My genius is remembering why I came here and recognising what is truly mine.
That is the whole of it, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to arrive at, because I spent 22 years assuming genius was something you earned. A grade. A result. The number at the end of the month. Something a few people were and the rest of us worked around.
It is not that. It never was.
What it actually feels like
I slow down, breathe, observe and check in with my whole body.
Not my head. My head will give me an answer in half a second and the answer will be whatever I have already decided, dressed up as a decision. The body is slower and it is more honest.
What is aligned feels natural, whole, easy, purposeful, joyful and yummy. What feels foreign or intrusive is not mine.
That last line is the one I use most. Not everything that arrives in front of me is mine to pick up. Some of it belongs to somebody else, and the tell is that it feels like putting on a coat that is not your size. You can wear it. You will be uncomfortable all day and you will not quite know why.
Remembering, not learning
When something clicks, it feels easy because I am remembering, not forcing. I am reconnecting with something I already know on a deeper level.
This is the part that still surprises me. The good ideas do not arrive while I am trying. They arrive in the shower, on the walk, driving, half asleep. Not because I am lucky, but because that is what it looks like when I have stopped gripping.
My genius is not necessarily about learning something new. It is about remembering who I am, why I am here, and what I came here to bring into the world.
It is about trusting my intuition, recognising what lights me up, and allowing myself to follow what feels true.
Four words
Notice. Remember. Connect. Trust.
Notice, because most of it is already happening and you are talking over it.
Remember, because you are not building something from nothing. You are returning to something.
Connect, because it does not arrive while you are braced. It arrives when the body has settled enough to let it through.
Trust, because you will get an answer that is oddly specific and your first instinct will be to argue with it. Do not argue with it.
The only thing I have to do
I do not have to force my genius into existence. I have to create the space to hear it, recognise it and let it come through me.
That is a much smaller job than the one I thought I had. It is also a harder one, because space is the thing none of us will give ourselves.
So here is the small version, for this week.
Before you start the next thing, whatever it is, stop for a moment and ask whether it is yours. Natural, whole, easy, purposeful, joyful. Or foreign.
You will know. You always knew.
The Reset Letters go out once a week, and they are where the quieter version of all this goes.
If you know what you would love to make and cannot see the first move, Begin Again is the session for it. 60 minutes, one to one and private, online or in person at The Hare and the Moon in Twickenham on a Tuesday between 10am and 1.30pm. Book a Tuesday.