The Magic of Intention

This summer, while on vacation, I asked for a sign that I was on the right path.

It had been a tough year. Surgery to remove a deep cancer on my nose, requiring a full left-side reconstruction. Then, a broken foot. I was tired, a little beaten up, and looking for something to tell me that good things were ahead.

So I asked the universe, higher spirit, whatever you want to call it, to show me a sign. What appeared in my mind was a coin. “Show me a coin.”

Some people might call it asking for magic. For me, I wanted a little reassurance that where I was headed was where I was meant to go. A small sign to lift the doubt.

Late one afternoon in Scotland, my husband and I were walking along the St. Andrews golf course. I thought I hadn't gotten the sign. I actually stomped my foot like a kid (embarrassing to admit). I didn't get what I asked for. I had seen no coins.

Then I remembered.

I hadn’t seen one coin. I’d seen maybe a dozen or more.

Earlier that day, we had walked past the St. Andrews castle, and my husband called me over to look through a small opening in the stone wall, the kind soldiers once used to fire their weapons. I peered inside. On the dirt ground on the other side were coins. Unfamiliar currencies. Different sizes. Old and worn and plenty of them. Not just one, but many coins.

I had been so busy waiting for my sign that I hadn’t recognized it when it appeared.

“If this was THE sign I was waiting for, what's next?”

I had an idea and a deep desire for what could come next in my business, but I was hesitant. Those coins now felt like a little laugh from the universe. I could almost hear, “What more are you waiting for?”

Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to imagine what's possible before we have all the evidence. I explore this more in One Quick Way to Close the Vision Gap, and why clarity often starts when we stop letting today's circumstances define tomorrow.

The coins hadn’t changed what I was capable of. It was a nudge forward with renewed energy.

I recognize this shift in my work, too. My clients and people in the audience of my keynotes say that something they experienced with me feels “magical.” I’m grateful, and a little shy when I hear it.

But what they’re describing is the moment they see a possibility they couldn’t see before. I’ve simply created the conditions, asked the questions, and helped them see differently. They give themselves the space to hear themselves.

Sometimes we need to slow down long enough to hear what we actually want.

That’s what the pause in Scotland gave me. You may not be a manifestor or believe in a higher spirit, but you cannot become something you don’t see. Seeing it comes through the intentional pause.

If you’re like me, you want the evidence of what you want before you believe. I can work hard. I can make a plan. Trusting myself while the outcome is still uncertain? That takes practice. It takes belief…in yourself.

Yet when I look back, the evidence is there. I became a coach before I knew how I would build a coaching business. I started writing a book before I knew how to become an author. So much of the life I’m living now was once something I could only imagine.

You have your own version of that. Something you learned, built, changed, or lived through that once felt beyond you.

You don’t need proof of the entire future to trust yourself with the next step.

With about two and a half months left in the year, give yourself a little room to pause and reflect on:

-What do I still want to create before the year ends?

-What is one step I can trust myself to take?

You don’t have to force a big answer. Take a walk. Close the laptop. Quietly listen to music. Let the questions have a little space.

I took those coins as a sign that I was heading in the right direction. The work ahead is mine to do. So is practicing trusting myself enough to do it.

Maybe that trust is the magic.

What will you trust yourself to do before the year ends?

I tried to recreate what I saw as a reminder.