This Domain For Sale. Contact us for more information.

What Your Guidance Counselor, Career Counselor, and Own Mother Probably Never Told You...

The alarm clock jars you awake at some insanely early hour. As you hit the snooze button you think, "there's gotta be a better way to make a living." As someone who rolled out of bed this morning at 8:30, I'm here to deliver the good news: there is.

A lot of people dream of escaping "Dilbert's world" and being their own boss. Perhaps the biggest reason these dreams get derailed is money. Or, more accurately, faulty thinking about what it means to "make a living." I'm no exception. For a long time I thought before I could take the leap to self-employment, I had to first figure out a venture that would generate the same amount of income as I was then earning.

Develop Multiple Profit Centers

Not so, says Barbara Winter, self-bosser and author of Making a Living Without a Job Winter is an enthusiastic advocate of what she calls "multiple profit centers." Instead of thinking in terms of a single income, i.e. a "job," Winter recommends aspiring entrepreneurs develop several income sources.

Outdoor enthusiast and neighbor Bob Sadowski is living proof that you can have your cake and eat it too. Bob lives on 80 acres in rural Plainfield, MA where he's parlayed his life passions into his livelihood. When not running New England Bob's Snowmobile Tours of Quebec snowmobiling tours throughout Quebec (one covers nearly 1,100 miles) this vintage car enthusiast specializes in buying and selling antique car and truck parts out of his barn.

Today my income comes from five sources:

1) I publish eBooks and other resources for other people looking to take the leap from having a job to having a life.

2) I do telephone consultations with people from literally all over world on how to turn what you love to do into income.

3) Drawing upon research I did in graduate school, I've established myself as an expert on the topic of women's self-limiting patterns and philosophies. Now I'm asked to deliver my How to Feel As Bright and Capable as Everyone Seems to Think You Are for such diverse organizations as American Women in Radio and Television, Bristol Myers Squibb, and MIT.

4) I get paid to deliver other people's seminars. My biggest client for freelance training is my former employer, a company called Time/Design. Time/Design hires me to fly around the country to lead their one-day course called Time Management to Focus Management for such clients like Ruby Tuesdays, Georgio Armani, and the US Army.

5) I seek out other products

Keep Your Day Job

Maybe you aren't interested in quitting your job but you like the idea of not having all your eggs in one basket. When traveling to San Francisco, I stay in an apartment in a lovely hilltop home in the Ashbury Heights section of the city. The owner is a Bay area native who, in addition to teaching reading to grade schoolers (which she absolutely loves), has set up several additional sources of income.

For one, she rents the in-law apartment to tourists through the local B&B association on per night basis earning considerably more than she would with a year-round tenant. For weekend and summer time income, she parlayed her knowledge and love of the city into a personal tour guide business with a steady stream of customers right in her own home. She even takes in a few extra bucks renting videos to her overnight guests.

Maybe you don't really like your job but can't afford to just up and quit. Say your long-range goal is to make $50,000. You don't need to be a math whiz to know there are different ways you can slice and dice this. For simplicity sake, though, let's say you decide to set up five income streams, each generating $10,000. Since you'll be building your multiple income streams while you're still gainfully employed, starting two side businesses simultaneously is probably about your max time-wise.

What you now have is a monthly goal for each business of just over $800. That's $200 a week. If making $20,000 a year seemed daunting, Winter says, psychologically earning $200 is more feasible: "Knowing what your financial goal is makes it easier to determine what action you'll need to take to accomplish it."

So what are you waiting for? It's your life!

"Off the beaten career path" consultant, Valerie Young, abandoned her corporate cubicle to become the Dreamer in Residence at http://www.ChangingCourse.com, offering free resources to help you discover your life mission and live it. Her career change tips have been cited The Wall Street Journal, USA Today Weekend, Redbook, Entrepreneur's Business Start Ups, and on-line at MSN, CareerBuilder, and iVillage.com. An expert on the Impostor Syndrome, she's presented her How to Feel as Bright and Capable as Everyone Seems to Think You Are program to thousands of people.

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Careers & Employment Information:

20 Questions That Helped Me Take A Leap Of Faith And Change Careers
When I was working more than 45 hours a week in a job with a two hour commute each day, the challenge of a new husband, new step children, two beagle dogs and maintaining a home was more than a stretch! Something had to give, and unfortunately I was the one starting to not be able to hold it together!It was a Catch 22 situation. We had an expensive home near the city center with large mortgage costs, which demanded feeding through joint incomes.

