Issue 114

April 15, 2005

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Changing Course is dedicated to helping you:

~Live Life on Purpose
~Work at What You Love
~Follow Your Own Road

Inside Today's Issue

Featured Article

Want to Work for Yourself?
Those Dream Jobs Don't Just Happen, They're Created

Featured Resource

How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are

Guest Article

Filling Up Your Life

Resources for a Change

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
~ Reggie Leach

Want to Work for Yourself:
Those Dream Jobs Don't Just Happen, They're Created

By Valerie Young

While traveling in northern California last October, 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's a couple of other wise entrepreneurs who made it by going for it.

Sports-lover Don Shoenewald was just 18 when he went to the Philadelphia Eagles management wearing a homemade Eagle costume and asking for a mascot job. They weren't interested. Undaunted, Shoenewald kept showing up at Eagles football games. Pretty soon the fans adopted him as the unofficial (meaning, "unpaid") mascot. Thirteen paid team mascot jobs, four mascot character creations (including ones for the New Jersey Devils and the San Jose Sharks), and 18 years later, Shoenewald started Mascot Mania, the only professional training school for mascots in the world.

Despite what your high school guidance counselor might have told you, showing up invited in a bird costume isn't the only route to self-employment. For Dan Zawacki it all began when he was working as a sales rep for Honeywell and decided to give away 120 live lobsters as gifts to his customers. Dan was so bowled over by the response that he decided to open a small side business shipping live lobsters complete with pot, crackers, butter and bibs to crustacean-lovers from coast-to-coast. That is until his boss heard him pitching Lobster Gram, Inc. on a local radio station and promptly fired him.

In the beginning, Dan worked out of his bedroom, storing his lobsters in a used tank in his father's garage. His first year he netted only $4,000. Ten years later, his company sells about 9,000 lobster packages a year for $99 plus shipping. All and all, not a bad tale.

If you dream of making the transition from employee to self-bosser, the first thing you need to do is belief that you can. Then, the next time you see some entrepreneur doing what they love, try thinking: "Nice work – now, all I have to do is get it!

About the Author

Off the beaten path career counselor, Valerie Young, abandoned her corporate cubicle to become the Dreamer in Residence at ChangingCourse.com, offering free resources to help you discover your life mission and live it. An expert on the Imposter Syndrome, she's presented her How to Feel as Bright and Capable as Everyone Seems to Think You Are program to over 30,000 people.

Find more articles written by Valerie at ChangingCourse.com/articles/

When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word "succeed," you find that it simply means to follow through. ~ F. W. Nichol

Featured Resource 

How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are

What Every Woman (and Man) Needs to Know About Competence, the Impostor Syndrome, and the Art of Winging It  

Have you ever done a bang up job and while everyone is patting you on the back you hear yourself saying – “Phew, I was lucky this time,” or “Actually it wasn’t as good as it could have been.” 

If you’ve ever felt that your success is a fluke… if at any moment you’ll be uncovered for a fraud, join the club. Valerie Young is one of millions who has experienced these feelings. Is it insecurity? Lack of confidence? No. It’s called the Impostor Syndrome…  

And at workshops across the country Valerie has helped more than 20,000 people overcome the anxiety to embrace all of their accomplishments and truly enjoy them. Now, for the first time ever she’s distilled her life-changing workshop down into a program that can help everyone who’s ever doubted their competence…

You’ll discover how to own your successes and build on them… erase the stress of taking risks… stop beating yourself up over every little mistake … and finally see yourself as the bright, capable person you really are!  

