Ever wish you could had all the money in the world so you could travel to ashrams, conferences and talks? Wouldn’t you just love to get all the good wisdom and information for free? Well, what if I told you I can show you exactly how to get all that good information you seek and for free? Would you believe me?

I bet you haven’t noticed it, but you are surrounded by, philosophers, gurus, experts and  superheroes. Maybe you look at your family as people who love you, but who don’t get you. Or your friends are fun, but you need to rely on self-help books, Oprah and bonafide “experts” when it comes to putting you on to new information and enlightening you. If that has been your chain of thought, I’m here to tell you that you are swimming in a bevy of mini philosophers and you don’t even realize it.

All of us have a huge network of people surrounding us and those networks have grown exponentially since the advent of the internet. With all of those people at your disposal you better believe that there is some untapped wisdom just waiting to be released. Sure, you may think your great aunt only talks about the past and doesn’t have more than a grade school education with nothing to offer, but she has lived a full life and is Full of wisdom, life stories and most importantly lessons learned.

Maybe you have friends that are younger than you or on a different life path, but that doesn’t mean they have nothing to offer. The thing is, you have to ask the right questions. If you ask your great aunt about what she has learned after all her years on this Earth about Love, I’m sure you’d get a profound response, regardless of education level. If you ask your friends how did they recover from a situation they didn’t think they were going to make it out of, I bet you will be able to draw insight from their response. The point is we tend to disregard the “everyday people” in our lives as just that and don’t realize the wisdom they posses (and normally neither do they).

I tapped into this big time when I did my 22 Destiny Discoverers Round-up post. Sure, I emailed some people who are considered “Experts” in their field, but I also hit up everyday people who I admired and whom I knew when asked the right question, their wisdom and insight would pour forth.

One of the people I interviewed was Cookie Elizabeth. I met Cookie in LA and the thing we had in common was the love of salsa. In the LA scene there are a lot of phenomenal dancers, and as a beginner Everyone looked like they were auditioning for Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights in my opinion. However, I was drawn to Cookie’s dancing not because she was WAY better than everyone else, but because she had Heart. You can call it moxie, gumption or fortitude, it’s that thing that sets a person a part, it’s that je ne se pais that makes you say “this person has a special something”. Through the years of keeping in touch here and there I have followed her journey.

Now, if you were to ask her, or read her Facebook updates, you would see she thinks she is just a normal girl, living the life of a dancer  trying to “make it” in New York…just like everyone else. I, however, see a champion that took life by the reigns, made a hobby a profession and is walking in her destiny (well in her case dancing in it!). That’s why I couldn’t wait to choose her as one of the people I used in my round-up post where I asked people what was the moment they went from Dream to Destiny and what were the first three steps they took to get there.

Just as I suspected her answers sounded like they came straight out of one of my favorite self help books or a wise old shaman. To me her answers were genius. As I’m pretty sure she’s not one to hang out in the self-help section of the book store she doesn’t realize her answer was loaded with examples of reframing, the law of attraction and positive thinking. No, to her, she’s just a girl living one day at a time. To me she’s a genius in her own right and an inspiration.

The thing is, you too are surrounded by such wisdom. Maybe they aren’t going to be the next Pulitzer Prize winners, or leading church sermons, but if you start examining the people that surround you, you will begin to see that they have qualities that could help enlighten you on your path.

How do the mom’s you know instill values in their kids? How do loving couples you know stay respectful of each other? What was a time in your co-workers life when they knew something had to change? What did they do? These mini interviews will draw out the inner genius in the “everyday people” that surround you.

 After you tap into that genius, 2 major things start to happen.

First, you will start channeling the best qualities of all those around you when you find yourself moving through life.

 “What would so and so do at this time? He’s always so good in situations like these.”

When I do that, I think of it as trying to channel the superhero quality in any given person I know. For example, if I am scared to talk in front of a group I just close my eyes, and channel the ease that my mother has before going in front of a group. She has a lot of experience and it’s second nature to her. I know her techniques and thought processes and I simply channel and borrow her “super powers” as if they were my own.

The second thing that happens, is the people around you start glowing because as you tap into their genius they start saying to themselves, “Hey, I never realized how awesome, I am!”. You become the spark that awakens the best in people just by being reflection of those qualities yourself. It’s a classic win-win!

So, as you move through out your day start talking to your people, tap into their genius and start illuminating both your life and theirs.

Your Turn:

• What are you going to do today to unleash the genius in the people that surround you? Comment below and let me know!

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(credits: yogiamandeepsingh.org, yogiamandeepsingh.org,betseyj.com,