Resumes, Networking, Headhunters - Useless Without Marketing Sweet Spot
A career transition is no longer about getting your hands on a list of contacts, networking with headhunters, or going online to look for work. It's better than that.

Do You Work to Live or Live to Work?
Let's be realistic here - hands up all of you who bounce out of bed every single morning, raring to get to work and enjoying yourself every minute of the day?If you didn't put your hand up (even metaphorically), you're not alone. There have been so many articles published recently about working statistics in the UK - that Brits work the longest hours in the EU, that we have higher risks of heart disease than our continental friends due to stress and poor diet, there has been a rise in people "downshifting" and moving to the country to raise chickens and weave baskets.

Build Your Career Decision By Decision
Do you dislike making decisions and avoid the challenge whenever you can?Take heart. Look around and you will find you have plenty of company.

Why You Only Really Need Four Sample Resumes
Any job seeker looking for sample resumes usually doesn't have to look very far.A multitude of sites today are offering free sample resumes on the internet in addition to the avalanche of books that are released each year touting resume examples.

8 Steps to Getting On-Track When You Start a New Job
Starting a new job can feel like moving to a new country. Your language skills may be modest.

What You Should Know About A Medical Billing Specialist
Whether you are a person who is thinking about becoming a medical billing specialist or a company looking for a medical billing specialist, then this article is for you. There are several things that you should be aware of in the medical billing industry and I will walk you through them so that you will have the background information that you need to help you make a decision that will best suit your needs.

Interviewing Over Lunch: Are You at Risk?
Sometimes a hiring process will include having lunch with the hiring manager. Despite anything said to the contrary (like "It'll just be an informal lunch so we can get to know each other.

Revitalize Your Recruiting for 2005
Happy New Year! The forecasts are in agreement: Hiring is on the rise. 2005 will mark the revitalization of our economy.

How To REALLY Look For A Job
Are you looking for a job -- really looking? Or are you simply waiting for employment to fall into your lap?If you're like about 75% of the job seekers I've met over the past nine years, you're probably doing too much waiting and not enough searching.Stop.

Closing the Gap on Your Career Goals
If you still picture a steady progression up the ladder when you think of your career goals, it is time to shift your thinking. For most people, climbing the career ladder is no longer an option.

Career Success: Get Ahead of the Crowd
Regardless of where you open your briefcase or palm pilot each day - at a large corporation, a small business or the end of your dining room table - the key to staying employable the rest of your life is your own creative action. The person who is going to be successful is not going to succeed just because of good work.

Counteroffers: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
If "resignation" is the word that strikes fear into all employers, then "counteroffer" is the one that strikes fear into an employee's heart. "What should I do? They've matched my offer?"It's Friday afternoon.

Competency Based Interviews - 6 Steps to Success!
Competency based interviews are intended to get the best from you, the candidate, whilst also fulfilling the needs of the organisation to get the very best person for the job. There are some easy steps to make the most of yourself and have a much better chance of success.

How To Get A Job Writing Speeches
Jobs in speech writing are amongst the most difficult to find, but are much sought after. In many cases, the subjects that will deliver them will want to find expert advice on what to say, how to say it, and how to make themselves look good through it.

Listening for Interview Success
Yes I know that we usually think of interviews as us doing all the talking, but the reality is different. At least 40% of the time we should be listening, and what we hear will have an enormous effect on what we say.

Job Offers and Pay Negotiations
When you first get the job offer it will often be a verbal offer and is likely to be subject to taking up references and perhaps even a medical examination.So never say you are accepting a job offer, or resign from your present job until you have received a formal offer in writing for the new position.

Last Year Physician Resident Checklist
Here is a last year resident checklist not to forget:LICENSING:Licensing is becoming increasingly complex as identity and medical fraud become more common. Therefore don't wait till the last minute to start the process.

Is Pursuing a Career in Patent Law the Right Move for You?
What's It All About?The field of patent law is wide open to Biologists, Chemists, Engineers, Computer Scientists, and many other science and technology professionals. And it's true; individuals with the proper science or engineering degree need only pass the Patent Bar to become registered Patent Agents.

How You Can Find Freelance Writing Employment
How can you find writing jobs? Do you have proven skills that can propel you in the right direction? If so, then why are you looking for fresh vacancies? The best tool to those who have employment histories is to look to the companies that you have already worked for. There, they can help provide you with more work, or point you in the right direction.