Meet the Experts

Barbara Sher is a business owner, career counselor, speaker, and the bestselling author of five books, among them I Could Do Anything, If Only I Knew What It Was, How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It, and Live the Life You Love, In Ten Easy Step-by-Step Lessons.

She has appeared on national and local radio and television, including Oprah, The Donahue Show, The Today Show, 60 Minutes, CNN and Good Morning America. Her first book, Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want, has sold well over a million copies.

In 1972, Sher invented Success Teams—small groups in which members work together in weekly meetings to identify their dreams and help each other make them come true. The teams were an instant hit. By 1976, she was running workshops to help people create Success Teams throughout the United States and Europe. Today, Sher's teams are operating in universities, career centers, Fortune 500 companies and in entrepreneur associations in Nepal, Siberia, Israel, Canada, Thailand, Australia, and Bulgaria.

Her latest book, Refuse To Choose deals with people who have so many interests they’re unable to choose only one (she has named them ‘Scanners’). This subject has obviously struck a nerve. “In the last four months since the book and the TV show have been out in the public eye, I’ve received an astonishing number of impassioned letters,” she said. “And all of them say Thank you!” As usual, Barbara’s advice is not what you expect. She finds that Scanners aren’t dilettantes or undisciplined, and they don’t change interests because of A.D.D. or a fear of success. “They seem to be highly intelligent, multi-talented people who need to have more interests than the average person,” she says.

Presently, Barbara Sher consults with clients in her New York office and travels throughout the world running workshops for professional organizations, colleges, corporations, and government agencies.

Barbara Winter, author of the bestselling book, Making a Living Without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating Work That You Love, is also a business owner, itinerant teacher, and self-employment advocate who found her own right livelihood after overcoming her early notions that work was meant to be drudgery.

It all began in 1974 when she founded The Successful Woman, a pioneering training and development company, which conducted programs on self-esteem and entrepreneurship for women. She went on to found several small businesses-all with the intention of passing along to others the lessons she had learned.

A former high school English teacher, Barbara has turned her considerable energies to the teaching of adults. Her popular seminars, including Making a Living Without a Job and Establish Yourself as an Expert, are regularly held throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Barbara also shares her passion for creative entrepreneurship in events in her new hometown of Las Vegas.

In addition, she is the editor/publisher of Winning Ways: the newsletter for people living and working with passion, the longest running small-business newsletter in the United States.

Barbara is the mother of an adult daughter, a devoted Anglophile, an intrepid world traveler and is ferociously committed to lifelong learning. She is particularly enthusiastic about being an inspired grandmother.

Valerie Young is the founder and Dreamer-in-Residence at ChangingCourse.com and an expert on turning interests into income. Following the sudden death of her mother Barbara in 1993, Valerie left her corporate job and 90-mile-a-day commute to pursue her own dream of launching Changing Course.

Valerie's career change tips have been cited in such publications as Inc., Kiplinger’s, The Wall Street Journal, USA Weekend, Reader’s Digest, Redbook, Glamour (UK), Cosmopolitan, Entrepreneur, The Chicago Tribune, The Globe & Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), and online at iVillage, CareerBuilder, and MSN.com

A popular guest speaker Valerie has delivered her How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are program to over 30,000 people from such organizations as Intel, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Chrysler, American Women in Radio and Television, Society of Women Engineers, Harvard and MIT.

She is the author of 10 Steps to Escaping the Job World Personal Planner and contributing editor of the e-books Finding Your True Calling: The Handbook For People Who Still Don't Know What They Want To Be When They Grow Up and Yes You Can: The Inspirational Kick in the Pants You Need to Take Control of Your Life and Go After Your Dreams.