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I just returned from leading a three day coaching retreat with a client in beautiful Bend, Oregon. We laughed, we played, we ate, we hiked, we planned, we did yoga, and we intentionally stepped away from the hustle & bustle of everyday life to make sure my client is stepping into the boldest and most creative vision for her business and life.
If you’re anything like her, you want to make real things happen. Things that matter. You’re committed to a life of growth and impact.
So you plug in. You’re heads down in your business. You squeeze every possible moment out of the time you have, consuming, creating, connecting, rinsing and repeating. Occasionally, you breath, but only if forced.
Partly because it gives you more to think about. But, also, because it’s just become your default. Space terrifies you. And maybe, just maybe, you’re even driven by the fear that if you release your foot from the accelerator, business will come to a screeching halt!
The thing is…
It doesn’t matter how productive or how busy you are if the ideas you’re building on don’t represent the best you have to offer.
And your best ideas rarely, if ever, come when you’re filling every second of your life with something to do.
Brilliance shows up when you disconnect from the day-to-day routines and reconnect to space.
To plug into your best self, you’ve first got to unplug. To create the space for brilliance to emerge.
Unplugging Is Non-Negotiable
The past few days has taught me that if you want miracles to appear, unplugging is non-negotiable.
The immersion coaching retreat with my client looked a little like this:
-
- Drive to a mountain town
- Wake up to a fresh pot of coffee & the smell of pine trees
- Leisurely walk to the river
- Ease into the day with yoga by the river
- Notice ducks and geese floating down the river (hmmmm…they’re definitely unplugging)
- Leisurely walk back to mountain house
- Enjoy a healthy and un-rushed breakfast
- Answer really powerful questions and come up with really creative ideas
- Think bigger than is comfortable
- Get excited about thinking bigger than is comfortable
- Get congruent with big thinking
- Big thinking becomes a powerful vision
- Connect the new vision to a concrete reality
- Powerful new vision becomes a plan
- The plan = excitement
- Excitement = momentum
- Take this energy and go hike around a gorgeous mountain lake
- Vision sinks in even deeper and excitement builds even more
- Share vision and excitement during happy hour
- Share an amazing dinner with our loved ones
- Go to sleep
- Wake up inspired and repeat
Intentionally unplugging in Bend, Oregon
If you want to your brilliance to shine, you must intentionally create space for it emerge. Life is not about getting stuff done. Life is about creating space for your most brilliant ideas to flourish.
It doesn’t matter how productive you are unless the ideas you’re building on represent the best you have to offer.
And the best you have to offer rarely shows up when you’re filling every moment with busywork.
Genius comes when you disconnect from busyness and you reconnect with yourself.
If you kill the space, you kill the dream.
Embrace the space and let your brilliance shine.
Live bravely,
Michael
