Author, Speaker, Coach Barbara Sher passed away on May 10, 2020.
Read Barbara’s obituary here. Barbara’s Club and all its programs continue in the hands of those she trained.
Registration for Hanging Out is open now!
If you have not yet experienced the jewel in the crown of Barbara’s Club, please check out Hanging Out. Enjoy a full year of treats every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To make sure everyone gets to know plenty of other people, we now open registration only twice a year. Full year registration is open right now through April 20th. We will begin hanging out together on Monday, April 21st. Don’t miss this! Prior members still have access to all messages they paid for. Links are on the Hanging Out page when you are logged in.
Survival Guide for Dreamers
If you’ve got a dream (or wish you had one) it’s time to stop being stuck. Let us send you 365 days of Barbara’s help with procrastination and Resistance. This new program is designed to give you exactly what you need to finally get moving. Here’s how it works: One day at a time for a full year Barbara will be with you via a brief email, helping you get past the procrastination and resistance that have kept you from achieving your dreams. That’s it. No exercises to do. No discussions to keep up with. Just an email a day to encourage you and teach you how to deal with whatever prevents you from going after your dreams. Begin your Survival Guide year at any time.
Barbara Sher Book Clubs
Our next book club will read I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was from July 24th through November 12th of 2025. Registration will open on July 10, 2025. I hope you’ll join us. Read more about it here. Members of ongoing book clubs should contact webmaster@barbarasclub.com for assistance. Even after our official reading period has ended, members are still welcome to add comments for the full year. You won’t be alone in finishing the exercises. And please visit this page to see what other book clubs we have scheduled.
The Dare to Soar Telesummit Recordings
All of the mini-workshops at our February 8, 2025 Telesummit were recorded, and you can listen to all of them for free.
Thinking Through Refuse to Choose: 101 things every Scanner should know
Are you a Scanner? These are people with a different (and often misunderstood) type of mindset: they’re curious and smart, always happiest when learning something new. But no matter how promising a path may appear, Scanners can never give up their love of exploring. And therein lies the problem: despite their passionate engagement with the world and their love of life, Scanners are unable to decide on one path, and they’re often afraid that there’s something horribly wrong with them. It’s usually forgotten that such people were once admired for their wide range of knowledge, even called Renaissance thinkers. Now they’re often labeled as immature, lazy dilettantes by a culture that prizes specialization above all else. I wrote this 99-cent Kindle book (with two great helpers) to highlight the top 101 takeaways from my book, Refuse to Choose! Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams. Use it as an introduction or as a reminder after you read the book. Purchase this Kindle book here.
WriteSpeak Online: Write Your Own Success Story
WriteSpeak Online registration is closed now until September 13, 2025. This is Barbara’s entire WriteSpeak program—the 6-hour, highly interactive Teleworkshop plus a new 48-week online version of the material that was in her WriteSpeak retreat and telecourse, all for a fraction of the earlier price. The course is now taught by Kandy Sartori, a WriteSpeak grad, and Patrice Jenkins, a member of the first WriteSpeak group in 2007 and the first WriteSpeaker to be published, who first taught the Teleworkshop in 2020 with Barbara. Monthly group coaching is included and one-on-one coaching is available. Those who have already completed the required Teleworkshop and want to add the 48-Week Course should write to webmaster@barbarasclub.com.
For more information, check out barbarasclub.com/writespeak or listen to this Telesummit recording: How to Become a Writer and Speaker by Next February. New member registration will open again on September 13, 2025. Come find your message and your audience and begin your writing and speaking career.
Find a Success Team or Become a Sher Success Teams Leader
Isolation is the dream killer. Find your people in a Sher Success Team and learn how to identify and achieve your dreams in Barbara’s 8-Week Workshop for new teams. We always need more Sher Success Teams leaders, so if helping others go after their dreams is your dream, there’s a business in a kit waiting for you, a Leader’s Kit with everything you need to run that same workshop.
Be sure you are on the mailing list to hear about new programs the moment they are available. The mailing list sign-up is under Barbara’s photo at the bottom of this page.
I have been reading the I could do anything book. I got to the chapter about scanners vs divers and I realized that I may be a diver, but I had a breakdown which derailed my career. I haven’t really dug into anything since. – I traveled and then went to grad school (in fine art). I have had several education opportunities to move back into my former career (graphic design/web), but I start to take the class, or look into it, but I don’t follow through. I only keep up what is of immediate use to me personally. It is the same with the art career, I make artworks, but only just enough. Same thing with healing, and meditation. I never feel like I have what I need, and I am not able to make a full commitment to anything.
