Ever have one of those magical experiences that seem to come out of the blue, and strikes you as something with a distinct message? It seems to be providing evidence that you must be on the right track, but it seems intangible and you may be inclined to dismiss it. You may say "Wow, that’s cool. I made this decision, took a step toward something new, and this great thing showed up. Oh, but they can’t be related...can they?" Well, they can. In fact, they are, and if you know why and what you’re looking at, it can help you make further progress in your new direction.

This sort of thing has started happening for the participants in our 7 Steps To Creating Your Legacy program from their week by week activities in developing their new legacy projects. It’s been exciting and fun for them to experience this magical form of feedback and for the rest of us to hear about! Last week, one 7 Steps participant was invited to submit information about her developing legacy blueprint to be included in a grant application that may result in an award of $12-20 million — a portion of which might fund her start up. And this week, she discovered another connection to an organization closely matched to her legacy mission that contributes millions every year to projects just like the one she’s planning ... magic indeed! Our Feature Article explores this phenomenon, and how you can use it, too.

I mention this because I, too, get similar feedback from time to time letting me know I’m on the right track with helping people consider their personal legacies and how to get into action on creating them to make the world a better place. I’m getting so much back from delivering the 7 Steps program and witnessing the experience of participants as they go through it. Watching their legacy blueprints develop and unfold reinforces that the materials are useful and effective. It’s amazing how much additional — exponential — progress I’ve gotten to see during the individual coaching calls we’ve also had to explore and advance their projects in more depth. I feel honored to be a part and vicariously experience the developments.

I am also honored to get feedback in the form of amazing legacy stories sent in by LJ readers, like the one included in this issue. A song called "100 Generations" written by a member of Generation Z (our current teen age group) being turned into a global movement?! Wow. I am especially reinforced by knowing how naturally kids get the concepts behind legacy work. Seems like the notion of giving back authentically, being creative and altruistic, and making things better for the long term are inherent; and we lose that somehow as we "grow up" and start to fend for ourselves in the world. Maybe 6th grader Aitan Grossman can inspire us all to get more of that back, and better exercise our passions for positive change. Read on...

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving this week to our readers in the U.S. (and a belated greeting to our Canadian friends who recently celebrated theirs). I just love this holiday — it has a great history and tradition of cooperation and sharing. Taking stock of what we have and who and what we love, sharing a good meal and great stories, and the time to just enjoy one another’s company... there’s nothing better in my book. You’ll all be on the gratitude list I focus on during our celebration this year. Thanks — for being you and for your support of this work.

Cheers,

Dolly

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Progress Has Three P’s — Here’s the First One

Some call it serendipity, coincidence, intuition, law of attraction, or the hand of God. Whatever you call it, I’m certain there are many that emanate from our original creative source, definitely a part of the divine design of this universe we’re all a part of. They are seemingly magical, but real invisible forces guiding us. And they become more evident the more we know about how they work. One I’ve learned to apply that seems to provide invaluable feedback to our creative efforts is a principle from physics known as Precession. This ‘one percent’ that appears as a blessing is indeed the result of our actions, which you can produce and benefit from more often. (I tend to think it’s more like 99 percent blessing and one percent our actions — if we’ll but get in the groove and put in that much focused creative effort).

Precession describes the peculiar movement of planets in orbit around a star (like our solar system) or that of a gyroscope. It is defined essentially as "the effect of bodies in motion on other bodies in motion." Precessional effect happens at a right- or 90-degree angle to the direction of the original motion. Some examples:

• A spinning top or gyroscope.
• The Earth revolving around our Sun.
• A pebble dropping into a still pool of water.
• A boat moving through the water producing a wake.
• Honeybees who gather nectar to make honey, but in doing so cross-pollinate plants and literally maintain life on earth...

Like the bee, the earth, the pebble or the boat, the precessional effects or waves emanating from your actions in the world, also ripple out and impact other people and things. As with the "butterfly effect" that can have wide-ranging impact far from where it originates, the 90-degree direction of those ripples often produces a response outside your direct field of perception, and can impact things in ways you may not even know or long after you act. But you can come to notice and interpret them, as evidence of your progress.

Drop a pebble in a still pond and its motion produces ripples that emanate out and away from it. Similarly, a boat moving through the water produces a wake. These emanating waves hit the shore and come back — feedback of sorts from the motion of the pebble or the boat. The process of creating is like that. It requires action — motion — and thus produces a precessional effect on other "bodies in motion." And that effect results in "precessional taps" — noticeable responses that help you steer your course.

Keys to Precession:

• Positive taps: these usually feel good and right, because you’re producing a good result, benefitting others or adding to life in some way — which is also a very good or joyful experience; or
• Negative taps: these feel "off," sometimes downright lousy (depending on if you’re listening and how hard or loud the taps get), because what you’re doing didn’t work or requires correction in some way.

Correcting

This is also known as changing course. It is where "mistakes" or "failures" happen, often misinterpreted as "being wrong" when they are simply learning experiences providing information about something you may need to change. They are not personal failures but reminders that it’s time to make a course correction.

Moving on your way to anywhere there are twists and turns in the road, and turn-offs you might take. Precessional taps provide that invisible guidance for creative efforts (your motion) helping you make those course corrections if needed: "negative taps" telling you to shift, change or correct, and "positive taps" reinforcing that you are definitely headed in the right direction.

A sailor cannot sail directly forward into a headwind, but can tack the boat and sails back and forth in a zigzag pattern, correcting its course from time to time and move upwind in that direction. She can’t see the wind, it’s invisible, but she can see and interpret the effects of the wind — on trees or flags on the shoreline, or in the ripples that form on the water’s surface. While the wind is an invisible force, she learns to read its feedback.

Likewise, getting a spacecraft to the moon was not a straight-line experience. Most of the time, astronauts were making course corrections based on location and measurement data in the relative emptiness of space.

"Following the taps" allows you to know whether you’re on track and making progress (which feels good) or need to correct your course of action (because something feels "off"). If you let mistakes / learning experiences stop your action, your precession stops, too. The taps may get "louder" or more prominent to get you moving again.

Sometimes we interpret the positive taps as what I call a "new bright shiny object" and we turn and aim toward that. Like the turn-off in the road, it can take you off your path — when the new and positive aspect that showed up was simply feedback informing that you were going in the right direction to begin with. That’s why turning toward the bright and shiny can become a negative tap, if it distorts your original focus or pulls you "off track." It’s misinterpretation that turns a great piece of positive feedback into a negative tap if you allow it to distract you from your mission or goal. But if you recognize the positive tap as just that — one of those magical pieces of feedback, providing evidence that you are already going in the right direction and reinforcement to do more of what you’re doing — then your creative efforts grow and you get closer to where you set out to go.

Learning to interpret the invisible in this way is part of how you make progress.


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