Apprentice Yourself to Your Dreams

“I know there is no way to do this but to come to America and live with its people. So here I am. In Argentina, I am a lawyer. Here I scrape food off dishes in the kitchen,” the young man laughingly said to a customer at the lunch counter.

“But no matter,” he added. “I am getting to know the people and the language. That is what I am here for.”

Further conversation revealed that he had been in America only two weeks but he could speak English well enough to communicate. He had completed a law course at the University of Buenos Aires and had started his law career in his native land. He soon realized what a valuable asset it would be to be able to speak English fluently.

So here was a young man who was devoting a portion of his life to traveling thousands of miles from home, scraping dishes in a kitchen, living in a strange country with strange people just to develop a skill which would be useful to him in his business.

“Why didn’t you take English language courses at the University?” he was asked.

“I did do that,” he replied. “But you no really learn to speak a language without living with the people.”

You don’t really learn to do something with poise, confidence and sincerity unless you get involved, do it, live it. That was his message.

Have you noticed that successful people always seem to start at the bottom, tossing themselves into every job on the way to the top? I call this apprenticing yourself to your dream.

It’s a process that gets repeated with every new dream.

While it can be a humbling experience to go back to the beginning, it’s also the way bold dreams come true. Desire and imagination can make it a journey worth taking.

What does it take to be a successful Dream Apprentice? 

In the words of Time/Warner CEO Ann Moore, the critical factor is direction, not deadlines. She says, “Get a compass and forget the clock.”

That’s essential advice, but there are other things you can do to make this time abundantly fruitful.

One of the common obstacles to learning a new language is the unwillingness to make embarrassing mistakes, an attitude that impedes learning and mastery. The same is true with most new undertakings.

Remind yourself that you are a beginner and be gentle with yourself. After all, no one expects mastery from an apprentice.

In 1976, an unknown professor named Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote a book entitled Your Erroneous Zones. No spectacular success was expected from the book, but the author had other ideas.

He loaded the trunk of his car with copies and spent six months delivering them to bookstores around the country. He booked himself on any radio interview that would have him.

Dyer personally delivered more than 16,000 copies of his book to stores, driving 28,000 miles and giving over 800 interviews. Due to his own efforts, Your Erroneous Zones became the bestseller of the year and launched Dyer’s career as a popular self-help author and speaker.

I can only  guess how many lonely days and nights Dyer invested in his dream, but I’m also willing to guess that his experience gave him a priceless education and laid the foundation for long-term success.

People who fail to appreciate small steps never seem to get very far.

On the other hand, those who are delighted with any sign of progress keep moving to the next step and the next step with wild anticipation.

Quite simply, when you apprentice yourself to a dream, you give yourself a passport to adventure.  This isn’t about waiting or being patient.

It’s about honoring where you are now—and knowing that’s not where you’re going to stay.

Making Peace With Rejection

I am not alone in loving Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Classical music stations report that listener surveys always list them as a top favorite.

Did you know that this perennial favorite began life as a huge failure? 

The Concertos were written as an audition for a commission Bach hoped to get with the city of Brandenburg, Germany. Amazingly, he lost the competition.

No one seems to remember who the winner was.

Bach is not the only creative soul, of course, whose work met with rejection before success came along. Writer John Grisham sent his first novel to sixteen agents before one of them agreed to take him as a client. 

That agent submitted A Time to Kill to twenty-six publishers before one bought it, bringing out a meager 5,000 copies.

Since that humble—and humbling— beginning, Grisham has topped the bestseller charts with every book he’s written and has millions of copies of his books in print around the world.

While history is full of stories of early defeat that turned into astonishing success later on, there is no record of all the good ideas that got put away in a drawer after encountering a first rejection. 

Too many people make the classic error of deciding in advance that acceptance can only come in one way. If the prospective client or lover or friend turns us down, we may lose sight of the fact that our true goal was to make a sale or have a romance or build a new relationship. 

We forget that our goal (and our self) is just fine. We simply made the mistake of picking a dancing partner that didn’t want to dance.

Think about a time when early rejection cleared the way for something or someone better to enter your life. Use that memory to keep you going whenever you encounter rejection and you’ll pile up evidence that rejection may actually be a valuable stepping stone to your dreams. 

