LESSONS FROM NASHVILLE #4: UP IN THE CLUB

I used to daydream about being a DJ.
Not when I was 5 or 17.
I’m talking about when I was in my 40’s. As a grown-ass woman.

Over and over, I had the same vision:

I’m in front of a room full of people. The bass is thumping and everyone is kind of rocking together in unison…Like the whole room is operating as a single unit. The lights are fuschia and violet and bright white and they’re panning over the crowd, and I can see arms in the air and smiling faces…

And as the music rises to a crescendo and the beat of the bass gets faster, the room rises with it and I hear the sound of screams and laughter and I can see all of the people transcending. Transforming. Becoming. And then going WILD.

I never pursued that dream. Because, as it turns out, I wasn’t really interested in making music. Or spinning or mixing songs. Or music software. Or anything remotely related to being a DJ. As Mark Mason so eloquently stated in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, I wasn’t interested in solving the particular kind of problems that were associated with fulfilling that dream.

So I left it unattended, and moved on to other things.

But the dream, it hung around. The lights, the bass, the smiles, the shouting, the transcendence. Over and over again it played in my head.

And like my Golden Retriever on a relentless and never-ending campaign for treats, that vision followed me room-to-room, day and night, grumbling and pawing at me at the most inopportune times. I could not escape this vision.

Over the past three years—as I made the switch from 25 years of brand strategy “agency-style” to building an online presence and a list and a group of followers—the vision has somehow driven me to every next right step.

Thump, thump, thump…

And about eight months ago, when I could take it no more, I leaned into the dream. I closed my eyes and went there. I allowed the vision to play out completely—to guide me to the feeling I was after. To show me, once and for all, what this was all about.

And something pretty incredible revealed itself:

I wasn’t dreaming about BEING a DJ.
I was dreaming about HAVING a DJ.

And the audience? It’s not just any audience. It’s an audience filled with screaming middle-aged women. And as they dance and the lights flash over their faces I can see them transform. I can WATCH them begin to own what’s theirs and see new beginnings. I can hear them shouting. And I feel an incredible sense of oneness as they lock arms with one another, and share laughs, and lift each other up.

And as the music rises to a crescendo… they go WILD.

The DJ? She’s at a table on the side of the room. She’s got some headphones covered with bling and she’s spinning and dancing. And she’s laughing, too.

And me? I’m on the stage. In the front of the room.

I’m the speaker.

If you’ve been reading along with my “Lessons from Nashville,” (they’re right here on the blog, starting here) then you know that in October, I spoke on stage in front of 1,000 women. It was the first time I shared the message from my book, Hot Flashes, Carpools, and Dirty Martinis (you can buy it on the homepage here). It was the first time I spoke from my heart about my MESSAGE. About how I want to change the world. Not about marketing or branding or strategy or some big corporation’s third-quarter plan.

It was the first time I showed up and performed.

And when I stepped into that conference room just before my speech, can you even guess who was on the side of the room, waiting for me?

The DJ.

She leaned down from her booth, her bling-covered headphones lying in wait around her neck, and she said,

“Hey, Hon… do you have a song you want me to play when you step onto the stage?”

And I’m not gonna lie, I nearly died.

And as the moments counted down before my performance and the sound tech put on my head mic, and the MC introduced me… I paced the back of the room. I gave a little nod to the nasty voice in my head that was jumping up and down to be recognized (if you missed that episode of Lessons from Nashville, you can find it here)…

And then I heard it:
“On Fire,” by J.J. Grey and Mofro.

She’s on fire.
She’s on fire.
Lord, that girl is smokin’ on fire.
Light ‘em on up, she’s on fire…

And I was. On fire. The DJ absolutely lit me on fire.

Do you know why the DJ dream didn’t die?
Do you know why it didn’t go away?
Why it wouldn’t leave me alone?
Because it was mine to have. It was meant for me.

After a 30-year career leading and guiding and coaching beautiful souls, and a spiritual journey that’s taken me around the world and into the depths of my own soul, I know the truth about dreams:

We don’t have them unless they’re meant for us.

My good friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:
There’s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.

The desire to rock a room like a sonic boom? It was in the constitution of this middle-aged creature. It came TO me, because it’s IN me.

And now… it’s all I want.

There is ZERO chance that I will make it through my early 50s without hiring my own DJ. I’m already writing the job description. (If you’re a DJ, send me a video.)

But the DJ, she’s just the gatekeeper of the dream. She’s the one that guided me to the truth:

That I was meant for this.
That the world needs what I have to say.
That the message came to me, because it was meant to be shared.

And so I ask you:

What dream are you pushing down?
What vision haunts you that you mock, ignore or call B.S.?
What dream are you chasing that you doubt in the rough moments and set aside for things you “should” be doing?

Because if you see it…
If you feel it…
If you imagine it and live it in your head…
It’s yours to have.

If you can conceive it, you can achieve it.
The universe is funky like that.