When summer turns to fall, where do Scanners go?

SUMMER'S OVER

I know a lot of people who are sad about that, but I couldn't be happier. I'm not crazy about the heat and I love action, so fall is my favorite season. Everything wakes up. I was born in Detroit and when the air got crisp and the leaves fell on lawns and streets and we got fresh pencils and new shoes for school, I always got excited.

11 years later, we moved to Los Angeles and there was no way of knowing what season it was. People here in the east say that California is the place where Labor Day never comes. I finally know what they mean. In California I never would have undersstood what that meant. "Labor Day? What's that?"

My first Xmas there was sunny and hot and I was stunned to see huge cardboard cutouts of Santa and the reindeer strung across Wilshire Boulevard between tall, skinny palm trees. My mother was singing with joy, but I was offended. But I couldn't remember cold weather and snow somehow so I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Everything was slow and the same. It was like living indoors.

I kept moving around after college looking for something and when I finally moved to New York as a grown woman. That's when I got it: Los Angeles doesn't do weather, it does climate. I had to figure out as an adult how to adapt to the seasons, watching other people, looking at kids in the playgrounds and windows of department stores. The crisp autumn weather made the child in me happy, and putting away summer clothes and pulling out winter clothes made the grownup in me happy. It was like visiting a beautiful new world and relearning a language I had forgotten.

To my family back in California, this sort of thing just looked like extra work. They're real Californians. Me, I love work. Of course, most of the work I do is work I really enjoy. Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, from Spider Robinson, a science fiction writer beloved by many: He said,

"It took me better than a quarter century to learn, the hard way, that hard work at something you want to be doing is the most fun you can have out of bed...to learn that the smart [person] finds ways to make everything he does be work; to learn that 'leisure' time is truly pleasurable (indeed tolerable) only to the extent that is is subconscious grazing for information with which to infuse new, better work."

Which brings me to one of my favorite kinds of work: running retreats.


BACK FROM WS RETREAT

I just got back from my third retreat for Writer-Speakers. Once again it has drawn another amazing group of people who are already supporting each other and moving forward on their plans to have a book and a speaking career within the next year.

In my inbox I find that 3 more people from the previous WriteSpeak programs have finished their books and one has gotten a very big speaking gig (we're holding her hand -- which is shaking -- but she's already done this a dozen times in the class and will be fantastic. And she'll soon be rich enough to take us all out to dinner to thank us :-)
REUNIONS

On a short break I met with Scanners from last spring's Puglia Retreat at their first reunion. We ate at a huge, noisy Italian restaurant and shouted over the music and noise as I heard about their progress and met their partners. I don't remember enjoying any holiday get-togethers with family and friends more. This month I'll regrettably miss another Scanner's reunion, (of the first Scanner retreat ever, from Corfu, Greece in 2006) at its second reunion in Tuscany. (I'll be busy running a new Scanner's Retreat in southern Italy.)

One of the expected rewards from both WriteSpeak and Scanner's retreats is the ongoing, loving, unending enthusiasm and support that come out of the days we work together and the following months and years of emails and monthly conference calls, watching and helping everyone move forward to exciting personal and professional goals. But the unexpected reward is turning out to be the creation of lifelong friendships. I've never seen anything like it.


SCANNER RETREAT IN PUGLIA
SEPT 26 - OCT 1, 2008
LAST CALL!

Now it's almost time to pack again, to head out for the next Scanner's Retreat in Puglia, Italy (Sep 26 - Oct 1). Three spaces have just become available, so if you want to join me and your tribe of Scanners for the experience of a lifetime, be sure to let me know as soon as you can. If you ever want to attend, do it now if you can. I hope to do others in future, but I've got a book that's been waiting for me to write it, and I'm planning to start in October. If the Scanner retreat is right for you, seize the day.

And if, for some reason, you have no idea what I'm talking about and would like to know, head over to GeniusPress and read all about it, see some great photos of the lovely 16th cenury masseria we pretty much have to ourselves, and sign up.

If you want to hear my recent radio show in which producer and Greece/Italy-man-on-the-ground Matt and I talk about Puglia Scanner retreats, click here and listen away: Refuse to Choose! (or What Do I Do When I Want to Do Everything?)

And if you want to hear the song that always goes through my mind when I know I'm heading back to Puglia, listen to this and fall in love.

I've been fighting with a tempermental mail program all of this Labor Day weekend, so first come will be first served. If you're a Scanner who wants to finally become focused and get moving in the best direction your life can take, I'd love to work with you.

FAQ about the Scanner Book: In the states it's called 'Refuse to Choose,' but 'What Do I Do When I Want To Do Everything' is the same book when published in New Zealand, England, Australia, and South Africa. The book is also popular in Germany (called 'Du musst dich nicht entscheiden, wenn du tausend Träume hast'). We've had Scanners from every one of those countries at our retreats. Add to the rich mix of all those cultures all the many interests inside the head of every Scanner, and each retreat is like the best birthday party in the world.


