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.
Will new comments happening in real time just appear or do I have to keep refreshing the page?
Not sure how it works with your browser. I get notified via email when there’s a new comment. But I accidentally came over here to http://barbarasclub.com/courses/ because of that, and did some answering here.
Really, because anyone can read this page, and because it’s hard to follow the same person on two different pages, it would really be good if you’d restrict your comments to barbarasclub.com/resistance112
Hi Barbara,
my concern is that I am a freelancer (Human Resources Interim Management / Coaching / Consultancy) and I do not succeed in getting orders. I think I have good ideas and when I go after an idea I stop shortly before it could be successfull. My Feeling is that I am anxoius about success and I would like to find a way to get out of this.
Hi Lise! Can you give me an example of a good idea you had and then stopped before it could be successful?
Since a year I want to make my own Homepage and I am always unsatisfied with the Person who will do it for me (perfectionism!). When I have contact to one Person I am enthousiastic and then I leave it
I’ve heard that from lots of people. I believe it has something to do with the fact that it’s a webpage. I don’t think people do that very well and should do a blog instead. 🙂
I very often think: hopefully the People will not realize that I am not that successfull that it seems to be
And by the way: Most of my colleagues and friends cannot understand why I am not successfull because they believe in my qualification
Lise, please come over to
barbarasclub.com/resistance112
and I’ll answer you there. That’s a private page. But anyone can come in here and read it. (This is the page called ‘courses’ and I didn’t realize it when I started answering you.)
I’ll continue answering you there.
I would love to join the Workshop but up to now I have no Information how to get in. And the workhop is already active!
I have emailed you the login info, Ilse.
I succeedes to join via freeconferencing.com
Hurrah! Welcome, Ilse.
What is going on with the videoconferencing?
It’s audio only, Lea. If I could match this name up with a registered email address, I would send you login info. You can email me at webmaster@barbarasclub.com
How do I PUT ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER? (i am an “Unhappy Diver”) with ADD. I live in a town and state which i don’t like, have no friends or family. At middle age want to go back to meaningful work. (have engineering degree, but almost no experience) It feels completely hopeless.
I will be at the RESISTANCE Workhshop Jan12th.
Hi Lea
You can’t put one foot in front of the other until you have someplace you want to go. It was my thought that you should first find a way to get some structure in your life to end the isolation and ‘too much freedom.’
After that I wanted to ask you what you think you would enjoy head for. Do you have anything in mind?
Lea and everyone, I’m moving this and all other discussions to our private page:
barbarasclub.com/resistance112
See you there.
“Find Your People” who “get you” is a HUGELY important subject. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I had a really great position where I felt I fit well because I had found a group of people who got each other, including me. Unfortunately, I ended up leaving the position to take another one for financial reasons. ..didn’t have HO at the time!
I could really feel the difference and it weighed on me. I felt like a misfit where I was. How could I get back to my people and be paid the same? Barbara and HO helped me realize it might not be impossible! I was able to move to a position that is much closer to those who get me and at the higher pay level. I now interact with them a lot more and it is great. It is not quite a s good as I had it originally with daily interactions but it is a huge – I am so much happier!
I agree with you completely, Lise!!! Want to say that before I read and answer more carefully. This is a good place to ask for ideas, too. I have some, but everyone has the experience of needing to find their people and has tried something I haven’t thought of so I hope they’ll jump right in.
Now I’ll go back and read the rest of your Comment.
So glad to hear you were able to get closer to what you had, and that you’re happier now.
Can you describe what ‘your people’ are like, and why they ‘got you?’ Maybe someone here knows what you mean and can help.
Thank you!
Kathy Eckhardt referred you.
I am going round and round with myself, by myself. I am so ready to do what I love, if I just knew which one and what direction?? After a career in clinical social work, coach training and an attempt to create a business, I would like to be creative, productive and reaping the joy!
Alice
Holy cow! And these are the very directions I am trying to go in. And there’s no joy to be had, eh? That’s scary! The thing that I have always consistently loved besides these things is Nature, in all of its forms. And, for me, that translates into Ecopsychology. And I have a deep relationship with music, having been a classical violinist and violist. And I love nature photography.
But that’s me. I think your answer to true contentment will lie within your talents–not skills, but talents. Floor mopping and typing are skills. What are your talents? Barbara asks us to always consider what we are good at that we love, and lose track of time doing. That’s where the bension is!
Reap the joy or reap the rewards? It’s entirely achievable to be creative, productive, and joyful, but to be all three and profitable (or at least solvent) in that activity is a different beast.
Barbara will often say, if you love doing something, sometimes you’re better off *not* trying to get paid for it. Unless you happen to love investment banking or oil fields engineering or anaesthesiology or accounting, many creative pursuits are too low-entry-bar-high-competition for many people to make a living from them. Not impossible of course, but also not fields of daisies and sunshine with guaranteed income all the time.
What are you really good at? As Mary Ann put it, what are you talented at?
I am getting used to this idea, after nearly a lifetime of feeling inadequate because I couldn’t make a living at what I love, I am no longer making that the priority. I accept (for now) the full time job which is not very meaningful, but also not too demanding. Sometimes this is a frustration, as it is equally uninspiring, with several “bosses” to tell me what to do. However I am not spent at the end of the day.
Some of the art work can be seen on lovettarts.com
I am going to be doing more process painting in the future. Just because I get so much from it. It is the perfect therapy for a visual person with a kinesthetic intuition.
Sarah
Whoa! Especially your processional art is amazing! No doubt most of them are probably in pieces by now, but the next time you make one of your fantastic huge parade sculptures, I have another town for you to bring them to…with a waning tradition of solstice fests that desperately needs reviving. In fact, one of the people who I’d like to intro you to has been honored by the Hopi tribe as an inspiration for young Hopis to continue the tradition of ceremony. (You’re in the SF Bay area, right?)
Thanks, I have several in closets, on walls, and one in a storefront display. I try to make them collapsible.
I am in Washington state. Most of them have had their start with the Fremont Solstice Parade, or off shoots, like Arts-a-glow Burien. in Seattle.
I’d talk about the subject with a counselor. That is a place that you need help to navigate…and the C. S. Lewis quote reminded me of the despairing times I’ve had and how things went from there.
Also, love to be around scanners for my mental health. Others just don’t get me, nor are they any fun.
I’m not sure if I’m in the right place for questions after the Resistance phone call of 12/14, and I doubt it. I did not state my question on the air, but my question is, what do you about despair when it’s really got you? My situation is similar to someone who comes up with a great idea and then crashes, although the crash seems to be turning into something more protracted and uglier. I wasn’t kidding the first time when I asked about despair. I have a quote on my wall which doesn’t really seem to be helping, from C.S. Lewis: “Despair isn’t where you end; it’s where you begin, and courage and heroism go on from there.” Any ideas?
I don’t want you to miss all the other comments, Mary Ann. Go to http://barbarasclub.com/resistance1214
OK. All fixed. Try again, please.
Hello Webmaster, it’s Mary Ann. I will also e-mail you from my own e-mail. I am wanting to do the Resistance workshop tomorrow, but need to know all the right stuff, within the next 50 minutes or so. I know the time, but need to know the phone number, etc.