it sounds, sitters take over the day-to-day operations of established inns so the owners can go on vacation or otherwise get away. Companies like Deserve a Break actually match B & B owners in Australia and New Zealand with experienced relief workers. Similarly, in the UK, farmers can turn to a decades old company called Loring, King and Loring for relief and contract milking and agricultural staff.
Another option is to go to "school." Sticking with our B & B example, you don’t need to earn a four year degree in hotel and restaurant management to learn how to run an inn. Many B & B’s offer weekend workshops for aspiring inn-keepers and some owners do individual consulting. If there are no classes in your area, contact a local B & B and ask if they’d let you intern with them in exchange for some free staffing time once you’re trained.
Getting Prospective Customers to Put Their Money Where Their Intentions Are
Even large, well established companies look before they leap. Hotel giant Hyatt ran an ad in the New York Times Magazine for its new Life Care community in Briarcliff Manor, New York. What caught my eye was not the fact that a hotel chain is branching out into senior housing, but rather the clever way Hyatt went about testing the waters before making a significant financial investment. Here is the fine print:
Through this marketing material, Classic Residence by Hyatt is exploring the market demand for a Life Care community in Briarcliff Manor. By joining the Priority Reservation Program, you are expressing your interest in future residency at Classic Residence by Hyatt at Briarcliff Manor. A Priority Reservation agreement is not a Continuing Care Residency Agreement. All deposits will be held in escrow at Bank of New York. You may obtain a full refund of the reservation system deposit, with interest earned at the prevailing rates at any time for any reason. If a refund is requested, however, you forfeit your priority number and benefits. Your status in the program is subject to the terms of the Priority Reservation Program, which are explained in the Priority Reservation Agreement. Classic Residence by Hyatt is currently under development, with a proposed opening date of 2009. Hyatt is a registered trademark of Hyatt Corporation.
How smart is that? In this case, it paid off. Hyatt withdrew plans to open the community due to escalating construction costs.
Think you’d like to borrow from the Hyatt model to explore market demand for your own high priced product or service? Before you start cashing any checks, keep in mind that the people sending you money are not investors. And as such you can’t use prospective customer’s money until you actually decide to move forward with your enterprise and your customers have signed a clearly spelled out agreement on the front end. This is definitely one place where you’ll want to employ the services of an attorney. But still, if your business idea lends itself to a similar approach, it’s a fascinating example of testing the waters by getting prospective customers to put their money where their intentions are.
There are lots of ways you can look before you leap into a new business. For example, you can:
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Talk to people who are doing the kind of work you think you’d enjoy. Find out what they love – and don’t love – about their work, what a typical day is like, and what they would have done differently if they had to do it all over again.
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Read "how to" books. It may not give you the total picture, but at least you’ll know more than you did.
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Search for "how to" Web sites. As with reading books, it is not the same as test driving a business idea, more like sticking a toe into the information pool.
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Work for someone else in a similar business. Depending on the business, you may be asked to sign a non-compete clause. Then again, if your goal is to start a specialized summer camp, the smartest way to see if you’d like running a camp is to first work at one.
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Take classes. Check with your local adult education program, do a search for schools specializing in your area of interest, or seek out online courses. You never know what’s out there until you look. For example, The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City offers courses in how to write a proposal for a cookbook, breaking into food writing, and how to be a food stylist/ photographer (ICECulinary.com).
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Join an industry association. In addition to getting their publications, most associations offer conferences, seminars, and other opportunities to learn from and connect with people in your prospective line of work.
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Hang out with people who are already doing what you think you’d like to do. If you’ve got an inventive mind but have never acted on it join a group like the Inventors Network in Minneapolis (InventorsNetwork.org), Washington, DC (DCInventors.org), or Springfield, MA (IRNetwork.org). You’ll find a list of networks by state at InventNet.com.
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Find a mentor. Some people will mentor you for free. However, depending on how much time and training you need, you should expect to pay your mentor. If that person is successful in the business you’re considering, it will be well worth the investment.
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Volunteer, intern or apprentice. I had the opportunity to chat with Steve Curwood, host of Living on Earth, an engaging environmental news and information program heard on over 300 National Public Radio stations. Naturally the first thing I did was pump him for information on how someone would go about getting their own program on public radio. Before trying to pitch an idea, Steve urged anyone interested in being on the air to first volunteer at their local station so they can learn first-hand how public radio works.
