Everything happens perfectly
Here’s a belief to try on for size:
Everything happens perfectly.
“Everything” because it encompasses all events of your life, whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’- it’s the whole enchilada!
“Happens” because it was in the past, it’s now and it will be in the future.
“Perfectly” because it’s like it’s by design. It was all needed to elicit growth in you and usher you directly to where you are now and where you are going. It couldn’t (and shouldn’t) have been any other way.
Everything happens perfectly.
Let it free you and let it empower you.
Where does magic come from?
I think we all encounter magic now and then. It’s that spark we feel when we completely fall in love with something, when what we’re working on ‘clicks’ or when we are held spell bound by something.
Magic can happen with people, with the art we consume or create, in random encounters in the world or in the work we do in the world. And a million other places.
If magic is the ephemeral and abstract, what is it’s predecessor?
Thankfully, the genesis of magic is concrete (well, some parts anyway). Here’s a few ingredients.
Generous.
Magic comes from a generous act. When the intention behind an action is a generous one. Magic is magic because it increases the level of joy in the world, and generosity is directly aimed at that.
Possibility.
Magic arrives when we invite something that didn’t exist before. We must release the need for certainty and open up to what could be. Just because something hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it can’t. It just means it hasn’t happened before.
Presence.
Magic is alive to what’s happening now. It’s alive and it’s listening intently. Magic requires you to forget what you thought you knew and be with only what is.
Magic is mysterious but it’s downstream from these beautiful pillars.
Care to make magic?
Congruence
Things are better when they line up.
My least favourite phrase people say is “Do as I say, not as I do”. Why should I do what you say if you hold yourself to a different standard?
To lead, we have to be trusted and to be trusted we have to be congruent. And to be congruent we have to be clear. Clear on our values, standards and boundaries.
The leaders I admire most walk the talk.
Their actions match their words, their words match their beliefs and their beliefs match their values.
It all lines up.
Not only do we trust these people more, but they have more leverage to make things happen in the world.
Why?
Alignment is strong. Congruence is king.
Titles and highlights
Time has a funny way of getting on, doesn’t it?
Often I’ll meet Monday with the best of intentions only to find it’s suddenly Monday again and I can’t quite remember what I actually did during the week that past.
Here’s two strategies I use to prevent time slipping through my fingers and actively perceive the weeks as they pass:
1)Title your week.
Any self respecting Google doc has a title so your week deserves one too. Think of what you want your week to be about. Is it major progress on a project? Spending quality time with your family? Having an adventure with your colleagues? Giving your week a title sets it up to be different from any other week. What we want to avoid is each week blurring into the next. You probably remember how you spent that glorious week around Christmas last year- without you knowing, it was titled “Do nothing but swim and eat for a week”- yup, that’s memorable! Name every week to tell yourself why it’s special.
2) Highlight the moments
To continue with the stationary/ office theme, I like to think back and highlight moments in the week that was. What cracked me up? What surprised me? When did someone go beyond the call of duty? When did I live into my desired identity? Highlight all these things, they happened during that week! And when you highlight them, not only does it feel good, but it also helps to idividualise the days and weeks. That’s the goal!
Letting your weeks go by as an anonymous procession is letting your life go by without you seeing it.
Title it. Highlight things.
Don’t miss a moment.
Belief thief
Here’s a fun game.
Pick someone who inspires you. Some well known person who you would love to emulate and who’s ‘awesomeness’ seems unattainable to you.
Got one? Great! Now go and find a long form interview with them. Now, don’t listen for entertainment, listen like a detective.
Listen to their story and the answers to the questions and dig beneath what they are saying. You are looking for key beliefs.
What do they beleive about themselves?
How do they see the world?
How do they talk about life? Is it a game, a challenge, a battle or a work of art?
How do they talk about themselves?
How do they view work?
What do they believe about productivity?
What is the most important thing to them in their work?
What are they hunting for?
Most often, they won’t overtly answer these, but you can infer the answers based on what they do say and how they say it. Sift through and find the gold.
You are deconstructing the belief structures that make them who they are and allow them to get the results they get.
Here’s the interesting part. Ask yourself this:
Where do my beliefs differ? What belief do they hold that yI do not? Is it one that is a cornerstone to their success?
