markmetz

Have you ever noticed what happens when you stick with something? Is there anything in your life that’s been going on long enough to show results you weren’t expecting when you began? Sometimes just hanging in there can produce results you weren’t even expecting when you started out.

This is the 208th edition of Monday Love! That means that you’ve been hearing from me every week for four whole years! A grand total of 1,319,539 emails! Noticing this milestone makes me want to tell you a bit about how it got started and some of the things that have developed since then.

Some of you may remember back when we were printing a quarterly publication that was supported by small ads, distributed for free, and produced with national magazine standards of art direction and editorial. With no background in publishing, this seemed like a great idea at the time, yet proved to be an unsustainable business model in the long-term.

A lot of transitions were happening in my life, including separating from my daughters mom Aspen, who was also the co-founder of Conscious Dancer and my business partner at the time. As I moved the business forward, a number people were asking for a different level of service, and expressing the need for an association catering to the needs of the Conscious Dance community.

So when the Dance First Association was launched as an umbrella organization to Conscious Dancer, my role as a publisher changed too. Publishing a magazine meant that my job was to sell my demographic to big companies so that they would buy ads. Convincing shoe companies, for instance, that conscious dancers would buy a lot of their product.

As the head of a service organization, my job is to work directly with individual facilitators and modality founders to support their goals, promote their work, and grow their practices. To me it feels much more valuable and collaborative to be arm in arm with the leaders of the movement than to be marketing them in an abstract sense to companies who hope to sell stuff to our community.

In the early days I used to send it out a big impersonal newsletter once a month. And like many of the people who I now coach or consult with, I actually hated it. It was a monthly exercise in gnashing my teeth, and the cause of endless frustration. We would sell spots for events in it and every month after I pressed send I would wait for the inevitable angry phone call or email. “What happened to my event?” or “Didn’t you get my message, we changed the date!”

So when we shifted into an association model, I changed the tone, focus, and format of the newsletter and have been immensely pleased with it ever since. Every Monday I write a very personal blog post, like you are reading now. I do a spotlight on one of our Dance First members each week. And we include a huge list of links to workshops and events that our members are offering around the world.

So there’s very little that can go wrong, it’s fun to put together each week, and I almost always get thank you notes and kind replies in my mailbox. You might also notice that it never tries to sell you anything, beyond the implied benefit of becoming a Dance First member and being featured or listing your events. Very rarely, no more than three or four times a year, I will send out a separate message to this list offering my one-on-one services or or some other call to action. But for the most part, this seems to be one email that most of you appreciate receiving each week.

I’m so happy and grateful for all of you who read this and share it with your friends. This list has been growing a lot lately, reaching conscious dancers all over the world. You’ve also been really great about supporting my podcast, which now has it’s own section on our website, with a show page for every episode! Our website has been making great strides forward as well, each Monday Love is featured as a blog post, and all of our Dance First members are featured in a directory.

You probably have something in your life or business that is worth sticking with. When you hit your stride and keep at it long enough, you’ll start to see results you never would have expected at the beginning of your journey. And there may come a day when it’s time to shift gears, so trust your intuition and know that whichever way your path leads, your spiral of consciousness is unfolding just as it should.

Much love and blessings until next week!

Mark Metz
Director of the Dance First Association
Publisher of Conscious Dancer Magazine

Dance First Member Spotlight: Sayrah Garrison!

SayrahGarrison

This weeks Dance First member spotlight shines on Sayrah Garrison! She’s a well-loved 5Rhythms facilitator with a buoyant spirit here in the East Bay, a new mom, and a long-time friend of mine!

Sayrah has been solidly consistent in building up her weekly Deep Dive Oakland class every Thursday night at the historic Veterans Memorial Building overlooking Lake Merritt, and has put several of my pointers into action to better engage her volunteers and create an welcoming environment for her dance community.

She heightens her passion of teaching 5Rhythms by bringing in elements from her trainings in yoga, meditation, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction that she teaches to the general public and to special populations in need.

She’s also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker which gives her a deeper grounding and understanding of the process of transformation that so many people seek with a conscious dance practice.

After hosting a weekly class in Oakland for nearly three years, she’s excited to be offering a series of day-long workshops in Berkeley, starting with the Body on May 27th, followed by Mind on June 24th and Spirit on July 22nd. Early bird pricing is offered for the series until May 5th, and these workshops count as pre-requisites for the 5Rhythms Waves teacher training program.

Learn more about Sayrah Garrison, one of our dynamic Dance First members, and sign up for her mailing  list at her website www.SayrahGarrison.com

Thanks so much for your hard work and dedication to the field Sayrah! We’re happy to serve you with all of the support and service that Dance First has to offer!