Meet the Experts
Barbara Sher
is a business owner, career counselor, speaker, and the bestselling author of five books, among them
I Could Do Anything, If Only I Knew What It Was,
How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It, and
Live the Life You Love, In Ten Easy Step-by-Step Lessons.
She has appeared on national and local radio and television, including Oprah, The Donahue Show, The Today Show, 60 Minutes, CNN and Good Morning America. Her first book, Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want, has sold well over a million copies.
In 1972, Sher invented Success Teams—small groups in which members work together in weekly meetings to identify their dreams and help each other make them come true. The teams were an instant hit. By 1976, she was running workshops to help people create Success Teams throughout the United States and Europe. Today, Sher's teams are operating in universities, career centers, Fortune 500 companies and in entrepreneur associations in Nepal, Siberia, Israel, Canada, Thailand, Australia, and Bulgaria.
Her latest book, Refuse To Choose deals with people who have so many interests they’re unable to choose only one (she has named them ‘Scanners’). This subject has obviously struck a nerve. “In the last four months since the book and the TV show have been out in the public eye, I’ve received an astonishing number of impassioned letters,” she said. “And all of them say Thank you!” As usual, Barbara’s advice is not what you expect. She finds that Scanners aren’t dilettantes or undisciplined, and they don’t change interests because of A.D.D. or a fear of success. “They seem to be highly intelligent, multi-talented people who need to have more interests than the average person,” she says.
Presently, Barbara Sher consults with clients in her New York office and travels throughout the world running workshops for professional organizations, colleges, corporations, and government agencies.
Barbara
Winter,
author of the bestselling
book,
Making
a Living Without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating
Work That You Love, is
also a business owner, itinerant teacher, and
self-employment advocate who found her own right
livelihood after overcoming her early notions that
work was meant to be drudgery.
It all began in 1974 when she
founded The Successful Woman, a pioneering training
and development company, which conducted programs on
self-esteem and entrepreneurship for women. She went
on to found several small businesses-all with the
intention of passing along to others the lessons she
had learned.
A former high school English teacher,
Barbara has turned her considerable energies to the
teaching of adults. Her popular seminars, including
Making a Living Without a Job and Establish Yourself
as an Expert, are regularly held throughout the
In addition, she is the
editor/publisher of
Barbara is the mother of an adult daughter, a devoted Anglophile, an intrepid world traveler and is ferociously committed to lifelong learning. She is particularly enthusiastic about being an inspired grandmother.
Valerie
Young is the
founder and Dreamer-in-Residence at
ChangingCourse.com and an expert on turning
interests into income. Following the sudden death of
her mother Barbara in 1993, Valerie left her
corporate job and 90-mile-a-day commute to pursue
her own dream of launching Changing Course.
Valerie's career change tips have
been cited in such publications as
Inc., Kiplinger’s, The Wall Street Journal, USA
Weekend, Reader’s Digest, Redbook, Glamour (UK),
Cosmopolitan, Entrepreneur, The Chicago Tribune, The
Globe & Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia),
and online at iVillage, CareerBuilder, and MSN.com
A popular
guest speaker Valerie has delivered her
How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems
to Think You Are
program to over 30,000 people from such
organizations as Intel, Bristol-Myers Squibb,
Chrysler, American Women in Radio and Television,
Society of Women Engineers, Harvard and MIT.
She is the author of
10 Steps to Escaping the Job World
Personal Planner and
contributing editor of the e-books
Finding Your True Calling: The
Handbook For People Who Still Don't Know What They
Want To Be When They Grow Up
and
Yes You Can: The Inspirational Kick
in the Pants You Need to Take Control of Your Life
and Go After Your Dreams.