ANNOUNCEMENTS

Patty Newbold is half-way through the first-ever telephone Success Team and it's a triumph! You can find out more at . She might invite you to the Idea Party in the seventh week if there's still time.

I'm starting to do teleclasses on Resistance again, and have one scheduled now. The proceeds go to the Kilim e-Commerce School of Ortahisar, Turkey. The details are

Barbara

Where does a Scanner find other Scanners?

It's not easy, witness all the mail I get from readers of Refuse to Choose thanking me because they thought they were the only people as peculiar as they are. When a Scanner is surrounded by other Scanners it's a lovely thing to behold. Imagine: no critics, no one saying you're flakey or lazy.

If you can come to the September retreat, do it. I have a few spaces left and the Masseria in Puglia, Italy is so beautiful. Head over to www.geniuspress.com to see photos and get an explanation of what a Scanner is, and what we do at the retreat. I'm heading out for L.A. where one group from a year ago is having a reunion and we're meeting at the beach in a few days. The first ever Scanner retreat 3 years ago is now having their second reunion in Tuscany. It's like they found their families. Which is good because Scanners aren't only interesting and interested, they're almost always good people. Amazing.

But if you really are in the dark as to what a Scanner is, they call themselves things like:

Eclectic Expert, Magnificent Mind-Changer, Delightful Dilettante, Jolly Jack-of-all-trades, Precocious Plate-Spinner or any victims of repeated hit-and-run obsessions; the intellectual, spiritual & emotional heirs of Aristotle, da Vinci, Goethe, Ben Franklin, Isadora Duncan, and George Plimpton.

Yes, there are great careers for you. I remember a High-Speed Indecisive who got a dream job, some years ago. Leave a comment and I'll be glad to tell you what it was but got to get to sleep to get up to fly out of here in the morning. (He loved it -- for about 2 years -- and then moved on to (I hope) an even better job.

Where does a Scanner find other Scanners?

At a book club! (Sound of hand hitting my own forehead). 

I'm writing this on September 1, 2014. 

Who knew back in '08 that the first book club (it was for I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was) would be so incredible. I was blown away at the depth of understanding members got from doing the exercises together, and the warmth and support that developed over the 16 weeks of that first book club.

That's why I decided the second book club should be about Refuse to Choose:

Scanners are too often alone.

There are places to meet online, I'm happy to say. Facebook is great, and so is my bulletin board (for meeting Scanners, that is) - and LinkedIn and more.

But the 6-day retreats I ran in Greece, Italy and France, where Scanners could really get to know each other, and discuss over long days for almost an entire week the difficulties faced by all Scanners and all people with lots of interests, lots of curiosity and creativity and intelligence are no more. So many of the people who attended them - from 2006 until 2013 - have stayed lifetime friends.

But now, 6 years later, my age and health won't let me run them anymore.

So Where does a Scanner find other Scanners? Ho ho!!! At this book club!!

That's why I'm so excited about the book club! (I'm driving Patty crazy sending announcements before the links are ready!)

You're going to meet other Scanners on a deeper level than you could anywhere else, and you'll be solving your own problems, getting your questions answered, finding out how to wrangle all those interests and talents, worries and difficulties. You'll know like you haven't realized before that you are all right, better than all right. You'll find the people who 'get you.' Why? Because you'll be doing all the Refuse to Choose exercises with them, you'll be commenting and replying to each other, and having discussions right on the page.

And you'll be doing it for 16 weeks.

And you'll spend (including travel and tuition) about 100 times less money than it took to come to a retreat.

You're going to know these people by the time you complete the Refuse to Choose Book Club.

Isolation is the dreamkiller, and Scanners are so often alone. That's got to stop.

It's 7pm on September 1, 2014. If you're on my mailing list,  look for the newsletter that will sent you to the site -- any minute.

If you have any problems, come over to barbarasclub.com and holler!

(I'm still waiting to see if I can get notified when you leave a comment on this blog!)

Hi guys. I've missed you.

:-)

More about the moose

Thought you might want to know why I brought up a moose:


Announcements June 14

Last minute announcements, that is. In a few hours I'm heading out of this hot New York to take a cool cruise up the coast of Alaska. I haven't seen it since I was there on Statehood Day, 1959, and I'm curious to see how it's changed. This time around I won't be bouncing up the gravel washboard Alaska Highway in an old panel truck, camping out on my own private adventure in campgrounds that didn't get dark until 11 pm. (In case anyone wants to know how to find the time to finish Proust, that's how.) My big brother (who couldn't go back then) has been waiting a long time for his part of our childhood dream to come true, and now I've accepted his invitation to join him on a cruise ship 50 years after my first visit. I think it will be quite a trip.

