Several years ago I was at a crossroads. I liked my profession, but I desperately needed to breathe new life into what I was doing. My work had lost much of its meaning, but unfortunately the next step eluded me.

Then I had a dream. I dreamed I made money by helping other people make money, and I did this by tending to their gardens.

Here’s what happened to my dream Self:

I am a bookkeeper, but instead of crunching numbers I help people make money by tending to their gardens. I use my credit card to draw water from the Source of Creation which comes from a spigot on the side of a house.

After a day of watering my client’s garden I sit back and review my books. There is a loving Presence (God) behind me. Together we review everything.

Suddenly I’m nervous. In my bank account there is a million dollars, and I have no idea how it got there. Did I accidentally put my clients’ money into my own account?

Fortunately, God shows me that my clients each have a million dollars. The million dollars in my account is the money I’ve earned simply by helping other people tend to their lives.

I am stunned. I was so busy helping people and enjoying my work I didn’t even realize I was making money.

I woke up excited, feeling as though I’d been given some profound information that could change my life.

Over the next few days I thought incessantly about the dream. As revelations surfaced, I decided to explore the emerging information.

I used a 6 x 9 foot piece of paper to draw the eco-system of my life. Everything was a metaphor for an experience, need or vision. I was essentially dreaming on paper and as a result, even more information revealed itself.

Then things started to fall into place.

A few weeks later, I discovered an overarching lifework theme that encompassed everything I loved.

Below I share the details of my process with you because I created 3 pillars you can use to build the foundation of any heartfelt work you want to offer the world. They were:

1. The needs of your community

My community was comprised of mind, body, soul & life (coach) professionals who struggled with how to grow prosperous work

2. What you love and need most in order to be happy – a 2 part process

1. I was done picking and choosing which parts of me to use in my work. It was time to use everything – art, writing, dreams, Spirit – but I also redefined the qualities and characteristics of the work I wanted to create.

2. The other side of this step was the elimination of every aspect of work that I didn’t enjoy.

3. The culmination of your experience and expertise

Up until that point I had compartmentalized my work. I’d been a website and graphic designer for big companies, a marketing and business consultant for non-profits and a spiritual guide for individuals.

Even though I enjoyed all of these pieces, the compartmentalization of everything was making me miserable. Reflecting on the dream helped me find a way to create an overarching theme for my work so I could offer one service “Grow Your Lifework” and use all of my skills and talents in that context.

My work started to feel fresh again. Over the years, the dream has inspired countless revelations and creations. It still touches everything I do. It even inspired:

• Grow Up Ezine (which you’re reading) and many of the articles I’ve written over the past several years

• Grow the Extra Mile, or GEM, a 12-Month marketing program for mind, body, soul & life people

• Tools for my spiritual guidance and lifework direction services

• Grow Your Lifework Guidebook, which walks people through the fun and creative process I used to help breathe life into my work (I’m still working on this one. It may be a year before it’s finished!)

It was a simple dream, but it’s given me years’ worth of inspiration.

Also, for those who say you can’t make money by following your dreams, this dream was responsible for generating over $40,000 in income. While it wasn’t a million dollars, it was income that came from rewarding lifework that made me feel rich in mind, body and soul.

The power of dreams to transform lives is remarkable.

What precious gems are hiding in the dark corners of your mind?

A week ago I dreamed I was driving a car on the freeway. Suddenly the steering wheel locked. I couldn’t steer the car in any direction, and I couldn’t even slow down. All I could do was drive forward.

Unfortunately, there was a bus about 20 feet in front of me. To make matters worse, a cop car was behind me. Either I was going to crash into the bus and die, or get a ticket. It was a no win situation and I felt defeated. I only had two choices: panic or surrender to the situation. I chose the latter.

Then something miraculous happened. Instead of colliding with the bus in a nasty crash, my bumper simply nudged up against it. My car was secure, I was safe and my steering wheel unlocked successfully.

I pulled over to the side of the road and let out a deep sigh of relief.

