When this email goes out, I will be sitting in a conference room at theMcMenamins Kennedy School in Portland, Oregon at the Sacred Moment Seminar with Mark Silver. I have been following Mark's Heart of Business newsletters, mingling Sufi wisdom with practical business advice, for a few years now. I'm very excited to learn from him in person and bring some of that Sufi wisdom back to the East Coast for my clients and colleagues.

My short article this week is about a technique I learned from Mark Silver - connecting with the Heart of your Business. I hope you enjoy it! I'm sure I'll have more interesting things to share when I return from Portland!

If you need something to shift so that you are attracting clients and experiencing your business in a flow of abundance, the Heart-Centered Entrepreneur Apprenticeship is for you. I am now accepting applications for the next Heart-Centered Entrepreneur Apprenticeship starting on April 4th. Spots are limited so get your application in early. Request an application and more details here.

One of the most fascinating, yet helpful, concepts that I learned from Mark Silver in his bookUnveiling the Heart of your Business is the Sufi idea that your business is an entity in and of itself.

Your job as the business owner is to support, guide, direct, and uphold your business through it's different stages of growth. Yes, like a human being, your business grows from being an infant (needing constant care) to a toddler (starting to interact with the world around it) to a child (learning the ways of the world) to a teenager (carving out it's own niche) and hopefully becoming a sustainable, flourishing adult (manages itself).

So here's where it gets even more interesting. According to Mark, you can enlist the Heart of Your Business, this entity, to help you understand where the business is at in it's growth process and what it needs from you at this point in time to move forward.

I've found using this technique to be refreshing and insightful, especially when faced with particularly thorny challenges and roadblocks. It's really helped me understand what kind of support my business needs to thrive, and I'd like to share it with you.

Here's how Mark suggests connecting with the Heart of your Business:

1. Relax

Close your eyes and take a few breaths. Relax into your body. Allow your breath to bring you into your body and out of your mind. Bring your attention to your own heart center, observing your chest rise and fall with the breath. Allow your heart to soften and open.

2. Get in touch with your Core

Invite your Core or Wise self to be present in this moment with you. Trust that all the guidance you need will be provided. Be open to receiving whatever insight pops up, even if it seems silly or totally unrelated at first.

3. Get in touch with your Business

Invite the Heart of your Business to be present with you. Honor this entity in your heart. (What does it mean to honor your business? It means to acknowledge it's existence in a gentle and loving way.)

4. Converse with the Heart of your Business

Ask yourself these questions and jot down your answers:

What is the true essence of my business? And am I aligned with this?

What does my business need from me right now?

What steps do I need to be taking to best support the business right now?

Show me a vision for the next few months to a year

What do I need to be doing to bring this vision to life?

What else do I need to know?

Good luck getting in touch with the Heart of your Business! I look forward to sharing you some pictures and new ideas when I get back on the East Coast next week!

from Unveiling The Heart of your Business by Mark Silver

Are you blocking the things you need?

With Valentine's Day on our minds in recent weeks, I've heard a theme over and over again from clients and friends. So many of the people who have crossed my path recently are deeply in need. They need more love, more abundance, more money, more opportunities in their lives.

They are experiencing a deep sense of lack, sadness and frustration about not being able to get these needs met.

Yet when we start to explore the deeper levels of why these needs are not being met, we discover that it is extremely difficult for these individuals to receive what they need. Their hearts are locked up tight to keep them safe, but an unfortunate side effect of this self-protection is that it also keeps out the things they need.

Most of us have hearts closed to some degree as a self-protection and survival reflex to keep us from getting hurt on many different levels. If your heart is locked up safe, and for good reason too, know that it is going to take some gentleness, compassion and practice to unlock the door and let love in again. Yes, love. Remember last week we talked about how even money is an expression of love?

If your heart has been locked and closed for a long time, it's pretty darn scary to unlock the deadbolts and open the door. My suggestion has been to challenge yourself to practice opening your heart a crack and receiving at least one thing each day. Start off small, like allowing someone to hold a door open for you or letting yourself receive a smile from a store clerk and feel it in your heart.

