live
life on purpose
work at what you love
follow your own road
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Recreation and Creation
Recreation means to
"re-create." And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing the last two weeks of
August while lounging on the banks of a peaceful lake in New Hampshire.
Lisa, on the other hand, will be spending summer’s end a little differently
but far more importantly. Mid-August, Lisa will be experiencing the final
push as it were in the creation of her first child – a baby girl. I know you
all join me in wishing soon to be new parents Lisa and Mark well.
So have a
great rest of the summer and (or for my friends south of the equator,
winter) and look for the next issue of Changing Course in early September!
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Opportunity Knocks
Are Successful People Really
Luckier?
You Bet They Are
By Valerie Young
When Stephen Fofanoff
and Chris Warnock needed a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) willing to work on an
equity basis to help them take their fledging design consulting business, A
Designer’s Eye (ADesignersEye.com), to
the next level, they came up with a novel approach – they advertised on Craig’s
List (CraigsList.com). Nearly three dozen
people responded. The applicant they decided to go with is a former CFO for a
major corporation who left to start his own highly successful software business.
With his own company in maintenance mode, the guy was just looking for a
challenge.
This guy didn’t need the
money. But what would compel all of the other applicants to line up to work for
free? Because by helping Chris and Stephen locate investors and otherwise handle
the financial aspects of rolling out a national franchise, these enterprising
CFOs hope to ultimately be rewarded with a future share of company profits. In
other words, instead of investing money they’re investing their time.
I first heard this story
at the Work at What You Love workshop in Ventura where Stephen spoke as part of
our Inspired Entrepreneurs panel. Seeking people to help you grow your business
on an equity basis is interesting in and of itself. But I was equally fascinated
that they thought to advertise for a CFO on Craig’s List. I thought it was
simply brilliant. Apparently though, not everyone looked at it this way. One of
the participants remarked on her evaluation that she didn’t find Stephen’s talk
as beneficial as the other panelist’s because in her words, he "got lucky."
Serendipity emerged as a
theme once again the following month at the Madison workshop. This time though,
it was the panelist himself who described his success in terms of "luck."
Despite a life-long love for magic, Tom Krzystof (TKMagic.com)
followed the conventional career path by working for major companies like
Mediatech and FedEx while continuing to pursue his passion for magic on the
side. This included spending two and a half years leaving his day job to perform
magic at a local restaurant.
One day a patron approached him about doing some
work for Chef Boyardee. Tom was indifferent about the travel involved so he says
he decided to turn the offer down by by requesting what he thought to be an
exorbitantly high fee. Much to his surprise, the food exec thought it was a
great deal and so off Tom went on a grueling, but highly profitable, multi-city
tour. Whenever Tom talked about this turning point in his magic career he’d say
"after the Chef Boyardee deal fell in my lap." While most of the attendees
nodded in agreement, I knew something else was going on.
I knew because I, too, got "lucky." When I first
started publishing the pre-internet version of Changing Course in 1995 it was a
hardcopy publication. Subscribers paid $29 for six issues that arrived via the
good old U.S. Postal Service. The newsletter was eight pages long and took a
fair amount of work to put together. I’d attracted a few hundred subscribers but
certainly not enough to pay the bills. I was close to folding the newsletter
when suddenly I was flooded with orders. In three days I made $5,000. At $29 per
subscription that’s a lot of subscriptions!
What’s Luck Got to Do, Got to Do
With It?
What was going on here!? I learned from a customer
who phoned in his subscription that I was somehow featured on MSN.com. MSN!?
Wow! How did I end up on MSN? By the time I logged onto this mega site, the link
was gone. It was a mystery.
Then the next month, the same thing happened, but
this time I jumped onto MSN.com where I saw a link that said "Work at what you
love." Imagine my surprise when the link led to an article I’d submitted two
years earlier to CareerBuilder.com. When readers got to the end of the article,
they found a link to my website and ultimately the order page.
The CareerBuilder connection came about as a
result of a letter I wrote to an editor. I pointed out that some of their
readers may be interested in career paths other than the traditional job route
and volunteered to provide some articles. Since I wasn’t asking to be paid, he
said sure. At first I was diligent about sending in articles once a month. As
things got busy in my own work life, my submissions trailed off to whenever I
got around to it. In the meantime, and totally unbeknownst to me, CareerBuilder
had partnered with MSN.