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Take on a few clients or assignments for free. In addition to gaining experience, building confidence, and developing a portfolio or track record it’s a great way to see how you like the work before making a larger investment of time and money.
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Start small. Everyone wants to go from nothing to having their own full blown business in a day. Not only is it not possible but you’d miss invaluable lessons. But perhaps most importantly, starting small once again allows you an opportunity to dabble in a new enterprise before deciding if it’s right for you. Small steps add up. Changing Course began when I sent away for a cassette tape on how to break into the newsletter business. That was over 10 years ago. Today I have over 22,000 subscribers. The key is to just begin.
Do you have a great idea for a business? There are lots of ways to test the waters before you dive in head first. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
Are you (or is someone you know) a personal trainer, fitness instructor, conditioning coach, or other independent fitness professional… or want to be? Are you passionate about being healthy and fit and helping other people do the same? Do you want to stop working twelve hour days and still grow your business by an extra $4000-$5000 a month?
Then I encourage you to seriously consider grabbing a seat at fitness entrepreneur Ryan Lee’s third Personal Trainer Business Success Bootcamp happening this September in Connecticut (Fair warning: his first two Bootcamps sold out fast). The theme of this year’s mega-event is Work Less Make More.
It would be impossible to share all the rave reviews from past attendees but here are a few standouts to give you a feel for what it’s all about…
“[The workshop was] awesome, fantastic, fabulous, fun, informative, high energy, non-stop excitement. I will be back. Thanks Ryan, I am amazed and awed.”
~ Susan Ripley, Fit for Teens
“I can surely double or triple my income in the next year. I can’t wait to get back to London and start kicking a_ _!” ~ Gavin Walsh
“As a newcomer to this industry, I learned more valuable and immediately useful information in 3 days than I learned in 12 years of attending events in my previous industry!” ~ Lindee Goodall
“Ryan Lee’s Bootcamp is the single best fitness event of the year. The quality of successful independent fitness professionals is on post above all the best. If you have any aspirations of running your own successful business in fitness, you must attend this event.” ~ Jason White, Strength Radio
Ryan is bringing together a world-class group of speakers on a wide range of income-generating and time-saving topics including…
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How to earn an extra $100.00 a day with your own fitness blog
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How to go from being a local fitness professional to an international fitness celebrity (gotta love those big dreams!)
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Secrets of $75,000 per year part-time trainers: How to transition away from traditional one-on-one training
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How to put your entire fitness business on autopilot (I happen to know this speaker and he absolutely knows his stuff)
Ryan has helped over 17,525 fitness professionals to dramatically increase their income. In addition to knowing Ryan personally (you will LOVE him), I’m also in a “mastermind” group with one of Ryan’s star students – a really great guy named Craig Ballantyne out of Canada who is rapidly closing in on a seven figure income. (And speaking of rapids, I’ll be white water rafting, rock climbing, and mountain biking with Craig and a buch of other entrepreneurs next week in Aspen – I’ll be the one returning in a cast! But I digress…)
When you read about the speakers and all of what will be covered I am confident you will be as impressed as I was. But what I KNOW will blow you away is the price. Ryan has made this event affordable and accessible to just about anyone.
To learn more about this impressive business- and income-growing training event for fitness professionals at all stages of their careers, go to ChangingCourse.com/recommends/fitnesstraining
Do you secretly worry that others will find out you’re not as intelligent and competent as they seem to think you are? Do you often dismiss your accomplishments as a “fluke” or “no big deal?” Do you sometimes shy away from or obsess about taking on greater challenges because of nagging self-doubt? Are you crushed by even constructive criticism, taking it as evidence of your ineptness? Are you waiting to be exposed as an impostor, fake, or fraud?
If so, join the club!
It’s estimated that 70 percent of people have experienced these feelings of intellectual fraudulence which are especially common among first generation professionals, creative types (Mike Myers says he’s always waiting for the “no talent police” to show up at his door), students, and others. Fearing that we have somehow managed to fool others “impostors” live in fear that sooner or later we are going to be “found out.”
In March I signed a *big* book deal with Crown Publishing Group to write a self-help book on the so-called Impostor Syndrome. And I am committed to including as many voices and experiences as I can. Simply said, I need your help.
