By Valerie Young

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 [...] Continue Reading…

Early on in his career, college football coaching legend Lou Holtz made a list of 107 things he wanted to accomplish in his life. Among them were to go white water rafting, see the pyramids, meet the Pope, have dinner at the White House with a sitting president and be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. It took Holtz and his wife over 25 years but together they’ve accomplished 102 of those original goals.

My own dream list includes attending a national political convention (okay I’m weird), witnessing the opening ceremony at the Olympics, studying with a master antique book restorer, learning to water paint, taking a year-long sabbatical, and routinely taking the months of July and August off.

But the big dream that had been on the front burner for well over three years was finding a house with a view. I work at home. So where I live is really important to me. I have this thing about wanting to live in the country. Not in the woods though. I need space. Rolling hills, fields, maybe some cows in the background (I love cows!). Think pastoral, bucolic, peaceful, private.

As this dream evolved, I learned and re-learned some important [...] Continue Reading…

As you can see Cokie has a new friend. Her name is Early and she lives at one of the places Cokie stays when I’m on the road. Being a kitten she’s much more interested in him than the other way around. I’m just glad they get along!

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, [...] Continue Reading…

One of the very first things I did on day one of the Making Dreams Happen workshop was take a survey of the group. As I suspected, participants fell into four categories:

Completely clued into their dream
Got a few different ideas in mind
Got a faint glimmer or two
Completely clueless

I knew that between Barbara Sher, Barbara Winter, and I, we could definitely help the first three groups. To my clueless friends, I had to deliver the perhaps unwelcome news that over the next four days they may NOT discover the work they were meant to do. Not that myself and the other speakers weren’t ready, willing, and able to do everything they could to help. The reason they may not find their dream is that their dream may not yet be ready to be found.

That’s because, finding your calling is a lot like finding your soul mate. For those lucky enough to be with your life partner, you know that you came together when the right circumstances presented themselves. If you had met a year earlier, you or s/he, may, in one way or another, have been unavailable. When you finally came together it was because you were both [...] Continue Reading…

Join Dr. Valerie Young for the First Ever
5-Weeks to Confidence Project

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 [...] Continue Reading…

While traveling in northern California a few years ago, I happened to tune into a local newscast. The newscaster was telling his co-anchor that the speaker at that morning’s Rotary Club meeting had to cut his presentation short because he was being flown down to Disneyland to carve elaborate Halloween pumpkins for the park festivities. The newscaster wrapped up the story with the familiar quip, “Nice work if you can get it.” He got the first part right. For a creative kid-at-heart, being a professional pumpkin carver is a dream come true. It was his serendipitous “if you can get it” thinking that missed the mark. The fact is, people rarely “get” great work; they create it!

Despite all the emphasis on growth in the “job sector,” I am continually amazed at just how many fascinating alternatives there are to the whole 9-to-5 schtick. And just as traditional job seekers can’t wait around for “Mr. Job” to knock on the door, people who want to do satisfying work – and call their own shots – need to be proactive as well. Francis Bacon defined a wise man as one who “makes more opportunities than he finds.” Here are a couple [...] Continue Reading…

It’s September and that means my annual jaunt through the New England state fair known as The Big E. As with most such fairs, there’s a heavy emphasis on agriculture – a refreshing reminder that there are worlds that have nothing what-so-ever to do with technology.

I love seeing people showing off their horses or cows or sheep. Where others are competing for customers, they’re competing for coveted ribbons – proof of a job well done.

Besides the wonderfully bad fair food, as always the highlight of the day for me is the entrepreneurs selling everything from Vermont flannel to handmade dog leashes to emu lotion.

Being a vendor is tough gig. We’re talking 17 days straight days working 12-14 hours a day, and that doesn’t count set up and tear down time. The fact that so many return year-after-year to do it tells you it’s time well spent.

Take Kathie Rosenschein’s of Kathie’s SuperSeedz (yum!). Over the years I’ve watched this mother of five go from selling at the fair to selling on QVC. The big news this year is she got her product into Whole Foods and Stop & Shop. She also rebranded to incorporate her image on the [...] Continue Reading…

The big news here, as much of the rest of the U.S., has been the weather. I was on vacation when Hurricane Irene hit. Fortunately the brook in front of my house was high but in no danger of flooding. The cloth placemats on my porch didn’t even blow off the table.

Not everyone of course was so lucky. Nearby Vermont was hardest hit with washed out roads causing dozens of communities to be completely cut off. A breached dam in Vermont also caused massive flooding in two areas I’d visited not two weeks before with a group of workshop participants.

The historic Deerfield Inn where the group had dinner is closed indefinitely after the entire first floor was submerged in water. West in Shelburne Falls flood waters washed over the Bridge of Flowers. The raging river picked up the building housing one woman’s quilting business and deposited it downstream. A vintage bookstore lost most of its inventory and several restaurants got hit hard. A few had flood insurance. Most did not.

Click to View

The Bridge of Flowers
before the storm

The flooding in the northeast, tornadoes in the mid-west, and the unrelenting heat and drought in Texas have hit small [...] Continue Reading…

For as long as she can remember “Cathy” has loved being of service to older people, so much so that on Saturdays she offers low-income seniors free haircuts.

Cathy’s is a one-person mission. As it turns out there’s a larger coordinated effort happening around the country which links the Cathy’s of the world with seniors who wish to remain in their homes.

The so-called village movement began ten years ago in Boston’s upscale Beacon Hill neighborhood. Knowing that it’s often the little things – like not being able to climb a step-ladder to change a light bulb or shovel snow – that force older people to give up their homes and move into a retirement or assisted living community, a group of residents set out to find a solution.

Today the Beacon Hill Village – and 56 other Villages across the U.S. and one in Australia – serves as a liaison between volunteers and older people needing assistance. Volunteers can be younger neighbors, other able-bodied seniors, or college or other youth service groups.

In return for an average of $600 in annual dues, members can get help with things like bookkeeping, yard work, and shopping, and have access to a list of vetted [...] Continue Reading…

Dreamers beware: for every dream there are 10 naysayers just waiting to dash it. It almost happened to Beverly Goodman Park. Park was close to 60 when her marriage ended. At an age when most people are contemplating retirement, Park decided to pursue a long-held dream of becoming an attorney. A lot of people told her she was too old. Undaunted, Park went to law school while working full-time, passed the bar exam, and at 61, landed a job at a law firm. Of her critics she says, “I thought this age stuff was baloney.”

Walter Anderson, author of The Greatest Risk of All, says by the time we are in our 20s, we will have heard 25,000 “can’ts.” Don’t expect a lot of support for your “foolish dreams.” Instead, be prepared to reach deep within to turn “can’t” into “can.” Here are two motivation-boosting tips to get you started:
Become the Future “You”
Dreams, by their very nature, are about the future. With so many present-day demands your dream can start to feel distant. The more far-off the goal, the less likely it is you will act on it.

How can you make sure your dream doesn’t fall prey to [...] Continue Reading…