There’s a big difference between those who accept rejection as part of the success process and those who avoid it at all costs. Despite all the evidence that rejection is a universal theme in every success story, fear of rejection seems to be a powerful deterrent for many who will do almost anything to avoid the discomfort of being rejected. 

As it turns out, life’s grandest prizes are rejecting them.

The next time that fear of rejection stops you from tackling a dreaded task, remind yourself that the anticipation of rejection is almost always worse than the reality of it. 

All of us have known those agonizing times spent before we proposed marriage, made a sales presentation or gave a talk. 

Yet on those occasions when our worst fear were realized, the experience wasn’t nearly as horrible as imagining it had been.

So what project have you tucked away because it didn’t get off to a great start? There are all sorts of reasons why success doesn’t happen the first time out. 

Maybe you were ahead of your time. Or, perhaps, you needed to get some experience that would help you find a better way of doing things. Or you may have met with failure because you hadn’t yet connected with the proper person. 

While I still don’t love rejection, I have a clearer perspective on it since encountering some advice from writer Barbara Kingsolver. Although it’s aimed at writers, it’s equally appropriate to anyone going after a dream. 

Kingsolver says, “Don’t consider your returned manuscript rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it, ‘To the editor who can appreciate my work,’ and it simply came back stamped, ‘Not at this address.’ Just keep looking for the right address.”

 

Welcoming Serendipity

In the six years that Zoe has been in our lives, she’s added plenty of fun, enthusiasm and amusement. Always up for a new adventure, last year she and her cousin Jade were treated to their first fishing outing with their grandfather.

When I asked her about it, she said, “We didn’t catch anything, but it still was exciting.”  What  Zoe had uncovered  is the secret of serendipity, even if she doesn’t know that big word.

While the common definition of serendipity is unexpected good fortune or a surprise, I learned several years ago that it goes much farther than that. We go back to an old Persian fairy tale about The Princes of Serendip to see what they discovered to find the true meaning of the word.

These three young noblemen traveled the world, but rarely found the treasures they were looking for. Instead they ran into other treasures equally great or even greater than the ones they were looking for. 

In looking for one thing, they found something else and it dawned on them that this was one of life’s sly and wonderful tricks. When they realized this they got an entirely new slant on life and every day resulted in new and thrilling experiences.

Even though their goals repeatedly eluded them, they were more than rewarded by their wayside discoveries.

Therein lies the key to serendipity. It does not occur when we are passively waiting for something to happen. We must be actively engaged in the pursuit of some goal and, yet, be willing for it to turn out differently than we imagined.

Clinging to what we have is a surefire way to prevent serendipity from entering our lives. I was reminded of this when I got a call one day from a woman who crowed, “I had the best time today being joyfully jobless.”

A year and a half earlier, this same woman was feeling hurt when she was dismissed from her job at a large corporation. Would this enthusiastic conversation have happened if she were still punching a time clock?

But there’s even more to this serendipity business. While it means finding joy and meaning in discoveries on the way to a stated goal, the secret is to look upon incidental goals as substantial and upon accidental happenings as purposeful.

At the same time, it’s necessary to seek the good when the unexpected knocks us off our feet. Uncovering the hidden treasure in adverse situations requires that we be wide awake and looking.

Art Linkletter summed it up nicely when he said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”  Quite possibly what we call failure is actually serendipity trying to happen.

So go after your goals with gusto, but celebrate all the unexpected rewards along the way. Even if you don’t catch any fish, it can be exciting.

15 Jumpstarts for Your Entrepreneurial Spirit

Awakening entrepreneurial spirit is always on my mind. If you were joining me at the Un-Job Fair in Denver on May 1, you’d be getting this list of tips. If you can’t be with us, enjoy the tips and try them out for yourself.

* Go to the library. Whenever I’m in a slump, a trip to the library never fails to get me unstuck. Every shelf is loaded with possibility.

* Interview self-bossers. Choose the joyfully jobless, not just the self-employed. Let their passion rub off on you.

* Pay attention. Listen to the compliments that come your way. They may hold the key to a profit center. Listen to what people say is missing in the world for more clues.

