The Direction of Intention

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Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Riding my bike over the low bridge out of West Seattle, I shifted into an easier gear and my bike locked up. No pieces flew off like the last time this happened. It was as if I tossed the anchor off the back of the bike and moored myself to the spot. I lurched and stood, secure in the knowledge that I was going nowhere. My gears where broken. I heard Megan’s voice in my head saying, “metaphor alert!” I did not want to consider the implications of the metaphor. So, instead of my bike carrying me to my studio I carried my bike half a mile back to the new cycle shop that opened the previous week; I noticed it as I passed on my way to the bridge. Another metaphor alert: if your bike is going to drop anchor in the middle of nowhere then how fortuitous is it that a bike shop chose to locate itself on the edge of nowhere? I chose this as my metaphor.

I was jamming on my bike because I had a call with Alan so, instead of doing the call from my studio I found a nice bench overlooking Puget Sound. There was a drive through coffee stand a few hundred yards before the bench so I walked through, got a coffee, and had a call with one of my favorite people on a beautiful spring day with a hot morning latte from my bench office with a spectacular view across the Sound to downtown. I took off my helmet as my head was swelling with imagined status. Also wearing a bike helmet without a bike requires people to ask, “Are you okay?” Two people asked in addition to the barista. I never know how to answer that question. I did know how to answer the man loading the truck who asked, “What happened to your ride?” I responded, “It threw a shoe so I left it at the blacksmith.” He laughed and I laughed because he laughed.
Later (from my studio – I drove) I had a call with Teresa who is helping me rethink and market my business. She said, “Let’s start from the inside out,” and I almost wept for joy; no marketing plan on the planet has ever worked for me because, as Teresa said, “People come to work with you because of who you are – not everyone is ready for that (another metaphor alert!) so they must come to you when they are ready.” She told me I was like guy in The Giver who helps people when they see color for the first time. “They see the color red and think they are going crazy and you help them know that red is what they are supposed to see. You help people know that their creativity isn’t crazy; it’s natural. Then, you help them find all the colors of the rainbow.” It’s a good thing my helmet was already off.

She made all of the metaphor alerts come into focus. I am just like the bike shop; I’ve chosen to place my shop on the edge of nowhere because that is where the seekers pass on their quest to find color. She laughed when I told her my target audience is people whose bikes have spontaneously dropped anchor and then she said, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” That was my plan all along.

Filed under: Perspective, Truly Powerful People |