   Changing Course Newsletter: Issue 15Date: Mar 14, 2001
Subject: Changing Course Newsletter: Issue 15
Changing Course Newsletter
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Issue 15 - March 15, 2001
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Brought to you by Changing Course
http://www.ChangingCourse.com
Dedicated to helping you:
~ Live Life on Purpose
~ Work at What You Love
~ Follow Your Own Road
Barbara Sher, author of "I Could Do Anything If I Only
Knew What It Was," calls Changing Course "wonderful,
inspired and informative."
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QUOTE FOR THE DAY
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Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows.
~Michael Landon
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IN THIS ISSUE
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~ LETTERS FROM FELLOW TRAVELERS ON THE ROAD TO
RIGHT LIVELIHOOD
~ WHAT'S NEW AT ChangingCourse.com ?
Now in the Live Your Dream Bookstore
~ FEATURE ARTICLE
If You Don't Take Yourself Seriously, Others Won't Either
~ INSPIRATION TO FOLLOW YOUR BLISS
Words to Live By
~ LIVE YOUR DREAM MARKETPLACE
Products and services you might like to know about
~ FEATURED RESOURCE OF THE WEEK
Career Guru Barbara Sher's Site
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LETTERS FROM FELLOW TRAVELERS ON THE ROAD TO
RIGHT LIVELIHOOD
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Dear Valerie,
I found it very humorous and coincidental that MSN's home page decided
to have your article posted the exact day that I finalized my decision
to make a change in my life.
I am 28 years old, working in a growing company, making good money,
and have a promising future. The problem is that I'm not happy. I still
do not have my college degree and feel an emptiness because of it. I
also know that my future, if I truly want to find happiness, does not
lay with my current employer. It has not been an easy decision to quit
and commit to three years of living hard to complete my education, but I
feel that it is the right decision.
I still do not know what I want to do with my life and I cannot say with
absolute conviction that I will know any better once I have my degree.
However, I know that I will have more doors opened to me because of it.
I am scared to death, and not a little embarrassed, to be 'starting
over' at this point in my life. All my friends have degrees and are
doing very well in jobs they truly love. I envy them their positions;
not so much the money as the happiness.
With this feeling of fear, however, comes a sense of elation and
anticipation. It is going to be rough, I know. But it will also be
exciting. I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders
and I am finally doing something I want, rather than what I feel others
expect of me.
Jason A. Kunkel
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WHAT'S NEW AT CHANGING COURSE?
Now in the Live Your Dream Bookstore
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Leonardo da Vinci once observed that, "Simplicity is the ultimate
sophistication." If you yearn to live a simpler, more "sophisticated"
life off of the fast-track, here are two great books to start you on
your way:
YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE: TRANSFORMING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH MONEY AND
ACHIEVING FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
Ask yourself these questions:
~ Do you spend more than you earn?
~ Does making a living feel more like making a dying?
~ Do you dislike your job but can't afford to leave it?
~ Are you spending enough time with your family and friends?
~ Do you come home from your job full of life?
~ Is your life whole? Do all the pieces - your job, your expenditures,
your relationships, your values - fit together?
If you answered "no" to even one of these questions, this book is for
you. Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, authors of the best-selling book,
"Your Money or Your Life," stopped working for money in the late '60s.
No, they did not stumble upon a "get rich quick" formula. Quite the
opposite.
Considered by many to be the "Bible" of the Simplicity Movement, this
book explains the nine-step program the authors used to take back their
lives by gaining control of their money.
Find out how to:
~ get out of debt and develop savings
~ reorder material priorities and live well for less
~ resolve inner conflicts between values and lifestyles
~ achieve financial independence
GETTING A LIFE by Jacqueline Blix, et al.
Once you are armed with the foundation for achieving financial
independence outlined in Your Money or Your Life, you'll want to move
on to another great book: Getting a Life - Strategies for Simple Living
Based on the Revolutionary Program for Financial Freedom - Your Money
or Your Life.
This book examines the practical applications of the Your Money or Your
Life financial freedom techniques. With honesty and humor, the authors
and more than two dozen families and individuals share their personal
experiences dealing with paying for health care, raising children in a
materialistic world, and breaking the link between what you do for a
living and who you are. You will hear from real people who no longer
have to work for money because they got off the earn/spend treadmill
using what they learned in Your Money or Your Life.