We have not 1 but 3 great resources for you:

1. A Handbook filled with exercises and information to help you identify and rewrite your internal script
2. A live CD Audio presentation from one of Valerie’s speaking engagements
3. A Teleclass that will give you the opportunity to start identifying your own “rule book”

Learn more at ChangingCourse.com/impostor.htm

Challenges make you discover things about yourself, you never really knew. They're what makes the instrument stretch; what make you go beyond the norm. ~ Cicely Tyson

The Changing Course Newsletter
Copyright 2004
Lisa Tarrant, Editor
Valerie Young, Publisher
info@changingcourse.com
www.ChangingCourse.com
7 Ripley Road
Montague, MA 01351

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There is nothing that you can have when you are old that can replace being young and having nothing. ~ Mary Wallace Smith

Guest Article

Filling Up Your Life

By Steve Goodier

We can live a long time without thinking about such things as "meaning" and "purpose" in life. But happy and healthy living requires that we visit these words from time to time

I have heard that Ralph Barton, a cartoon­ist of a former generation, left this note pinned to his pillow before taking his life: "I have had few diffi­culties, many friends, great successes; I have gone from wife to wife, and from house to house, visited great countries of the world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up twenty-four hours of the day."

Whatever psychological problems may have afflicted him, Ralph Barton suffered from an empty life. He tried to fill it up – with relationships and things and busyness. He was no doubt successful in his work. And probably well liked. His problem was that he felt his life had no meaning.

Educator Morrie Schwartz helps us put meaning into our lives. In Mitch Albom's audio book “Tuesdays With Morrie” (Grand Haven, MI: Nova Audio Books, Brilliance, 1997), he chronicles the final months of Morrie's life, as his former teacher slowly dies of Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS).

Morrie, that irrepressible lover of life, says this: "So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half asleep even when they are busy doing things they think are important. This is the product of chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."

Do you want to be happy? Do you want a life that matters? Then fill it up with loving and caring for those around you! I guarantee, it will never seem empty again!

About the Author

Steve Goodier Publisher@LifeSupportSystem.com is a professional speaker, consultant and author of numerous books. Visit his site for more information, or to sign up for his FREE newsletter of Life, Love and Laughter at LifeSupportSystem.com.

Submitting Your Article

Changing Course welcomes your articles on such topics as career/life change, following a dream, work/life balance, or running a successful business. Learn about submitting an article at ChangingCourse.com/yourarticle.htm

Upcoming Workshops & Teleclasses

You’ll find more information on all of these workshops and teleclasses at ChangingCourse.com

~Make Money Doing What You Love with Valerie Young,
April 25 & May 2

~How to Feel As Bright And Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are with Valerie Young, April 26

~Voice Over Bootcamp with Susan Berkley,
April 22 –  April 24

~Camp Jumpstart with Barbara Winter,
May 13 – May 15

~Miracle-Grow Your Business with Barbara Winter and Nick Williams, June 6 – June 9

Resources for a Change

Take Charge of Your Time and Life and Enjoy Success Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings As a Virtual Assistant

How many times have you said, “I wish I had a more flexible work day and more control over my time… and life.” If you want to flexibility over your work schedule, have great organizational skills, like managing projects of all sizes, genuinely enjoy helping others, then allow me to introduce you to the fascinating world of virtual assistance.

Virtual assistants (VAs) are essentially personal assistants but with two important differences. For one, VAs have made the hugely life and status changing shift from “working for a boss” to serving their own clients. The relationship is more one of partners than boss- employee.

Learn more at AssistU.com and be sure to tell them you heard about them from ChangingCourse.com

The Back Door Guide to Short-Term Job Adventures: Internships, Extraordinary Experiences, Seasonal Jobs, Volunteering,
Work Abroad

As summer approaches, now is a great time to start thinking of an unusual way to spend your summer vacation and grow your dream. This book by Michael Landes offers more than 15 years experience investigating short-term job adventures and is loaded with off-the-beaten-path work-and-learn adventures. Every entry includes a URL, detailed information and steps needed to get involved.

Full Service Graphic Design and Printing

If you're in need of some professional looking business cards for your new business, or simply want to create a personal card with style, VistaPrint.com offers a variety of professional looking business cards, brochures, magnets and more at a very reasonable price.