All About The Team at Heart of Business
Heart of Business, Inc. began life as Success by Design in 1999, an enterprise in which Mark Silver helped entrepreneurs create marketing that felt clean, was effective, and yet was authentic and felt like them.
It soon became obvious that designing marketing materials was much more about helping the client access and trust his or her heart, than it was about the design process. Working with an experienced mentor coach, Anne Sagendorph, CEO of Support Systems for Success, provided a grounding in coaching, and what a successful practice can look like.
With the introduction of Sufi-based healing work at the Jaffe Institute (now the University of Spiritual Healing & Sufism), the path forward became clear and Heart of Business was born in August, 2001. Since then an entrepreneurial heart-wisdom curriculum has been developed, based on finding where very specific spiritual teachings are present in nitty-gritty business practices.
The result has allowed those who are making a real difference in the world, those who are up to something extraordinary, to create effective and profitable businesses whose actions and presence reflect the same love and caring in the work they love most.
It’s hard to believe, but you can find love in the daily actions of marketing, sales, systems, strategic planning, and other necessary business actions. We have found that every act of business can be an act of love, and in fact it’s the only kind of world we want to live in.
Mark Silver, Founder and Healer
Mark is a fourth-generation entrepreneur who has run a distribution business, turned around a struggling non-profit magazine, and worked as a paramedic in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He is the author of seven different in-depth programs and a number of other smaller teachings and classes for entrepreneurs. Together they form a comprehensive entrepreneurial wisdom academy curriculum.
A designated Master Teacher (“muqaddam murrabi“) in his Shaddhilliyya Sufi lineage, Mark is currently studying for his Masters of Divinity with a speciality in Ministry and Sufi Studies.
As a coach, consultant, mentor and spiritual healer, he has facilitated more than 2000 individual sessions with entrepreneurs and has led hundreds of classes, seminars, groups and retreats. His weekly writings and teachings are followed by thousands of people around the globe.
He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Holly, twin sons Sam and David, two cats Rafi and Kira, and all the rain you care to soak up.
From Mark:
I was raised on a variety of other small businesses my mother couldn’t help herself but start while she and my dad ran a retail wine store that was my grandfather’s dating back to U.S. Prohibition in 1933.
Click for more, including ten random facts about Mark.
Overwhelmed at the thought of working as hard as my parents did, and unable to see past the painful way the corporate world did business, I turned to the much more restful efforts of non-stop, underpaid and never-fulfilled political activism, including turning around a struggling international non-profit magazine all while working as a paramedic in the San Francisco Bay Area. And running a health products distribution business. Sigh.
Exhausted, burnt-out on anger-based activism, and depleted from working in the trauma and crisis of emergency services, I began to help a few friends who were holistic healers put their brochures together.
I discovered, as my friends and first clients started to do very well in their businesses, that I knew far more about marketing and being self-employed than I realized.
I wondered out loud to my wife Holly, “What I should I learn to help people with the emotional side of business? Stuff comes up and then they get stuck.” Almost immediately the incredibly beautiful and strange world of Sufism appeared in our lives.
Starting in 2000, I spent five years learning with the Sufis at what is now the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism, graduating with a speciality in Organizational and Business Healing (can you imagine?), and went on to serve as faculty in their Teacher Internship Program as well as a board member.
Heart of Business was born in the midst of all this. As I integrated the Sufi teachings in my heart, I was often left weeping in the face of the majesty of the Divine. And I kept finding jewels in the teachings that helped open up Divine understanding and love in business practices.
And, just for fun, here are ten random facts about me:
- Straight edge punk rock, funny haircuts and all, are what kept me plugged in teen years through early adulthood. If you listen you can still find me humming the Ramones, the Clash, or Minor Threat.
- I studied in France, and got the accent down so well at the time that I was once mistaken for French during a (very) short conversation. They wouldn’t believe I was an American. Sadly I can’t reproduce that effect today.
- I used to fence competitively (epée) in high school and college, went to the Junior Olympics (washed out in the first round) and tied for third in the New England Championships while in college.
- I always thought I was going to be rabbi, and find myself as surprised as anyone to have landed on the Sufi path.
- My first major do-it-yourself home repair project was in 2010 when I replaced our kitchen sink. Since then, I’ve been eyeing even more ambitious projects. I was surprised at how satisfying it was.
- Astrologically I have five planets in Virgo. I’m also a one on the Enneagram. I’m waiting to implode in a fit of detail-oriented-perfectionism.
- I don’t consider myself particularly visionary, which I know surprises folks. I do much better with short-to-mid-term goals, and have to be pushed hard to dream big without getting itchy to go implement something immediately.
- I’m very happy being at home. Given the choice between globe-trotting to exotic locales and exploring our local neighborhood, well, let’s just say I’m more attached to my shoes and bicycle than my frequent flier program.
- How I look matters to me, even though my daily uniform is jeans. I can feel extremely uncomfortable in my skin if I show up inappropriately dressed to an event. Thank goodness for my spiritual practice in those moments.