So I called the editor and suggested a more formal
arrangement. On top of selling a ton of subscriptions, he agreed to pay me $400
for a monthly article. I was getting paid to market my own newsletter! Sweet.
About a year later though, MSN dropped CareerBuilder and partnered instead with
Monster.com. Someone bought CareerBuilder and fired most of their staff. The
party was over, but it was great while it lasted and gave me the financial
foundation I needed to keep going.
When I’d tell friends the story of how the MSN/CareerBuilder
partnership totally transformed my business they’d always say the same thing –
"you’re so lucky." That got me thinking. Are people who work at what they love
just somehow luckier than the rest of us? Or might something else be happing
here? During Tom’s stint in the restaurant business he also picked up five other
corporate clients. I talked to Stephen today and I’m not at liberty to share the
latest news but suffice it to say if things work out, it will be BIG. (I’ll keep
you posted.)
So how did Tom really land the Chef Boyardee gig
and his five corporate clients, or Stephen and Chris get their CFO, or I profit
from the CareerBuilder/MSN deal? In each case, success came down not to luck but
to three simple things: Being willing to invest time into honing our respective
crafts, taking the initiative, and opening our mouths to ask for what we wanted.
Is there a certain amount of luck involved in any
success? Of course there is. But those who look at other people’s success and
think "they’re so lucky" tend to see only the "luck." What they’re saying is
"You’re so lucky," but what they’re thinking is, "Sure that happened for him,
but it will never happen for me." They’re basically equating the odds of their
own success with those of hitting the lottery. And when you frame success as all
about luck, like the lottery, your chances of achieving it are slim to none.
Over the years, I’ve found some wonderful quotes
on the role of luck in success. So I’ll leave you with some wise words from
people who I can only imagine at one time or another heard their own successes
chalked up as a fluke. Jean Cocteau wisely observed that "We must believe in
luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?" Sam
Goldwyn quipped, "The harder I work, the luckier I get." Similarly, Dr. Armand
Hammer remarked that "When I work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, I get
lucky." But perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best when he wrote, "Shallow men
believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect."
Your dreams are too important to leave unattended.
So what are you waiting for? Go create some luck!
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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You are where you are today because you've
chosen to be there. ~ Harry Browne |
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Featured Resource
Free Ticket to Upcoming
Online Success Blueprint Workshop
This limited time opportunity (now through
Friday, August 4th) offers a free workshop spot (a $2,997 value)
to anyone who purchases Alexandria Brown's (aka "the Ezine Queen") new
internet success coaching program,
 "Gold
Mastermind." (If you don't know her, Alexandria is a well known and highly
successful player in the world of internet marketing.)
The program is designed specifically for
coaches, speakers, writers and other solo-entrepreneurs who want to learn
from a true master how to be more profitable by creating information
products that generate passive income, making the move from selling
one-on-one services to higher priced products, programs and events,
converting your website into a "lead-generating and money making machine"
and more. The program promises to double your business while doubling your
time off. Again, this is a limited time offer with a deadline of Friday,
August 4th. Learn more at
ChangingCourse.com/recommends/blueprint
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All endings are also beginnings. We just don't
know it at the time. ~ Mitch Albom |
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It is not the brains that matter most, but that
which guides them - the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive
ideas. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
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Guest Article
Do You Have the "Achievie-Jeebies?"
By Dr. Ange Dibenedetto
Susan was finally ready to act
on her dream of starting an interior decorating business. The soon-to-be-retired school teacher enrolled in my Courage to Succeed coaching program
to help her "go professional" at the decorating work she had been doing
informally for years. One of her first steps in the program was creating a
portfolio of photographs of design work she had done for friends, family and
even some small businesses. There was no doubt to anyone who saw the
photographs or who worked with Susan that she was a gifted designer who
could transform any space and
do it on a budget.
Susan was full of enthusiasm as
she shared her business plans in our coaching sessions. However, as her
plans got closer to becoming reality, I began to notice signs of trouble.
For instance, she confessed that twice she had driven to the
printer to order business cards and then returned home without going in or
even getting out of her car. Then she said she kept "forgetting" to return a
call from the president of a local women's business group who wanted her to
speak at an upcoming meeting. Yet I knew that Susan had been cultivating
this opportunity for months - we had even gone over her speech together!
