Answer to Burning Question #1 (To read comments from your fellow dreamers, click here)

Like I was saying, I’ve been getting lots and lots of questions about Fast Track. The number one question being – what IS Fast Track and (as importantly) will it really help me to quit my j-o-b and get a life?

Let me answer the last part first. Simply said…

Fast Track will help you get from where you are to where you want to be faster than you could ever on our own. Guaranteed.

Now if you’d asked me “What is Fast Track” a month ago you’d have gotten a completely different answer. But since then this thing has grown in some pretty amazing ways.

If there’s one thing I’ve come to learn about being an entrepreneur it’s this: Don’t get too attached to your original idea. Why? Because whatever idea, project, even business, you start out with will not be what you end up with… It will be better!

This announcement is intentionally long. That’s because in addition to answering the larger question “Will Fast Track really help me quit my j-o-b and so I can work at I love?” I figured that as an aspiring entrepreneur yourself you’d might find it helpful to actually see how a small idea can evolve into something so much more…

You see when I first came up with the idea for Fast Track some two years ago now it was basically going to be a tool kit for dreamers. Fast Track still includes a kit. In fact, it’s a really big kit.

Among other things the Fast Track Kit comes with 5 books. One of these is my brand new “10 Steps to Escaping the Job World and Creating the Life You Really Want Personal Planner.” In addition to exercises and planning sheets, your Personal Planner includes step-by-step instructions for mapping out an exit strategy designed to work for you and your unique situation.

There are also 10 full-length audio CDs. The CDs feature the collective wisdom and advice of 17 experts and entrepreneurs including Barbara Sher, Barbara Winter, and myself.

I’ve also created a couple of password-protected Online Resource Guides. The one I’m most excited about is my newest creation. I call it “The Idea Jogger” and it consists of 201 totally cool ways to make a living without a job.” (I’m so excited about this guide that I put together a printed version too.)

Even after getting all these printed and audio resources together I realize there was still more to tell you about what it takes to find your life mission and live it. So over I’ve been working on putting together three live Teleclasses. This is where I’ll be covering everything from the 5 hidden places to look for ideas for income streams, to how to market your new business on a shoestring budget, to 20 ways to quit your job and get a life.

Finally, like I told you in my last update… I wanted to make sure you had a way to get all of your individual questions answered. So I spent the last four months training a team of Outside the Box Career Consultants. Then I set up a password-protected Fast Track Q&A Forum where you can go to get personalized answers from the “Dream Team.”

I’m sure I’m leaving something out, but you get the idea. The point is this… I knew the Fast Track Tool Kit would have tons of great information and resources. But still, in its basic form it would also be a self-study kind of thing. Plus once the 3 Teleclass series ended… well, you’d be on your own.

Then I did that survey… You remember, the one where I said, “If you could sit down with me for lunch what would be the top two or three questions you’d want to ask about changing course.” Well that was almost a month ago and questions are still coming in… and these are on top of the 1200-plus questions I already got!

I’m going to be brutally honest with you. Just putting together all of these different elements of the Fast Track Kit has been an incredibly painstaking and time-consuming task. After working on this thing for over two years I got tired just *thinking* about adding anything else.

But like I said, then I got all of your questions and that changed everything. Naturally a lot of people wanted to know thing like: “How do I figure out the work I’m meant to do?” and “What do I do about health insurance?”(Both by the way are covered in detail in the Fast Track Kit.)

But among the usual questions there were some that really pulled at my heart strings. Like this one from Ozoda who wrote to me all the way from Tajikistan:

“Dear Valerie Young, recently I find about your course. This is the 3 time that I’m getting from you a newsletter. What I need now desperately is to change my life. It has been 7 years that I work for one organization. I’m very tired working for this organization. There is no change, all the time same things to do. It has been a while that I want to change my work but it is difficult to find a good job in this part of the world. I want to begin my own business but how I don’t know how. Can you help me?” (I hasten to add that Ozoda knows how to make her point in English a whole lot better than I can communicate in Tajikistan.)

I also heard from hundreds of people closer to home. Like this person who wrote:

“Currently, I work in a corporate job that I absolutely HATE and, honestly, I am finding it most difficult to even pretend to care about what I am tasked to do… Where do I sign up? I am at my wit’s end and know that I would be more than successful (personal and professional) if I could just find my path.”

Then I got this from a woman named Jody from the Detroit area. You’re going to hear more about Jody down the road but let me just share the part of her letter that really got to me:

“I am a forty-eight year old grandmother of three, and someone who has spent the past twenty years of her life not having a life. Being a retail manager at a 24-hour store for years meant not only working long shifts or undesirable shifts, but every shift. It mean being robbed at gun-point twice, being spit on, insulted, spoken down to, and just generally abused on a daily basis. It also required being open for every holiday, missing family weddings, graduations, anniversaries, you name it.

Sobbing in my car to and from work had become the norm. I did this while raising four sons alone in Detroit. Fortunately, my sons grew up and moved out, I paid off my house, and the company closed down my store, all in that order.

