Success is in the Details
When I feel like I’m not sure of my next move, I have a practice I call Love in Detail (which is also my next book). I will take notice of all the details around me, bring awareness to the love that is inherently found in my point of view, breath, and then take the next compassionate action. This practice has guided me consistently into right action and ultimately success. Love is in the details, and if you can actively become aware of the details around you, you will find a pathway to your ultimate purpose. I know this might sound lofty, but hang in there with me…
Success is a moment to moment crafting of your life, beliefs, and actions. It’s a daily discipline of noticing details, following them as a trail to your purpose and your own personal brand of success. Being successful has no end, but appears in the details before you, if you notice them. For instance, when I open my inbox, it’s filled to the brim with requests. I often feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of email that enters my world. So, I’ll bring my awareness to my breath then, which I tend to hold when I’m overwhelmed. I’ll breathe into my body deeply, opening each email and slowly my nervous system calms down. I’ll then take conscious notice of the conscientiousness of my staff and send a thank-you or gratitude toward someone emailing me, as in “thanks for keeping me organized, I’ll get that to you today, Superstar!” And then I’ll make a handwritten list of each item being requested, dance around a bit, sip some tea, and get to work. It’s a classic case of reframing.
Here it is again—my simple ABC’s for getting the details of love flowing in your day:
1. Awareness
2. Breath
3. Compassionate Action
Details are where love reside. From my research and countless interviews with Near Death Survivors, I’ve discovered that when we leave our bodies, we experience love without form. When we are in our bodies, we get to experience the earth plane which is love in form—infinite form…a buffet of love options. You’ll get to read much more about this in my next book (more on that next week), but for now, isn’t it amazing to think of your life as Love, in Detail?
How do the details affect you? Let’s take writing for instance. If you dream of being a writer (or a business owner, or mom, or…), at first you will most likely produce some crappy sentences, paragraphs and even a disaster of a draft—instead of beautiful literature (or profits or even children ). Yet you feel the desire to keep going. You stop putting meaning on your bad writing because you sense that the bad writing is teaching you something. You understand that to be a good writer, you must first be a bad one. Mastery builds confidence, and you’ve come to understand this.
One day, you lose yourself in a sentence. Each letter curves just so beautifully, you become fascinated with the world before you, click click, words form black on white on the page—they were absent and then present, you created them before your very eyes. You marvel at a concept to write about, you feel inspired, sit down to write it down, and your mind seeks and seeks until the words land on the page. You’ve made something out of nothing, which is in itself a miracle. All doubt fell away while you weren’t looking. You lose yourself in a paragraph, as the words flow from your hands you forget to be self-conscious, you lose track of all previous artistic anxieties. You forget that you are not trained, you forget about those who have come before you and those who will follow. There is no copyright or proprietary notions, there is no comparing this line with that. You focus only on making the most beautiful passage of combined words to evoke an image in the mind and heart. You don’t think about the reader but you pour yourself into the details of each word, their depth, the way they sound on the tongue. The more detailed you become, the more sure life is.
Mindfulness is the awareness of the details, flow is the expression of them. An artist, a craftsman, a maker, a master, all are lost in the details, and what emerges is Love. You were born to express this love in whatever flavor you so desire. My friend Jeremy makes delicious beer, it’s his Love in Detail. My mom comes over and takes a toothbrush to the tile in the guest bathroom—cleaning is her Love in Detail. My husband always makes sure the fridge is full—nourishing his family is his Love in Detail.
As the writer loves the process of expressing her Love in Detail, the reader loves the doorway the writer has built for her. Each word bursts open as the reader’s eyes recognize their familiar outline in unfamiliar order. She senses the curves, she is infused with the love from the author, those words through which she felt so sure, and those she considered over and over before moving to the next. Our most beloved works of art were those the artist struggled over, loved deeply, and finally disappeared into. Each older work is a time capsule, a lifeline to he or she who has left the earth plane, but remains with us through the details of their self-expression, their love. For love is timeless and ageless and when detailed with great care, from it is born a masterpiece transcendent of physical form, a hue of heaven somehow grasped in material identity.
Did Roald Dahl love Charlie as he wrote about his adventures in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory? Did JK Rowling love Harry Potter as she created him and followed him through Hogwarts, eventually translating him into the minds of millions of children? Did Jane Austen love Mr. Darcy, so much so that every girl today still swoons over the confusing appeal of the author’s beloved curmudgeon character? Details transcend time. Love is in the details of any great work. And so, you too will make a great, detailed work of your life. You will experience and gather detailed memories, creating detailed relationships, loving the details of your favorite restaurants, your first home, how you felt when you said Yes.
If you want to be successful, learn how to immerse yourself in details from which you can fully express your soul into form. The craft of whatever you take on will open the doorways of your prosperity. Our divinity is in the details, dig into the details of your day, your work, and your relationships to find the daily gold of your own purpose. Each detail we notice or create is an imprint that blooms a thousand times a second. Each detail is its own universe, and you contain universes, dear one.
And here are my sure-fire steps one more time:
Breath
Compassionate Action
You got this!
With Love, in Detail,