When I pointed out an emerging
pattern in these events, Susan began to talk about her feelings. "I know I'm
great at decorating," she said, "but something in me freaks out when it's
time to announce my plans to the world." Then she began to laugh. " Do you
know I even wondered if I should spend a whole $30 on business cards! I
don't know what I thought I would do - hand out little scraps of paper with
my name scrawled on them?"
What was going on with Susan? She had a common
case of what I call the "achievie-jeebies." A second cousin
to the "heebie-jeebies," the "achievie-jeebies" is that sudden panic that can
grip us when we start to take practical steps toward our dreams. Even a
seemingly minor act like ordering business cards can set off the "aj's"
because it is a symbol of our ambition, our belief in our self and our
willingness to "blow our own horn." Like many of the women I work with who
are entrepreneurs or self-employed, Susan was comfortable doing professional
level work on an informal
basis for friends, family and neighbors. But when it came time to tell the
world – and herself - that she was a professional, then the "achievie-jeebies"
kicked in.
To be a successful entrepreneur
you have to believe in yourself passionately – and
publicly. This can cause a
conflict with women who have been encouraged to put their own needs and
wants second to others. Most of the women entrepreneurs I've worked with
have struggled with moments of uncertainly, self-doubt and even panic at
times. But 99% of them have learned to take risks, to invest in themselves
and well, to blow their own horn.
The good news is that the
achievie-jeebies are curable. Here are three things you can do when they
strike.
1. Face your
fear and accept it.
You should
EXPECT to be occasionally terrified as you take on new
challenges. In fact if you're not afraid once in a while, then you're
probably not making much progress. Fear, risk and success are not
incompatible. In fact they are quite chummy.
2.
Keep
your eyes on the prize.
Take time
to reconnect with the passion that got you started on this journey. Was it
the freedom of being your own boss? The opportunity to help others with your
unique skills? The joy of doing something you love? Whatever it is, keeping
connected to it will give you the energy to resist those achievie-jeebies.
3.
Take a courage step every single day.
A "courage step" is any action that is slightly
difficult for you – it could be starting your business plan, writing a press
release or calling a prospective customer. If you do something daily that
frightens you – even just a tiny bit - you'll train that "courage muscle" to
take on risks you can't even imagine. For instance, Susie scheduled her talk
for the women's business group far enough in advance so that she would have
plenty of lead-time to practice in front of friends. And she made an
appointment just to talk to the printer before committing to ordering her
business cards. Like most of my clients, she found that a daily courage
"workout" builds confidence and helps deal with those less frequent but
still inevitable achievie-jeebies. So look before you leap, but do leap, at
least a little, every single day.
About the Author
Dr. Ange
DiBenedetto of Amherst has over 20 years experience as a coach and
therapist. To learn more about the Courage to Succeed program and phone or
in-person coaching, contact her at (413) 549-4145 or visit her website at
Dr-Ange.com.
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One of the secrets of life is to make stepping
stones out of stumbling blocks. ~ Jack Penn |
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Work at What You Love Workshop Update
Northampton Workshop Update
Renowned Romance Writer to
Speak at Workshop
Think that being
a published author is something that happens to other people? That's what
Kathryn Johnson thought… that is until it happened to her. Or more
accurately, until she made it happen. To date Kathryn (aka Kathryn Jensen,
K.M. Kimball, Nicole Davidson) has seen more than 40 of her novels published
by major U.S. publishers including Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Silhouette,
Avon Books and Ballantine. Her books (written under several pseudonyms) have
been translated into foreign languages and are as popular in Argentina,
Japan, and Italy as they are in the U.S.
I'm thrilled
that Kathryn has agreed to join our Inspired Entrepreneurs Panel. For one,
she is living proof that success doesn't happen overnight – but it does
happen. Her many "pre-changing course" jobs included working in a bank, a
department store, a hospital and finally as a teacher in a private school.
But, she says, all she ever really wanted to do was write books.
Having no clue
how to begin a career as a novelist, and two young children to care for, she
enrolled in a distance course offered by the Long Ridge Writers Group (BreakIntoPrint.com/T1419).
