“I’ve been a manifesting super freak for over 20 years.”—Honoree Corder

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely, aware.”–Henry Miller

You’ve heard the phrase: “be careful what you wish for.” This is a story about that very adage.

A couple years ago, I was in Denver on a travel writing assignment. And because travel writing assignments always entail getting to do “really cool things,” you won’t be surprised to hear that I was given the rare opportunity to not only visit Red Rocks, the magical outdoor venue that, to performers, is considered the holy grail of places you want to play, but I got to go backstage and hang out in the 300 million-year-old sandstone cave-like rooms where musicians hang before their sets.

I sat on the very couch Macklemore (who I love with all my heart and soul) had sat on just one month earlier when playing for Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks. I got to linger in the hidden tunnel beneath the stage where hundreds of famous musicians have signed their names. As I said in one of the articles I wrote about this trip, it felt like getting to mecca.

Every inch of the walls, steps and electrical wiring in this tunnel leading to the sound engineering room is covered with autographs: everyone from John Mayer, Sting and Santana to perennial favorite The Grateful Dead.

So what did I do? I took a deep breath, grabbed for my pen and signed my name along with the many recording artists that I’ve sung to, danced to and loved since I first turned on a radio.

So fast forward to today. I am in a real live recording studio to record (don’t worry I won’t be singing) the audio book of Art & Soul, Reloaded, my new book that debuts in August. It is my third time in a recording studio.

It wasn’t just my “what I wish for.” Dozens of readers have emailed me with some version of this message: “Where do I find the audio book of your work? I want to listen while I drive to work, to New York, to my Aunt Bertha’s house for Thanksgiving……”

So together, I believe we called this forth. Me in a recording studio and a soon-to-be-available audio version of Art & Soul.

So here’s to Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, Phish, Poison, Buck Owens, Bruno Mars and Travie McCoy (who, instead of wanting to be on the cover of Rolling Stone, decided to “be on the cover of Forbes with Oprah and the Queen)!

As Bruno Mars told Forbes when they featured him in their annual billionaires’ issue (He wrote the song, I want to be a billionaire so frickin’ bad), “The inspiration behind that song was, I was tired of spending half my day worrying about what I can and can’t spend on whatever.

“I wouldn’t have to worry about, you know, ‘I can’t afford to get breakfast, so I’ll wait until lunchtime to eat.’ If I was a billionaire, none of that would matter. I’d be eating diamond cereal.”

So, he wrote the song and a few months later, he was playing the track “Nothing on You,” which went on to get multiple Grammy nominations. Can’t say if he’s a billionaire, but as I said, “be careful what you wish for.”

I don’t wish to be a billionaire or be on the cover of Rolling Stone (not that I’d turn either down), but what I wish for “so freakin’ bad” is that peace will enter each of our hearts and spread like a Colorado wildfire across the planet.

Wish me luck in the recording studio.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the about-to-be released, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.