My darlings!

Today I am convening an Enthusiastic. Yay!

And YOU get to be a part of the Enthusiastic. And take part in it. Should you choose to. Yay!

This is all very exciting. And meta.

Because it is going to be an Enthusiastic on the subject of Enthusiastics. Yay!

Lamps. Yoga blocks. Postcards. Notebooks. Jewelry. Wearable spirographs.

Butt-monsters and Pouncers and Yowls and other adorable creatures.

It has been scientifically proven that if you are feeling sad and you touch the butt of one of our butt-monsters, you will immediately feel better.

One of my neighbors thinks I’m a business consultant. Or a life coach?

Another thinks I’m a yoga teacher. Her husband thinks I’m an unlikely internet celebrity.

Another knows that I run a sort of zany pre-school for adults and that I always get the best toys at the neighborhood yard sales.

They’re all correct. I try not to talk about it. It just adds to the mystery.

They emit light.

They penetrate fog. They give off signals — signals that can act as both warning or celebration. They show you where you could go, if you wanted to. And the word is related to beckon, which is kind of awesome.

So. Here are the beacons for my business. Note that not all of them share similar business models — what I’m looking at instead is essence, qualities and that jumbled thing we call culture.

Since I am decidedly not good at short answers, today’s post is part of my practice.

I’m trying to figure out how brevity works. To not add sixteen caveats to each thing I say. To not give three examples. To release a truth and let it land, trusting that people have the skills and wisdom to consciously interact with it on their own.

Like with the stone skippings. Except what is landing is the answer, not the question.

I think there’s something so powerful (and also marvelously subversive) in making business be about congruence and essence, instead of focusing on things like “how to build a list” or “what headlines make people click”.

Because when you’re paying attention to the feeling/experience/qualities you want both you and your people to have, that other stuff gets easier.

They were very emphatic about this. No crayons!

Even though they know from experience that I do my very best work at Rally, which is the most playful and loving space in the entire world.

The monsters were divided in two factions. The ones who think it’s DECADENT and FRIVOLOUS — that I should do without because I can.

And the ones who really, truly want me to have everything that will help me do my best work but say we can’t afford it and anyway what will people think.

Raising a toast.

To all the wonderful, helpful, sovereign phrases of 2011 that are still to come.

May they find us swiftly, with ease and grace.

And may there be lots of toast.

Here’s a super important thing to keep in mind.

Success happens exponentially.

But our brains often can’t conceptualize exponential growth. At least, mine can’t. Not easily.

When everything goes well, it doesn’t go from two to four to six to eight.

It’s more like going from two to four to a hundred.

It feels weird to project that kind of growth because it doesn’t seem right. It can’t be real. There’s no rationale.

Sure you could go from three fans to six fans if they each tell someone about you. But hundreds? Thousands? Why would that happen?

So even though I know from experience that growth can happen exponentially, it’s still easier to imagine things happening sequentially.

What’s not that important.

1. Whether or not you want to be HUGE.

It’s your life and your business. You’re a sovereign being. If you don’t want big, you don’t ever have to go big.

2. All those things that the biggifiers and experts talk about (having a niche, knowing your demographics, blah).

You can care about these things if you want to. But you don’t have to. I don’t.