Valerie Young

[font family=”georgia,palatino” size=”36″ color=”000080″ textshadow=”0″ alignment=”center” weight=”bold” style=”normal” lineheight=”110″] About Dr. Valerie Young [/font]

You may have followed me for years. Or perhaps we’re meeting for the first time.

If so, let me take a moment to formally introduce myself…

My name is Dr. Valerie Young and I’m the Dreamer in Residence at ChangingCourse.com. For seven years I commuted 90 miles a day to my job in management at a Fortune 200 company.

Great company. Great people. But it was alas a job that paid the bills but didn’t feed my soul.

When my mother Barbara Young passed away unexpectedly at just 61 it was a painful wake up call. I realized then that life is too short to not be living on your own terms.

Since 1995 I’ve built a reputation as a recognized expert in helping people turn their passions into profits so they can take the leap from having a boss to being their own boss.

Today over 20 years later my Changing Course Newsletter is read by over 24,000 people around the world. I’m also humbled and gratified that my career change advice has been cited in major publications around the world in places like…

I’ve never been content to do just one thing. So I’m also what you’d call an expert on something called the “impostor syndrome.”

You may not have heard the term before but I bet you’re familiar with the nagging self-doubt that says, “If I can do it anyone can!” or “I was just lucky” or “I’m still waiting for the No Talent Police to show up and arrest me!”

Feelings that by the way are most likely to pop up whenever you embark on something new… like for instance changing careers or starting your own business.

If you struggle with self-confidence I assure you, you’re not alone.

Over the years I’ve spoken to over 80,000 people on this very topic.

People from such diverse organizations as Apple, Intel, Chrysler, Facebook, Boeing, Procter & Gamble, Merck, American Women in Radio and Television, Society of Women Engineers, Romance Writers of America, and entrepreneurial centers across Canada, as well as at over 80 major colleges and universities including Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.

In 2008 I landed a six-figure book deal with Random House for The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It.

I had the great fortune to have six best-selling authors endorse my book. People like Dr. Susan Jeffers (Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway), Dr. Lois Frankel (Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office), and Barbara Sher  (I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was).

Imagine my surprise when Steve Forbes, editor of Forbes magazine asked for an inscribed copy for one of his daughters. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better I received an email from Arianna Huffington who wrote to say, “thank you for your wonderful book” and to ask if I’d blog on the topic for the Huffington Post! I couldn’t say yes fast enough!

Someone recently said I was “courageous” to send my book to someone as famous as Arianna Huffington.

Not really.

The way I see it, it takes no more effort for any of us to play big than it does to play small.

Besides, what do you have to lose?

That “what the heck” attitude is what got me past my awe and invite two of my longtime role models to partner with me to teach a class. They said yes!

So, I had great privilege of working with two of the most inspiring and successful career change gurus around… best-selling authors Barbara Sher (Wishcraft, I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was, Refuse to Choose…) and Barbara Winter who wrote the book on multiple profit centers with her best-seller Making a Living Without a Job.

The three of us delivered a remarkable workshop and retreat I produced called Making Dreams Happen. The event sold-out and I made friends for life!

And if you’re interested in these kinds of things… I became “Dr.” Valerie Young because when I was in my 20s I earned a doctoral degree in education.

(For the record, I definitely don’t “need” a fancy degree to do the work I do today. Frankly, I liked the student lifestyle and I had a passion for the topic of social justice so I just kept going.)

I grew up working class and I know I got my strong work ethic from my parents.

In fact, my mother worked at the same school where I was studying – the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. She’d taken a job as a second shift janitor when she was 52 because neither she nor my dad had a pension.

Like I told you, my Mom died unexpectedly of a heart attack at just 61 — just 5 months away from her much awaited retirement.

It was the sad wake up call that started my own changing course journey.

I’ve been semi or completely self-employed now for over two decades. Like all small businesses it took a while before I could fully quit the work I was doing to pay the bills.

Today both my businesses regularly generate six figures.

I’m not telling you this to impress you. I’m telling you this so you understand that so much more is possible than you think.

Money is of course important. But you and I both know it’s not all about the money.

There’s that little thing called your life. Christopher Morley was right when he said,

[font family=”georgia,palatino” size=”26″ color=”ff0000″ textshadow=”0″ alignment=”center” weight=”bold” style=”normal” lineheight=”110″]”There is only one success, to be able
to live your life in your own way.”[/font]

Take me for example.

I love my home with the view. I could sit and gaze at these mountains for hours.

Fortunately for me, I also work from home. There’s not enough money in the world that would coax me back to commuting to some office with florescent lights.

Until his recent passing my faithful companion Cokie also enjoyed the work-from-home lifestyle.

(His name was “Pokie” when I got him from the shelter but as I always told him, he’s faster than a greyhound! Ok, not really… but I think he liked that.)

But I also enjoy working with people more directly.

So for many years I held a workshop around the country called Work at What You Love. As many as 150 people would show up to learn how they could profit from their passion.

I loved it.

But after a while wanted to do something smaller and closer to home. So in keeping with my Life First – Work Second approach I decided to work with small groups of 6-8 people in my home.

People from as far away as Mexico, Quebec, Alaska, Hawaii, and Texas have spent up to $3,000 to attend a Work at What You Love Workshop/Retreat here in rural Western Massachusetts.

 

I even held one of these workshop/retreats in Ecuador!

Half the day was dedicated to helping workshop attendees come up with creative ways to make a living doing what they love. And the other half was spent touring the local area.

I had a blast – and changed the lives of my workshop participants in the process.

There’s nothing quite like knowing that the work you do matters. Here’s a really tiny sample of the thank you cards I routinely get from grateful clients. What a gift.

And once you make the decision to join me as a licensed Profiting from Your Passions® Coach you too can make a positive difference in the lives of others – and change your own life in the process.

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