Barbara Sher's Wishcraft

 

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 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 memories back. 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 they really worked, to figure out how to get everyone to find a goal they cared about, and suss out the right timing for making a plan and taking steps, what to do when resistance raised its head and panic set in, finding the elements and the right words to make everyone feel safe and brave enough to actually go after a dream.

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 purposes. 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.








 

 


Comments

Rachel Z. Cornell

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 04:28:41

Hey Barbara,
I HAD (and would still have if I had not had an apartment fire) a Teamworks Binder to lead teams! Do you remember those?

I am so grateful that you had the wherewithal to pound out the words that would become your book!

Did you always know you wanted to be an author or did that emerge with the development of the workbook?

 

Beth LaMie

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:03:33

Barbara,
What a great site about the 30th anniversary of your terrific book. You have such wonderful common-sense information for everyone.

I am grateful for how this book opened my eyes to possibilities.

Beth LaMie

 

susan kuhn frost

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:45:23

WOW - present at the creation. Your vision hasn't changed one iota in 20 years. I appreciate the visual image of you in the midst of chaos creating the ideas that would become a book that sold over 1 million copies and change thousands of lives, mine included, forever.

 

Patty Newbold

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:15:30

So, Malcolm Gladwell was just 15 when you laid out the premise behind his current bestselling book, Outliers: The Story of Success, and got to work showing us how to find the people and circumstances to become something big? I love you, Barbara Sher!

 

Annette Gonzalez DeLisle

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:55:43

Barbara,
Time does not change truths. Your simple truths have been an inspiration to many. I so appreciate that you have not changed and have stayed true to your passion--showing so many that their dreams could be realized.

Congratulations on the 30th Anniversary of Wishcraft!

Annette

 

skannie

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 08:40:29

A virtual Wishcraft program? That already exists - well, kind of. Something I was experimenting with a while ago. I'll email you about it Barbara, and you can see if you can make any use of it.

 

Barbara Sher

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:55:48

Sure I remember them, Rachel! A friend graphic artist designed them and I had them copied and we filled up each binder by hand in the first few years. Now they're downloaded, of course and there are very few of those original kits. It's nice to think you still have one.

I never thought I'd be a writer, but now it's hard to imagine why not. I wrote stories in notebooks when I was very small, sewed little books together when I was a kid, and later for my own kids, wrote columns for my Jr. High School paper, and have never been able to think well without a pen in my hand When I doodled, it was (and still is) usually the alphabet. I love to write on smooth paper and I love to type.

But I never imagined anyone would care about anything I'd write. It seemed I was making too much of myself to even think such a thing.

 

Barbara Sher

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:57:17

I guess that's true, Patty. I'll have to give him a call. :-)

Thanks for that beautiful comment.

 

Ila Scott-Ford

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:49:43

Hello Barbara,
I found Wishcraft in 1988. By far it remains the best book, the most effective tool ever produced. I've used it time and again. I bought copies to give friends. I can't say enough.

I am an inventor. I have also product ideas surrounding this book... If you'd ever like to talk to me about it personally, you can reach me by email.

I'm working hard on three new product ideas. One or two are sure to be big sellers. WIth the help of Wishcraft, they could even lead to the launch of a new business venture. So I really I wish I could afford to go to your retreat this year. Maybe next. I didn't get an Idea Party organized to overcome my obstacle of cash deficit.

I had the pleasure of being in your TV audience at the filming of Idea Party...another completely fabulous and breakthrough concept.

Thanks so much, Barbara, for being YOU. You are right...there is nobody like you.

 

Sharon Duffy

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:43:50

Barbara,

How wonderful to experience the creation 30 years later. When you see how much has happened in your life and in the lives of the people you have touched with this book (and your others too!), it is truly touching. How lucky for all of us that you kept typing on that living room floor. It has made an important difference in my life! Wishing you all good things!!! XO Sharon

 



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