* Play every day. Even if you aren’t yet running a business full-time, do something—no matter how small—to move yourself ahead each and every day.

 * Break your goals into 90-Day Projects.  Doing so will keep you focused and keep you from feeling overwhelmed. It’s a momentum builder.

* Give your projects a theme. A theme helps you focus your mind and sparks creative thoughts. 

 * Pick an entrepreneurial hero or heroine and become an expert on their life. 

* Carry a notebook. You never know when a great idea will strike or when you’ll see something worth remembering. Richard Branson carries one all the time. So should you.

* Read a novel. Not just any old story, however. Read novels that feature entrepreneurs as main characters. Mysteries, especially, feature them. You’ll learn a lot.

* Have regular tune-ups. One seminar does not finish the learning process. Keep going back to the well.

* Immerse, don’t dabble.

* Acquire good tools. Use the best tools you can afford to do the best work you are capable of.

 * Create an inspiring working environment. Your office or studio should be a place that rises up to meet you.

* Subscribe to Winning Ways. Read what successful entrepreneurs read. Build a library. 

 * Memorize these five steps: HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN LUCK 1. Get a hobby Find the thing that fascinates you most. You’ll recognize it instantly. It’s the thing you feel you have to do every day or the day is wasted. 2. Obsess Get to know it so well nothing about it is unpredictable, including its ability to surprise you. This part of the process will take approximately one lifetime. 3. Charge for it If you’re so crazy about it and so good at it, go pro! 4. Flourish If you’ve followed steps one, two and three, this is the easy part. 5. Succeed Do it so wildly that everyone tells you how lucky you are.

Gathering Grist For Your Mill

Although it’s hardly ever mentioned in most business books and magazines, one of the great bonuses of being joyfully jobless is that it gives you an opportunity to be an enthusiastic lifelong learner.  Every new profit center idea requires locating new information, new explorations and new learning. 

Doing the necessary homework before you start out gives you focus, direction and confidence. Yet many people have no notion about how to begin gathering information.

At the beginning stage of the process, you aren’t making permanent decisions, you’re just collecting all the information you can to help you make an informed decision later on.

Although information gathering is an on-going process, here are some easily accessible places to begin the search.

° Cyberspace. Increasingly many people begin (and end) their search on the Internet. Yes, there is a plethora of information waiting to be uncovered in your computer. As rich a resource as this may seem, there are serious questions about the accuracy of much of the information that shows up in cyberspace. 

I am not alone in questioning the Internet as the final knowledge authority. Movie critic Roger Ebert verbalized it perfectly: “Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.” Amen.

° Associations of like-minded people. In this country (and many others), there are associations for everything you can imagine—and thousands of things you’d never guess existed. 

Aligning yourself with groups that share your interests can be a rich source of practical information, as well as a way to connect with kindred spirits. Even if you live in an area where no appropriate organizations exist, there’s probably a national group that would prove helpful.

Begin your search at the reference desk of your library where you can find a directly of associations. My favorite such source is Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations.

Once you’ve identified the groups that sound promising, write for membership information. In most instances, you’ll receive a packet of material that will help you decide if membership is worthwhile. 

National associations usually have annual conferences which are wonderful sources of learning, networking and information-gathering. These affiliations can provide inspiration as well.

° Adult education. Adult education comes in many packages and you need to understand the differences before you enroll. In addition to traditional degrees, many colleges and universities offer non-degree classes through an extension program. Usually held on weekends or in the evening midweek, these programs are often geared to current trends.

These programs like to keep up with trends and change their offerings as new interests appear on the horizon. Teachers in these programs tend to have hands-on experience and are often quite passionate about their subject.

In almost every town and city, you’ll also find a miscellany of learning opportunities. Community education programs sponsored by  the school district, classes offered through places like the YMCA, and independent teachers conducting public seminars may have exactly what you need, so stay alert to those less formal options too.

And, of course, Webinars and teleclasses are abundantly available.

° Read, read, read. Almost anything you might want to do has been the subject of at least one book. And while not every book on your subject will be appropriate to your needs, the more familiar you become with the subject, the better. So any new search should begin with a trip to the library and the bookstore.