You can also practice the below visualization that we did at the Creative Retreat a few weeks back. It's called the Ocean of Abundance and it's by Louise Hay.

Here's what she has to say:

"Your prosperity consciousness is not dependent on money, your flow of money is dependent upon your prosperity consciousness. As you can conceive of more, more will come into your life.

I love the visualization of standing at the sea shore looking out at the vast ocean and knowing that this ocean is the abundance that is available to me.

Look down at your hands and see what sort of container you are holding. Is it a teaspoon, a thimble with a hole in it, a paper cup, a glass, a tumbler, a pitcher, a bucket, a wash tub, or perhaps you have a pipeline connected to this ocean of abundance.

Look around you and notice that no matter how many people are there and no matter what kind of container they have, there is plenty for everyone. You cannot rob another, and they cannot rob you. And in no way can you drain the ocean dry.

Your container is your consciousness, and it can always be exchanged for a larger container. Do this exercise often, to get the feeling of expansion and unlimited supply. I sit at least once a day with my arms stretched out to the side and say, "I am open and receptive to all the good and abundance in the Universe." It gives me a feeling of expansion.

The Universe can only distribute to me what I have in my consciousness, and I can ALWAYS create more in my consciousness. I am an unlimited being accepting from an unlimited source in an unlimited way."

Stop trying to earn Love; you already deserve it.

What if you are already good enough?

In preparation for the creative retreat I attended last weekend, my mentor had all of the participants read The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of our Inner Resources by Lynne Twist. Ms. Twist, a long time fundraiser and activist for The Hunger Project who has worked closely with some of the most resource rich and resource poor individuals and communities in the world, puts forth some revolutionary ideas about our capacity to experience abundance no matter where we are in the world and what our access to money is like. Ms. Twist actually challenges us to let go of the money myths that have become the foundations of our Western capitalist culture ("there isn't enough to go around so stockpile as much as you can for you and yours") and replace them with a liberating, and ancient, myth of abundance ("there is enough for all of us").

At this creative retreat, we explored how to weave the myth of abundance into our businesses, lifestyle and even spirituality. As we explored how to integrate our passions and businesses with our chosen lifestyle, we were actually exploring how the paradigm of enough could liberate, not just our relationship with money, but our relationship with ourselves, our families, our clients, and all the other people in our communities. A series of "what if" questions started popping into my mind as the possible ramifications of the myth of abundance began to sink into my consciousness.

What if individuals started to realize that they are good enough just as they are?

What if communities began to see that there are enough resources for everyone if they work together?

What if there is always enough love and support to nourish me and everyone else?

What if none of us has to earn dignity, worth, value, love, abundance, opportunities, appreciation, gifts, income and anything else our hearts desire?

What if we are all inherently good enough to receive these things?

What if it's just a matter of being open to revealing this abundance inside of ourselves and our communities?

Though my mentor has been trying to teach me this for a while, it wasn't until I came home from the retreat did I start to really understand how my entire life and my business could be different if I approached it from this lens of abundance. Our society equates a sense of security with money, through employment. Do you?

Yet, indigenous tribes did not have money. They had food, water, community and all were fed, housed, and cared for. They teach us that a loving community is more security than money and employment. What is community? It's really just a group of people through which Love flows to you and to others. Money is simply one way that abundance flows to you. What's abundance? An expression of Love. It's something we all innately deserve - it's not something we have to earn or prove we deserve it. Money, abundance, love are the appreciation and support from the Universe that flows to you through your community, your work, your family etc..

Thought about in this context, money is really a form of appreciation, an expression of Love. Your clients come to receive Love through your gifts, guidance, and advice. You receive their expression of Love and appreciation through the fees they pay you. On a practical level, I wanted to know how to transform my business by shifting into this alternate paradigm. Here are some questions I worked on as I began the transformation, and I encourage you to start exploring them for yourself.

