Conduit & Current
* I started 2020 by taking part in the Michael Hyatt BusinessAccelerator program. You know, before 2020 made many of us question whether there was any business left to accelerate. What you are about to read was written before the world shut down, but I think it is still fitting and hopefully helpful to a handful of you out there.
I am fortunate enough to be a part of the Michael Hyatt BusinessAccelerator program, and though I’m only at the beginning the content thus far is fire (insert emoji here because #relevance). I was journaling the morning of the first quarterly intensive and was really looking forward to drinking from the fire hydrant of knowledge that I knew would be coming that day. But I was also thinking about what I had already discovered in terms of my work with my clients. I had a moment of being inspired by… myself, and how what I do is actually useful. This kind of thing has always felt intrinsic and mystical, this ability to see, pull out, dust off, and assimilate fragmented pieces of thought and idea to make something real and hopeful. But It isn’t magic. There’s magic in it, sure, but the more I dig into my own brain and process, I realize there actually is a process.
This very thought can be a conundrum for creative people. Although I am a raging creative, I tend to operate straight down the middle of my left/right brain. I’ve never been easy to categorize into either, precisely because I thrive in both realms- organization/logic/reason/systems/analytics AND arts/music/creativity/dreams/vision/beauty, etc. Hot take: I think we all could thrive in both realms but that’s another topic entirely.
Right now as I ponder the idea of process, I am considering the part of me that is the theater kid; the poet; the musician. She feels robbed of some of her power when I tell her what she does can be boiled down to process. But what about the muse?! What about the mystery of it all? What about the thing that just comes to me, the willing vessel?
I feel her pain… it’s me, after all. But I don’t buy it.
See, I think we are conduits AND currents.
A current is force; power; energy. Currents are visceral punches of creativity coursing through us. The conduit is the channel that lets something flow through it. It makes a path and lights the way. A conduit makes the current more powerful and potent.
The muse is real. The muse courts us and seduces us. It is the energy that fills up the dream and gives us a sense of holiness—otherness— in the work. But the process is what reveals the muse in any real and useful way. Conduit and current. Both/and.
How can you prioritize both conduit and current in your own life? Sound off in the comments.