For the next few months I’ll be posing a different question designed to help me better understand how impostor feelings manifest in the lives of my readers. I hope you will take a moment to share your thoughts, stories, fears, and solutions with me so that I may in turn, help more people to feel as smart and competent as they truly are.
Question of the Week
The theme this week is “success.” What does success mean to you… or in other words, how do you define success? Do you see success as being the same or different from “achievement” or “ambition” and if so, why and how?
Please include as much information as you feel comfortable sharing – first name, current occupation, age, race, state/province/country. Share as much or as little as you like. No matter what you share, I think just reading other people’s stories will be enlightening to all.
Thank you in advance for your input and support. I couldn’t do this without you!
Valerie Young
Recovering Impostor
ImpostorSyndrome.com
July 24, 2008
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Valerie and her rescue dog,
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By Valerie Young
This article originally appeared in Issue 189 of the Changing Course Newsletter.
"In the middle of difficulty," observed Albert Einstein, "lies opportunity." Some of the best opportunities often originate from problems – either yours or someone else’s. For example, like a lot of parents, Deb Cohen’s problem was that after her first child was born she wanted to find a way to be a stay-at-home Mom.
Around that same time, Deb became aware of a real problem for most homeowners – namely, finding someone reputable to do home repairs or improvements. By putting these two problems together, she came up with the perfect solution for both her problem and that of her neighbors.
Since 1997 Deb has been owner of a highly successful company called Home Remedies of NY, Inc. (HRN), an organized referral company that matches homeowners with skilled, pre-screened independent home-repair workers.
HRN offers homeowners referrals to reputable home improvement contractors free of charge; the contractors represented in the network pay a commission to HRN for any work secured. If you’ve seen any of NBC’s Dateline segments on unscrupulous home repair men (I would say home repair "people" but I’ve never seen a segment that featured a woman) then you can imagine what a relief it would be to homeowners to be able to easily find trustworthy and competent contractors.
In fact, a few years back I remember picking up a brochure at my local hardware store about a service that sounded a lot like this one. I only wish I’d looked into it before I hired the fly-by-night guy who replaced my roof last summer. What a NIGHTMARE!
I first learned about Deb when the Work from Home channel at iVillage.com featured her as their "Mompreneur of the Month." I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that Deb’s business has become so successful that she has expanded to offer others the chance to launch a Homeowner Referral Network in their community. I felt instantly reassured when I read that, to date, there are more than 400 Homeowner Referral Networks operating in the U.S., Canada and abroad.
What’s nice, too, is that aspiring entrepreneurs can choose from a range of business start-up kits at different price points. The kits offer step-by-step procedures on how to start a network in your area and include contractor commission structures, liability information, a complete direct mail and advertising campaign, and how to locate, screen and represent a comprehensive network of home improvement contractors.
All kits include The Complete Guide to Owning and Operating a Successful Homeowner Referral Network and unlimited leads from the HRN Web site. Kits range in cost from $1,995 – $6,495 with the higher priced kits including options ranging from business forms to individual phone consultations with Deb to a turnkey website and an online marketing tool designed for HRN owners to stay in touch with their clients.
This also seems like a good opportunity for someone who wants to start their own home repair/improvement business because HRN takes care of all of the marketing and you are instantly affiliated with a company that is known for referring only quality professionals. If you’ve had a good experience with a home repair person, HRN is actively seeking referrals from satisfied homeowners.
Deb’s business is just one of an infinite number of ways to turn a problem, complaint or threat into a money-making business opportunity. For example, when the news was filled with horror stories of tainted pet food from China, enterprising people leapt on the opportunity to make and sell organic pet food.
The key to being a successful entrepreneur is to become adept at being what I call an “Opportunity Analyst.” The easiest place to begin is to consciously stay on the lookout for examples of problems, complaints or threats and see if you can come up with interesting income-generating ways that you – or someone – could solve them. Look around you. What kinds of things do you, your co-workers, friends or family complain about? Study news sources. Drive through your local neighborhoods or commercial areas.
