What happened at the Chicago Linchpin Meetup?

The Chicago “Linchpins are Everywhere” Meetup was hosted at a comfortable Old Town bar and attended by a wide array of Linchpins and Seth Godin fans. A mix of writers, filmmakers, marketers, IT pros, nonprofit leaders, environmentalists, bankers, photographers, vintners and Seth’s blog enthusiasts converged over cocktails to talk about their dreams. As we exchanged business cards, introductions varied from, “How did you find Seth’s work?’” to “How are you going to change the World?”

Linchpins are dynamic conversationalists

The enthusiasm and encouragement people had for each other’s projects was remarkable. As someone who writes about a somewhat esoteric subject, I was thrilled to have meaningful conversations in a matter of minutes with several of the attendees. The flurry of ideas was instantaneous. An underlying urgency permeated the event, as if we all knew the changes we sought in our businesses and ventures were not only attainable, but also valuable to the future of our society. In the course of a few hours I had three deep conversations about the Power of Intention and creating Worldwide change. This does not happen often. Not only were my ideas welcome, but getting Linchpins together in the same room created a vivid exchange of solutions, networking, and alternatives to get things accomplished (shipped!).

Some notable Linchpin evening attributes:

- Listening. People were engaged, curious, and truly listening to each other.

- Camaraderie. Linchpins are passionate people. Most of us had found Seth’s book to be a revelation and a confirmation of our work and life priorities.

- Evolution. Ideas grew as the evening progressed. The meeting was an organism that expanded, learned and evolved in just a few hours.

- Parallels. In one of the last conversations I noted how Seth’s tribal leadership was akin to Eckhart Tolle’s work in The Power of Now. I do think they are both encouraging the same essence of “presence.” Seth is enabling us to exercise presence in the business world, and teaching us to change the status quo by being authentic, accountable, and open to the changes occurring in business. Linchpins celebrate the challenge of change because we are in the “Now.”

More, please!

The energy generated by this kind of evening is addictive. While our group is partial to Chicago being the best town to create change, there are already more Worldwide Linchpin meetups scheduled for the future. As for us, we’re planning subgroup meetups to discuss our individual projects and get things shipped. We won’t be waiting for someone else to arrange a meeting. We’ll be doing it ourselves. After all, we are Linchpins.

Tagged as: Creative Consciousness, inspiration, Linchpin, Power of Intention, Sandra Walter