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?