live
life on purpose
work at what you love
follow your own road
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Issue 135 |
February 22, 2006 | |
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About Your Subscription
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Changing Course
is dedicated to helping you:
~Live Life on Purpose
~Work at What You Love
~Follow Your Own Road
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Inside Today's Issue
Featured Article
Creative Income Streams for
People Who Love to Cook
Featured Resource
Funding Your Business via Circle Lending
Guest Article
A Call to Action
Upcoming Workshops & Teleclasses
Work at What You Love 2006
Workshop Schedule
The View From the Other Side
Resources for A Change
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When you
have a dream you've got to grab it and never let go.
~ Carol Burnett |
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Opportunity Knocks:
Creative Income Streams for People Who Love to Cook
By Valerie Young
To an "opportunity analyst" like me, words like,
"All the good ideas are already taken," or "I had a great idea but then I found
out someone else was doing it" are the career equivalent of nails on a
chalkboard. With a U.S. population estimated at close to 300 million and a
world’s population of six and a half billion – it’s a big world out there folks
with plenty of untapped ideas and opportunities to go around.
To say all the good ideas are taken is like
saying, "I was going to write a cookbook but then I went to the bookstore and
found someone had beaten me to it." Have you looked in the cookbook section of a
large bookstore these days?
A lot of cookbooks can be
based on the style of cooking – Italian, Thai, French, vegetarian, and so on.
Some are specific to the type of cookware used, like for example, crock pots,
woks, or grills. Still other cookbooks feature recipes centering on one
particular food garlic or goat cheese.
Regional cookbooks are nothing new. But what if
the location is not north, south, east or west but "up"? While most cookbooks
note recipe variations based on altitude, baking teacher and cookbook author
Susan G. Purdy decided to reach for the sky. Her book Pie in the Sky:
Successful Baking at High Altitudes includes 100 recipes for cakes, pies,
breads, cookies, and pastries.
Working with physicists and doing her own testing
from sea-level to the mountains of Colorado and everywhere in between, Susan found
that a lot of conventional wisdom about high altitude baking didn’t pan out.
Because her cookbook takes into account a range of altitudes, it’s perfect for RVers or and others who travel to different altitudes.
The idea of location cookbooks got me thinking.
There are a number of cookbooks out there on microwaves and on cooking with 3, 4,
or 5 ingredients. But what about a cookbook that combines the two aimed at the
business traveler staying at extended–stay hotels?
Find out which hotel has
the most locations and partner with them to sell the cookbook to guests and
to stock their mini-kitchens with the ingredients in your recipes.
To get you started, Better Homes and Gardens
website offers free software to create your own cookbook
http://ww5.bhg.com/bhg/mycookbook/index.jhtml?ordersrc=gmycookbook.
Another cooking-related opportunity was inspired
by a recent USA Today (February 10th, 2006) article featuring over a dozen
restaurants, hotels, inns and resorts offering cooking classes and opportunities
to play chef for a day. For example, apparently while I was sitting in the
dining room at the Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North on a recent
speaking trip, other guests were paying for the chance to be in the kitchen
helping chefs fill orders and to make dinner for guests at their own table. The
cost, which includes the chef joining your party for dessert is $500.
Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West
Virginia holds several popular cooking classes including Barbecue University
taught by barbecue cookbook author, Steve Raichlen. Rates start at $3,000 per
person with a discounted rate for couples and includes three nights lodging and
some meals. Clearly the cost is not a deterrent since most of this summer’s
classes are already sold out. More reasonably priced are the $320 weekend
"culinary escapes" at Wheatleigh, a luxury hotel in Lenox, Massachusetts. The
price includes all classes and some meals. Lodging is extra.
So where’s the opportunity? Right now, it appears
each location is marketing their offerings on their own.
That presents an opportunity
for someone to create a portal website where cooking fans can find these kinds
of courses around the country. Charge each establishment a monthly or annual fee
to be listed. The price could be based on a percentage of the course fee. Or, if
you’re going to register people directly at your site, you could receive a
percentage of each registration.
If your writing
skills aren’t up to snuff, hire a ghost writer. Or take a self-study course like
the American Writers and Artist Institute’s Passport to Romance. You can learn
more about this and other helpful resources for travel lovers in the
Cool Jobs section at Changing Course (ChangingCourse.com/cooljobs.htm)
There is no end to ways to turn an interest into
income. All you need is an open mind, a little creative thinking, and the
willingness to act. As with any idea, start small… but by all means, start.
About the Author
Outside the job box expert, Valerie Young,
abandoned her corporate cubicle to become the Dreamer in Residence at
ChangingCourse.com offering resources to help you discover
your life mission and live it. Her career change tips have been cited in
Kiplinger’s, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today Weekend, Woman’s Day, and
elsewhere and on-line at MSN, CareerBuilder, and iVillage.com. An expert on the
Impostor Syndrome, Valerie has spoken on the topic of
How to Feel as Bright and Capable as Everyone Seems to Think You Are
to such diverse organizations as Daimler Chrysler, Bristol-Meyers Squibb,
Harvard, and American Women in Radio and Television.
Find more articles written by
Valerie at
ChangingCourse.com/articles/ |
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The moment you let
avoiding failure become your motivator, you’re down the path of inactivity.
~ Roberto Goizueta |
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Featured Resource
Funding Your
Business: A Better Way to Borrow Money from Friends and Family
Financing for most small or
growth-stage businesses, says the Small Business Administration, comes from
friends, relatives, employees, customers or industry colleagues. Yet according
to Asheesh Advani, Entrepreneur magazine columnist and founder of
Circle Lending,
a company that manages financial transactions between private parties, the
process of managing interpersonal loans is fraught with emotional hazards,
administrative hassles, and financial risks. For example, the average default
rate on interpersonal loans is 14% compared to a 1% loss rate for bank loans.
