This last weekend I led a reunion retreat, with the participants of my small group mentoring program from last year. It was a wonderful two days. I absolutely love being with these powerful, insightful, funny and creative individuals.

While we explored a lot of areas, there was one theme that emerged.

Often when we have an insight, a shift, new clarity, we can start to make it into a “thing”. We make it special, precious. We give it significance. We turn insight and wisdom for the moment into a formula. It goes from being alive to being a “thing”.

A client and I were discussing her business model. A few years ago, she found a structure that allowed her to really move the dial on her business. She started to grow, and her income took a huge leap. Lately, she has been drawn to making some changes. She wants to express herself in new ways and try some new ideas, but she's been afraid to change it up. She's been afraid that she shouldn't mess with success.

When we explored this, she realized she had made her business structure the “thing”. She started to believe the structure had the magic in it versus remembering that it was the creative insight at a moment in time. The magic came from the creative potential in the moment. It served up what was needed at that time.

In a way, it was yesterday's wisdom and today something else was wanting to come through. 

Is the magic in the “thing”, the insight, the idea or where it comes from?

I was in a conversation with a colleague and we were discussing one of his programs. I was telling him that I had been hearing how great it was. This was true. People would mention it unsolicited. Numerous people told me how much they loved the program and how valuable they were finding it. 

I asked him when he was doing it again and he said something surprising to me. He said, “I'm not sure I'm going to.” What? It was so successful, why wouldn't you do it again? Did you not like it? And he said, “No I loved it”. 

Here's the amazing thing he said, “I was getting ready to do it again but then I realized I was sort of on auto-pilot about it.” He then shared that the original idea came from a totally different place. It came from inspiration in the moment. It came from the creative potential behind life and he wanted to take a beat, take a pause and see if it was still alive. What would happen if he went back to that place/space? Is it still a yes? 

I loved hearing this. I could see how easy it would be to say, “worked before do it again” and yet to really appreciate and respect that the magic wasn't the right program, it was where the idea came from. 

Being willing to go back to the start; to connect with what is alive and what wants to come through NOW is a whole new orientation for many of us. It's easy to mistake the idea or the insight as gold. Yet when we remember, we have an infinite potential of new ideas available to us, we give ourselves permission to go back to zero in our minds. We listen beyond the past formulas and find the wisdom of today.

There is a power behind life, and we experience it via our minds. Depending on where are heads are at, or the quality of our own internal state, we experience that power to varying degrees. That power is already there. It's pre-existing. We don't manufacture it. We just experience it moment to moment based on the quality of our own mind in that moment.

When we get attached to the form, the idea, we are more limited. When we stay open, in a freer mind and willing to see what is alive now, we have access to new possibilities.

There is infinite creative potential behind all of life and when we remember this, see it for ourselves, we move through life with more confidence and certainty. Not that we have finally found the right thing or the right formula, but because we know where to look. 

That creative power behind life, is innate, its constant. We experience it in the moment. 

We have many names for it: essence, life force, creative intelligence, energy, field of infinite possibilities and many more.  

This is the source of new ideas & fresh insights. 

It happens in real-time. Knowing this, allows us to hold yesterday's wisdom lightly and see what else might be there now. 

When we go to the real source of magic, we tap into a powerful force and momentum in our lives and work.