HOW I GOT STARTED

I'm moving some earlier posts from another of (my many) sites (www.barbarasherwishcraft.com) to this blog

1) because beginnings are relevant when one speaks of the life of a WriterSpeaker, and

2) the other site is about the Global Twitter Idea Party we did last March and it needs updating and... um .. it's on my list. Definitely.

so here it is with few changes:


"There are no self-made people"
02/05/2009
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Tonight I’m continuing to assemble all the various Wishcraft papers I’ve been gathering in preparation for 2009 and just came across I had forgotten: the original Success Teams workbook that goes with the original 12-hour workshop, the workshop that turned into Wishcraft.

I've been planning to do a special workshop for Wishcraft’s 30th year in print, and had in mind a 3-day virtual program, which I figured I'd design one of these days...maybe go through the book and pull out some highlights, I wasn't quite sure.

But looking through this workbook that I'd typed on 3-hole sheets of paper on my used red (gorgeous) IBM Selectric 33 years ago made me realize that I didn't have to pull anything out of Wishcraft because the book came directly from the workshop. All the words had been recorded on audio cassettes, all the charts were on blackboards, everything had moved straight from that workshop into the book, with very few changes. Not only don't I have to design anything new, this is the right workshop to celebrate Wishcraft's 30th year in print.

This last remaining copy, about 40 sheets of paper, is in a paper folder with a transparent front. As I turned the pages, it brought back so many memories. I remembered the year I developed the workshop so carefully, using storyboards and stick figures to choreograph what would happen -- when I’d speak, and when people would work in groups, and when they’d raise their hands for questions and when they’d stand up and walk up to each other in the high-speed brainstorming game.

That reminded me that even before the storyboard I had run a pilot Success Team at someone's home (who was that?) to see if Success Teams really worked, and to figure out how to get everyone to find a goal they cared about, and suss out a plan and the right timing for taking steps, and then to try out what to do when resistance raised its head and panic set in (like finding the elements and the right words to make everyone feel safe and brave enough to actually go after a dream).

Nothing could do all that but actually running a real team. And we did. I'll see if I described what happened and move it here one of these days. It's a bag of stories all on its own. (I can feel a faint smile on my face as I write these words.) But it will have to wait. Remind me.

(And before that, there was the therapy group with 'Ronnie.' That's really where the idea of Success Teams started. I promise to tell that story on this blog very soon.) (Honest.)

I also remember how I sat on the floor of my living room, pounding away on my red Selectric typewriter while my kids and the dogs were playing Let’s Be Boys and leaping over me, the phone was ringing, the dishes were waiting in the sink.

In the middle of that chaos, writing up the workbook I planned to hand out (if I could get anyone to attend the workshop) four wonderful little thoughts popped into my mind, and I wrote them down on their own blank pages, each one to introduce a different section of the workbook.

Here they are. They weren’t used in Wishcraft (I never imagined there would ever be a book) so I almost forgot them. But I remember writing them now. They’re a little awkward but I haven’t changed my mind about what they say:


1. INTRODUCTION (pg 1)

If your life isn’t all you wanted
you can blame yourself,
blame circumstance,
or get all the help you need and change it.


2. SELF-IMAGE AND RESOURCE SEARCH (pg 4)

Genius is that combination of unique gifts,
that universe inside each of us which, when it
is respected and nurtured by our environment
and trusted by ourselves, gives rise to a life
that is a work of art.


3. TIME MANAGEMENT (pg 21)

Energy: The only path that will truly absorb you is
your own path. It will generate all the creative energy
you will ever need. If you lack that energy
you have not found your purpose. It is your duty
to yourself – to your one life – that you find your
path and follow it.


4. THE USE OF OTHERS IN YOUR LIFE

Support: There are no self-made people. Behind each
person who has realized her or his potential, you find
a string of crucially placed individuals who believed
in the person, encouraged and aided her or him and
helped smooth the way. Assuming that you should have
made it on your own by now with no support is de-
bilitating and unrealistic.

....................
I'll write more tomorrow as I continue to sort through all these archives sitting on my shelves.