It happened again. This time, I was out for a drink with my daughter’s boyfriend’s dad. (How many of us can say that!) Great guy. He brought it up first. He is transitioning from the bicycle industry to real estate. “It’s like serendipity”, he said, “I just keep meeting the right people at the right time who are there to help me.” I smiled and nodded, “Go on”. He offered story after story. He has tapped into the power and is in awe of the possibilities.
I have seen it non-stop since I left the land of the quarterly earnings. I am living a constant Field of Dreams moment. My car dealer friend introduced me to another self-published author and speaker who agreed to share his secrets over a coffee. I couldn’t type fast enough into my iPhone. He laid out his whole business model for me and has followed up with emails to keep me on point. No charge, no consulting fee, no catch. Just doing it for the goodness of paying it forward. But it’s not just him. Old friends are reappearing. Colleagues offer introductions that pave the way for new possibilities. Sometimes it is me, sending drops of serendipity their way. And finding oceans of it washing back in return.
Where is all of this serendipity coming from?
And the serendipity breeds more serendipity. The speaking engagement leads to a newspaper column. The blog post leads to a speaking engagement with the clients of a financial advisor, which then leads to an employee financial wellness session at a different firm.
Was it always there and I missed it? Are we rising toward peak serendipity? Just yesterday, at a client meeting we talked about what we could do together on social media. One idea flowed into the next. Some would help my business, some would help theirs. Didn’t matter. There was a “pull” feel to it. No pushing, no demanding, no measurement. Just people helping people and the results flowing in. In fact, it seems to happen the most, the further I get from the command and control corporate world. Speaking with entrepreneurs, they look at me like I’m from Saturn. Of course that is how things get done. They have known about it all along.
How to open the serendipity tap?
So how can we all grow some more serendipity in our lives? I am no serendipity expert, but let me share what I have seen so far:
- Do Good – Choose a vocation that is about helping others. Define a great quest. It feels good and draws in others to help.
- Be Open – Accept the invitation even if it’s not clear why you should go. It could be a dinner in Toledo or a coffee in Portland that opens up completely new possibilities for you.
- Seek to Help – Meet new people with a mindset of how you can help them in their journey. Seek to understand, then to be understood.
- Look for the Synergies – Is there an elegant meeting of needs somewhere that can accelerate what you both are doing? What unique properties do you each have that can help the other?
- Loosen the Strings – in the corporate world, it is often about bolting down timelines and deliverables. Let them flow for a while and see what happens.
- Connect Others – we are all just a connection or two away from meeting those who can help our plans soar. Keep bringing your contacts together and those synergies will flow among them. And back at you.
Do you find Serendipity is rising? Or are we becoming more attune to it? Share your thoughts!
Photo credit Louis K on Unsplash
2 Comments
Hi Gord,
How fun to see that I was mentioned in your post! I thought I would add a couple of comments that would relate to this post and the wise financial advice that you provide on this website….
I truly feel that the serendipity that I have experienced with my career change has a lot to do with the fact that I prepared myself financially prior to leaving my position in the bicycle industry. To explain, in order to have the courage to make the leap, I first eliminated as much debt as possible and made sure that my emergency fund was fully stocked. This allowed me to embark on a new career path (at 48 years old) with a confident sense of calm and a complete lack of urgency. I’m positive that the new contacts that I have met along the way could feel it and were somehow attracted to it. I’m sure that if I was in a more desperate situation financially, the entire experience would have been riddled with stress and that stress would have shown itself like a beacon on my forehead.
My advice to your readers would be to start using the recipes in the Cashflow Cookbook to pound down that debt and build up a little financial cushion in the form of an emergency fund. The resulting freedom and serenity has an odd way of attracting the serendipity that both Gord and I are experiencing today.
Sincerely,
Gord’s daughter’s boyfriend’s dad.
Terrific edition Gord! More and more I am looking forward to your weekly commentary which provides great and unique perspective on ‘money management’ and ‘life’. The two are mutually inclusive but rarely addressed in the pragmatic and ‘real’ manner in which you focus and communicate! Keep them coming!