Find these and other books for career/life changers at the Changing
Course bookstore, http//www.ChangingCourse.com/bookstore.htm
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FEATURE ARTICLE
If You Don't Take Yourself Seriously, Others Won't Either
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By Peter Vogt
Whenever you decide to follow your career passions - whether that means
switching jobs, changing careers completely, or even starting a business
of your own (as I did in 1995) - it's bad enough that you have to
wrestle with YOURSELF and all of YOUR OWN doubts and fears. Even tougher
can be explaining what you're doing, and why, to the other people in
your life - family, friends, colleagues, and even mere acquaintances -
who have their own doubts and fears (or worse!) about your plans.
It didn't take long for me to experience this phenomenon firsthand when
I went into business for myself. Shortly after I left my "secure,
"normal" job in the publishing world to become a freelance writer and
pursue my master's degree in counseling, I started understanding the
types of "issues" I'd have to be confronting from then on. Examples:
* In many people's minds, the terms "freelance," "independent
contractor," "consultant," or even "president" (as in president of your
own company) mean one thing and one thing only - you're unemployed!
You've obviously been fired or laid off recently, and you haven't been
able to find another "real job." So now you're trying to fool people
into thinking you're really working by using these fancy descriptors,
instead of simply admitting that you're watching TV and eating bon bons
for a living.
* Well-meaning family and friends initially worry that you may lose your
apartment or house, your car and your other possessions, your spouse or
significant other, or whatever else you hold dear - and they're
convinced the process of losing your MIND is already well under way.
* While America has been built on both the ideas and the backs of
entrepreneurs, most everyone thinks entrepreneurs are a little, well,
weird. "Why," the skeptics might say or think, "would you give up a
'good' job with a 'good' company, 'good' salary, and 'good' benefits to
go off the deep end on your own? What's WRONG with you?"
* I, and perhaps others like me, can be my own worst enemy in trying to
explain what I do to others. Instead of giving a 30-second "spiel" on
the specifics of what I do professionally, I often tend to take the path
of least resistance and simply chuckle along with the people who, though
they might not say it to my face, think I really am just goofing off for
a living. I sometimes have difficulty believing in my own mind and heart
that what I do really is "work," fun as though it may be. And so my own
doubts and insecurities can feed right into those of the other people in
my life.
As I look back upon more than five years of "going it alone," I can be
thankful that, for the most part, the people in my life have been quite
supportive of me, all for their own wide-ranging reasons. But I still
believe that many of them simply don't understand what I do and why.
Are you in the same boat? There's only one thing to do, I've finally
figure out. YOU (and me!) have to become a teacher of sorts if and when
you decide to make your move and follow your career dream.
You have to be the one who describes the real and emerging trends of
workers "going indy" and, in the process, changing the world of work as
we know it. You have to be the one who explains that while your change
strategy may seem risky, so too is staying in a "secure," "normal" job,
not only for your mental and emotional health but also for your
financial well-being - because there's no such thing as a "secure,"
"normal" job anymore.
You have to be the person who can offer up real examples of the
thousands of people who once were undoubtedly labeled "weird" and who
are today labeled "innovator" or "genius." And - perhaps most important
of all - you have to be the person to convince YOURSELF that what you're
doing or what you're about to do IS legitimate.
Only then will you be able to communicate what you do effectively to the
important people in your life, so that their nagging fears and doubts -
and yours - will turn into enduring admiration and pride.
Career counselor and career development writer Peter Vogt is President
of Career Planning Resources, a Minneapolis company focusing on the
career concerns of college students and recent college graduates. As the
Campus Career Coach at http://monster.com he advises the Campus
Community at http://campus.monster.com . He is also Producer of The
Career Services Kiva at http://www.careerserviceskiva.com a
comprehensive web site for college career counselors. You may reach
Peter at peter_vogt@careerservices.com or (952) 906-2835 (CST).
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INSPIRATION TO FOLLOW YOUR BLISS
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Follow your bliss and be what you want to be. Don't climb the ladder of
success only to find it's leaning against the wrong wall.
~Bernie Siegal
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
~Norman MacEwan
I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I
can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse
to do the something that I can do.
~Edmund Everett Hale
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