I did not know what to do so I went back to college. College has been a wonderful experience! It is stimulating and esteem-building, which are things I was in great need of. However, every word they say to you is specifically directed at landing you in a corporate office somewhere. That is the last place I want to be!”

I could go on and on. But the point is that after reading all of these emails I was totally overwhelmed with a sense of urgency. So I called the only other person I know who is as driven as I am to help people break out of job jail – and that friend and occasional collaborator Barbara Winter. (If you don’t already own a copy of Barbara’s book, Making a Living Without a Job, run, don’t walk to your local bookstore and get yourself a copy today.)

I told Barbara about Ozoda and Jody and a couple of others whose letters really got to me. Then virtually at once we both said the same thing… “We have to help these people!” By that point it was after 9:00 on a Friday night. So we decide to both give it some thought and talk again in a week.

Then I woke up the next morning to find a message waiting for me from a guy named Matt in South Africa. And that’s when the light bulb went off. You see Matt is a self-described “47-year-young family man, analytical IT/Finance trained middle management type working in an IT company.” Basically what Matt wanted me to know was that it was going to take a lot more than listening to a CD or reading a book to get him to take the leap…

“What I need,” said Matt, “is a ‘recipe’ or process that has been proven to be successful, where all the ‘ingredients are listed.’ Like the thoughts I must think, plans I must make, the questions I need to ask and get answered that will lead me to the actions/steps I must take in order to realize the dreams in my soul. If Donald Trump can sell a ‘system for success,’ be it in real estate, entrepreneurial endeavors, etc, then perhaps you can do something similar?”

Well, Matt I’m no Donald Trump… but the idea of a comprehensive “system for success” really got me jazzed. Then I got to thinking about the different people who had written in from literally all over the world. People from different cultures and countries who, like you, share a common goal which is to work when you want, where you want, and at something that really matters.

So after a few more calls to Barbara (and some major hustling on my part) what had been simply the Fast Track Kit quickly turned into a comprehensive, multi-faceted, ongoing “system” AND a virtual “community” of dreamers.

What’s different? Think of all of the things I just told you are in the Fast Track Kit – including the three original Teleclasses – as laying a foundation for what’s to follow. Namely (drum roll please)…

The Fast Track Your Dream Community! So what does that mean?

Well, for starters, as a member of this new community of entrepreneurial dreamers and doers you’ll a free pass to a monthly Fast Track Your Dream Expert Series. You’ll be able to listen in as I interview some pretty big names in the career, entrepreneurial, and online business success world. I can’t give you all the details right now because I’m still negotiating with a couple of these folks.

Suffice it to say you’ll get to learn from – and ask questions of – a wide range of guest experts who will teach you everything you need to know to change course… fast! But that’s not all…

In addition to this monthly guest speaker series Barbara Winter herself has signed on to host a monthly live Teleclass. Starting soon you’ll learn from Barbara “How to Live the Joyfully Jobless Life.” If you’ve ever seen Barbara in action you already know that this is one opportunity you definitely do not want to miss.

I’m sorry to go on and on. But I just get so excited talking about this stuff. Actually I haven’t even told you about some of the other cool things I added to help members of this unique community get and keep their dreams on track. But I know this is getting pretty long. So if you’re still with me maybe you can hit the comment button right now and tell me what you think so far.

Let me wrap this up by quickly sharing a couple of important reasons why I decided to make this the Fast Track Your Dream “Community.”

For starters, one of the fastest ways to join the ranks of the joyfully jobless is to “hang out” with people who really “get” it. That means spending time with entrepreneurs who have already made it to “the other side. It also means a part of a powerful community of people who understand that it really is possible to love your life.

Not only that but when you’re part of a larger community you have the benefit of a whole team of fellow dreamers who are equally eager to learn how to grow a dream. You’ll have people there to cheer you on and to help you over any rough spots. And who knows… you may even find your future business partner!

And best of all, instead of dealing with all the negative people who tell you to “get real,” you’ll finally be where you’re meant to be – among kindred spirits.

There’s a lot more to the Fast Track Community than I can convey in this email. The main key thing I want you to know right now is this…

Now that Fast Track is a complete “system” I know it’s going to help you realize your dream of working at what you love faster than you could ever go on your own.

That’s because, as a member of a larger Fast Track Your Dream Community you will receive daily, weekly, and monthly access to all the information, resources, inspiration, tools, and support you need to help you get from where you are now to working at what you love.

So to all those dream dashers out there who tell you to “be realistic,” I leave you with my new favorite quote from Will Smith who said, “Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity.”

To your dreams,

Valerie Young
Dreamer in Residence
ChangingCourse.com

p.s. If Ozoda from Tajikistan is out there, drop me an email. I’ll be happy to try to lend a hand.

p.s.s. Being on the Priority List means you get advanced notice of when Fast Track becomes available (ahead of the 23k people on the general Changing Course Newsletter list) plus a jumpstart on getting one of a limited number of very cool bonuses.

If you’re not already on the Fast Track Updates Priority Notification List sign up now at:

www.changingcourse.com/fasttracksignup.htm

Explore posts in the same categories: Fast Track Your Dream