Issue 125

September 28, 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

Business Owners Offer “Been There” Advice on What It Takes to Change Course: Part 1

Featured Resource

Making Dreams Happen

Guest Article

Does Your Career Change Itch or Burn?

Upcoming Workshops & Teleclasses

Resources for A Change

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born. ~ Dale E. Turner

Business Owners Offer “Been There” Advice on What It Takes to Change Course: Part 1

By Valerie Young

A highlight for many of 140 people attending last month’s Work at What You Love workshop, was getting to hear from actual small business owners who’ve successfully turned their interests into income. The entrepreneurs at this year’s event were both inspiring and informative and included such diverse occupations as an animal communicator, freelance writer, potter, and wholesale food retailer. In this first part of a two part series you’ll be hearing some of the hard won nuggets of advice to help you start and succeed at your own small business.

Make Space for Success

You know the drill. You’re trying to get a new business up and running while juggling a full-time job. That’s just what Dawn Allen was facing when she was trying to launch her fledging animal communication business. Except in Dawn’s case it was four part-times jobs. So she went to an unusual source for advice – her dad. But then Dawn’s upbringing was unique.

Most families only offer discouragement (“What do you mean you want to quit your job? You’ve got a good job – you want to be happy to!?”). Dawn is one of the lucky few to have been raised by not one, but two entrepreneurs. Dawn knew from a young age that regardless of where her gifts and interests led her, that there would always be customers out there who would be willing to pay her for her services. She also had successful role models to guide her.

Dawn was feeling pretty discouraged about her ability to attract enough clients to her practice full time. Her father asked how many sessions she wanted to do a week. Dawn thought seven sounded good. Knowing how hectic his daughter’s life was, her father asked her when she planned do these seven appointments. The way Dawn saw it, when clients call, she’ll schedule them in. “No,” her father said, “You need to get out your appointment book, block the time, and they’ll fill.” Dawn followed her dad’s advice and much to her amazement, she says, “I did, and they did!”

Partly the message here is “if you build it they will come.” But it’s also about creating space in your life for success. In an interview with Charlie Rose, actor Helen Hunt talked about how tempting it is when you're just starting out to grab whatever comes your way. Yet, around this same “pre-star” time in her career, Hunt says she began turning down been-there-done-that film roles in “hopes that something better might come along.” The idea, says Hunt, was to “kind of create a vacuum to make room for what hopefully, fate has in store.”

Sometimes you need to tempt fate – or at least give it a little space. Make room for new and better opportunities by saying no to commitments that don’t support your goals. Then have faith in your dream.

Dawn says you can call it manifesting or being prepared. Either way it worked. You may not be a believer, but Dawn’s 1500 clients are. Dawn averages 40 clients a week, many of them horse owners. Today, her business is so successful that she’s booked through the end of the year.

Make Time for Your Dreams

You’d love to be a writer or an event planner or motivational speaker or learn how to invest in real estate… but where will you find the time? If you work a full time job on top of family and other commitments, it only makes sense that you’d feel constantly caught between a clock and a hard place. Karen Orfitelli sure did.

Karen had one daughter in high school, another one in college, worked full-time as a middle school teacher, and was in graduate school. Karen always wanted to be a writer, but her life left little time for writing. It looked like her dream was not to be.

The laundry room is an unlikely place for inspiration to hit. Yet that’s where Karen, knee deep in towels, felt an urgent need to act on her dream of becoming a writer. So she made a commitment to herself to write five hours a week. So for the next six years she rose at 4:30 a.m. to write for an hour.

It’s amazing what can happen if you only carve out the time. Take Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams. When Adams was still toiling away in his corporate cubicle at Pacific Bell he spend nights and weekends working on his cartoons. He too rose early to work on his cartoons from 5:00 and 7:00 a.m. before heading off to work. Once he had 50 sample strips in hand, he mailed them off to different syndicates. A few weeks later United Feature Syndicate called and offered him a contract. Today Adams’ management lampooning cartoon appears in 2,000 newspapers in 65 countries.

Like Adams, Karen’s investment paid off. Since that day in the laundry room she’s seen more than 300 of her articles published and worked for a time as an editor for McGraw-Hill Publishers. But being willing to put in the time was not Karen’s only success strategy.

