Is this good for her business? Obviously. Because in addition to being crazy talented, Kelly is a delightfully kooky individual. Now she’s hooking up with all her right people, and enjoying the hell out of it.

Here’s THE ACTUAL POINT, though.

Kelly didn’t come to the Destuckification Retreat to destuckify her blogging. That wasn’t the point. It wasn’t even on her mind.

Or the things we do to maintain uh … I guess it’s called “brand integrity”. Gah. What a despicable word. I will invent a new one. But you know what I mean.

And then I haven’t even begun to cover how valuable and useful it is to have a culture that — even if hard to describe — is easy to sense.

I’ve never had to consider killing the comments here, the way so many biggified people have. We’ve had the same site design for five years. We don’t need policies.

Here’s the point:

The culture of this amazing place holds it all so that I don’t have to.

The culture of the pirate ship that isThe Fluent Self is so established, clear and filled with safety and permission for me and my people. At this point, it’s self-sustaining.

We can definitely talk more about how this works soon. For now — a useful theme.

A client of mine has been going through a hard.

Some seriously menacing dragons showed up in her space to breathe fire at her. And they wouldn’t let her build a castle.

It was crappy.

We decided that we would outwit the video game by not doing any of the normal things (i.e. panicking, running away, being paralyzed with fear, pouting, raging, yelling, fighting, etc).

We would subvert the tired fight-vs-flight dichotomy by choosing none of the above.

And we decided to consciously, intentionally walk in a new direction until the perfect spot for her new bad-ass castle revealed itself.

This means:

During at least a couple different points during your meal, a train is going to go by.

Loudly. Because it’s pretty much right next to you.

Here’s what happens at the Gandy Dancer when a train goes by.

They ring this huge bell.

And then everyone applauds.

Every single time a train goes by.

Anyway, I’ve recently gotten way better at it.

So here are a bunch of not very organized thoughts.

Note: this is all stuff that has worked for me.

I’m trying to isolate principles instead of giving you something prescriptive, but make it work for you. Take what appeals to you and throw the rest away.

2. “I’ll have to become someone I’m not.”

“And then I’ll curl up in a ball and die!”

Actually, most people are busy trying to be other people. Which means that by not doing that, you already have a huge advantage in the integrity department.

Not to mention the Relatable and Fabulous Department, which is a very useful department to excel in.

And it kind of blew the tops off of people’s brains.

In a good way? Maybe? I hope so. Oh well.

Anyway, I thought I’d give you a bunch of examples from my own business — that way it’s not just a nebulous concept but something you could imagine actually working.

It still might be terrifying and hard-to-imagine, but maybe it will also give a glimpse of possibility and hopefulness. That would be nice.

At various times in my life I have been a bartender and a grappa taster and a factory worker and a choreographer and a tree-climber and a cow-milker and a secretary and a cog and a waitress and consultant and a meditation teacher.

I have fixed tractors and attended conferences and fried eggs and cried in bathrooms.

And I use the skills I learned in these spaces every single day. It’s all part of me. And therefore, it’s all part of my thing.

My notebook says things like this:

Okay. We need a great big circus tent! Of safety!

Hard hats. Metaphorical popcorn machine. Zap the cape.

The announcer needs a handlebar mustache. The ushers should definitely be pirate monkeys. In striped vests! Eating things on sticks.

Eeeeeeeeee! I love this!

Anyway. When you figure out how to have fun with the process of creating (at the same time as you’re making room for the scary and the hard), weird, magical things happen.

It was a pumpkin, as it turned out.

She looked at the event and saw a giant jack-o-lantern.

But not a scary one. Kind of sweet.

Demure looking with lowered eyes and a Mona Lisa smile.

Pretty carved patterns, like tattoos. The light radiating out from inside of it, but also contained and held in the sturdy home of the pumpkin.

Sitting on a porch. Radiating light out in these beautiful, cryptic patterns. Invisibly visible.