I’m still digging through the boxes of Wishcraft stuff I’ve saved. In the back of the old workbook there’s a loose page, yellowed, with typing on it, labeled only “QUOTES. “
But I recognize it and every name under the quotes. These are from the members of the first-ever-pilot-practice Success Team.
I think it was about 1975. For a few years I'd been one of a number of people chosen to run a kind of informal 'coping group,' that was being tried out by a psychiatrist. In one of the groups, the Tuesday night group, I could tell that something very special was happening. One of the members, an unprepossessing fellow (he had been described as 'Woody Allan without a sense of humor,') had admitted to his first feeling: he was unhappy because he was lonely and wanted a girlfriend.
At first they shook their heads and told him to forget it. "Women hate you, Ronnie," one of the members said.
"I know," he said. "Fix me."
They started to protest that everyone had to fix themselves when I interrupted and said, "It doesn't look like Ronnie is going to be able to do that. Why don't you all help him out?"
And they did! The Tuesday night group, instead of talking about their own problems, decided to get Ronnie a girlfriend.
I watched with amazement, week after week, as they reported that they'd taken him to a store, showed him how to dress, and asked him to buy new clothes. The men went with him to a gym to build some muscles but mostly so he'd stand up straight. During the sessions, they made him rehearse how to say hello so women wouldn't hate him immediately (as they usually did.) Finally, when they figured he was as good as he was going to get, they set parties to which they invited all the women they could find -- until Ronnie finally found his mate.
Even more amazing than this accomplishment was how terrific the members of the group had become as they worked on this project. Before that time, they had all been unmotivated, fussy complainers. This had transformed them!
I realized that I might have stumbled on a fantastic motivator, better than any kind of positive thinking or mantras, the kind of ongoing concern and support that a few lucky people are born with, but most of us never have. A team that makes us do what we want to do, and refuses to let us lose.
Every week, step by step, they rolled up their sleeves and put another piece in place. The combination of support and the structure and accountability of the weekly meetings created a motivational miracle.
Right then and there I got it: orphans don’t make it. Isolation is the dream killer. You can get what you want even if you don’t love yourself and don’t feel positive -- as long as you have an ongoing team to help you think and back you up and help you over the hard spots. And what did these helpers get in return? The same thing. Everyone, even Ronnie, helped every member go after their dreams, too.
And that turned out to be another miracle. Instead of only being the problem, the one who needed help, each person was often the solution, the one who helped each of the others, the smart, supportive person who knew how to help someone else's dreams come true. And that raised their self-esteem like no lectures, no mantra could ever do.
I knew I had something special here.
So I pulled together a small group of friends and positioned myself as a member, not a leader, so I’d know what it felt like to go after my dream, and to feel the resistance and fear everyone feels, and that way I could test what worked and what didn’t.
We met for almost a year. The team’s entire purpose was to make sure that every member got whatever she wanted, plain and simple. I wanted to create a 12-hour workshop that would help strangers form support teams, the workshop that, unknown to me, would some day turn into my first book, Wishcraft.
The stories of every one of their adventures are wonderful. All of them, at one time or another, wanted to back down, make excuses, you know the routine I'm sure, but we wouldn’t let them. We were warm and friendly, but we were tough.
For example, my workshop design wasn't finished when, in the middle of that year, I had major surgery. A few days later, when I was in the hospital bed, barely sitting up, my team came to see me. I was very glad to see them and touched that they’d taken the time to come by.
“How are you doing?” they asked.
“Not so bad,” I croaked.
“How are your hands?”
“My hands?” I said, confused. “They didn’t operate on my hands.”
“Great!” they said, and rolled the bed table up until it was over me, pulled out the notebook with the half finished notes in it, slapped it on the table and said, “Get to work.”
One of them remembered to give me a pen.
I was laughing so hard I was afraid I’d pop my stitches.
But I finished the workbook.
I could tell you a dozen stories just like that from the first group: how we made Caroline go to an art class and stood outside the door for 3 hours so she couldn’t leave. We knew she wanted to be in that class and that she was scared. But after the first night, she was hooked.
Then, on hearing Diane, who wanted to go to grad school to become a city planner, claim that she couldn't get to the bookstore to buy the G-MATs study book because her office job didn't give her enough time during the day and the bookstore closed at 5, the group bought it, went up to her office one afternoon, walked over to her desk and, in front of the whole room full of co-workers, handed it to her. “There you go,” they said.
(She studied, got into grad school, and before even getting her M.A., at a time when New York was so broke they were laying off policemen, she was offered three jobs as a city planner!)
I remember every one of the stories, each is better than the last, and maybe one day I’ll have time to tell them all. But I'd like you to see what these women handed me when I finally finished designing my workshop, to help me promote it:
QUOTES:
I would do a painting a year, a sketch a year. If it was only me I know I would never do it. Having to tell you makes all the difference. It’s crazy why I didn’t do this years ago, it’s so easy all of a sudden.
Caroline R.
Personnel Executive
Macy’s Dept Store
I’ve wanted to do this for five years. Now I’m out there learning everything I can about Urban Planning. People in the field have been very helpful to me, something I didn’t realize till my team believed in me.
Diane C
Secretary
Chemco Corporation
I learned when I joined Women’s Success Teams that talking about things and actually doing them are two different things. To do a thing you have to take step one. Then step two. And do it. I’ve had enough rehearsal. Now the show is on the road.
Barbara P.
Actress
Having a team to report to and hearing what everybody did each week is very exciting. It’s kept me moving all year. In the past I made some good starts on my own, but found, every time, when the energy ran out, I ran out. Now it doesn’t run out.
Jade G.
Children’s Playroom Therapist
New York Hospital
Women’s Success Teams is different from anything I’ve been to before, and I’ve been to them all. The other lectures and seminars I’ve gone to were very inspirational, but a week after I left them I really was in the same place I’d always been in. I walked out of that week-end belonging to a team of terrific women. I felt terrific too. I knew who I was, where I was going. I finally was off the long, lonely road of success. These women needed me and I needed them. We are doing it together.
Jeanne L.
Interior Decorator.
...............................................
I’m going to try to scan a few of these yellowed sheets of paper so you can see them yourself. I hope they make you smile as much as I’m smiling right now.
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