My guest today on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots free podcast interview is a Yanran Carpenter, a coach, business lady and host of the newly released podast the Yanran Career lab. She is now based in the US, after starting her life and then running away from her home in China to find her true purpose. And it seems that her true purpose is now coming together with her flourishing business, where she helps students and working professionals who want to pursue a career they are passionate about and live a regret free life going from strength to strength. But it has taken a few years to get this going, as she says “Growing up in China, I spent most of my childhood in school and buried myself in mountains and mountains of books. At that time no one thought anything different. Parents and teachers were all telling you this is the only way to get ahead in your life—get good grades, go to good school and get a good job. After junior high, things changed. There was a voice in my head telling me to be different. I found myself in love with personal development books and started to rethink everything: Why do I go to school 8 hrs a day? Why do I study something I probably never going to use? Why are painting and knitting known as wasting my time? The voice in my head got louder by the day. Finally, I decided to leave the home and country I familiar with, come to America to find the purpose in my life. Things are very different here. Children go to school for only 5 hr a day with little to no homework. They can do pretty much anything without getting told as wasting your time. Everyone here is saying follow your heart and go get what you want in life.” So how do you transition to a life you want, when the voices are getting louder and louder, but you haven’t decided where you should focus your life? How do you make the next step the right step? Well you don’t. You just have to do something, and then something else, until it becomes clear to you. And from studying textiles and design in University, to working for Clark’s shoes as a Retail Manager, to becoming a Freelance Designer, our guest certainly tried something else before Yanran Career coaching burst into life. So when she was about to leave China, and move to the US, did her family tell her she was making a huge mistake, or “Go for it Yanran, we believe in you!”? And now she is doing what she is doing, does it become easier to attract clients because she has a backstory, or is it harder because of it? Well lets find out as w bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Yanran Carpenter. (Jobs, Freedom, Business, Lifestyle, Success, Best, Career, Top, Podcast, Startup, Steve, How, To, Content, Dream ) To listen to more from Yanran Carpenter go to: Podcast: Yanran Career Lab Description: Yanran Career Lab - The place to discover the career and personal stories from every day people just like you and get inspired to find your passion, follow your dreams and accelerate your personal growth.