If you would like to learn more about this interesting business, visit Deb online at ChangingCourse.com/recommends/hrn and you can read Deb’s Top 10 Misconceptions About the HRN Business at ChangingCourse.com/hrntopten.htm
Trust me – there are plenty of problems out there for an enterprising person to turn into a great small business opportunity! If you’d like a little help developing your “opportunity muscles,” join me for my monthly Teleclass, “Turning Interests into Income Opportunity Hour.” Learn more at ChangingCourse.com/courses.htm
Do you secretly worry that others will find out you’re not as intelligent and competent as they seem to think you are? Do you often dismiss your accomplishments as a “fluke” or “no big deal?” Do you sometimes shy away from or obsess about taking on greater challenges because of nagging self-doubt? Are you crushed by even constructive criticism, taking it as evidence of your ineptness? Are you waiting to be exposed as an impostor, fake, or fraud?
If so, join the club!
It’s estimated that 70 percent of people have experienced these feelings of intellectual fraudulence which are especially common among first generation professionals, creative types (Mike Myers says he’s always waiting for the “no talent police” to show up at his door), students, and others. Fearing that we have somehow managed to fool others “impostors” live in fear that sooner or later we are going to be “found out.”
In March I signed a *big* book deal with Crown Publishing Group to write a self-help book on the so-called Impostor Syndrome. And I am committed to including as many voices and experiences as I can. Simply said, I need your help.
For the next few months I’ll be posing a different question designed to help me better understand how impostor feelings manifest in the lives of my readers. I hope you will take a moment to share your thoughts, stories, fears, and solutions with me so that I may in turn, help more people to feel as smart and competent as they truly are.
Question of the Week
What does “competence” mean to you? For instance, what goes through your mind as you think about starting your own business or promoting yourself as an “expert,” going after a new job or a big promotion, or taking on a new and unfamiliar project, or perhaps writing a book of your own? In these situations or others, what do you think it takes to be competent? How do you define competence? How will you know when you are “there”? Is there a story that reflects an experience where you or someone you know struggled to feel competent?
Please include as much information as you feel comfortable sharing – first name, current occupation, age, race, state/province/country. Share as much or as little as you like. No matter what you share, I think just reading other people stories will be enlightening to all.
Thank you in advance for your input and support. I couldn’t do this without you!
Valerie Young
Recovering Impostor
ImpostorSyndrome.com
July 7, 2008
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Valerie and her rescue dog,
"Cokie Roberts"
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By Valerie Young
This article originally appeared in Issue 188 of the Changing Course Newsletter.
Most of the time my parents did get it right. But everything I learned about achieving career bliss I learned by actually ignoring my well-meaning but cautious parents. That’s because, if you aspire to find work that you truly love, some of what your parents taught you could actually work against you.
Here are three childhood lessons every adult career changer should ignore as well as some exercises to help you achieve your goal.
Old Advice: Grow up
New Advice: Don’t
If you were still throwing tantrums at 12, be thankful your parents told you to "grow up." But, if you want to recapture the experience of getting deliriously lost in a favorite pastime, growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Lots of people, director Steven Spielberg among them, knew from a young age what they wanted to do when they grew up. Your own childhood may well contain clues to a new career direction.
Make a list of all the things you were really into as a kid. Did you love to build forts? Sing? Compete in science fairs? Draw? Do magic tricks? Learn about dinosaurs? Tell jokes? Watch scary movies? Play sports? Play dress-up? Play video games? Play school?
What do your answers tell you? How might you build on these childhood interests today?
Old Advice: Follow the straight and narrow road
New Advice: Wind your way to happiness
You probably got the message growing up to always follow the straight and narrow road. Good advice for staying on the right side of authority, bad advice for coming up with "outside the box" career options. That’s because it is often the wide road with lots of detours that lead to the most interesting places. Say you wanted to turn your love of astronomy into your vocation, what career destination would you most likely wind up at, if, vocationally-speaking, you took the straight and narrow road? Astronomer. Right? A fine occupation, but it is just one of many options.
Here’s where what Patrick Combs calls his "Super-Simple, Unique & Weird Job Idea Jogger" can help. Even though his book, Major In Success, is aimed at college students, his idea jogging exercise can help anyone looking to chart a new course.
To start, fill in the blanks in the following sentence: A great job would be [verb] in the [your interest] field. The astronomy-lover who also enjoys reading would write: A great job would be reading in the astronomy field. This might lead to such off-the-beaten-path careers as: Editor of an astronomy magazine, NASA researcher or author of books about the latest astronomy developments. Change the verb to drawing, says Combs, and see what ideas get jogged. You could: Illustrate astronomy books. Design observatories. Map star systems. Create science fiction paintings, murals, or coloring books.
