Saturday, October 25, 2014

My debate with positive thinkers continues

    • Continued from a few days ago, and two posts ago:
    •  
    • Everyone agreed that you can't do it alone, a bit relieved to avoid more talk about how you need to believe in yourself to achieve success. 

    • Z said:
      I am not aware of anyone who teaches otherwise. I'm sure there are some, but not anyone I'm familiar with.

      I believe even job seekers and self-employees benefit greatly from having teams.

      The saying is "teamwork makes the dream work."

      I hope Barbara tells us more about how she teaches people to develop teams. Obviously, that is a very important part of her program. 

    • BSher:
      I have a website devoted to it: www.shersuccessteams.com  It comes with a kit and worksheets and an audio of me walking them through 8 weeks and learning how to run the team for as long as they like. It's based mostly on Wishcraft, and the informal teams are just a sort of Wishcraft book club. (Wishcraft is free online at www.wishcraft.com).
      Z was gracious:
    • Wishcraft is online for free. That's wonderful. Thank you for mentioning it. I read it so long ago (probably the 1980's) that I don't remember very much. I've grown and changed so much since then, I'm sure to see it completely differently than I did back then.

      Someone wrote me an email asking if Wishcraft was the only book I'd written. She assumed it was out of print after 35 years. Naturally, I had to answer that!

       BSher: I've written some books since then. I've been lucky and all but one of my 6 books (by major publishers) has stayed in print and is still useful. Wishcraft is still in print since 1979, I just decided to put it up for free a few years ago because people in India and South America could never get their hands on it. It's sold over a million copies by now. (It's no "Parachute" of course, :-) but it has meant a lot to a whole lot of people, I'm very honored to say.)

      After that I stopped writing for awhile. Then in 1994 I wrote "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was" (Got on Oprah and the NYTimes bestseller list with that one.) It still is one of my most popular books. Then "Live the Life You Love" (which I love but I'm not sure many people know about it  -- though it won first prize for motivational books in the first-ever Books For A Better Life commission in 1996 or 7.

      In 1999 I wrote 'It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now: How to Create Your Second Life" which was a very different kind of book - just came out in a German edition last month and is going into it's 3rd printing I think.

      And then a book in 2005 which I'm extra proud of: "Refuse To Choose=.," That's the first book out there about people with 'too many interests.' (I named them 'Scanners.') I get more 'love letters' from that book (and chapter 6 of "I Could Do Anything..." - which is about the same multi-talented people) than all my other books combined. 

      Ego salved, I got back to my major point:

      It's been a lot of hard work, work I love doing, and a lot of gratification all along. (Sorry about the bio -- someone asked. They're probably sorry now.) :-)

    • PS: I read my books now and they're pretty good. Better than I thought at the time. I honestly didn't believe they'd be successful, any of them. I didn't think I'd get on Oprah. I didn't think I'd be any good on her show. I never expected to be on the NY Times bestseller list even though "I Could Do Anything..." had been on bestseller lists in L.A. and Denver and San Francisco, etc. for months before that.

      I meant to add that to the conversation. I do believe that when you're lucky enough to have hard work you love to do, your life will be good whether you're 'successful' or not and whether you believe in yourself or not, or feel positive or negative or any way at all. 

      [I forgot to tell her that a psychiatrist once wrote to thank me for something I said in 'Wishcraft' which she read to her patient and which made him feel a lot better: "I love my life even on the days I hate myself."]  

      I just have to get this point of view into the discussion, amidst all the voices that say the power of your mind and your belief in yourself determines whether or not you will have a good life.

      I respect your position but there is an opposing view. I want you to know that.

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