About Richard Chang

Richard Chang has been driven by his passion for achieving personal and business excellence throughout his life. This passion has led him to compete and excel in a variety of sports, to create and build start-up companies, and, ultimately, to write The Passion Plan: A Step-by Step Guide to Discovering, Developing, and Living Your Passion (Jossey-Bass, September 1999).

Over the years, Chang has pursued his passion for sports and competition, excelling at tennis, water polo, swimming, rollerskating, baseball, football, and volleyball. In high school, he focused on bowling and, later, as a UCLA freshman, won the National Collegiate Singles Championship. In graduate school, he even joined the pro bowling tour.

Chang's entrepreneurial passion was also evident at a young age. At eight years old, he created his first business--a lemonade stand that he grew to four "branches" with the help of a "Beat the Heat" marketing blitz--and followed it up with a series of successful and profitable neighborhood theater productions. As a high-school junior, he served as class president and also organized a myriad of fundraising activities. Through college, graduate school, and early professional life, he continued to pursue the necessary credentials and experiences that would ultimately help him launch his own business. In fact, at one time, he met the responsibilities of a full-time doctoral student, a full-time corporate employee, a part-time university lecturer, a part-time counselor in a private practice, and the president of a professional organization.

Today, Chang is CEO of Richard Chang Associates, Inc., an international performance-improvement consulting, training, and publishing firm headquartered in Irvine, California, and counts Citibank, Fidelity Investments, McDonald's, Nabisco, Toshiba, and Universal Studios among his clients.

The author or coauthor of more than twenty books on business and personal development, he currently serves as chair of the board of the American Society for Training and Development and has served as a judge for the prestigious Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award.

Chang received a B.A. in psychobiology from UCLA, an M.A. in counseling psychology from Chapman University, and a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from United States International University.

Reprinted with permission of Richard Chang.

Visit the Passion Plan web site at http://www.thepassionplan.com/.

(c) 1999 Richard Chang, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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