Barbara Sher’s Idea Party

HotGetWhatYouWant_18_small

How Does the Online Idea Party Work?

You have a dream or a wish, and an obstacle to getting there. (If you don’t think you know your wish, work through my kick-starter and read this post. To learn why you must put logic aside to find your dream, read the following.)

The online Idea Party is here to help you – and the other fellow party goers – with your wishes and obstacles.

Voices from Success Teams and Idea Parties:

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

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

Post Your Wish and Your Obstacle Here!

And help your team mates out when you can. Use the Reply link to help, the form below the comments to add your own Wish and Obstacle.

(Your first comment below has to be approved, so it may not display instantly depending on the time of the day. Once your email address is approved you can post instantly. If you want your own profile photo to show up beside your comments, instead of the cute little design, upload your photo on Gravatar.com and give them an hour or so to make it happen.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

4,428 thoughts on “Barbara Sher’s Idea Party

  1. Wish
    I’d like to be a working TV actress (plus, possible movies), making a good living – but no need to be famous.

    Obstacle
    I don’t know how to begin
    No contacts in the industry
    No savings to support myself without a regular paycheck

    Possible assets
    I’ve done 4 years of acting in live theatre that has been well reviewed
    I’ve done about 10 years of semi-professional comedy improv – and have had great reviews

  2. Wish:
    I’d like to help neighborhoods, cities, counties, states, the country solve their problems and create great solutions. This would include doing needs analysis, researching best practices, bringing people together, facilitating meetings. I’d want to do this as part of a highly effective team.

    Obstacles:
    – I have no idea how to get anyone to let me do this.
    – I don’t know what this job/position would be called.
    – I only have a medium amount of physical energy. (I NEED eight hours of sleep plus a nap.)
    – I haven’t had a full time job in eight years.

    Possible assets:
    *I have a masters degree in education… – speciality in human performance technology (improving performance through training or through the design of new/better processes, or the design of environment)
    * I’ve done this kind of work before for schools and business and it’s called “Instructional designer” or “human performance analyst” or “facilitator”

    • What about Emergency Management courses? I took one online this summer at York University. It sounds like it would be focused only in emergencies in fact it is not. It teaches you how to evaluate risks in any case, hoy to create a mitigation plan and how to respond among other things. This can be used in any level and type of situation. Usually for these jobs they require a certificate which you can obtsin at York and a few other Universities. Hope that helps 🙂

  3. My dream at the moment is to have an apartment that I feel safe in, with a landlord I am comfortable talking to. I cannot work on having a better life until I have a safe living environment. My obstacles seem to be that having a lower income puts you in dangerous drug infested neighborhoods. I have 3 cats who are like my kids and non-negotiable, which limits quality options quite a bit. I have aspergers, so it is difficult for me to fill out lots of paperwork, or be in a more affordable situation such as renting a room in someone else’s space. I currently live in a space where there is lead paint, no insulation, and a felon living over me. I never feel at peace.

    • Hi Lisa, You need to take responsibility to get yourself out of this situation. Begin by finding out who can help you, friends, family, someone that can let you in with your cats for a short period of time. You need to find local areas in your city that help people that are in your situation. They know where you can apply for more money, better home situation, etc… You need to do the research and get to work. With a positive attitude and determination and faith you will succeed. I am sending angels your way. Keep in touch.

    • Is it possible that there are smaller apartments than yours in the area for similar price? For example, a studio apartment. Moving to a smaller space may require parting with some belongings, but could also allow you more options of a safer place to live.

      Best wishes

  4. I want to start an online bookkeeping business, but I don’t have the experience and the money. I recently got laid-off and made me realize I don’t want to be stuck in a corporate job, I want to be my own boss.

  5. My dream is to get healthy.

    I have “chronic fatigue” following a vaccination, and I’ve spent thousands on doctors but none could help me or even tell me why I am sick.

    I’ve tried every doctor I can find in my country (New Zealand) and I can’t afford to travel overseas to any of the renowned doctors in this space.

    Not sure what to do!

    • Hello,

      It’s possible that it could be related to the vaccination but I suspect none of the doctors will own up to that.

      I am a health coach. How long ago was this and what labs were drawn?

      Vit B and other supplements can help with fatigue. Did they check your A1C, Vit D levels and Thyroid?

