Steven Barnes's Blog, page 16

“Fractal” goal setting

LIFEWRITING is about taking a totally new approach to approaching your existence:  being the hero in the adventure of your lifetime.  What if no one is coming to rescue you?  You’ll never heal your relationships with dead people, it is too late to go back and create a new past.

What if we are all there is? This moment all we have?  Well…we’d better stop waiting for that ship to come in and by God ROW OUT TO MEET IT.

Lifewriting is different from any other writing focus, because it is for peop...

Honoring the inner child

“Thank you for helping me believe in myself again.”  A lady who joined Lifewriting Ultra yesterday gladdened my heart.

 

“Thank you, Steve.

I have had a lifelong dream of writing. I even believed I could. Until my high school literature final went south. My sense of humor and deliberate anachronisms did not resonate with the grading rubric.

 

I spent 3 days in bed. And when I got up, I had also given up. Not on my dream but on my skills.

 

It’s been 30 years.

 

Time enough, don’t you think?

 ...

Voices From Under The Bridge

If you are talking with someone with internal permission to succeed, when you ask about a situation and suggest brainstorming, they will come up with potential solutions.  If the negative voices in their heads drown out the positive, when you ask the same thing, they will offer reasons why it won’t work.    Doesn’t matter what the arena is: losing weight, selling stories, saving money, finding romance, whatever.  Until they can generate ideas and possibilities, you are best served to assume t...

Being the Hero…a step at a time

I still clearly remember the week I discovered “Lifewriting”. The idea is to be “The Hero in the Adventure of your lifetime.”

 

How?   By taking the motivations “Heros” feel and connecting them to what you have to do it your life.  You may not be fighting terrorists in Nakatomi Plaza, but you are raising children, climbing the ladder, holding onto your dreams, improving your health, supporting aged parents.   FEEL those emotions and use them like rocket fuel.

 

The moment of revelation came w...

Fractal Goal Setting

Had a wonderful conversation last night with a brilliant, funny lady Heather V. Krell, about my next novel, TRAVELER.  Monday I pitched a very few people a KILLER idea for a movie script. Everyone’s reaction was “take my money now!” and so T and I are huddling.  Starting a new story (novella?) with Larry, something unlike anything we’ve ever done, and only we could do.

 

At the same time I launched the EARN 100K IN 25 HOURS A WEEK freebie (www.diamondhour.com) and am getting ready to launch t...

How Can I Give Myself A Raise Today?

“If you work for others you know you are going to get paid and get the a set amount.  You work for your self you will never know what’s coming in.”

I’ve heard that countless times, and everyone moving from salary man to freelancer, from employee to businessman, has that voice in their heads.  And every successful freelancer or businessperson found a way to ignore it, to believe in themselves and TRY.

 

It doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. You can take baby steps.

I didn’t stop working a job...

If You See Something, Do Something

I focus on helping people feel like they have agency, but being an asshole is a violation of simple rules of courtesy, one of the most basic qualities bonding a society. And intimidating a smaller less powerful person is cowardice. Standing up for those who are in need is a core positive quality for adult human beings. All of this translates into: be kind, be good, be strong, help others.

 

A number of ladies have asked that I use my social media outreach to encourage men to protect women, to...

Humiliation can be your friend

Long, long ago, I was arguing with a brilliant Conservative friend “Ron” about South Africa.   The question was whether blacks under Apartheid there were worse off than their neighbors.   I said they were.  He suggested that I find objective standards for the welfare of a people, and do my own research.

 

Following his suggestions, I found the World Health Organization’s recommendations for a “fast and dirty” measurement of a people’s health: life span and infant mortality rates.  There are o...

100k in 25 Hours a Week?

Writer and FB friend Joel Eisenberg wrote a great post today about his transition from working for others to working for himself, complete with a seven-step recipe for success.  I looked at that and said “Yes.”

 

Basically, like many of us, he got sick of working for other people, thrashed around in unsatisfying jobs for years, and slowly put together a map for exiting to a more satisfying lifestyle.

 

Damned good for him. The meaning of life is to find joy, and if you are not happy in your j...

Riding The Train

“To help someone, you have to get them to divorce their story, and marry the truth.”–Unknown ### The “Incel” problem looks obvious to me. A recent article said that what they want is “absolute subjugation of women.” That would be true IF and ONLY IF a person remained an “Incel” after finding a great relationship. If, in other words, if FORMER ‘Incels’ still identified with their “brothers” and became “honorary Incels” or something. But…the term “Involuntary Celebates” is sort of sel...