The bus drove off and so did the cop car. I didn’t die. Nor did I get a ticket. Instead, I noticed I was in front of the entrance to a national park. I drove in and found a magical and mystical scene with enormous Pine and Redwoods and misty, fresh air.

What this dream tells us is that sometimes we need other people’s support to help us arrive safely at our destination. Buses in dreams can represent community because they carry groups of people. In the dream the community not only saves me, it delivers me unexpectedly to a mystical, magical place.

This dream inspired the below essay as well as a project that I hope to launch very soon. Both the essay and project focus on how the power of community can transform our struggles into successes. Read the article below and stay tuned for the project. I’m actually quite excited about it, so I’ll give you a hint: it has to do with creativity, dreams and spirit!

Anyway, here’s to the power of dreams, both sleeping dreams and dreams of ambition, to help us forge new and exciting territory.

Succeed Together, Struggle Alone…

Like many of you, I offer a service and I get paid to do it. I don’t have employees or co-workers or anyone except my cats to keep me company throughout the day. Mostly I love this. Sometimes, though, I feel lonely, especially when I have a deadline that is causing me to be single-minded while I work 15-hour days in order to get everything done on time. (Sort of like being in a fast moving car with a locked steering wheel.)

It’s much easier to build a successful business or private practice when you have support, but knowing how to get that support can seem tricky, especially if you don’t want the hassle of renting an office, hiring employees or commuting through traffic.

So here’s a scenario I conjured up for you:

Imagine you want to grow your business. One of your goals is to increase your client base. How can you collaborate to eliminate some of the stress of working alone?

You can have a community “ezine”, or “electronic magazine.” It’s similar to a newsletter, but there are some notable differences.

In my weekly ezine I use a consistent format with an intro section, an essay and a sidebar column that contains contact info and a few things that I’m offering, like my free ebook Simple Dreaming or my lifework direction counseling service.

The essay (hopefully) gives you relevant, useful information you can use to more easily grow your own work. The sidebar area helps me let you know what I’m offering. The intro let’s me connect with you on a more personal level. And when you email me to let me know how you’re doing I get to know you better (hint, hint.) An ezine makes the entire exchange more personal.

A newsletter, on the other hand, is more about sharing news and events. It’s generally not as personal.

Regardless, either option can help you:

1) Add value to your clients’ lives by providing them with useful information

2) Attract new clients (because people will sign up to receive valuable information)

3) Advertise without being salesy

4) Be seen as an expert or “go to person” in your particular field

The most effective ezines are mailed on a regular basis, like weekly, and on predictable days, like every Monday. But that’s a lot of writing for some people.

Unfortunately, monthly ezines aren’t as effective as weekly ezines. My website traffic has tripled since I went from monthly to weekly ezines, and more people are calling to enlist my services.

But what if you’d rather not write weekly essays? Is there still a way that you can benefit from a weekly ezine?

Believe it or not, the following idea came to me as a result of the dream I shared above.

You can have a weekly ezine by creating a small group of colleagues who agree to help cross market each other’s services. You don’t have to share an office. You can do this virtually (over the internet.)

Let’s say you are a massage therapist and you know an herbalist, a dream worker and a spiritual counselor.

Each of you wants to grow your clientele, likes to write, and is thinking of having an ezine, but you’d rather focus your time and attention on your services, not on writing weekly articles. What do you do?

I know a lot of people who are prolific creators. They don’t seem to get stuck manifesting their visions. If they have an idea for a book, they write it. If they want to create a product, they create it. They don’t always have the money, time or resources to make it happen, but somehow they do it anyway.

My grandfather is the perfect example of this type of person. At the age of 89 he hasn’t slowed down much, even after a lifetime of entrepreneurship. He started working when he was a kid during the depression, selling papers and popcorn, and worked his way into all sorts of exciting situations, just to make a buck or have an adventure.

When I was in high school and college I worked for my grandfather’s paddlewheel boat business. He was a tough employer. Words like “can’t” and “don’t know how” made him growl. He disdained laziness and excuses, and preferred not to be in the company of people who made them. He always worked hard, with full determination, and let nothing get in his way. Whether he was selling popcorn or boat rides, my grandfather put his heart and soul into everything he did.

