Have you ever stopped to notice how things are always working in our favor? It may be time to start doing so. A chance encounter turns into the creation of a new friend or collaborator, a flight delay turns into creating a client, and a flash of intuition can even save our life by avoiding an accident or some other mishap. Maybe you’ve experienced some of this for yourself, and almost certainly you’ve heard of others who have.
In my own case, a dramatic example is that I avoided getting on Flight 93 on 9-11 (the one that crashed over PA) simply because I had a very strong intuition that led me to abort my trip to NYC to participate in producing a big Michael Jackson event — and I’d been booked on that flight to return home afterwards. Had I hit ‘override’ on my intuition that time, I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale today. Another experience happened simply by reaching out to someone on LinkedIn who seemed to have an awful lot of parallel background connections with me — he was presented by LinkedIn’s algorithm as someone I should connect with so I reached out. Turns out we did in fact have a myriad of uncanny (some obtuse) facets of our life and work history in common, and I created a new friendship and colleague out of that ‘chance’ encounter. Another time a flight delay resulted in my chatting up the stranger next to me who later became a client.
So I guess the message here is slow down enough to pause and listen to the whispers that are trying to reach you when it seems there’s an unfortunate disruption to your plans; it may steer you through a gateway that opens you up to powerful new experience or connection you otherwise wouldn’t have had. It’s all about embracing serendipity, living in possibility and the ‘what if’ question, and seizing opportunities. They happen a lot more often than you might imagine, often to your benefit, if you are mindful and open!
