Whenever you are looking to manifest anything, it may help you to ask yourself, “who am I really doing this FOR?” Who is the “end user” of the thing you want to manifest?

A case in point is the first full-length musical I ever composed in 1997, “According To Us,” which I wrote in collaboration with Charles Butler. He wrote the book and lyrics, and “thunk up” the melodies, while I took his musical ideas and fleshed them out into full orchestrations. It’s the story of three homeless people who’ve been willed the garden of a church by its Rector, and they each tell of how the Rector rehabilitated them and gave them a sense of direction.

Since Charles is the son of a minister, he knows firsthand the kind of people that he turned into these characters for the show. And at first he thought the show would make a good “chancel drama,” as a fundraiser for homeless ministries..

But despite the obvious merits of the show, both musically and narratively, it wasn’t “pulling.” We kept putting on the show in church fellowship halls, to extremely meager attendance. And I knew that the challenging music wasn’t being done justice by the amateurs he was recruiting. Playing the Rector, I was routinely the most professional person in the cast – and a performer is only as good as his/her co-stars. But, as Charles was so often “poor as a church mouse,” having to put this thing on with a shoestring budget, he didn’t think he had the wherewithal to make it a professional production, with FOUR equally strong leads!

We had a bit of a falling-out over this. With my musical theatre experience, I also came to the conclusion that we were playing the show in the wrong places, for the wrong people. “Churches don’t know how to promote musical theatre,” I pointed out. “That’s not their job. It’s no wonder that hardly anybody from the congregations are even showing up. You need to get this show picked up by a legitimate theater, with its own marketing department, that can promote the thing PROPERLY!” I challenged him to do this, and “THEN come back and talk to me!”

A year later, he saw me actually “put my money where my mouth was,” mounting a professional production of my own show, “The Passion of Persephone,” at a theatre festival – and did it with an even more challenging score and a larger cast. And he knew I was serious. If he wanted to keep me, he was going to have to step up, and go beyond what he thought he could do.

Over the next year, he DID IT. He found a local community theatre with an open weekend, and he booked the show into that time slot. He recruited several players from the “Persephone” cast, expanded the show to include four more supporting players, and actually devised a proper set and lighting cues. Even better, sponsor-funding materialized to cover the set design, and one of the performances was recorded for airing on a local public-access cable channel. Best of all, we actually decent audiences! For five performances in a row!

On closing night, he was astonished at himself. I congratulated him, saying, “Now you can’t go back. Now that you know you CAN pull it off, you won’t ever be able to settle for anything less..” And he realized that I was right, both about this and about WHERE the show should be played, and for whom.

As Manifestations go, this one was pretty good. And I’m pleased to know that I was the “Catalytic Converter” that lit the fire under him.

So: Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, either way you’re right.

And: If you believe in yourself, other people will believe in you too.

Rosanna E. Tufts is the author of “Don’t Start a Business without ME!”, available at www.DontStartABusinessWithoutMe.com. Excerpts from her rock opera, “The Passion of Persephone,” can be seen and heard at www.myspace.com/passionofpersephonerockopera. To hear more from her and ask her questions LIVE on the air, tune in on Wednesday, June 3, at 7 pm!

This article is by Sandy Gardner, the lady that introduced me to the Law of Attraction, and is the Marketing Director for Michael Losier, author of Law of Attraction. So without further ado…

Are You Stuck In The Past?

Last week I went to my bookshelf for ideas about what to write for this month’s column. For some reason I was drawn to Caroline Myss’ book Invisible Acts of Power. I opened the book, and to my amazement it opened to an article about synchronicity. I smiled to myself. This shows that Law of Attraction is definitely working in my life.

As I read through the article, a couple of things really stood out for me and I would like to share them with you. Caroline Myss quotes “The coordination of a synchronistic event requires an enormous amount of energy. You increase the frequency of synchronistic experiences in your life if you make it a practice to live in present time. When your past is more alive and real to you than the present, synchronistic events are less likely to come together, if for no other reason than you lack the power to recognize them or take advantage of their appearance.” Caroline then goes on to say “You have to be ready to seize the day—to see, accept, and use synchronicities as they present themselves. They are a creative force, opening new worlds and opportunities.” So ask yourself “Are you living in the past and missing all sorts of synchronistic events or are you living in the present where you are consciously aware of everything and everyone who is here to assist you when you need it?

Another thing I would like to ask is “When a synchronistic event occurs in your life, do you brush it off as a one-time coincidence, or do you actually pay attention and thank the Universe for it? The reason I ask is if you pay more attention to synchronistic events, the more likely they will happen. I will share with you a couple of events that occurred to me one day last week.

By the time you read this, I will be in Hawaii visiting my girlfriend. One of the things I want to do is to visit a kahuna (spiritual elder). So I did an Internet search and came across an article about a North American healer and author who had traveled to Maui and was introduced to a well known kahuna. They traveled to the big island together where the North American healer got the inspiration for her new book. I emailed her and asked if she could give me the contact info for the kahuna in Hawaii. I was pleasantly surprised when she emailed me back with the contact info. She also told me that I could use her name as my referral. After contacting the kahuna, she told me that she was leaving for a cruise that weekend and she only had twospots left on Thursday and she wouldn’t be back until after I had left. So I booked the two spots for my girlfriend and I. Synchronistic? I think so. About an hour later, I went back to the author’s website and started reading some more. I noticed that she was leading a spiritual quest to India next year. She has been leading these trips for many years – the place is considered the most holiest place on Earth. One of my desires is to travel to India. Anyhow, I came across another book on my bookshelf. I opened it, and to my amazement again, it opened to the page where this place in India was. Wow! I just love when this happens.

So in the future when synchronistic events occur — and believe me they do happen — pay attention to them. Before long you will be amazed at how often they show up in your life on a daily basis!