When he was in his 70s he had knee surgery that caused him to lose mobility in one leg. The doctor said my grandfather would need physical therapy before he’d be able to walk. The same night he escaped from the hospital and walked across the street to have dinner with his family.

Never tell my grandfather he can’t do something. It’s the best way to ensure that he will succeed or die trying.

People who have a hard time manifesting their ideas can learn a lot from someone like my grandfather. Every obstacle becomes a challenge he must overcome. Instead of saying, “I can’t do that,” he says, “How can I do that?” Sometimes he doesn’t even question. He just does it, regardless of the consequences.

For people who have less gumption than my grandfather, it’s easy to get stuck and not take leaps. We second guess ourselves and worry about making the wrong choice. If this happens to you, you are certainly not alone. I think people like my grandfather are the exception, not the rule.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them, embrace the philosophies that cause people like my grandfather to cross the street when they shouldn’t be able to walk.

If you ever say “I can’t” ask yourself if it’s true. If you ever feel like you don’t have enough time or money or resources to manifest your visions, ask instead, “How can I make this happen?” If it’s important to you, you’ll find a way.

As soon as we limit ourselves by saying, “I can’t” or “That will never happen” we create that exact experience. We immediately limit our options.

But the second we say, “How can I do that?” our bodies feel hope and our minds are free to explore opportunities we may not have seen otherwise.

In 1944, my grandfather, a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, jumped into Normandy on D-Day. He landed behind enemy lines in a precarious jump that caused him to sprain his ankle. Alone and in the dark, he nervously cut himself out of his parachute and wobbled away before meeting three other American soldiers. Together they assessed the situation and realized they had to cross a river to get to their destination. The only bridge that crossed the river was surrounded by German soldiers.

My grandfather and his army companions spent another day and night wandering around trying to figure out what to do. After the sun rose they noticed a nearby farm house. My grandfather prepared to check it out, but one of the soldiers threatened to have him court-marshaled if he did.

Not one to be deterred, my grandfather went anyway. He found a French family that was part of the French underground. They gave my grandfather food and shelter, and helped the young American soldiers, and many others, safely cross the river. He remains friends with the family to this day.

If my grandfather had said, “I can’t” he wouldn’t have lived to tell the story. Instead, every step of the way he thought, “How can I do what needs to be done?” And he did it.

Last week I created a video to show you how I use my weekly planning guide. It was a big hit. Several of you have since asked for more videos, especially one about my idea journal. Others asked me to make more downloadable weekly planning pages. So guess what I did…both! Below is the video about how to create your own idea journal and below that is another downloadable planning page for you, one in black and white that you can color in yourself, the other already completed.

The idea journal is a simple 3-ring binder that sits on my desk. In it I keep projects I’ve started or am currently completing, including outlines of document topics I’m writing. In the video I show you exactly what I keep in my idea journal so you can start to think about what you might keep in yours. Happy creating!

Here’s this week’s planning guide. Click the colored image to download the colored page, click the black and white image to download the black and white page. (Give them a few seconds to download, they’re big files.)

Instead of writing a long essay, I decided to make a video and give you a free download of a creative weekly planning page. (It’’s Valentine’s Day in a week so the page is in pink…, which is a bit girlie, I suppose, but oh well.)

The video is a continuation of last week’s article on how to turn overwhelm into order by creating small, realistic steps that can help you take an overwhelming idea and turn it into something doable.

In the video I show you how and why I create my weekly plan guide. (Click the video image to play. ) Then download the Creative Planning Page by scrolling down. (There’’s no need to sign up or opt-in with an email. Just click the image once you get to the page and download.)

To download the free creative planning page click the image – it’s a PDF file so you’ll need Acrobat Reader.

(& it takes a second to download…if you’re patient it will open.)

Just print it out and write your weekly plan, creating realistic goals for each day. Check them off as you complete them.