This is so obvious to me that I almost didn’t include it. Then I recalled the many times I’ve been contacted by would-be writers who says, “I think I’d like to write, but I don’t know how to get something published.”

“Have you read Writer’s Market?” I ask.

“What’s that?” they shoot back.

Had they done any homework, they would have been flooded with the wealth of resources aimed at helping people get starting in the writing business.

Or any other business.

In fact, if you test out the suggestions by taking one of your ideas and researching it to the hilt, you’ll think you’ve found a goldmine—providing that you do so with a mind that’s open and a curiosity that’s insatiable. 

Having accomplished that, you’ll be ready to start pulling the best of the information together and shaping it into a project that fits you like a tailor-made suit.

Why Not Ask?

    What do we live for, if not to make life 

        less difficult for each other?

George Eliot

From the moment I met Ruth, she told me that she hated her career as an operating room nurse. Despite the fact that she possessed an adventurous and creative spirit, she never quite managed to leave medicine.

One day she called to tell me she had injured her back while lifting a patient. Then she enumerated all the other injuries—physical and mental—that had occurred on the job. 

At the end of her litany, she said she thought the solution to her frustration was to move to a different department in the hospital. I was not convinced that this would solve her problem so I challenged her by asking, “If that’s the cause, how can it be the cure?”

That question had far greater impact than if I’d made a statement about what I thought she should do.

Asking good questions doesn’t just help illuminate difficult situations: asking is also a way to solicit support for our dreams. While some people resist asking for help or information thinking it will make them appear needy, there’s a healthy way to go about this questioning business.

In her delightful book Educating Alice, author Alice Steinbach writes that as a child her family remembers her pestering them with questions. She explains it this way: 

“Given my insatiable curiosity and intense admiration for Nancy Drew, my future plans hinged on entering the detective profession. I saw myself as Nancy Drew aging into Miss Marple. It was the perfect life for me, I thought then, one that would require me to constantly ask questions, find out the answers, and along the way learn a lot of new things.”

Steinbach didn’t become a detective, but she did have a successful career as a journalist where her question-asking skills got a regular workout.

Soliciting information isn’t the only reason to ask questions. Here are some others that are particularly useful to the entrepreneur.

* Clarifying questions. Good communicators use this technique all the time to make sure that they understand what was said. “Did I understand you correctly when you said you wanted to give me a free massage?” is just such a question.

* Getting ideas. Asking questions of yourself can bring answers from your subconscious mind. 

I frequently ask myself, “How can I make things better?” Sometimes the answer is mundane (dust  the bookshelves), but often it serves as an invitation for some grander project.

* Seeking advice. These are the kinds of questions I get asked the most. “How do I market my services on a shoestring? What do you think of this idea? Do you know anyone who can help me break into the specialty food marketing business?” 

Entrepreneurs must be willing to ask for advice from informed sources. They must also be willing to listen and not argue with the advice they’re given. 

* Helping customers make a decision. Successful sales people are skillful at asking questions that bring prospects to a commitment. 

“So would you like a six-month or twelve-month supply?” is a decision-making query.

The esteemed business guru Peter Drucker said, “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”  

So where are you needing support? Who can you ask? What can you ask of yourself? Sometimes we fail to receive support because nobody knows we need it. 

Think of the world as a big, rich resource center that has everything you need to make your dreams come true. Tapping into it may be as easy as asking the right questions. 

 

What Century Are You Living In?

Zoe’s about to turn 6 and I’ve been wondering if she’s old enough for me to tell her about the way cameras used to work. This child of the digital age isn’t going to believe me when I tell her about film, the long wait between the time we shot a picture and actually got to see what we’d done.

I was thinking about this pending conversation on a flight to visit Zoe recently and, as if they’d read my mind, the March issue of Southwest Airline’s Spirit magazine had a fun trip down memory lane with an article called  Last Tech. 

There are no horse and buggies in this piece, but they recalled things like typewriters, pay phones, gas station attendants, answering machines and boomboxes—all from the not so distant past.

It was another reminder that we are living in a time when change is so constant that it often leaves us breathless. What’s so striking is how different people deal with this rapid evolution in very disparate ways.

