Journey to the Sacred Moment (Seminar on Marketing)

The train doesn't mind icy roads and snow.  I parked the car in Tacoma and boarded the southbound Amtrak to Portland, Or, for Mark Silver's seminar on marketing with Heart, The Sacred Moment.

It was a life changing event.

Mark turned on its head the marketing jargon that so jars my soul, and gave me a whole new way to look at some of the aspects of building a creative business that have troubled me most.

Pricing for example. How do you price art? Time and materials is not a good guide; the best, most inspired art can take but a moment, while work that I struggle with forever can turn to mud. Sometimes a piece marinates in my subconscious for years before it finally finds expression. The market isn't much of a guide either; so many people under price their work, or sometimes I can't for the life of me figure out why a painting that I can't stand sold for so much!

 It helps to know these things of course, to know how much it costs to produce something and how much people are asking for similar work, how much people have actually paid for similar work.

Mark taught us that the Heart knows the right price. The Heart puts all the information together and weighs it for us.  Through the practice of Rememberance, of connecting with the Divine, one can find a price that one knows in one's soul is right.

Mark ended the seminar with a plea to us to help to change the status quo business practices that are devastating our planet. To build businesses based not on greed and empire building, but on Compassion and Respect for others and for our beautiful planet.

Count me in on this one!