      Necie

    • First you have to decide if you’re satisfied that you’ve gotten all the medical profession could give you, and you don’t sound like you are yet. You are entitled to be a pain in the butt until you’re satisfied this is actually what you have. Your answer may be really simple, like a vitamin deficiency but someone has to LOOK… properly. CFS is supposed to be a diagnosis by exclusion, that means the ideal doctor will rule out quite a lot of things before they say you have it. Mental states are on the list, but so are mechanical causes that maybe can be fixed, and they all should get equal attention. There seems to be fashions in medicine just like everything else and there are a lot of theories about what causes it and different doctors approaching things from different angles. But with chronic fatigue step 1 is always to make sure you feel satisfied that what answers they could give you, however few, felt honest. Quality answers mean more than the quantity of people you see.
      Step 2 is to make allowance for the fact that in this area no one has all the answers. Sorry lol, but someone has to level with you in all the madness and that’d be me. It doesn’t work like a headache, there isn’t one pill or one lifestyle change or one diet or one exotic ingredient that makes it go away. This is not what you wanted to hear. I know. I’m still going to save you a lot of wild goose chases by saying it. If you read patient feedback on discussion boards it seems all research and drugs as well as the different natural philosophies proposed, at this point are just best guesses and nothing works for everyone in that population, it’s one of the oddities of the condition.
      Even if you could go overseas to a specialist, who would you visit? There are soooo many specialities that should be on board with it and working together!
      There are genuine cases of chronic fatigue out there and if you honestly feel you’ve exhausted the medical route, what helped put the whole thing in perspective for me were books like ” Living well with a hidden disability” by Stacy Taylor (may be out of print but I still see secondhand copies around, might be out of date but you’re looking for perspective here, not a specific technique) and then joining online support groups for ideas and the techniques on how to cope.
      Use discernment when joining support groups though, don’t join anything that wants you to dole out cash straight away. There are people who will try to tell you that THEIR solution works…. and we have a chat room as an afterthought… Nothing is sure yet and usually this diagnosis means a drop in your earning potential and you don’t want to waste money on a too far-out maybe. Also, decide what tone of group you need right now. I avoid ones where it’s all woe-is-me and no real brainstorming. You will go through a period of mourning for your old life and then the woe-is-me might be appropriate for you. I just know I got impatient with them pretty quickly. Patients are often left to fend for themselves and be self-made experts and I have a preference for sites where people go out and try stuff; even if a remedy doesn’t work for you, you’re one step closer to finding the one that does. But again use common sense when trying something and look up any claims that seem unrealistic. Try to find unrelated articles that agree or disagree, then read both. Socially it helps if you can make friends with people with disabilities even if their diagnosis is different to yours. They will be more patient with you than the busy outside world. Physically your priority is to keep moving, no matter how painful and tiring it is. Just do a little bit at a time. If all you can do today is get dressed and comb your hair, then do that. Do more on the days you can do more. You’re allowed to swear while you’re doing it.
      Because there are sometimes holes in the diagnosis process and in the treatment, this is an area where you are going to be your own best doctor for at least a little while still. I can’t give you any more or better answers than all the smart people, except that there are others like me who get it. Cry, throw your tantrum over the life you think you’re missing out on and then go build a new one. Whatever your eventual diagnosis, right now you’ll have limited energy and patience and endurance to spend each day; use it for things that matter.

      • You may want to check out Somatic Experiencing, or other types of body/physiology focused trauma therapy. The nervous system has a few options when under stress — fight, flight, and freeze. All three can get stuck in the systems if you aren’t able to act in the moment as your body wants to. All three can look many different ways… an incomplete fight response can show up as road rage or as an overactive immune system. An incomplete flight response might result in anxiety. When trauma goes unresolved for years, the symptoms can go deeper into the body — from muscular, deeper into organs/hormonal systems, and deeper to affect nervous system functioning. Chronic fatigue can be tied to a deep level of freeze at the nervous system level. It’s slow work to reverse these kinds of complex syndromes, but Somatic Experiencing can be a helpful (and sometimes transformative) part of it. Good luck, and reach out if you’d like me to recommend resources.

  6. My dream is to sell collections of paintings to hotels, large firms or cruise lines. I have done a lot of the work. I have a collection of large-scale, colorful, relevant paintings to sell called Inside Gemstones. I put on a show on a busy street open to the public and I have a website and cards. I have set up my life so that I can prioritize painting. All I’ve done is self-financed, from the money I make as a hairstylist. I so far have sold two paintings, I believe in the quality of my work.. and I love to see what hotels have .. I love to work around a theme for a collection / series. and I want to do that and have it be my primary income. My obstacle is exposure to the right people ie, interior designers, buyers for hotels or hotel owners.

