"The Time of Great Allowing: HERE II HERE's going to the Next Level"

“You can’t make $200,000 a year doing a $10 an hour job.”

Carole King’s touring guitarist recently smacked me in the face with that idea. Pardon the name dropping, but it just makes the story so much more fun for me to tell. His name is Curtis, and he’s a beautiful human being. And its not important that he was Carol King’s guitarist … but name-dropping has nothing to do with what’s important. It’s pure self-indulgence. I beg your pardon. : )

We were staying at Curtis’ wife’s San Rafael CA home (where we hosted a fantastic Friday night house concert), and one morning I was just lapping up wisdom from his touring 20+ years with Carole King … things like what’s a healthy tour schedule, family challenges, the lack of musician’s health insurance, serendipity, and simply how to take HERE II HERE to the “next level” of success.

Just a few days before, our Seattle host, Howard, lent me a book on running a small business: “The E-myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” by Michael Gerber (‘E’ stands for Entrepreneur). Although it’s 15-years old and talks about franchises, it illustrates beautifully the classic mistake most small business owners make that ultimately dooms the business (over 80% of small businesses fail within 5 years): the entrepreneur inevitably takes on ALL the work for an extended period of time, eventually losing the passion and vision she had when she started the business, succumbing to exhaustion, fatigue, frustration … and finally either bankruptcy or plain hopelessness.

I realized that the “HERE II HERE” experience could be no different, especially in today’s wild-west music business climate of imploding record companies, essentially free digital music, and an endless array of music choices available immediately to every listener. There’s currently very few knights on white horses sweeping up bands like ours, delivering them to kingdoms of worldwide exposure, stadium concerts and massive record sales (of course those white knights were usually working for very greedy, sinister kings, anyway).

We’ve got to plan on doing it ourselves. That’s certainly how it has been unfolding for 8 years. Even if Oprah and Ellen put us on their shows, we’re still going to have to run our own show.

HERE II HERE, magical as the experience is … needs to be run like a business. At least to “take it to the next level.”

And in case there’s any confusion or concern, let me throw this out there, as I did a lot of Byron Katie “work” on this … Money and Business ARE SPIRITUAL!!!

Let that sink in should you feel any resistance to the idea. Money is spiritual. When I had been struggling a year ago, loathing asking for donations during my concert introductions, we all did The Work (www.thework.com) on “money is not spiritual”. I quickly discovered that “Money IS spiritual!”. I had to discover that in my body, not just as an intellectual idea. And what a relief THAT was! Especially since other than clothing, it’s the one thing WE ALL HAVE ON OUR BODY’S AT ALL TIMES: credit cards, cash, change, checks, wallets, etc. And it’s the one tangible thing we’re constantly exchanging with each other … as marketing guru Randy Gage said years ago, “Money is God in Action.” I finally got it.

I see now that it’s all part of managing the magic. Running a successful, sustainable HERE II HERE business: from touring to merchandise, envisioning and planning the business’ evolution, while remaining aware of and open to the complete mystery in which that evolution is unfolding.

It’s coming strong into my awareness that I have been working too much IN the HERE II HERE business … like an employee … and not enough ON the HERE II HERE business .. like the CEO. In other words, on this tour, HERE II HERE has had, first, one amazing employee doing a significant portion of the work, from booking, lodging setup, merchandising, graphic design and flyer creation, email list and social website management … and on and on … and second, an exhausted CEO who is probably not effectively tending to the overall health and sustainable growth of the business.

As the teacher Abraham said, if I’m experiencing the state of “overwhelm”, it’s because I’m NOT ALLOWING IN RIGHT NOW all the resources this vast abundant Universe is dying to offer me!!

I’m ready to give that “overwhelm” up.

So on this tour break, I’m moving HERE II HERE into a new paradigm. I’m personally opening up the HERE II HERE project to all that the Universe has to offer. I’m a perfectionist, a bit OCD with high standards and immense expectations, so it might be a challenge to let go and let God, the universe, jesus, buddha, allah or whatever creates galaxies and babies and dinosaurs … do its thing. But that’s what I’m going to do. Or rather … that’s WHO I’M GOING TO BE. I don’t know exactly how it will all look like. But I do know that it’s time to harness energy and grow our team in a powerful way. You’ve already started seeing my online wakeup calls for human beings to join the experience. It’s time for the HERE II HERE experience to ascend to new heights. You’re invited to participate.

If that excites you and creates an impulse inside you, please let me know. Let’s see what the Universe is really asking for … and then allow it.

I’m calling this new era of HERE II HERE management “The Time of Great Allowing”.

 

(pic borrowed from www.lifemagick.net)