I’m not sure how I was first introduced to Barbara Cook’s music.  Actually, that’s not quite true – I first heard her a a kid growing up listening to the broadway cast album of The Music Man she was the original Marian the Librarian. I clearly remember not liking her all that much – her voice was to “legit” sounding, too “operatic” for my 8 or 9 year old taste.

Barbara has had an amazing carier in musicals, but that’s not where I was reintroduced to her – somewhere I got one of her more recent concert performances – she’s been doing her own cabaret shows for at least the last 30 years or so – and at age 82 she’s still brilliant – maybe better then ever.  Just listen to this – recorded a few years ago in Melbourne:

Listening to Barbara I feel like I’m not hearing words or notes, but more like pure story and emotion.  She doesn’t tell you a story, she weave’s it around you.

Here’s some more

And the grand finale (at least for the moment)

On Friday one of her songs came up in shuffle on my iTunes – and it just stopped me – I stopped working and just listened. She does it to me every time.
Now that’s brilliant!

In my last post, I talked about my realization that I’d not been approaching my business in a way that’s congruent with who I am – and that was a big problem.

photo credit: Denis Collette…!!!

I’m working (behind the scenes so far) on re-imagining how I talk about and share what I do and make. In the mean time, an opportunity has come up, and I want to share my excitement about it with you.

Maybe it’ll be useful for some of you as well, or maybe you’ll just help me be excited either way is fine.

I’ve known about Mark Silver and The Heart of Business for a while now, and I’d enjoyed some of his stuff, but it didn’t click with me.  I wasn’t ready.

Mark is a Sufi, a practitioner of mystical Islam.  He approaches business as a mystic.  To me, this is very cool.

So, not that long ago, I was struggling how to find a right price to charge for something,  I remembered Havi having written about using a wacky resonant pricing exercise that she adapted from Mark’s work.  So I decided to try it.  I downloaded the exercise from Mark’s post and tried it – it just felt right.  In fact it felt wonderful.  It also introduced me to

The Remembrance

A simple, Sufi practice which is the basis of much of what Mark teaches.  I’m not going to explain the practice here, if you are drawn to know more about it check out Mark’s Getting To The Core workbook, which you get free when you sign up for his newsletter (which I love.)

This practice has been the perfect gift for me at the perfect time, Mark calls it “having tea time with the Divine,” which as strange as it sounds, is really right on.

In fact I’m doing Mark’s Remembrance Challenge right now and loving it – it’s just perfect for me, where I am right now.  Though I’m certainly doing it imperfectly.  (It’s also free on his site if you’re interested)

The Sacred Invitation

I ran across this page on The Heart of Business and signed up for the “No More Square Wheels” teleclass Mark was offering as a free preview class for his 6 week Momentum program.  I was “sure” that I wasn’t going to take the class.  Money is tight right now, it just didn’t seem like an option.  But I wanted to learn what I could from the preview call, which I expected to be mostly content, and a little pitch at the end.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that page was a sacred invitation to me to take the next step into myself and my business.

You see, the call was yesterday – and it just blew me out of the water.  I sat and listened, and felt as Mark would pause, and just breathe as I let what he said sink in, and he felt into what he was called to say next.  (at least that’s how it felt to me…)

He wasn’t talking about a class

He was talking about an entirely new (to me) approach to what business is, what it means, and how to do it.

It felt so right to me.  Exactly what I needed to create the business and life that I feel called to.

And let me be clear I was not “sold” anything – the “pitch” Mark gave was simply an explanation of what the course covers and how it works.  That was really it.

I knew, though, long before that point, that this was what my heart was calling for.

But like I said, I knew I couldn’t afford the class now.  Then I told my Dad about it, and he very graciously agreed to pay for it as a gift.

I am so thankful that I’m now enrolled in this class, and I’m bouncing off the walls excited about it.

And by the way, you can listen to the recording of the “No More Square Wheels” call by clicking here.

So why am I writing this post?  Because my heart is singing with excitement about this and I needed to share it.

Have you ever had something resonate with you like this?  Are you thinking about taking this class?  I’d love to hear about it in the comments.