Develop the Art of “Wing Walking”

Few people can afford to change course over night and Karen is no exception. Nor did she take the leap all at once. In fact, two additional dos and don’t Karen offers people wanting to live the freelancing life are “don’t burn your bridges and develop the art of wing walking.”

Don’t burn your bridges should be a no-brainer. Yet in their glee to quit their job, too many people try to go out in a flame of glory – no notice, or worse, they take the opportunity to tell their boss exactly what they can do with their stinking job. There are times when that kind of thing does no real harm. But logic would say that you never know who you’ll run into down the road and sometimes your former employer can become your biggest client. I know mine did. There may be former co-workers you’ll want to call on from time to time for specialized advice or simply for networking purposes. For the first two years of this newsletter a former colleague proof read my newsletter for free!

So what does it mean to develop the art of “wing walking”? If you’ve ever been to an air show, you may have seen a high flying act where a woman in goggles and overalls climbs outside the plane and somehow manages to walk around the outside the plane while the pilot puts the plane through loop-the-loops and snap rolls. The trick that keeps her from falling is that she never lets go with one hand until she’s got a firm grip on something else.

Karen always had plan B lined up before letting go of the safety and security of plan A. For six years she kept her day job while she built her freelance career on the side. As her writing career starting demanding more and more of her time, Karen asked the administrators at her school if she could cut back to part time. Once her freelance work really took off, she let go of the teaching wing entirely.

Not being, in her words, “a risk taker,” Karen got a job working 16 hours a week editing a magazine for a political science professor at the University of Connecticut. Underscoring the need to sometimes “fake it ’til you make it,” Karen confesses that at the time that she didn’t even know what political science was. Around that same time she took an editing job with McGraw hill. The work was satisfying and she got to work from home, yet something was missing. “Sometimes in the process of achieving a dream,” Karen says, “you find the dream changes.” Karen missed teaching and working with children.

So before giving up her editing job, she lined up a position as a senior instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature where she provides one-to-one editorial feedback and guidance to adult students enrolled in the Institute’s Writing for Children and Teenagers course (to read a full review of this course visit ChangingCourse.com/children.htm ). “I love working with the students,” she says, “because 99% of them are where I used to be. They wonder if they have the talent and they don’t know where to begin.” Having developed the twin arts of writing and wing walking one's way to a new career, fortunately Karen knows exactly how to help.

What About You?

What’s one thing you can do today to make space in your life for success? How can you eke out time for your dream? Can you give up one television show a week? Get up a little earlier and put in an hour on the weekend? Use your commuting or lunch time? What steps can you take today to either create or find that second, more satisfying wing to grab onto? How can you build in the support, get the training, or develop the expertise you need so when you’re ready, you too can let go of the wing you’re on to joyfully pursue the new one full time?

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/

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. ~ John Quincy Adams

Featured Resource

Tap Your Wildest Dreams... Find Your True Calling...
and Take a Giant Leap Toward a Whole New Life...

Six months from now, you could be doing work you really love... and enjoying the freedom, flexibility, and quality of life you deserve. Find out from experts Barbara Sher, Barbara Winter, and Valerie Young exactly how you can make it happen… starting today.

With the life-changing program, Making Dreams Happen, you don't need to have a well-defined goal. In fact, you don't even need to know exactly what your dream is. We'll teach you...  

• A sure-fire way to banish the "I wish I could, but..." from your vocabulary and replace it with surprisingly productive ideas you probably didn't know you had in you...   

• The creative secret behind making a living without a job… and why there's never been a better time to be your own boss.

• A shockingly easy, amazingly productive technique to generate fascinating business ideas… and open up an incredible range of positive possibilities for living the life you've always dreamed of…

Click here to learn more about making your dreams happen with this special $25 savings link: ChangingCourse.com/cmd.php?ad=168509

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Changing Course Newsletter
Copyright 2005
Lisa Tarrant, Editor
Valerie Young, Publisher
info@changingcourse.com
www.ChangingCourse.com
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Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. ~ Les Brown

Guest Article

Does Your Career Change Itch or Burn?

 By Patricia Soldati

Two weeks ago, I received a newsy email from a former client.  Dan gave me the scoop on his life and new love, and ended by saying that while work had improved, he was feeling the itch again to go after career change.  He would soon give me a call for some personal coaching sessions.

I replied nicely to all his news, and on the itch, I said:  “Call me when it’s a burn.”