Armed with the tools she took away from her assignments, she honed what she
refers to as her "admittedly flimsy writing and marketing skills" and
attacked the publishing world.
After reaching
the "other side" Kathryn decided she wanted to reach back. So, in addition
to her own prolific writing career, Kathryn is now a writing instructor with
the Long Ridge Writers Group where she tutors other aspiring writers to
success. In addition she runs her own writer's mentoring business called
Write By You.
If you are
surrounded by unsupportive friends and family who offer only lame warnings
about the struggling writer's life, you may want to tell them about the life
Kathryn's efforts have afforded her. Kathryn tells me that in sharp contrast
to her old employee days, she now enjoys a one-minute commute that takes her
from her kitchen to her home-office. That is except during the summer when
she and her husband spend as much time as possible on, Purr, their 32-foot
vintage Pearson sailboat in the Chesapeake Bay. Then she sits in the cockpit
with her laptop and types another chapter. Doesn't sound like too much of a
struggle to me!
Kathryn's next novels, the "Affairs of State"
trilogy, will be published in June, July and August of 2007 by Silhouette
Books. You can learn more about Kathryn at
KathrynJensen.com and
WriteByYou.com. To read my review of "Break into Print," the
instructor-assisted self-study course that launched Kathryn's career, visit
ChangingCourse.com/longridge.htm
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I don't think the mile has really been tapped
yet. There's still time to come off. But you can only do it by being courageous
and going fast at the start. ~ Sebastian Coe |
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Upcoming Workshops
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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.
August 11-12, 2006
Northampton, Massachusetts
Take advantage of the Special Early Registration price and
save $50 click here
ChangingCourse.com/workshop.htm
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Do what you feel in your heart to be right.
You'll be criticized anyway.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt |
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The View From
the
Other Side
"I value independently spending
time on something that's important to me. If you boil it all down, I get to
manage my own destiny. I get to do what I want to do and surround myself
with the things I love."
~ Forty-year-old Amy
Butler, Amy Butler Design Fabrics, Granville, Ohio
In the business world, there are tortoises and there
are hares. I’m a tortoise: fine-tuning and taking steady steps.
~ Vicki Mote Bodwell, founder of The Warm Biscuit Bedding Co., New York, New York. |
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Resources for
a Change
Break into Print as
a Freelance Author or Writer
Do you love to write but have never
really honed your craft? Do you want to enjoy the freedom and
flexibility of a freelance author or writer? Do you find it hard to
discipline yourself to complete one of the many articles or books
you have floating around in your head? What if there was a writing
program that has such a track record of success that it actually
promises graduates they will complete at least two manuscripts
suitable for submission to an editor by the time they finish the
program? A program that not only taught you technique and matched
you with a writing tutor who gave you line-by-line feedback of your
writing but also handed you the tools and the know-how you need to
break into print. Interested? I was. The Long Ridge Writer's Group
has been helping people with a passion for writing to break into
print for over 30 years.
Scroll up to the Northampton Workshop
Update for a success story from a former student. Learn more at
BreakIntoPrint.com/T1419
Marketing
Your Own Self-Help Book
Mark Victor Hansen, who co-wrote the
astoundingly successful Chicken Soup for the Soul series, walks you
step-by-step through his method for writing and marketing a
best-selling self-help book. Hansen and a group of highly successful
colleagues in the publishing, self-publishing, PR, marketing, and
internet world teach you their insider secrets to writing,
publishing, and promoting your own best-seller. From infomercials to
one-day seminars to book-signings to coaching programs and more,
Hansen reveals the strategies he relies on to create businesses that
make millions. I can tell you from personal experience that if you
are serious about learning how to write and sell a best-selling
self-help book, this program is a wise investment. Learn more about
this program at
ChangingCourse.com/cmd.php?ad=215014
Calling All Writers
and Artists
Kristen Fischer is writing a book
about creatively
self-employed individuals and is looking for people who are willing
to share their ups and downs after they've taken the plunge and
become a freelance writer, artist, illustrator, designer, etc. In
addition she's looking for coaches and experts to share their
thoughts about
"the unique challenges that arise when someone
makes a living from their talents." Learn how you can contribute to
Kristen's book at
KristenFischer.com/creatively.htm
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