This sounds really familiar, Sarah. Commitment is really challenging for me, too. Plus, I’m a graphic and web designer.
What helps me is coming up with things to do for other people. If it’s for me alone, it often comes to nothing. Am I going to care if I don’t do what I promised myself? No. I feel little guilt about not keeping promises to myself.
But for other people, that’s different. Then, it becomes a Thing That Needs To Be Done.
[NOTE: This won’t be everyone’s solution. Some people have the opposite problem of saying yes to too many people, trying to please everyone. That’s not a good place to be either. So if you take on too much responsibility on behalf of other people, then this advice doesn’t apply to you.]
I, however, tend to flounder when I’m left to my own devices. I’m not as self-motivated as other people are. I’m selfish, so I want my own time to do my own thing, but I’m not *productive* unless there are external consequences for non-action.
Goal setting doesn’t work for me either, as I recently told Barbara in another thread. I change my mind all the time about what I want and what I want to do next.
But if someone else is counting on something from me, then I’m there. And the deadlines work.
So my suggestion is to look around, check out your friends, family, neighbours to see if there’s something you can volunteer to make/create/design/redesign for them. Try it out. What does it feel like to work on something for someone else? Are you motivated to do it? Or do you dread it? I suggest picking something that you think you would love to spend time doing whether you get paid to do it or not. Something you get so deep into, you lose track of time. Does it feel good when you’re finished?
Look at this as a form of practice and you might find out what you really love, or you might find out you really hate it after all and need something else.
It’s true, I do get work done for others, and I am making slow progress learning CS5 when I have a job to do. The one time I tried to be a web design consultant, it wasn’t that successful-neither of us knew what we were doing, so I can’t use it for promotion. Print is still much stronger for me.
Hi — I signed up to do the Resistance Workshop in December and posted a little about my particular problem, but I don’t see the email or a reply here. Is it somewhere else? Should I post again? (Sorry — not a computer wizard.)
You can find it here, Emily:
http://barbarasclub.com/resistance1214/
Dear Ones,
I want to participate. I cannot buy anything on-line from a library computer. There are blocks about this, and I don’t have a debit card or a credit card. Is there a way that I can possibly send a U.S. Postal Money Order? And, since the first one is only a week away, if I participate, do I participate in both of these, or does one duplicate the other? Am I supposed to pick only one? Come to think of it, I plan to be going on my Great Scouting Expedition for two weeks to Washington State at that time, so I will want to get into the one in December, if at all possible. Is there a way I can whisk a payment to you in the express mail?
if the counselor recomends Al-Anon(for family and friends of alcoholics),you will find answers and people who identify with those problems. your counselor should be able to help you pinpoint your issues and what needs to happen to help you. If your counselor doesn’t help you,you can request another counselor who you feel better with. I’d ask my questions there.
For Jane, I agree with Lisa. Wish I’d seen this before but I missed a lot of these for some reason. Sorry. Looking at them now.
Let me know if anyone’s still reading this.
im currently working with a counsellor and have identified a key issue i have had all my life that of soul blindness. when people ask me what i want i simply say i dont know and this is true. when i think about what i want to do in my life i say i want to work from my heart, but first of all i want to know how to recognize that. i have been trained well all my life to do what other wanted me to do and up until now that has worked out really well, but all of a sudden my life has fallen apart, my mental health is acute and i know that i am being called forth by god to live my soul’s life. so resistance, im interested , but not sure if its resistance yet that i have to look into…..just not sure if this workshop will work for me i know my resistance its abject fear…and it pops its head up all over the place, also its such a conditioned place that i have a hard time getting past the feeling that i will die if i know my heart….oh well…..just wondering what you might think of this issue and how i can get past this fear of knowing my heart and my souls desire.
I hope you have registered for workshop, because Barbara will give you some easy ways to discover what your heart and soul desire, as well as ways to deal with your fears.
Yes, I can give a hearty vote of confidence for the effectiveness of Barbara’s books and the workshop’s effect on discovering a source for life’s direction.
For me it was resistance and procrastination – because the deal I somehow made was I wouldn’t die if I still had things unfinished yet to do that were meant to be birthed and taken for the ride they deserve. 🙂 What I’ve learned is – besides the unfairness of a chance at life, honorable and valuable purposes will appear as the ones I know about now are completed, and finishing one won’t “make” me die.