Why this tough love response?

I meet scores of professionals who are unhappy with their work.  In almost seven years, I’ve never seen an individual make a significant shift unless there is a burning desire to change.  You must have a clear articulation of the personal gain you see for yourself at the end of the career-change rainbow – and this personal gain must be greater than the pain of staying in place.  I didn’t want Dan to waste his time, energy, or for that matter, money.

So, how do you know if you’re feeling an itch or a burn?

Itches are usually situational.  A confrontation with a fellow worker…a poor performance review…a disagreement with your boss…environmental stress.  Itches create lots of smoke, like “I can’t wait to get out of here.” or “This is it.  I’m leaving.”  But no focused action towards change. 

And these “reaction” moments are often followed by patches where work is really
okay – an interesting project in the works, shared good feelings.  In other words,
the motivation to change is externally driven.  It waxes and wanes based on what is happening in one’s environment.  All of us have career itches at one time or another.

Burns go much deeper.  They are itches that don’t go away…they’ve been around for a long time (a year or more)…and they have wrenched your value system to the point that:

1. You can no longer compartmentalize work vs. life.

2. You find it almost impossible (maybe even terrifying) to drag yourself out of bed on Monday mornings. 

3. You go through the motions at work – your feelings are completely disconnected from your work activities.   

4. Your energy hits the skids; you get sick a lot or have difficulty shaking a common cold.

5. You may feel hopeless or a little (or a lot) depressed.

It’s a significant difference, don’t you agree?

Itchers have a quite a few avenues for regaining their balance  – setting firmer workplace boundaries, finding a fulfilling outlet outside of work, engaging in physical and emotional self-care that allows you to better shrug things off.

Burners – you can do these things, too, but it’s probably not your ultimate fix.  A value system torn asunder is only mended when there is a re-alignment between body, mind and spirit.  For burners, career change is not an option – it’s a requirement.

Take some time off to re-gain your energy and perspective.  In this more relaxed state, figure out how to get some help.  Your Employee Assistance Plan?  Mentor or understanding colleague?  Initially, don’t try to solve the entire problem – just map out a few next steps and give yourself a timetable.  Your world will brighten simply as a result of putting yourself in choice and action. 

About the Author

Patricia Soldati is a former President & COO of a national finance organization who re-invented her working life in 1999.  As a career fulfillment specialist, she helps corporate professionals enhance their working lives – both by staying within the organization – and by leaving it behind.  To receive her 5-lesson complimentary eCourse on career change, visit PurposefulWork.com/articlelandpage.html

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye. ~ Winston Churchill

Upcoming Workshops & Teleclasses

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

Are You An “Impostor”? Take the Quiz

Creating an Inspired Business with Barbara Winter & Nick Williams

Whether it’s a one-person operation or a huge corporation, extraordinary businesses don’t just happen. They’re consciously created by people who understand that a satisfying business is one that honors ideas, information and inspiration. An inspired business enriches the lives of everyone who works in it and everyone who does business with it.

Although most businesses are born in a state of inspiration, the tricky part (the part they don’t teach you in business school) is to keep that enthusiasm and spirit going day in and day out, whether business is booming and whether it’s not.

Achieving such a business is what the Creating an Inspired Business seminar is all about.

Monday, November 28 - Thursday, December 1, 2005
Las Vegas, NV
Learn More at BarbaraWinter.com

View From the
Other Side

Truly successful entrepreneurs aren’t threatened by others who want to make it in their business. To the contrary, they reach out to help them get there. Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams generously shares his personal secrets for success for anyone who wants to become a syndicated cartoonist. You can find recommended books and web sites, success rules, even the specific pens, paper and software Adams uses to create his cartoons at Dilbert.com/comics/ 

Resources for a Change

Looking for a Success Team?

If you're looking to join a success team in the New York City area, send an email to Terry Marr. If you're in other parts of the country, post on the Making Dreams Happen forum at the Changing Course Get & Give Support boards at ChangingCourse.com/forums.htm

Looking for Inspiration?

This heart-felt commencement address from Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios at Standford University. It is a wonderfully written piece. Read it at Stanford.edu

Looking to Purchase a Franchise?

CNN Money lists franchises aimed at growing markets. It's a great list for Opportunity Analysts! You can learn more about them at Money.CNN.com