Keep the Reins. Delegate the Milk.

This morning, somewhere between restructuring my business, reclaiming my creativity, making coffee and attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to negotiate with the South African weather...

I accidentally discovered my new business philosophy.

Keep the reins. Delegate the milk. 😂

Stay with me.

There's actually something rather magical underneath the ridiculousness. Ancient Magic has grown.  And grown. And then grown a little bit more. More clients arrived. More opportunities appeared. More ideas started knocking. More things needed creating, managing, scheduling, answering, organising and bringing to life. And I did what every sensible business owner is told to do when their business grows. I built support around me.

Which, by the way, I still believe in wholeheartedly. I LOVE collaboration. I love people bringing their own brilliance into something. I love that feeling when somebody takes something from your hands and you think: Ohhhh. You do that SO much better than I do. 😂❤️ That is beautiful delegation.

But somewhere amongst all that growing, I made a little mistake. I didn't only create support around myself.  I accidentally handed over some of my reins. Not because anybody took them. Because I handed them over.

The creative work I love.

The deep understanding I have of my clients.

The intuitive little threads I follow when I'm creating.

The conversations where someone says one tiny thing and my brain immediately goes:

WAIT. THERE IT IS. 👀✨

The ideas.

The playing.

The “Oooooh, what if we did THIS?”

The bits that don't always fit neatly into a process or a spreadsheet because sometimes they're born from knowing a person, knowing their business and feeling when something has shifted. Those are some of the places I come alive.

And without really noticing it, I'd stepped further and further away from them. Then something interesting happened. My business was still running...but I wasn't having as much fun anymore.  And for me, that's information.  Joy isn't some fluffy little extra I add to my business once all the serious work is finished.  Joy is one of my compasses.

So I've been asking myself a different question.

Not:  “What can I outsource?”

But:  “What is actually mine to hold?”

Ooooooh. Now we're getting somewhere.

Some things are mine.

My vision.➡️My relationships with my clients. ➡️The heart of Ancient Magic. ➡️The creative direction. ➡️The standards. ➡️The values. ➡️The strange ideas that arrive while I'm making coffee and somehow become entire business strategies before breakfast.

Those are my reins….I need to feel them in my hands.

Not because I have to control everything. Not because nobody else can contribute.

And definitely not because I'm planning to become a one-woman business octopus with seventeen laptops. Quite the opposite.

I want people around me who are brilliant at what they do.  People who bring their own strengths.  People who can hold things with me. People I trust enough to say: “This is yours. Run with it.”

Because there are parts of my business that somebody else can hold beautifully, sometimes far better than I ever could.

The organisation, The scheduling, The follow-through, The client support, The systems, The details that keep everything flowing behind the scenes, The things that create space.

And when somebody holds those things well, they're not doing the work I don't want.  They're doing the work that allows all of us to do more of what we're brilliant at.

That distinction matters to me. Good delegation isn't dumping the jobs you don't like onto somebody else.

It's recognising where each person shines and allowing them to shine there. It's saying:

You hold this beautifully.  I hold this beautifully.  And look what becomes possible when we stop trying to be brilliant at everything.

Which brings me back to the milk. 🥛😂

Because during this entire revelation, I realised I needed milk for my coffee at 4 in the morning.

And my immediate thought was:  Can I delegate the milk run?

YES.

YES I CAN.

😂😂😂

And there it was.  The whole philosophy in one completely ridiculous sentence:

Keep the reins. Delegate the milk.

Keep close the things that require YOUR particular magic.

YOUR vision.

YOUR voice.

YOUR relationships.

YOUR creativity.

YOUR leadership.

YOUR knowing.

And build beautiful support around the rest.

Maybe that's an assistant who creates calm where you create chaos. Maybe it's someone who can look at a calendar and experience actual JOY instead of the mild existential crisis you experience.  Maybe it's a designer.  A bookkeeper. A scheduler. A tech wizard. 

A team member who remembers the tiny details that disappear from your brain approximately seven seconds after somebody tells you.  We don't all have to hold the same things.  That's the beauty of co-creation.

The lesson for me wasn't:  Stop delegating. It was:  Delegate with intention.

Know what your reins are, know where you need support, know what makes you come alive and notice when you've accidentally outsourced something your soul actually misses. Because sometimes the heaviness we feel in business isn't telling us to burn the whole thing down.  Sometimes it's simply whispering:

Come back.

There's something here you used to love.

Pick it up again. 

And equally, sometimes the overwhelm is whispering: Darling... someone else can absolutely go and get the milk. 😂🥛

So that's what I'm doing.  I'm taking back the parts of Ancient Magic that make me feel most like me. 

I'm creating space for the people around me to shine in the places that make sense for them.

I'm getting curious again.

I'm creating again.

I'm teaching again.

I'm healing again.

I'm playing again.

And I'm building the next version of Ancient Magic with a slightly different philosophy:

More intention. More joy. More magic. Hold what lights me up. Share what helps others shine. 

And apparently...significantly fewer emergency milk runs. 😂🥛

Lightness AND leadership. That's the kind of business I'm building now. 

A business where I know what is mine to hold, what is beautiful to share, and what I can lovingly place into someone else's very capable hands. And if I occasionally lose the reins again? Well…

This entire philosophy actually started with me talking about taking back the “rains” instead of the reins… while desperately hoping it wouldn't rain so my child could go to her horse-riding lesson. Yes. There was an actual horse involved. 😂🌧️🐎 It was a whole thing, I tell you.

Spoiler: it rained.

Apparently the Universe appreciates a good metaphor too. So, message received: Keep the reins.Delegate the milk.And maybe leave the weather out of it. 😂🥛🐎✨

With love, Debbie-LynnAncient Magic ✨

You are the magic you always have been and you always will be.