Dear JANE,
That’s Resistance, all right, with a Capital R! Fear in its variant forms! Barbara has been called the “Resistance Whisperer.” I think the thing to do is to dive in and find out if it works or not. It might help, who knows? Sounds like you’ve had to be in a situation where you’ve had to please others or die if you don’t, for a very, very long time. I really hope that you do sign up, because it seems that you are in the right place at the right time to be able to break through that fear.
Dear One,
As I see it, you are on fire to know you’re heart’s desire, and don’t quite get that you really are! If you are feeling called by God to find your heart’s desire, and you know that doing things that others want you to do is no longer workable, you are in a Wonderful Place, and not a godforsaken place.
Start by getting into a situation with some time off, where you can arrange to go on what I call a “dynamic retreat.” This is where you go without media, including radio, TV, computers, and any and all devices, and prepare for this. Fix yourself the simplest food, so that you aren’t pre-occupied with much cooking while you’re on retreat. You get time off from work. You go into retreat mode with a notebook (3-subject spiral binder, college ruled, will do) and enough pens so that if one runs out of ink, you have the other ones.
And, then, once situated, you sit in a comfortable and as beautiful setting as possible, and start journaling. If you have access to a quiet, natural environment where you can walk, so much the better. In fact, try to incorporate this into retreat. This is Your Time, for deep introspection and discovery. No one can do it for you, and no one can tell you what’s in your heart. There needs to be a nurturing and quiet environment around you so that you can do this. Have food, as I’ve said, already prepared, and eat a simple breakfast each day, and then eat again about midday and evening, simply, as you get hungry. The rest of the time you walk, write, and meditate. No phones, no disruptions. This won’t work if you are under a bombardment of disruption, so it’s important not to be. And I don’t feel like you need to be under the influence of negative, suffering people, either. It isn’t such a scary process. It’s a deep, and very beautiful course of self-discovery. Aim for a minimum of 4 days and 4 nights. I would suggest certain other resources (organizations), but right now, I think they might be a bit too scary. And rigorous. What I’m getting is that you don’t need scary and rigorous. It seems to me that you need an atmosphere of beauty (created and laid out by you for you), and nurturance, and undisrupted calm. And No excuses why not! It seems as if your life depends on it! Please, get back to us and let us know of your discoveries.
I’ll give you a hint: Once, I came upon this enormous pine tree while walking in the woods along a stream. Its branches were as big as its enormous trunk. There were nine of them. I suddenly had an AHA moment. What I suddenly saw was that this tree, to me, symbolized the Tree of Life, and the enormous branches, my nine talents! Wow! That was so cool! And it felt like a Gift from the Divine Source. Please go into dynamic retreat, and let us know of the results. And if you can’t, please let us know that, too.!
P.S.: I am a counselor, with a master’s degree. And this is my two cents’ worth.
Big scanner here. Thank you for your support. I also can’t seem to make a life I love, still at 55 years old. I have always wanted to be an artist, well, I am an artist, but I can’t seem to make it work as a lifestyle. Each day job get less interesting and I get more frustrated, bored and insecure less committed. Something has to change!
Hi Sarah, I didn’t see this when I posted a response to your previous comment above.
How are people able to see your artwork? Unfortunately for artists, making a living from art means having to do marketing, something most artists would really rather not waste time doing.
Who’s in your “club?” What’s your network like?
I’m not too good at networking, I have a few really supportive friends, but not a large close group. I do have a few regular clients who come back to me when they need design work. However I admit I haven’t marketed myself as a designer. I have been insecure about selling my design skills (not fast or experienced enough technically, but good at finding what I need). I can get inspired and come up with good solutions. I stopped computer graphics for awhile because it wasn’t tactile enough for me. I sense that marketing my fine art is not the way to earn a living. Although the puppets do have fans, and I can get grants to cover materials and sometimes a performances. It goes to transport or puppeteers. So I don’t often get paid myself. I I like inventing them more than performing-but it does have its rewards as well. Some of this is undoubtedly resistance. Am I a puppet maker? A reluctant performer? I make only a few unique pieces per year. I also sew and love to teach sewing. I am always learning or inventing new skills, when they feed an idea or direction I want to go. But I can’t call myself a seamstress or tailor, my skills aren’t that refined. But I can draft patterns, make what I want through trial and error, and I’ve done it since I was a kid. I like materials, and it’s where I feel most at home. Ceramics, sewing, wood working, painting drawing, you’d think there would be a place where they would all come together into a career. So much talent so little confidence.
You and a video crew for a crowd funding site need to get better acquainted!