One man I know simply ignores it while opportunities zoom past him. He reminds me of Edward Arlington Robinson’s poem, Miniver Cheevy. Remember it from high school?

Here’s a verse:

Miniver cursed the commonplace

And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;

He missed the medieval grace

Of iron clothing.

It isn’t just characters from poems and real life individuals who seem to have one foot in each century. The latest issue of Time magazine showed up with a cover story titled  JOBS: Where They Are. 

That may not sound unusual given the state of employment, but consider this. Two weeks earlier this same magazine’s cover story was 10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years. My favorite article from that gaze into the years ahead  was the one that declared, “the future of work looks a lot like unemployment.” 

The author talks about the changing world of work and says the future will tend to be homebased, fueled by a new spirit of individualism that also embraces self-sufficiency. Sounds like the Joyfully Jobless are about to become trendy.

Of course, our institutions are often the last to notice changing times. College students today are increasingly reporting that they intend to run their own businesses, but are ignoring college business courses which still seem  designed to prepare students for corporate jobs. 

These kids are on to something, but  I’m not so sure about their elders—especially those who are trying to build a business with tools and attitudes from the previous century. It’s a handicap we don’t need, but we may have to confront our own resistance first.

After all, the highest calling of the Joyfully Jobless life is to use imagination and innovation to create a near future that is somehow better than the recent past. While that doesn’t mean jumping on every bandwagon that comes along, it does require keeping up. 

There are modern trailblazers all around us and they are showing us new possibilities for living and working in the 21st century. Gather and synthesize ideas from these creative thinkers.

Follow them on Twitter. Read their books. Connect with them in seminars. Make peace with technology.

Or adopt (sans drugs) a motto from the sixties that finally makes sense: Tune In. Turn On. Drop Out.

That may be the best description of how to create the business of your dreams in our not-always-so-brave new world.

Creating Habitats for Fun & Profit

After the death of Colorado Free University founder John Hand, his sister Helen stepped in determined to continue the program he had founded twenty-five years earlier. When I was there last weekend, I picked up their latest catalog and was intrigued by Helen’s essay. She wrote:

John Hand based the school on the principle that communities have within them the resources to solve their own problems. For every person with a problem or need, there is someone with a solution or an answer. CFU is the place where those people meet.

What Helen points out is that CFU is a business which created a habitat with a special purpose. She goes on to say, “Clearly, unemployment is a huge problem today. Being stuck in jobs that are not gratifying is also a problem for many people.

CFU’s Un-Job Fair is an opportunity for people with those issues to meet with real-world entrepreneurs who have ideas and solutions.”

While it could be argued that even the most ordinary of enterprises may involve designing a habitat to house it, (i.e. restaurants, gift shops, car dealerships), there are numerous unconventional businesses that don’t fit the old bricks-and-mortar model.

These businesses often come into being to serve a neglected or overlooked niche. Consider, for example, Sober Cruises.

As anyone who has tackled alcohol addiction learns, travel poses some special challenges since partying is closely associated with vacationing for many people. For the recovering alcoholic, determined not to relapse, travel may seem a thing of the past.

Enter Sober Cruises, a company offering travel experiences for those wanting to travel without jeopardizing their hard won sobriety. They’re not the only such company. One of the oldest companies in the business, Sober Vacations International, takes over an entire Club Med resort once a year.

One of the purposes of my business is to inspire people in beautiful places. Should you be attendiing the upcoming Inspired Livelihood seminar in Sedona, AZ, you’ll be entering a habitat with the specific purpose of doing just that. 

Looking for ideas? Keep asking yourself, “Who’s got a problem I know how to solve?”

Begin answering that and you’ll discover endless possibilities for adding a habitat where people with a problem can connect with a solution.

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If you’re in the Denver area, check out the new CFU catalog which announces our upcoming special event, The Un-Job Fair happening on May 1. (You can also find information at www.freeu.com by going to the Special Events page.) It will be a day of exploration and information on becoming your own boss. Would love to see you there.

The Entrepreneurial Villager

My flight to London had barely lifted off when my seatmate and I began to chat.