Old Advice: Never talk to strangers
New Advice: Talk to lots and lots of strangers
"Never talk to strangers" is good advice if you’re approached in a dark alley, bad advice if you need encouragement to quit your programming job to become a park ranger. In fact, if the choice is to seek out support from a group of total strangers or from your own family, go with the strangers. The reason, says career counselor Barbara Sher, is that "almost any stranger would respect your dreams more easily than our family does." To prove it, try this assignment from her book I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was.
Tell a group of strangers the most offbeat dream you can think of – like raising Dalmatians in the Himalayas. Tell them, however, that you don’t yet have any contacts in Tibet. Not only will they be interested, says Sher, "they’ll even try to solve your problem."
Now, she says, try the same experiment with your family by announcing that you’re going to quit your corporate job and sign on as crew on a clam boat off Rhode Island [or the reverse]. Observe whether they "drop their forks before or after they scramble to talk you out of your ‘folly’."
If you’re ready for a big career change, maybe it’s time you actually do get bigger than your career confining britches. It can be as simple as re-igniting your childhood passions, exploring a more creative career search path, and seeking out the right people to encourage your dreams.
Oh, on the wearing clean underwear thing in case you’re ever in an accident – your mom was right.
If you’d like a little help developing your "opportunity muscles" join me for my monthly Teleclass, "Turning Interests into Income Opportunity Hour." Learn more at ChangingCourse.com/courses.htm
June 26, 2008
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Valerie and her rescue dog,
"Cokie Roberts"
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By Valerie Young
This article originally appeared in Issue 187 of the Changing Course Newsletter.
Has the school calendar of your youth hardwired you into seeing September as the time for new beginnings? If you yearn for a new job, a career change or maybe even a total life makeover – summertime is by far the best time to act.
Summer is synonymous with fun. It’s possible to make a change and still have time for recreation. In fact, the word recreation literally means to “re-create.” And what better way to spend your summer than recreating your life! Here are six ways you can use the rest of the summer to grow a dream:
1. Catch a falling star.
When my best friend, Elaine, and I weren’t building forts or skipping rope we could be found lying beneath a shady tree or a star-filled sky. These weren’t idle pursuits. We were flexing our imaginations. As the most carefree of the four seasons, summers are made for dreaming. It’s the perfect time to gaze upward, to look inward and to imagine what could be.
2. Grow a dream garden.
Look within and you may find the seeds of a dream planted long ago. Left untended though, dreams will fail to sprout. Summer is the ideal time to cultivate our dreams both old and new. Start with good soil. What is it you care deeply about? What makes you happy? What do you want your life to look like? Now get rid of the weeds – the lame excuses, apathy, self-doubt, and fear born from lack of information. Tend to your dreams and watch them grow.
3. Take advantage of the longer days.
Even though those so-called lazy days of summer have gotten a lot busier of late, the additional hours of daylight do seem to add a bit more time to our lives. Once you’ve engaged in some active reflection, use some of this “found time” to start working toward your goals. Even if it’s only 20 minutes a day, it’s all forward motion!
4. Read a real thriller.
As you’re packing for the beach leave the romance novel or who-done-it at home. Instead treat your life like the adventure that it is by picking up a real thriller like Paul and Sarah Edwards’ The Practical Dreamers Handbook or Create a Life That Tickles Your Soul by Suzanne Willis Zoglio. Maybe you already have a new direction in mind. Then take this time to read up on that exciting new career.
5. Invest in your dream.
Save both money and time by spending your vacation at home. Make it a real vacation by doing the kinds of things a tourist on a budget might do – go on a picnic, head to a museum, take a day trip. Stash the money you would have spent on a more costly vacation into a “dream fund.” Use your savings to take career-expanding classes, buy some snappy new interview outfit or even start your own business. If your dream includes relocating, do hit the road by using your vacation as an exciting research expedition.
6. Summer is the ideal time to ease into a new job.
With all the overlapping vacation schedules, many organizations operate in a somewhat more relaxed mode in July and August. As a new hire, that means the trial by fire period is apt to be a little less trying. If you’ve been putting off a job move until the fall, keep in mind the slower pace makes summer a great time to learn the new job ropes before the workplace once again launches into fall overdrive.
Recreating your life is about making choices. What choices are you willing to make to grow your dream? Whatever you decide to do, have a safe, relaxing, and inspired rest of the summer!
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