- I love to cook, especially baking. I almost chose to go to culinary school after my paramedic career, but realized that if I did it for work I might not enjoy it as much.
Holly Glaser
My favorite jobs here have been content editing, working with clients and co-teaching with Mark. Now they call me the Heart Monitor and I work behind the scenes with our growing team.
I have the same Sufi training as Mark, as well as a love of nature and a past incarnation as a massage therapist. I’m a trained facilitator of the System Constellation work of Bert Hellinger, and have studied a variety of energetic, communication and relationship healings.
I’ve been dedicated to learning and teaching healing in one form or another since I graduated from college, and partnering with Mark has magnified and deepened this for me considerably!
My degree is in Political Economy and Social Strategies for Environmental Protection. I basically studied how to change the world. The question in my heart has always been, “what is the most effective fulcurm for change?” Happily, Heart of Business is the answer.
These days I’m mostly a mom, happily. Sam and Dave are my responsibility, my entertaninment and my teachers. Yet I’ve been with Heart of Business since the beginning in one form or another and am quite fond of this business.
Practitioners
Jason Stein
I’m Jason Stein, the official Heart of Business Team bozosattva. Meaning I’m passionate about the sublime and the ridiculous parts of engaging in business.
Don’t let my sense of humor fool you, though. I’ve worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and corporate professionals to enhance communication and increase connection at work and at home.
My background is an eclectic blend including degrees in Psychology and Oriental Medicine along with a Professional Coach Certification and Chaplaincy Training. As a licensed acupuncturist, I’ve practiced as a doctor of Oriental medicine, set up an integrative medicine program in a hospital, helped business professionals learn meditation and mindfulness tools, played around in academia, counseled couples, and even officiated a few weddings.
However, nothing has taught me more about building positive relationships and compassionate leadership than the family I grew up in and now being a dad and raising my son Jack and daughter Sierra. My grandparents on both sides of my family were serial entrepreneurs. Although their commitment to succeed in business made huge profits, their drive for success came at a cost filled with alcohol, divorce, and a disconnection within the family.
My grandparents and children, in their way, have given me the skills to teach parentpreneurs how to build rockin’ communities that celebrate their success, to find balance so that they may make a difference not only for their clients, but for their friends and family as well.
I’m an adventurer having enjoyed scuba diving, swimming with dolphins, dog sledding, and running with bulls.
I currently split my time between Heart of Business and being the Chair of Professional Development for the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine.
Yollana Shore
I believe that business can be a powerful vehicle for transformation in the world. And that’s why I’m passionate about helping heart-centred businesses off the ground, to grow and to succeed.
But when I say ‘success’, let me be clear about that – For over ten years I’ve been seeking, studying and applying business and marketing strategies that are aligned with my heart, soul and the deeper values in life. For me, those values include spiritual awakening, social justice, environmental sustainability and world peace.
And more than that, as a mother of two gorgeous children, wife to my beloved, and an active member in my local and global/virtual community, I’m clear that successful business needs to embrace my femininity, to make space for rest and play, to support my good health and my relationships with my family and community.
And a successful business needs to make money. Good money. Solid money. Dependable money, so it can keep growing and serving the world.
At Heart of Business, I feel blessed to work with individuals and groups of business owners who are also seeking this sacred balance of personal, financial and worldly success.
A balance like this is not found through a formula. It’s a personal journey. And my role at Heart of Business is to partner you on that journey to your own personal business success. I’ve been working with Heart of Business in this way since 2009. And I bring a lifetime of working with groups and over ten years of experience as a healer and coach, to support you – whether you are looking at working with me one on one, or in a group.
Amazing Virtual Assistance
Susan Lucibello
Hi, I’m Susan Lucibello of Ribary & Associates, LLC, and I love helping small business owners succeed. Thankfully, that is just what I get to do by working with Heart of Business as their valuable virtual assistant. You may not hear from me directly (or you might), but I am always behind the scenes helping to ensure that you receive a truly wonderful experience at HOB. And, I help the practitioners here at HOB stay focused on you, by handling many of the marketing and support initiatives that must take place in order to run a successful business.
Over the past 20 years, my skills and experience were accumulated working in a variety of positions within the corporate world. This included a highly successful career at two leading newspapers in the nation, providing executive and administrative support to high-level executives, as well as working within the sales, marketing and management environments.
I pride myself in providing individualized attention to each client and in making certain my business skills are constantly updated
I am proud to be a part of the HOB team!
I work as a team member of Ribary & Associates, LLC who provides high level administrative assistance and office efficiency consulting to small businesses in the Portland Metro area, as well as throughout the United States.
Please feel free to call, (503) 282-3037, or email us with any questions.
Even after all this time,
the Sun never says to the Earth:
“You owe me.”
Look what happens with a love like that:
It lights up the whole Sky.
from The Gift by Hafiz