Your Transformational Homework

Spend some time first thing in the morning with a journal and reflect on these questions:

• How do I act as a channel for Divine love and nourishment?
• How do I cultivate receiving Divine love and nourishment?
• How can I view my business as a channel for this Divine love and nourishment?
• How does the Divine/Source direct love and nourishment to me?
• Am I receptivein my business? Am I rigid in my ideas about money=security=abundance or am I open to receiving abundance in wonderful and unanticipated ways?
• What beliefs do I attach to being paid by my clients?
• What beliefs do I attach to the relationship of money and success to my business? Is the belief: "I have to earn money" a foundation of your business? Remember that money is just an expression of Love - deep down do you feel you need to earn Love?
• Are you limiting how much you appreciation receive? Who you receive it from? Does taking payment from your clients make you uncomfortable? Why?
• How can I practice receiving appreciation in the currency of money? How can I open up to the Divine flow of love and abundance in my business?

Promote from the Heart: Authentic Marketing & Client Relationships

It takes most people a LONG time to try something new. They want to hear about it, read about it, ask their friends about it, ask an expert about it, think about it, sleep on it, make a decision to try it someday... before they try it.

By understanding this crucial truth about human nature, you can build a relationship with your potential client by always being there, being courteous, being friendly, offering to help, answering questions, becoming a part of her awareness so that when she does decide to try your service - she'll be comfortable with working with you.

When you interact with prospective and current clients, communicating from your heart is an easy way to build rapport and trust. If you can, spend a few minutes in meditation to clear out your internal "clutter" before your conversation.

The most important tool for relationship building is listening carefully and learning what the other person needs. By using active listening, where you ask questions and repeat back to the person what you heard them say about what they need, you can uncover whether this person will benefit from your services.

Heart-centered promotion is "we" focused, so when you do start speaking about what it is you do, keep it focused on how you two can work together to solve problems or overcome challenges.

Building relationship is the heart and soul of building a business. The only right way to promote yourself in this way is in a format that you'll enjoy and feel comfortable practicing on a regular basis. Consistency is key! What are some of the ways that you can build a relationship with the people who might become clients someday?

Take into account your personal communication preferences and self-knowledge about what you will be able to do consistently. Jot down at least one thing you can do for each stage listed that feels comfortable to you.

I'd like to provide an introduction to what I do by:

I'd like to stay in touch with people who've been interested in my Services by:

I'd like to reach out to people who have expressed interest in my services by:

Need a little extra support? Here are some ways you can get involved. For community support, encouragement, strategy and inspiration, check out the new Heart-Centered Entrepreneur Forum. If it's accountability, strategies and guidance you need, check out private coaching with me. I also teach heart-centered entrepreneurship at North Shore Community College.

Nourishing Yourself: A Strategy for Growing your Business

There is a little parable I've heard many times which sums up the theory behind this strategy for running a heart-centered business. It basically goes like this: Imagine yourself as a fountain of water giving nourishment out to all who ask for it. You enjoy giving to others, but eventually you are going to run out of water, right? So in order to keep giving, you have to allow your fountain to receive water from another source. So, in order to give - you have to receive. Are you making sure you are filling up your fountain or are you running out of water? Here's an exercise you can do to assess which areas of your life need some extra TLC in order to shine in 2011. Let's get totally honest here. What's fallen off your plate since the holidays began? What kinds of self-care and nourishment do you need? Are you running on a full "tank" or are you somewhere close to empty? Check in with yourself - where's the gauge at? Physical: Full ---------------------- Empty Emotional: Full ---------------------Empty Spiritual: Full -----------------------Empty Intellectual: Full --------------------Empty Social/Family: Full --------------------Empty Romantic: Full ---------------------- Empty What top 3 things do you need to nourish immediately? 1. 2. 3. What other things do you need to nourish over the next few weeks or months? 1. 2. 3. 4. Need a little extra support? Here are some ways you can get involved. For community support, encouragement, strategy and inspiration, check out the new Heart-Centered Entrepreneur Forum. If it's accountability, strategies and guidance you need, check out private coaching with me. I also teach heart-centered entrepreneurship at North Shore Community College.