Perhaps you see life as a battle, something to be survived. Perhaps they see life as a dance floor to be tangoed through.
Are you willing to try on new beliefs? Are you willing to adopt the structures that support them?
The pathway is laid out for you.
Be a belief thief.
Unusual results require unusual actions
If you want something not a lot of people get, you have to do things not a lot of people do.
If people look at you strangely for the things you do, you may well be on the right track.
Or not…
But of course you can’t know unless you try.
Let everyone else do what is normal; they are running millions of experiments for you that you are welcome to observe and learn from.
While they’re doing that, you may as well run some experiments of your own.
What remarkable result do you want to create in the world?
And what is the thing you will do that people will ‘remark’ upon? (Whether they are being judgy or not in their remarks doesn’t matter- it still fits the definition of remarkable!)
Dare to do things vastly differently and you will have a life vastly different to anyone else.
Words fail
My dad just graduated from a year full immersion te reo Māori course.
The ceremony was full of emotion and as I watched family after family get up in support of their person, they performed beautiful haka, waiata and karanga.
As actors, words are our weapon to carry emotion. In musicals the character must sing because the emotion is too big for mere words. There’s no other option.
But of course the emotion is always too big for words. Shakespeare knew that words fail. The prettiest, fanciest or coolest words strung together pale in comparison to the ocean and galaxy of energy they represent, pumping out of our heart.
These families had the gift of song and of haka to carry their pride. To stand and make all the beautiful noise they could to show a tiny preview of what’s going on inside.
How lucky that we have our culture and our art to begin to express what’s inside us.
Yes, words fail. Songs fail. But the humble pursuit to use both to express ourselves is a beautiful one.
SING! MAKE NOISE! SHARE!
Some people are magnets
They make you smile, they make you feel heard and they make you want to shout “Heck yes!” when they share their vision for the world.
They aren’t magnetic because of any communication tricks or hacks- sure, they may have honed their craft, but theirs is an elementally magnetic core.
Where does it come from? Like most delicious meals, it’s a balance of all the good stuff.
Here are some of the raw materials:
A listener.
This person has the ability to deeply listen to people with both brain and heart.
A purpose.
This person has a burning purpose that will cut through anything. This might be a grand vision for change or something that leads them to hold down their corner of the world and enact the purpose daily.
Values
This person has a strong set of values. Values that make decisions for them.
We not me.
This person is not out for themselves. They understand that a win for you is a win for me. They know that there is no feeling greater than lifting up others.
Leverage.
This person makes big things happen with short conversations.
Abundance.
This person knows there is more than enough.
We need magnets in the world.
We need you to be one and we need you to create them.
Generous words
A generous word from a stranger is nice.
A generous word from an authority figure is better; ever notice how they have a way of really sticking?
When we’re young it’s a parent, a teacher or principal.
It holds the same weight as something coming from anyone in a lab coat.
Here’s two generous comments that completely stuck with me:
“You’re on the cusp of something!”
“It’s not a matter of whether or not you’ll succeed, but if you’re ready for it”
We have so much power with what we say (seemingly in passing) to those we lead. Have a couple at the ready and be free in how you share them.
You never know what’ll stick for life.
(AKA, you’re a bit of a wizard aren’t you!)
Florence’s pang of nerves
What causes growth?
Weet-bix!
Yes, lot’s of things. And growth is life. (So weet-bix is life)
Here’s something else that causes growth. Florence Pugh was asked how she chooses what projects she wants to be a part of.
She said she is looking for something that scares her, something that on first reading she fears she might not be able to do.
Florence is looking for the “pang of nerves’” as she calls it when reading a script or learning about a project for the first time.
She’s feeling into her limits. She knows that if she feels that pang, she’ll probably end up doing that project.
With an orientation like this, she is predisposed to growth. She’s on the hunt for what scares her, whether it’s jumping off a building or working with acting royalty; the minute she feels that lump in her stomach, the deal is done.
This is insanely brave. How often do we feel that same pang and avoid it? I know I avoid it all the time.
What is it to lean into it instead? How can we transform that stomach drop moment to mean massive growth is about to happen?