I have no doubt that Alaska's still as beautiful as ever, but I'm certain it has changed. I remember standing on the street in Haines, Alaska - a little village we'd settled down in because we were tired of driving, which is located at the end of one branch of the Alaska Highway and was the only way to get the ferry to Juneau (the capitol at the time).

One afternoon we were standing with a handful of other locals on the very short main street, watching the only notable event in town that day: the arrival of the latest ferry. We gazed quietly at the row of cars that lined the road and curled up and around a short ramp on to the dock, waiting to board. The sun was shining (well, the sun was always shining, day and night, because it was August), the sky was blue, and the ship had brought 'boat eggs' (which meant they were about 6 weeks old which, for some reason, was considered a fine thing), so some people murmered a word or two about how nice the next day's breakfast would be when suddenly we heard a crash of brush and a large moose with a big rack of horns leaped out of the woods across the street right up onto the ramp of the dock and landed loudly and heavily next to the line of cars.

He was not happy to be there. He snorted, half turned, reared up, and, finding a space to exit, jumped off the ramp and landed on the roof of a hapless car stopped five feet below. All four of his hooves punched through the roof (amazingly no one was hurt) which made the moose *really* cranky. We watched, frozen, mouths open, as he wrenched each leg out, one by one, between the terrified faces of the car's occupants, wobbled on the roof of the car, bellowed very loudly, lept on to the hood (I didn't see if he did any damage there, but he was a big moose, so he couldn't have done much good) flew off sideways to gallop right past us and down the main road, throwing his head and snorting indignance as the strollers further down the road carefully backed out of his way.

It was quiet still, for a few moments. Someone noticed that our mouths were hanging open and said amiably, "You don't want to get in the way of a piss-offed moose," by way of explanation, and that was that.

That was in 1959. Now it's 2008. I'm kind of hoping some moose will cavort around when we pull into the docks of the towns on the cruise because I'd really like to see it all over again from a different angle this time. But I'm not counting on it.

Anyway, I did have some announcements, and that wasn't really one of them...

Alaska and the Scanner's Retreat

It occurs to me that everyone on earth is not on my mailing list and I've been asked to make the latest newsletter available online, so here it is (without any of the pretty colors or the html):


Barbara Sher - Back From Alaska & Scanners Retreat

Hi Friends,

I'm back from Alaska and I didn't see one moose, but the ship did get within 500 yards of a glacier which obligingly 'calved' a few times, the front wall cracking audibly, a rush of water falling behind the face of ice, then the whole thing sliding down into the water creating lots of splashing and sending swells of water toward the boat. More exciting, even, at least to me, were the brilliant blue streaks in the glacier and some of the small icebergs floating in the water, where the light was behind them. I fell in love with glaciers.

We watched as some of the crew in their fat, yellow zodiac chased after the smaller icebergs, hoping to gaff some ice to bring on board. It was trickier than it looked and provided us with much entertainment and shouting of instructions. Eventually, a small, easy-chair-sized chunk of iceberg was lifted on to the top deck. There were only a few of us around it at first and I took the opportunity to knock off a small chunk of transparent glacier ice and carry it away, licking it as though it were an ice cream cone. It was better. I never tasted ice water so fresh and clean. And it might have been thousands of years old.

Now, back in reality. I'm sweltering in NY city (actually, hiding in my air-conditioned bedroom with shades drawn like Count Dracula). After a few days of pulling out notes and binders, I did my latest internet radio show yesterday, all about Scanners and the Scanner retreat in Italy, coming up Sept 26 through October 1.

Producer Matthew Pearl had been to the last Scanner retreat in Puglia -- in fact, he and his family scouted out this perfect place earlier last year, and he and I talked on the show about the beautiful area, and the 16th century masseria where we ran the retreat last spring -- a remarkable, stone fortified country estate surrounded by acres of ancient olive trees.

We started remembering the food, of course. It was so good, both at the masseria and at the other restaurants we discovered in nearby towns and hidden country homes. We went on and on about the beauty of the nearby towns with their medieval centers, still alive with markets, still full of people who live there all the time, still not packed with tourists. (Head over to Flickr.com and check out Ostuni and Cisternino and Alberobello if you want to fall in love)

But mostly we talked about how great it is for any Scanner to get away from their own world and join other Scanners at a retreat.
What's a Scanner? Here's how to know if you are one:

If you find you have loads of interests, that you're curious and love learning new things, that the subjects that fascinate you are all over the map; if you hate the idea of being limited to any one thing because you'd miss all the others, you're a Scanner.

If you wish you could find the One Right Thing but you fear you'll never find a career (or a hobby!) that will remain interesting for very long...If you're a sweetheart of a person, kind and friendly and childlike in some ways, and you like to help people or make the world a better place, you're a Scanner.