I soon learned that the handsome man seated next to me was a former art teacher who reinvented his life and is now a full-time painter. Since English landscapes are his specialty, he was a frequent flyer to England.

His reinvention had included moving from the Twin Cities of Minnesota to a small town south of there. “I just love it, “ he said. “It’s so quiet. I go to my studio and paint to my heart’s content.”

Not long after, I found myself seated next to another small town enthusiast on a flight to Dallas. This man was a former pilot who had just become a flight training instructor.

But he was most excited about the little bed and breakfast inn he and his wife owned in a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania. It was their second such venture and he regaled me with stories about his life as an innkeeper.

The dream of living and working a bit off the beaten path is no longer out of the question. Long neglected by a mobile population that rushed to cities seeking their fortune, small towns are being rediscovered and reinvented by a new wave of entrepreneurial spirits.

While small town living isn’t for everyone, relocating to smaller places is becoming increasingly popular. The entrepreneurial revolution is partially responsible. Thanks to technology, it’s now possible to do all sorts of work in the most remote locations.

Even those of us who choose to remain within large cities are becoming more like villagers, carving out our personal small space within larger city limits. More walking and talking to each other are the visible characteristics of these big city villagers.

So is reclaiming neglected property and neighborhoods. Obviously, more of us are taking action to transform existing places into good human habitats.

If you’re dreaming about becoming an entrepreneurial villager, decide if you want to create a local business that serves your community or if you want to serve a clientele unlimited by geography. Either kind of business is possible in the new world of cottage industries.

Since today’s cottage is apt to be an electronic one, small towns are becoming home to an endless array of enterprises that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.

If small town living appeals to you, make your own opportunities in a place that you love. As Jack Lessigner advises, “Build something, help something, save something. The possibilities are endless.”

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Becky McCray’s Small Biz Survival Web site is loaded with tips and information for entrepreneurial villagers.

Get Away With Your Muse

Alyson Stanfield, author of I’d Rather Be In The Studio and Art Biz Blog, is also a proponent of creative retreats. Hop over to her blog where she share her thoughts on the subject. 

Don’t be surprised if Alyson’s article has you thinking about a creative retreat of your own.

Although there are all sorts of reasons for taking time away, creative renewal is one of the most popular.Whether you can swing a few months or a few days, running away with your Muse from time to time can be a great investment.

Here are a few suggestions that get high marks from Muses.

Cottages at Hedgebrook is a retreat center for women writers on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. Hedgebrook offers a peaceful setting for writers, published or not. 

Resident writers stay for one week to three months in individual fairy tale cottages, are given room and board with the only requirement being that they spend the time being the best writers they can be.

Artists Residency Program of the Woodstock Guild offers summer residencies to craftspeople, writers, musicians, dancers and film, video and visual artists. Applications are closed for 2010, but if you wish to investigate, you might get a jump on 2011. 

Your Own Billionaire’s Retreat. For years, Bill Gates has taken himself away for a week-long reading retreat. You don’t have to be a billionaire to do the same. 

You know that stack of books you never quite get around to exploring? All you need is a quiet place and the intention of finishing the best books in your pile.

A reading respite is also a great idea that you can adopt before you have the time and money for a longer sabbatical. 

Bellagio Center is a retreat nestled in the Italian Alps where the Rockefeller Foundation welcomes scientists, policy makers and scholars from around the world who are working on significant projects to solve global problems.

The center, a 17th century building surrounded by 50 acres of parks and gardens, offers free room and board to those who are chosen. 

Change the Scenery. Take yourself away to a cabin in the mountains or a lake cottage or ocean bungalow. The key here is to give yourself as big a change of scenery as possible.

If you live in Denver, for instance, consider time away on the prairies of Kansas rather than a familiar Rocky Mountain retreat.

Or rent a motorhome and park it in a lovely setting. This is also ideal if you’re doing research on a subject like the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright which is scattered throughout the country.

Don’t wait until you can spare a big chunk of time. Making creative excursions a regular activity will enrich your life and fan your creative spirit. Even a day or two can be as refreshing as a spa visit.

Have you taken your Muse on a getaway? If so, I’d love to know where you went and what rewards came of it.