We’re on day 8 of the free video series I’m doing with Amy Pearson to kick off our Joy Diet class!  Today I’m talking about laughter in the divine form of Calvin and Hobbes.  On Monday we’re doing a special free call on how to make life luscious by approaching it like a banquet– sign up now to join us for that!

If you’re new here, welcome!  The last few weeks we’ve been talking about how to make impossible things happen.  It isn’t magic, though it can look magical– and it’s certainly not about waiting for rescue.  It’s about building your bravery muscles.

So I want to come clean with you.  This shit is scary.

Daring to dream big makes you vulnerable.  It opens you up to disappointment, failure, criticism, self-doubt.

It’s not for the faint of heart.  But if you’re reading this I’d bet my Chloe heels that your heart is bold.  You’re a Gryffindor.  You step through the wardrobe into a mysterious icy kingdom and instead of running back, you grab yourself a nice warm fur coat for whatever lies ahead.

(Me, I’m fond of blue silk when it comes to coats.  That’s me at the Hotel Monaco last year, hosting my first retreat in Portland.  Scary, yes.  Exhilarating, even more so.)

I haven’t got it all figured out.  Sometimes the way ahead is clear and sure, and sometimes it’s more like bushwhacking with a fountain pen.  The indigo ink gets everywhere, you’re covered in scratches, you forgot the bandaids, and you still can’t find the damn campfire let alone the cocktails.

So I thought that this week I’d do something different and pull back the curtain and show you a bit of my own process.  I don’t know how this one turns out yet.  Could be a total flop.  Could be a genius flare.  No way to tell this early in the game.

Here’s the deal.  There’s this crazy thing I yearn to do.  

I want to do life coaching at a level I’ve never seen anyone do it before.

I want to work deeply with a few extraordinary women.  I want to help them dive into their lives in a way so profound and fierce and gentle that they will be forever transformed.

We would start on a tropical beach in February, to fill up what has been depleted.  We would deliberately dive into the spiritual disciplines of umbrella drinks and luscious sloth.

We would go horse whispering because it’s the most magical thing I’ve ever witnessed or experienced.

Presents in the mail, presents with ribbons, presents to nudge them to taste delight in its many forms.

Deep talks, 1-on-1, doing the deep untangling and clarifying that lets their own personal gold shine through.

A crisis card to play, for when the big shit goes down (because it will).

I would walk through the heights and depths of their lives with them not just for a season, but for a whole year.

It could be so delicious.  It could be joy, transformation, so much deepening.   Here’s what I’ve learned from hiring my own coaches: when you know someone’s got your back for a whole year, some primal part of you relaxes.  It’s like having insurance.  It’s like having a life raft.  It’s giving yourself permission to go really fucking big.

Now, dear reader, as delicious as it sounds, this is not a totally logical plan.

As my smart and practical colleagues have helpfully pointed out, I’d have to charge more than a new Mini Cooper for a program like this.  (I’m partial to the ones with stripes.)  Travel.  Logistics.  A big leap into an unknown business model.  They advise me to do something more manageable.  Something more reasonable.

But sometimes I can see things before they exist in the physical world yet.  I can see how a seemingly crazy idea has the potential to bring juice and joy and good creative rumblings into the world.

This is how I came up with my Queen Sweep program even though my business advisors shook their heads (Um, you want to teach people how to CLEAN THEIR HOUSES?  No, honey, no no.  That’s a terrible idea!).  Same thing with my Secret Mystics program (Look I love you but nobody’s going to sign up for a weirdly-named thing like that).

I’m really glad I created those programs anyway.  So are the hundreds of people who have gone through them and walked out stronger, steadier, and with more beauty blooming around them.

So sometimes you have to politely say thank you to the smart, reasonable, logical, well-intentioned people who give you smart, sage advice.  And then you have to ignore them.  Sometimes you have to listen to that deep thrum inside you that says yes even when no one else can see it.

What about you?  What big dreams thrum in you?

I’m doing something that scares me a little bit today, telling you about this thing I can see in the ether that doesn’t exist yet.

Tell me if you can see it too– hit reply and tell me if this sounds delicious.  Tell me if you’d rather do a year like this than buy that new car or take that extra vacation.  It would be good for me to know that.

But mostly, take a minute and find that thrumming inside.  It’s your gold.