One of the main reasons the
default rate is so high for interpersonal loans is because repayment is
typically organized in a haphazard manner often involving a lump-sum payment at
the end of the loan term. Borrowers are frequently unable to make lump-sum
payments and need the discipline of monthly payment plans to ensure that debts
are repaid.
When interpersonal loans
are managed with repayment plans though, the default rate drops
substantially. The mere act of making regular payments instills discipline
and good credit habits. That’s where Circle Lending comes in.
America Online calls
Circle Lending “A good source for both borrowers and lenders... which serves
as an intermediary between friends or family members.” If you’re planning on
borrowing from a non-professional lending source such as family or friends,
Circle Lending may be worth a look. Learn more at
TinyURL.com/hzj82
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The only limits to the possibilities in your
life tomorrow are the buts you use today.
~ Les Brown |
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We must be willing to let
go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
~ E. M. Forster |
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Guest Article
A
Call to Action
By Jim
Clemmer
"A parrot talks much but flies little." — Wilbur Wright, American aviation
pioneer
On the one hand, some people who fail to grow the distance do but don't think.
They are like the hyperactive entrepreneur who burst into a travel agent's
office and urgently demanded a ticket. "Where do you want to go?" the agent
asked him. "I don't care," he breathlessly retorted. "Just give me a ticket!
I've got business everywhere!"
On the other hand, many unsuccessful people think but don't do. These people
know all the theories. They can quote chapter, verse, phrase, and story from
leadership and personal effectiveness books, magazines, and speakers. They are
walking professors. But their experiences are all conceptual. They know, but
don't act on their knowledge. They are like an "expert" in love and marriage who
has never had a date. What Seeds are We Planting?
A
farmer prayed fervently every night during harvest season for a fine crop. He
pleaded for crops as fine as his neighbors. After one night of particularly
strong lamenting and pleading, the Lord finally replied; "Ben," He exclaimed,
"How can I give you a harvest? You didn't plant any seeds last spring."
Now is the time to prepare for our next harvest. We can't wait until harvest
time to plant the seeds. We can't strike a bargain to plant seeds once we see
whether the harvest is worth the effort. Harvest time will arrive whether we're
ready or not. Now is the time to plant the seeds for the coming harvests.
Now is the time for action. Now is the time to move from where we are to where
we want to be. Now is the time to grow toward our distant dreams. That takes
courage and discipline. It's far easier to be a victim and use excuses like
we're too old, it's too late, we've missed our big chances in life, or today's
opportunities aren't as good as they used to be.
Such "Victimitis" leads straight to Pity City. If we're not careful, we'll grow
ever more bitter and resistant to change as we regret what might have been. If
we've going to live to the fullest, we need to be thoroughly used up before we
leave this earth. Countless people through the ages who awoke late in life have
shown that it's never too late. There's still time. If not now, when?
Kerry was in her forties and slowly working her way toward a degree on a
part-time basis. Many of her friends and family tried to discourage her from
"wasting her time." "You will be fifty by the time you finally get your degree,"
they told her. Kerry responded, "I wish I would have completed my degree years
ago. But since I am going to be fifty anyway, I want to have a degree when I get
there."
Perseverance, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"We must not hope to be mowers,
And to gather the ripe gold ears,
Unless we have first been sowers,
And watered the furrows with tears.
It is not just as we take it,
This mystical world of ours,
Life's field will yield as we make it,
A harvest of thorns or of flowers."
About the Author
Excerpted from Jim's fourth bestseller, Growing
the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success. View
the book's unique format and content, Introduction and Chapter One, and feedback
showing why nearly 100,000 copies are now in print at
GrowingTheDistance.com. Jim's new companion book to Growing the
Distance is The Leader's Digest: Timeless Principles for Team and Organization
Success. Jim Clemmer is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker,
workshop/retreat leader, and management team developer on leadership, change,
customer focus, culture, teams, and personal growth. His web site is
Clemmer.net/articles. |
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You can’t use up
creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
~ Maya Angelou |
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Upcoming Workshops & Teleclasses
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Find out how you can escape the J-O-B box…
and uncover a whole new world of possibilities.
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Tap your wildest dreams...and create a
step-by-step plan to make them happen right now...
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Discover the powerful secret to becoming a
successful "Opportunity Analyst"...and learn to transform your passion
into your job...
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Come away with the tools you need to
create work – and a life – you really love.
Join “Outside the Job Box” expert Valerie Young
and Barbara Winter, best-selling author of Making a Living Without a Job for
what promises to be an extraordinary two days – filled with energy, enthusiasm,
wisdom...and practical, life-changing know-how.
June 2-3, 2006 Ventura, California
August 11-12, 2006 Northampton, Massachusetts
September 15-16, 2006 Madison, Wisconsin
To be on the early bird mailing list to receive
workshop details the minute they’re available, email us at
workshop2006@ChangingCourse.com.
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View From the Other Side
"You've got to
get a kick out of whatever you're doing. I'd rather see you as a happy UPS
driver enjoying your customers than a miserable senior accountant at a Fortune
500 company making $70,000 a year. You only get one trip around so you've got to
enjoy what you do and who you do it with."
~Tom Peters
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Resources for
A Change
I usually stay off the traditional job path but
was intrigued to learn about the huge demand for auto mechanics – or as they are
known today, auto technicians. Apparently the career is no longer the relatively
low paying grease monkey job it once was. Today auto repair is a very high-tech
job paying $30,000 to $60,000 in metro areas with master technicians making up
to $70,000.
Automotive Retailing Today projects 37,329 job
openings this year and the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates a need for
35,000 new technicians every year through 2010. For a school near you go to
DirectoryofSchools.com/auto-mechanic-school.htm
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