Below is a quote from Barbara Sher (one of my many gurus 
in the introduction to Wishcraft. The entire book, by the way, can be downloaded for free – a very generous offer considering that it’s one of the best books on career development ever written – of the same caliber as “What Color is Your Parachute” by Richard Nelson Bolles.
“As the bruised victim of every success book and program that ever promised me ten easy steps to self-esteem, self-discipline, will power, or a positive attitude, I know what I’m talking about when I say this book is different. I wrote it for people like me—people who were born without any of the virtues that made Horatio Alger great and who have given up all hope of ever developing them. Can you persevere? I can’t. There is no diet of any kind, physical, emotional, or financial, that I haven’t fallen off by Wednesday if I started it on Monday. Self-discipline? I jogged once—I think it was about four years ago. Self-confidence? I’ve walked out of dozens of seminars bursting with it. It lasted three days. I’m an ace procrastinator, I love nothing better than to watch old movies on the Late Show when I’m supposed to be doing something important. My positive attitudes are invariably followed by gloomy slumps. As a well-meaning but tactless friend once said to me, ‘Barbara, if you can make it, anyone can.’ “
Barbara Sher’s point is quite simple: that success or happiness of any kind is unlikely to come from the exercise of brute force or flawless self-discipline alone. Maybe this works for some people, but certainly not for the majority of us. Still, there is some good news here: which is that if we can learn to harness the extraordinary power of our loves and of our passions, and if we can enroll other people in supporting us in that, our chances of success increase quite dramatically! And what is equally astonishing (according to Sher), is that given the right context or attitude, “self-discipline” isn’t even necessary!
Which reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Victor Baranco: that pleasure is a higher goal than performance (or achievement) because when we reach our pleasure goals, as often as not we reach our performance goals too; but the reverse is not true at all (ie. it’s possible to be very “successful” in worldly terms and yet feel quite miserable – been there done that).
Here is a situation that my friends and I are dealing with right now
There is a great transformation happening right now in the culture. I see it every day and in almost everyone I talk to, and it is this: people are just not willing to settle any more for “humdrum” lives driven by expediency and obligation. Everyone wants to spend their life doing what they love (and often has a pretty fair idea of what that might be); but very few of us have figured out how to support ourselves financially doing these things.
So here is the offer:
A few weeks ago I came across a program called “Project Mojave”. This is a 12-week program for creating an information product capable of fueling an internet business that will generate $4k/mth through a combination of product sales and services. My offer is to have you join me in this program. The cost of the program is quite reasonable ($97/mth), it consists of a combination of training materials, practice sessions, and a support community, and I can tell you, it kicks ass. Registration officially closed last week, but I can still get you in. My goal is to develop information products that will help people market their product or service on the web, so here is what I can do for you: if you will join me in this program, and if you are committed to creating at least one information product of your own (downloadable ebook or training video), and agree to review any products that I will develop, I will give you free coaching on internet technology and website development, and I will give you free access to my web development outsourcing network. I will also invite you to join a weekly Mastermind group in which we can discuss our progress and support each other.
