What Do You Need for Your Road Trip to Right Livelihood?

By Valerie Young

Changing course is a journey. Naturally not everyone who embarks on the exciting road to right livelihood leaves at the same time or travels in quite the same way. If you’ve spent your whole life on the traditional 9-to-5 career path you may be just waking up to the fact that an alternative route even exists.

Others are standing at the crossroads still trying to decide whether or how to take, as Robert Frost famously referred to it, the road less traveled. Still others have enthusiastically begun their excursion. Even among the active travelers, not everyone likes to travel at the same pace.

One of the best things about my work is that I get to connect with so many people at so many different stages of changing course. No matter where you’re at, expect to encounter varying degrees of self-doubt, fear, anxiety, and uncertainty along the way. In fact if you’re not scared, then frankly I’m scared for you because fear comes with the changing course territory.

Instead of beating yourself up for having such feelings, or worse, taking them as a sign that you’re not yet ready, normalize your feelings. I’ve been at this changing course game for ten years now and even now when I shake up my quiet little world, it invites fear and self-doubt. The difference is my internal dialogue. Today I tell myself, “Of course you’re afraid. Who wouldn’t be! Like every other human being on the planet you’re ‘hardwired’ for safety.” The important thing is to do as the title of Susan’s Jeffer’s book reminds us and “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.”

Some people are desperate to get out of a bad work situation and so find a way to speed up their journey. Others, like LaTonya from Nebraska, take a very methodical approach. LaTonya is slowly putting various income streams into place one year at a time so that when she does finally take the leap in 2008, all the groundwork will have been done for a seamless and financially stable transition. “My plan,” she says, “is to do various work I like to do ‘on the side’ and still manage the full-time job without overloading myself physically and mentally.” By September 2008 to be exact, LaTonya expects to have four solid income streams that will equal her current net pay.

Okay let’s say fear is not your number one challenge. In fact, maybe like LaTonya, you know what you want to do and you’re actually really excited about all the changes ahead. Good for you! Chances are what you need is information. In the past day alone I came across several very cool bits of information I just know some inspired subscribers can use.

For example, let’s say you have a great product you’d like to sell nationally but just don’t have the budget. Despite what you might think, selling your product on the QVC shopping channel is not out of the question. I did a workshop down at QVC headquarters a few years ago and found out that many of their vendors are small businesses. According to the product reviewer in my class, the show has even featured a woman who sells her own home made biscotti.

This spring QVC is conducting a national product search. Learn all about it at by clicking here.

And here’s a helpful bit of information for all you musicians, song writers, or band members out there. “Indie” musician and former music magazine publisher Bob Baker has just released the latest edition of the Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook: 201 Self-Promotion Ideas for Song Writers, Musicians, and Bands. Whether you're promoting a fast-growing indie label or a one-man or one-woman act from your basement, this book gives you the creative tools you need to get maximize your marketing time and dollars.

Not a musician? I’ve know Bob and his work since 1995 when I first started publishing the Changing Course newsletter. Since then I’ve reprinted dozens of his articles designed to help artists, musicians and other creative types to profit from their work.

Maybe you or someone you know can benefit from one of

Bob’s other books, like Branding Yourself Online: How to Use the Internet to Become a Celebrity or Expert in Your Field or Unleash the Artist Within: Four Weeks to Transforming Your Creative Talents into More Recognition, More Profit and More Fun all of which I enthusiastically endorse.

Finally, if you’re looking to join the ranks of the happily self-employed or you already have a business and want to be more successful, you’ll be happy to hear that “serial entrepreneur” Barbara Drazga is producing a three day event March 4-6, 2005 in Las Vegas, Nevada to train people how to walk away from their 9-to-5 jobs and grow a profitable home based business.

Barbara is calling this event Bunnyslipper Business Bootcamp to capitalize on the fact that when you work from home, every day is casual day. The program is open to men, women, slipper wearers, sneaker wearers… anybody ready to succeed on their own terms. The agenda features sessions on selling on eBay, real estate investing, how to position yourself as an expert, and more.

Already have a business? Take a page out of Barbara’s book and create a holiday around your business or a related theme. Barbara is the sponsor of National Work in Your Bunnyslippers Day coming up this February 18^th. To learn more about how you can actually register your own holiday go to Chases.com

Where you are on the road to right livelihood is not nearly as important as the fact that you’re willing to take the trip. Like any trip there are bound to be bumps along the way. No one articulates the realities – or the incredible joys – of self-employment quite as well as enthusiastic self-bossers Barbara Winters and Nick Williams.

Perhaps that’s why Barbara and Nick chose to feature one my favorite quotes on the cover of their new eBook, “Power Tools for Building the Possible Dream: A Guide or Entrepreneurial Artists of the Soul.” (For your complimentary copy, go to DreamBuildersCommunity.com) The quote is from Paulo Coehlo in The Alchemist and reads:

“Too often we decide to follow a path that is not really our own, one that others have set for us. We forget that whichever way we go, the price is the same: in both cases, we will pass through both difficult and happy moments. But when we are living our dream, the difficulties we encounter make sense.”