Not Afraid to Dream

Two weeks ago, Alice Barry did a delightful teleclass to celebrate the anniversary of her Joyfully Jobless life. The title of her program was 7 Lessons I’ve Learned in 7 Years in Business.

She told us that she learned her first lesson at a seminar Nick Williams and I did in Las Vegas called Creating an Inspired Business. What was that lesson that launched her?

Start where you are. To hear Alice tell it, those words served as a mantra and she began moving forward putting her ideas into action.

Today, her business, Entertaining the Idea, helps others put their ideas into action, too.

Alice isn’t the only person I know who’s building a dream, of course.

Liz deNesnera flew from her home in New Jersey to Los Angeles yesterday. She’s spending the week in California taking her Voice Over business to the next level. Happily, she also took time to spend several hours with me.

Like Alice, I first met Liz in person in a Creating an Inspired Business event in Las Vegas.

Liz had been a longtime subscriber to Winning Ways newsletter and had attended a Making a Living Without a Job seminar in New York, but this was the first time we’d officially met. “You’re not just a name on a mailing label anymore,” I joked after we’d become acquainted.

Since then, I’ve received excited calls from Liz when she wants to report on the growth of her business;  it was a real treat being able to get the latest update in person.

As usual, she was bubbling with excitement over the continuing growth of Hire Liz which puts her talents to work in both English and French.

Another former seminar participant has also been on my radar lately. I first met Dyan deNapoli when she attended Valerie Young’s Work at What You Love seminar in Northampton, MA.  Dyan was wearing her passion for penguins on her sleeve—and on her cute VW Beetle.

Her passion has brought her wonderful opportunities including lecturing on an Antarctic cruise and authoring The Great Penguin Rescue. Dyan is also the first person I’ve known to be featured as a speaker at TED Talks.

Then there’s Valerie Young. I’ve known her longer than the other three and still remember our first conversation when she called me after attending Making a Living Without a Job to discuss an idea she had to help corporate employees change course.

Over the years, she’s helped thousands of people do just that through her coaching and seminars. But that was only part of her entrepreneurial endeavors.

Valerie became a popular speaker on the Impostor Syndrome. One day a publisher came calling, and in mid-October her book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, will be published. It’s a stunner.

I was honored to see the manuscript after she invited me to write a testimonial for the book. From the first chapter, I knew this was more than an ordinary business or personal growth book.

Yesterday, another big accolade came in for the still unavailable book when she learned that Publisher’s Weekly is giving it a starred review. Valerie wasn’t the only one who found that exciting!

I’ve been thinking a lot about all four of these inspiring women and what they have in common. Obviously, they’re all lifelong learners. They’ve also all patiently followed their dreams and created their own unique enterprises.

But the thing that just hit me about them all is that I’ve known all of them before any of these achievements occurred.

If there’s anything more inspiring than knowing real life dreamers who are also doers, I don’t know what it is. Their achievements add to the joy in our lives—and urge us to stretch farther.

It’s also easy to forget that when we see personal achievement, there was a time when it didn’t exist, but all successful people have a Before and After story.

That’s probably why writer Nikki Giovanni warns us, “Do not surround yourself with people who do not have dreams.” The After story is even sweeter when we were present Before it happened.

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Working on some wild dreams of your own? Join me on the Idea Safari and collect some dreambuilding tools.

Joyfully Jobless? Speak up

When Liz de Nesnera noticed the front page story in the New Jersey Star Ledger, she was excited. After she read it, however, she felt she wanted to get into the conversation. Here’s the letter she wrote in response.

I wanted to send you a note regarding your article “Wall St. survivors: Former financial executives reinventing themselves as entrepreneurs” which appeared in today’s Star Ledger. While I applaud the five people you featured, and wish them the very best in their new endeavors, I felt that your article was a bit skewed. Every person you wrote about bought into a franchise.

While this is one way to start your own business, it’s not the only way, nor is it necessarily the most feasible way for everyone who gets laid off. Those that get laid off may not have the $15,000, let alone $100,00 available to buy in.

I was laid off in May of 2005 from a job I held for 9 years. Like many of those you mentioned in your article, I decided that it was “now or never” for me to take that leap and go out on my own. As the primary caregiver to my mother who had a stroke 14+ years ago, I started a resource website for Caregivers  which I still maintain as a labor of love.

Then I went back to my love of voice over and recording and am now a successful a full-time freelance bi-lingual (English/French) voiceover artist with clients all over the world. After almost four years I can say that I am making a living, able to pay my bills and LOVE what I do! (You can see what I do and hear my demos at www.HireLiz.com) My initial investment of a website host, new computer, professional microphone, professional recording equipment and software, as well as the sweat equity of setting up my recording space and websites were MUCH less than the lowest $15,000-franchise-buy-in quoted in your article.

 With the help of friends I have made along the way, plus a lot of networking, joining relevant professional associations as well as online sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, I am living my dream of  being my own boss. Like many of those featured in your article I work long hours, but frankly it doesn’t feel like work because I’m passionate about what I do.

 I’m thrilled that the people you mentioned have found their niche. I just wanted to provide an alternate non-franchised perceptive  from someone who has been there, and is now happier than ever working for themselves.