    This would allow me to fulfill my other dream.. which is to not have to live in a large city to make the money I need to live. I’d prefer to live close to the land but still feel connected to people, and to have a truck.

  7. Hi,
    I’m Leila. I live in the UK. About 6 years ago I quit medicine to pursue a career in writing. I thought I could earn money from my writing, instead I used up all my savings, borrowed loads of money from family members to pay bills and basically survive. So there’s no money at all! Now I’m a big animal lover and my dream is to travel and visit shelters around the world, write about them, promote adoption and raise awareness, and also have my own little shelter. My writing skills are average (English is not my first language), but my biggest obstacle is money. How can I pay off my debts, pay for my trip and earn money to support myself and my 5 adopted furry kids? I just finished listening to Barbara’s TED talk and thought, who knows maybe there’s a way to make this happen, maybe I can have my dream come true. Thanks x

    • Hi Leila. Quitting your job and plunging into full-time writing (or other self-employment) like you did, is generally not a good plan. It’s very hard to make a success of it. I know there are people out there saying quit your job and follow your passion and the money will come, but Barbara Sher isn’t one of them. She says it usually works better to start your new enterprise in your spare time, and only leave your job when it’s already making enough money.

      So now you’re broke and in debt and have animals to take care of, as well as yourself, I think you need to get a job as soon as possible so you can survive and reduce the stress. Is it possible to go back into medicine after such a long break? Or maybe you could use your medical knowledge to get a job in a related field, e.g. with a medical supplies company. Or a job working with animals, or with a pet food or equipment company. Or if you really want to be self-employed you could walk dogs for other people, or do gardening.

      Have you applied for Jobseekers allowance? That would help you with survival while you look for work, and they have resources to help with the search.

      Meanwhile, don’t give up on your dream but start doing it in small ways in your free time. You could visit local animal shelters, and maybe volunteer in them. And start a free blog at wordpress.com or blogspot where you write and post photos about the animals. You could also post on Facebook and Twitter. And join some animal welfare groups on Facebook, or start your own.

      Travelling doesn’t have to be expensive, and it doesn’t need to be one big trip but could be several smaller ones at weekends and during holiday periods. You can find cheap airflights online, and stay in hostels or go couchsurfing.

  8. Hello, I’m Joanne. I have beautiful children now grandchildren. I led a very varied life and was quite happy, I was married 28 years, 30 but the time the divorce came through. My husband drank the cool aid! WE went from a beautiful home on a lake, a cottage n computer Company. Buy the tine he went full on, into new age spirituality, and aliens, I had lost my husband, and my whole life, did I mention I work my button off? Gone! I’m on disability now, I saved enough for a tailor. I miss him so much, but the man I feel in love with, let’s just say I doubt even recognize or know him anymore, and he hates me with a passion, how can this be, from someone who says there full of love n light? My wish is to love again, a brilliant man like he was. he was the total package at one time, Smart, beautiful, My obstacle is I’m older, fatter, I had four children, and I am not beautiful like I was I just dyed my blonde hair brown because I can’t pay for it anymore. After hearing Barbara on Ted, xo I was stunned! I have searched all over for a group . Like hers. I thought it was amazing.

    • Hi Joanne. During the time I lived in Ireland divorce became newly legalised, and suddenly there were a whole lot of divorced men looking for new partners. And some of them thought I might be the one because I could talk about stuff they were interested in. Well, I can talk about lots of things because I have many interests, and I had no intention of being the one for them. But what they were saying is that they made the mistake of marrying for good looks the first time, but this time they were more interested in finding a life companion who could join them in their interests. I remember one liked hiking, others liked horses or amateur dramatics or Irish music and dancing. So I think if you can relax and be yourself and pursue your own interests and hobbies, preferably ones that also interest men, you’ll have a good chance of finding someone. Social kinds of dancing are particularly good because you get the chance to dance with different partners. And dancing always makes someone more sexy. I once saw a very fat woman dancing salsa, and she was so good that all the men were queuing up to dance with her.

      • I agree with skannie. Re: looks, I believe it’s best to be yourself; it quickly weeds out anyone who is not suited for you, whose values are not the same as yours. I could not abide a man who preferred me blonde and poor rather than natural and financially secure 😉 True, being thoroughly oneself may narrow the pool of suitors, but to a more select group that love people for who they are and for what they truly have in common.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.