If you wish you were born rich so you wouldn't have to work at all, just so you could play forever with fascinating ideas and concepts and skills and never again have to do anything boring, If you find yourself wildly enthusiastic about something and you believe you'll stay that way -- but after awhile the enthusiasm dies down and you become excited about something else, If people call you a dilettante or flakey or a 'hectic eclectic,' (as one person wrote me), well then, you're a Scanner.

And if you thought you were the only person like you and often wonder how you got so strange, you're a Scanner.

And that last part -- feeling like you're the one oddball in a world full of specialists -- is exactly what makes a retreat the most unforgettable experience of a lifetime. You see, Scanners are among the best people in the world. And they get the worst rap. But at a 5-day retreat with other Scanners, they discover a perspective that's impossible to get any other way. Surrounded by people who are so familiar, so unjudging, Scanners tell me they feel as though they've come home. It's really something to see.

I get to spend hours each day working with a group of 15 - 17 Scanners, helping them find their goals, organize their interests, create plans, set up support teams, and ferret out and outsmart resistance.

On their own they have fun, go walking and swimming, travel around, shop, talk all night, draw on tablecloths, laugh a lot, and often build what might be lifelong friendships. (Three of the past retreats hold yearly reunions.)

And they write me wonderful letters...
"The most lifechanging thing about this trip for me is that I felt fully accepted for who I was as a scanner - and beyond that PROUD! After reading Refuse To Choose I felt UNDERSTOOD, but adding acceptance and pride in that was an entire new feeling. Being around people who supported my ideas instead of competed with them was entirely new to me. "

"...your work with me was nothing short of miraculous. I have [spent years learning about myself] and NEVER once did the issues come up that you identified so quickly. I really couldn't believe it and it is still sinking in. What I love is that you didn't tell me why I needed to be on the path I am on, you somehow pulled it out of me."
If you want to read more letters and see photos of the masseria or find out the details, the times, what's covered and not covered in the fees, head over to Genius Press and click on the Scanner Retreat page. And if you want to attend the next retreat from Sept. 26 to Oct. 1, this fall, sign up pretty quick because there are only about 7 spaces available as I write this mailer.

If you want to know more about Scanners and about the retreats, listen on your computer to the internet show about Scanners that we did on July 20, Right Here!

Take a look or give a listen and write me a letter. I'd love to hear from you.

Dreaming Scanner dreams,
Barbara

Scanner Retreat in Puglia, Italy

Did a radio show today with good producer Matt -- he in Corfu, I in New York City -- all about the wonderful place where the spring and fall retreats take place. Tomorrow I'll add some links to photos of the beautiful masseria on Flickr.com, but right now you can see the shots we took last time at www.geniuspress.com

And here's the long and ugly link, well, not exactly a link, I hear. You should be able to play the thing from here (and I promise to learn how to do tiny urls next -- spent the weekend bouncing around Twitter, one thing at a time...)



Oh my. That looks like a sentence from The Magic Mountain.

(OH MY, NO IT DOESN'T! Will you look at that? :-) Life is good.)

The show went on longer than expected and we didn't have time for callers because I'm obsessive about this issue, and I couldn't stop talking about this remarkable population, this group of people that have so many interests, are so curious, love learning new things, and are torn between the dread that they'll be stuck in some suffocating, dull job and the dread that they'll never amount to anythng because they can't focus.

But Scanners have to know there's not a damn thing wrong with them, first and foremost, if they know nothing else. What a costly and cruel mistake it's been for these smart, multi-talented people to get caught up in the age of specialization that respects only single-minded achievers and doesn't know who they are.

Their families and teachers and communities are bewildered and disappointed in them. But then, these same people would have called Ben Frankiln a dilettante, and told Aristotle he had attention deficit disorder. They'd have been dismayed at the wasted life of Leonardo da Vinci (if they didn't know his name!) because he was so talented and just didn't stick to anythng. and told they're dilettantes, lazy, neurotic -- that they fear success, they're trying to sabotage themselves, or they're just foolish, no ability to concentrate, no character or self-discipline.

It's funny to call them renaissance people, as if it were odd that someone has more than one interest, and most of them shy away from the grandiosity of the term. But I guess that's what they are.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the other thngs Scanners need -- and why I wish I could run more retreats because they make such a huge difference in the lives of these talented people.

Bad enough they're told these things, they believe them! They repeat them when they describe themselves.

And their reactions when they find out it's all been a huge mistake is a level of relief that often brings tears. I'm going to start quoteing some of the letters I've been getting for years now.

Nothing's more important than a Scanner knowing there's nothing wrong with her or him.

But there are a few more essentials Scanners must have. I'll tell you all about them tomorrow. (Of course, if you can make that monster link above work, you can rest your eyes and listen to it.)

Watch this space.