As for meeting kindred characters, when I lived in Bolinas, CA I became friends with Shasha Higby. (She slow motion dances inside her puppetry costumes.) Here is an informative page on her site where she is teaching a historical Japanese technique for making sculptures that she learned from a funded grant to Japan… http://www.shashahigby.com/Site/Urushi.html
The example of her life has the potential to be for you an awesome model of how you can do more puppetry/sculpture. She and her sweetie Albert are entirely accessible as personal friends. Plus, she’s an absolutely terrible housekeeper who runs a B&B cottage!
(but the cheap place to stay in town is called “Grand Hotel” and is a couple of blocks away from her B&B)
I have seen ShaSha perform at UC Santa Cruz. It was wonderful and included all kinds of curiousities. Performance is only a circumstantial aspect of my work, although I did make masks-and transformation is one of my early motivations- as was creation mythology.
Hi Barbara, I’m in my early 50s, wanting to write a book/novel for 20 years AND I’ve wanted to have my own business since I had my own failed (retail) business 20 years agos. Working in corporate america for the last 3 decades, I do know that I want my own business again and I want a “laptop” lifestyle (where I can work anywhere anytime). After tons of research and self analysES, I thought that I could pursue writing non-fiction books/guides that could provide supplemental income that maybe, eventually could exceed my salary so I could leave the corporate life forever. However, I’m a great story teller (I’ve been told) and have many fiction stories I could write, but statistically, the chances of making a living are higher in non-fiction than fiction. Since I work 10 hours a day, I feel like have to make a choice: do I start writing non-fiction books to try to earn $ to get away from a company job OR do I write my fiction stories and try, which is harder, to sell them. Did I mention that I’ve had this conflict for a long time and I’m afraid of failure (and probably) success as well? Warmest regards, CJ
Dear CJ,
Go with your heart! I knew of a lady who, as an unknown author, submitted her fiction proposal to a New York agent, and wound up with a three-book contract with Bantam, and a hefty advance of $46,000. Not impossible at all! Her genre was murder mysteries.
i have to work that date and will not be avaiilable,and wonder what you think about “tapping”.
Do you mean EFT = Emotional Freedom Technique?
Yes, and sorry for not answering quickly.
I have used tapping quite a lot. It can really help with issues around trauma. It allows you to clear anxiety reactions so that you can work on an issue without going into a panic reaction. Sometimes it takes awhile to find the true source of the issue, you may have to tap on several different key phrases before the problems soften. You can download a free copy of the manual (72 pages) by contacting the Scott Craig website.
I attended the free webinar this week hosted by Psychologies Magazine UK and felt like I was listening to someone who finally understands me describing my personality traits. It was refreshing to hear of techniques that embraces the strengths of scanners instead of being told to change and to fight to become someone I am not. I’m only just embarking on a journey of self discovery and its moments like these it all seems to make a little more sense. I still struggle with a lot of things including finishing projects I’ve started. There are usually too many interesting or better things I can be doing to distract me than the one or two things that I “ought” to be doing.
Glad you listened in, Christel. And remember, there’s a good chance you *did* finish because you wouldn’t have lost interest unless you had gotten what you came for. Once a Scanner knows how something works, s/he’s done. That’s all s/he wanted to know. 🙂 Trust your feelings. They’re telling you something. I’ll go look for a quote I put up on Facebook earlier about all those new, interesting things that attract you, too.
Thank you Barbara. I am a creative person, but left a lot of that behind when I started out in the world of work. I was told I’d never make any money being an artist. My perfectionism and fear of failure just led me to accept that so I didn’t go down that route. I still occasionally dabble in creative projects (there’s that word again – dabble!..hehehe) and I am now allowing myself to be ok with trying out as many of my interests as I can. I don’t work in a job that’s making much use of my creativity but it affords me the money and time to dabble — or at least now I have made it work for me. I don’t have need for too many material things (unless they serve as a tool for my creativity) but I try to create as many good, unique experiences as I can. I’m not the sort of person that will go on holiday to the same place twice. I’ve recently fallen in love (again) with nature and photography. I’ve started volunteering with a local wildlife conservation charity and right now that is all I think about. While I think I would like to work in wildlife conservation, I’m still hesitant as in the back of my mind I’m very much aware of my shifting interests. So I’ve gotten as far as exploring things on my wish list in my own time but I also think I need to find a support network. I live in a foreign country, away from most of my family and don’t have that many close friends that I feel I can use as a support network. Appreciate any further advice or comments you can share.
Is there a link to the recorded workshop from Sat., Sept. 14th? I do not know where to find it online. Thanks!
The recording for the 9/14 workshop is on barbarasclub.com/resistance914. If you have any trouble logging in, please email webmaster [at] barbarasclub.com