Your Name (optional): Caron B. Goode, Ed.D.
Male/female: Female
City: Tucson
State/Province: AZ
Country: USA
Industry: Psychology, Writing and Publishing
Job: Managing Director
Company (Optional): Inspired Living International
Education:
As a teacher of children with disabilities, I earned a Master’s degree. To be a psychologist, I earned a doctoral degree. To specialize in the field of health and wellness, I did post-doctoral study. To be a person like a teacher or a psychotherapist who helps other people, this kind of study is required to form a common service. All teachers or therapists need to understand human nature and motivation and areas of problems and solutions that could happen to someone. This study is necessary to provide you with intellectual background, but it does not teach you how to be present with people. The experience of being with people comes from living and interacting. It is the experience of working with children that showed me how to teach a problem or motivate a student. It is talking with clients, sharing their lives, and learning to trust one another that guides the way one human can interact with another. Being with people in my work became my motivation to write people’s stories and how they solved their problems. How did one person cure their cancer? Why did one teenager decide to go back to school after dropping out? How can one parent foster a talent in their child? Wouldn’t you want to know? As an author, however, we are told to write something each day to make yourself focus on doing something you enjoy. So writing could be keeping a diary, journaling about a vacation, writing a short description of a relationship or a unique travel experience to Peru. I did take courses in writing that I could study at home and work on in my own time. But the real test of a writer is finding a voice, the one inside who can speak to others in an easy relaxing tone, and inspire others to read you. That is the challenge, and that is why we write something every day – our moods change, our feelings are tired, angry, jubilant, or sad. This is life, and this is what a writer captures.
Training/experience required (years, other jobs):
Any experience in writing is always excellent training – whether a creative writing course, spiritual journaling, diary-keeping, or reporting the daily news events. A person is usually drawn to write about what interests them. The challenge is to convey that to other people.
Explain what you do:
I consider the problems of all of my clients over the years, and I find creative, spiritual ways that people can help themselves. This is what I write about.
Why should kids choose your career path?
People choose to write because they like to do it. Their need to express themselves can’t be held down. And we all need encouragement. I knew that I wanted to be a teacher early in life. I also knew that I liked to write. One of fourth grade teachers said to me that she liked my poetry. That was all the motivation I needed. I wrote poem after poem, and gave it to her for extra credit. I don’t know if I ever got the extra credit, but she read everything that I wrote, and encouraged my esteem. I was motivated in high school to take Creative writing classes. Find someone to listen to your stories and read what you have to write. Within you is a deep well of talent. If writing is your interest or talent, it will show itself to you in your everyday life. Maybe you felt outraged by the bombing of the World Trade Center. What do you do with that outrage? Write a story. Maybe you don’t like something a friend did. Create a daily diary of your feelings about the friendship until your are clear. Confused about the issue? Get it out of your mind by writing it down. When it is out of your head, you can see things more clearly. One chooses to write because one loves to write.
What would you recommend career wise and how should kids approach/develop their preparation for a working life?
Find a mentor. Take a course. Write something every day, even in a diary, maybe your opinion in a letter to the editor. This will keep your creative juices flowing. Opportunities for writing abound in magazines, on the internet magazines and bulletin boards, in media production, in journalism. So you have to decide what you like to write. Then see what field of study would support your interest. You CAN DO what you love. Most of us just don’t know that we can make that choice. In the field of writing, you must keep doing it. PERSISTENCE does pay off. In this field, it is persistence sometimes, more than skill that opens door ways for publishing something.
Lessons learned:If you started all over again what would you do differently?
I would take less psychology courses and more writing courses. I would combine my careers earlier in life.
A favorite anecdote, phrase, or expression relating to business that inspires you:
Most writers are very serious about what they write. One time I saw an advertisement in a magazine about a publisher looking for a specific manuscript. I said to my friend, “I can do this. You watch, I am going to get a book contract.” I did this in fun, on a lark. And I got the book contract. I saw an opportunity, and I jumped for it.
Other suggestions or relevant information you would communicate to kids regarding careers in general: