How Singing In A Bar For 9 People Activated a Global Movement for Anyone to Reclaim Their Lost Dreams…

Back in the 90s, it’s fair to say I was paralyzed with fear, anxiety and overwhelm.

And to put it bluntly, I was hiding out from life.

I was living in a tiny attic apartment in Chicago with my tiny rescued Yorkie, Martina.

And except to go outside and walk her, or go to therapy or the grocery store, or to go to my job as a waitress at the local diner, I was afraid to even leave my apartment.

My reasons to stay so hidden and afraid were pretty understandable-

I was in the middle of treatment for anxiety and PTSD and I was having flashbacks just like those returning military Vet’s stories that you’ve heard about.

I had been raised in a family that was so violent and “colorful” we could have been featured on reality TV: Mentally ill parents, secret life of severe abuse, etc.

And back then my number one priority was just to heal from that crazy-intense family stuff.

But even as I tried to ignore it, I also had a strong spark of a dream inside that just wouldn’t leave me alone.

It kept nagging at me no matter how many times I tried to squash it, dismiss it, or put it off until “later.”

The truth was, I secretly longed to sing in public again, and in particular, sing at a local bar/restaurant that had an open mic night every Friday at 9.

Even though I was filled with shame both about the state of my emotions and the size of my body (at 5’3” I weighed 213 and only wore muumuu’s,) I desperately longed to get over myself and somehow share the music inside me that wanted to Come OUT.

So I planned, and planned and planned some more to get to that open mic night.

Every week I would fantasize about how great it was going to be when I finally got up the nerve to sing for the audience that Friday.

But when Friday afternoon actually rolled around, my fear would reappear again like fast rising floodwater.

Just as the sun would set (which is pretty early in the Chicago winter time) I’d feel myself start to crash inside as more and more dread and panic would fill up my body.

And no matter how much I hated it, and how much I fought myself, the shame, fear and overwhelm would win every time, and by 8pm I would just give up and drown my sorrows in the “box-o-wine” from my fridge, or shove my face into a bowl of ice cream.

Then the next morning, sure as the sunrise, I would wake up disgusted with my failure and be certain that THIS WEEK would be different!!

But the pattern just kept repeating itself:

Week after week I would ride the roller coaster from hope to determination to certainty to being surprised by the inevitable crashing, to the shame, the giving up, and then waking on Saturday again to start it all over again.

This crazy cycle literally happened repeatedly for months until I finally came up with a new system to try.

I knew from all of this inner fighting that I couldn’t count on myself to get all the way to that Bar when my emotions were roiling so hard, so I started making “micro-sized deals” with myself –

“You don’t have to go to the bar tonight. You don’t even have to walk down the 3 flights of stairs to the car. Just change your muumuu, Wendy,  and put on the one you would wear if you were going.”

And that was it.

Some weeks I would just change clothes and then change them back again.

Some weeks I would get a little further – I’d also get my coat on, and get down to the car before turning back.

Some weeks I actually made it into the car, to then start the car and then shut it off again so I could return upstairs.

And some weeks I actually drove all the way to the bar, only to keep on driving, circle the block and then come home again.

But something amazingly different was happening:

I was making progress and I knew it.

I gave myself credit for each of these deals that I kept with myself, and I stopped punishing myself for not being able to ‘go the entire distance’ on getting to my complete singing goal.

And I was actually re-training my brain and unconscious triggers to un-link danger to going out in public.

I just kept making and keeping those tiny micro-deals with myself and stayed open to the timing of it all.

And eventually, one particular Friday night the next Summer, it finally happened.

I found myself actually standing inside that bar, clutching my book of sheet music in my hand, terrified.

On the outside, I probably looked sort of normal, but on the inside, I was a complete mess.

My heart was beating out of my chest and my knees were actually knocking (and no, that’s not just a quaint figure of speech that people say. It really happens.)

The irony was, my fear was all out of whack.

The place was practically empty with only 7 people dining, plus the bartender (who was the owner) and a 90 year old piano player.

(Nope, I’m not kidding – he was literally ninety years old.)

AND… he could only play songs in the key of C (that’s only the white keys) no matter what anyone’s sheet music said.

AND…the piano was slightly out of tune.

Somehow I forced myself to walk up to the bartender/owner to ask him how I could get on the list to sing.

As it turned out, there was nobody else waiting in the queue since I happened to be early. He said to just walk up and start.

So I plucked up my courage and opened my songbook and went up to sing with the piano man.

And once he started to play, out came that ‘inner music’ inside me that had been nagging at me for the longest time to just be expressed.

Immediately everything shifted.

ALL of my fear melted away.

My heart took over and the song took on a life of its own.

Very quickly I felt a kind of joyful, calm exuberance that’s pretty hard to describe.

The customers all stopped eating and they seemed to be mesmerized by my singing.

Then the owner called me over to the bar.

He said, “As you can see, my place is pretty empty tonight.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have any money to pay you, but your singing was so beautiful and it made my customers so happy, will you please just stay and sing some more for us?”

“I will feed you, I will give you whatever you want to drink all night, just please don’t go. Please just stay here and keep singing!”

So I did.

I stayed and sang that night until 2 am. A few other singers wandered in and out and each one did one song, but then the owner would ask me to go back up to sing some more.

I sang every song in my songbook plus every song that I knew from the piano guy’s book. And all of them only in the key of C (which was pretty funny with me jumping up and down octaves all over the place trying to stay with him.)

Then when the night was over and I was happily walking to my car, something shocked me out of my happy mood  –

A huge guy wearing dark hoodie came running at me really fast!

I was instantly triggered (this was late on a deserted street in a pretty rough neighborhood) and for a moment I was convinced that the man would knife me or assault me or worse.

And in just another moment it was over.

He ran right on past me, no harm no foul, and the intense terror that had flashed up so fast was immediately replaced with an extraordinary feeling.

I was flooded with an intense sense of well being and gratitude.

Not gratitude that I hadn’t been mugged, mind you, but something much bigger.

In that moment I realized that if the man in the hoodie had assaulted me and if I had actually “bought the farm” that night, it wouldn’t have mattered to me –

I felt so fulfilled and satisfied just then, that I wouldn’t have cared if I had died – I actually, for the first time in forever, felt truly at peace with myself and life.

Like I had fulfilled a big part of my purpose for being on the planet.

And that whole feeling came from just singing my heart out in a little dive bar with an out of tune piano and only 7 patrons in the place.

It showed me that the circumstances don’t always matter so much; getting out there and expressing and sharing our gifts, is part of what truly matters in life, and it gives our lives meaning.

Well things changed after that.

Igniting that small dream led to igniting bigger and bigger dreams for me.

I got gigs as a singing waitress doing dinner theater and singing on a harbor cruise ship.

I was a fill-in jazz singer for a couple of wedding orchestras.

I began to do “Chick Singer” night, which was a famous Chicago institution where women singers get to sing in bars with studio musicians.

I even started to tour for the new-thought Church circuit in the midwest, being a guest artist who sang Pop music for various congregations.

And then in 2006 I found out about a Las Vegas convention where Jack Canfield, the author of ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ and “The Success Principles” was going to be the keynote speaker.

Now during my heavy PTSD days, Jack had been a lifeline for me.

I didn’t have many resources back then, but Jack had made a PBS special on self-esteem that I had recorded onto a VHS tape.

I swear I played that thing over and over until I finally wore it out, but it kept me sane and in good mental shape during some really dark times.

So I made a huge new goal to sing at that Vegas convention mostly so that I could meet Jack in person and thank him for how he had helped me by sharing his gifts on that TV special.

I knew of a singer/songwriter who had written a great tune that I thought would be perfect to sing at that convention.

I called her up (she didn’t know me) and asked if I could do her song with some revised lyrics I had written. She listened as I sang it to her over the phone and she said, “Sure – go ahead!”

And with that I quickly recorded myself singing a simple version of that song (acapella mind you, no background instruments) and I sent it off to the person in charge of entertainment for the event.

Just so you know, people fight like cats and dogs to get those Las Vegas convention gigs. And this was a BIG one, at the luxurious Mandalay Bay Resort where thousands of people would attend.

As it turned out, the person I sent the tape to really liked my song. It had a “call and response” part where I would get the audience to sing along, and she thought that would be a wonderful way to end their program on the awards dinner evening.

So off I flew to Vegas with my twin goals of meeting and thanking Jack, and getting to sing well for that huge crowd.

When I went to check into the resort, there were roughly 300 people at the giant front desk waiting in about 20 different lines to register.

And standing right at the back of one of those lines, was Jack Canfield himself.

I gulped back my nervousness and raced up to be the next person in line after him.

I tapped him on his shoulder and said,

“Pardon me Mr. Canfield, my name is Wendy Joy Hart and you have helped me more that you could ever know.”

“During my really dark, flashback years struggling with PTSD, I watched and rewatched that PBS special you did on Self-Esteem, probably more than 100 times.”

“Sometimes your talk was the single thread that kept me from going under, and I just wanted you to know the positive difference that you’ve made in my life.”

“I’m a Professional Performance Coach now and a Singer, and I’ll be singing at this convention at the end of the awards gala.”

“I wanted you to know that I requested to do this event because I knew that you were the keynote speaker, and I hoped to be able to meet you and thank you in person.”

Jack was gracious and warm, and we had a lovely chat in the registration line.

2 days later during my sound check in the empty, cavernous ballroom, in walked Jack with his arms open wide and from about 80 yards away he called out, “Wendy!”

I was stunned. I said, “You remembered my name?!?”

And he said, “Of course! How would I ever forget a name like Wendy Joy Hart?” and he gave me a big hug and some more encouragement…

The next night was the awards dinner with 2000 of the top company leaders attending.

Everyone was dressed up in elegant evening wear and seated at formal round dining tables.

It was beyond beautiful, but I started to feel the dread creep up.

In addition to my stage fright, I could tell that the audience was zoning out of the program.

First, it was after a rich, fancy meal at the end of a long day of training sessions and the audience was getting tired.

Plus, the lighting was dim: The ballroom had been decorated with beautiful twinkle lights on the dark ceiling to create a ‘midnight sky’ effect, but the low-level mood lighting wasn’t helping.

Then at about 7:45 the awards presentation part started and 160 people walked across the stage to receive a plaque.

ONE HUNDRED and SIXTY People. You can’t imagine how boring that is, or how long that took. It seemed to go on for forever.

I was supposed to sing at 10 PM to close out the evening and the show, but at 9 PM I got dragged backstage.

The frantic stage manager grabbed my arm and said, “Quick! You’ve got to do something to wake these people up! The audience is in a coma!!”

Well of course they were: Their bellies were full, the lights were low and the program had become deadly boring.

But I was also supposed to go onstage with a backup singer, Mindy.

And Mindy was 2 blocks away nursing her new baby and I needed to go onstage in the next couple of minutes without her.

It was time to PUNT.

Again, the terror rose up so strong inside me I could barely think straight.

I knew that I needed to improvise. Then I heard the MC announce my name…

I walked out into the dark (the spotlights blind you) and I pulled a brief motivational speech out of my rear end.

I said something like, “I know that you’re really tired and that this has been a really long day. And we’ve enjoyed a really delicious dinner and now many of you are ready to call it an evening.”

“But in a moment, I’m going to ask you to sing a song with me, and sing like your lives and your businesses depend on it!”

(I actually spoke for about 5 minutes, but it was an out of body experience for me, and I frankly don’t remember the rest of what I said.)

Just then, my friend Mindy joined me on stage and between the 2 of we quickly taught the audience their part in the ‘call and response’ song.

And then the music started and it was just me singing the opening solo…

Once again, as I started to sing all of the panic melted away and the singing just took over.

I felt amazing and free…

And within about 1 minute, the audience woke up! They were on fire!

And as I watched, all two thousand of them rose up, started singing with me, and they began waving their arms and their lighters in the air!!

It was an extraordinary thing to watch!

Hundreds and hundreds of small flames arching in the air seemed to represent all of the dreams that could be ignited for anyone else who felt stuck or unexpressed or without hope.

And right then I knew that anyone who sincerely wanted to, could get past their limits and fears if they only knew what I had discovered.

Over time, I turned the way that I ignited my own dreams into a system that’s been used to help thousands of people on six continents now (everywhere but Antarctica) get past their fears and “stuck states” to take easy, productive, and nearly effortless action.

And this easy method that I made up is frankly the opposite of what nearly all of the self-help gurus recommend that you do.

After spending many years trying every way I could think of to heal myself of that crippling anxiety, the unique things that really worked for me are in stark contrast to what the self-help experts say to do (that is, use force, effort and will power.)

In my experience those just don’t work well.

I mean, if you tell the truth about it, how well have those things actually worked for you when you’ve used them over the long haul?

For most people, because of the way that our brain and nervous system is configured, force, effort and will power usually backfire and cause us to end up more stuck, ashamed and feeling like a failure.

But thankfully, I found easier, better (and eventually much faster) ways to work with my own brain and nervous system to achieve the results that I wanted.

I decided to share what I had learned about getting unstuck and out of my own way with as many people as possible, which ultimately became my “Procrastination Cure: A Complete System that Compels You to Follow Through.”

Once people follow this easy recipe, anyone is able to complete their long-held dreams and goals and feel the same kind of satisfaction that I found from singing and coaching.

My Clients Have Achieved Dreams Like These:

Chip, who broke a 35 year record in the 2004 PGA. He got the lowest score in relation to par of any course pro since 1969! (go here for that amazing story.)

Diane who finished her Book, got it Published, and now has a Coaching Practice to go along with her many book sales.

Denise who quadrupled her home-based business volume even while she was at home on pregnancy bed rest!

And Laura who went from sleepless nights worrying about money to manifesting her dream job using her specialized tech talents and is now set for life with a Million Dollar + Portfolio.

And the list goes on and on and on. I literally have a 3 ring binder that’s over 2 inches thick with double-sided copies of emails from people thanking me who have learned, and taken advantage of, my system.

As a matter of fact, here’s what Laura wrote to me after she created her new ideal work situation this year:

If you’d like to know more, I recommend that you go here and check out my system to get unstuck, that can lead to your freedom and prosperity.

In as little as an hour, you could be on your way to tripling your follow through while using only a third or less of the effort that you’ve been using up until now. (I know that that sounds like a very tall claim, but it’s absolutely true.)

Oh, and just for fun, if you’d like to hear me singing an inspirational song, here’s one called “If I Were Brave.”

Ironically, that song was written by Jana Stanfield, who at one time was the singer that Jack Canfield used at all of his live events.

Funny, huh?

And this is the same song that got Jana on the Oprah Winfrey show because of its beautiful lyrics.

(And how did I record this? I just booked recording studio time and laid down the lead vocal track over her karaoke background audio that I had purchased.)

Easy peasy.

Isn’t it a small world?

I just love the way synchronicity works…

Why wait any longer? Your life is calling you.

So tell me, What would you do today, if you were brave?

Peace and Blessings,

Wendy Joy Hart