“You can only join the dots looking backwards” ~ Steve Jobs
This past weekend I was in San Francisco spending time with friends before heading to the Modern Elder Academy in Mexico for a week.
My lovely hosts arranged a relaxed get together on the Saturday night and I was able to invite a friend from Scotland who now lives in the area.
This friend has been responsible for some very powerful connections for me that have, quite literally changed the course of my life.
Today sharing part of that story to encourage you to take time to thank those in your life who connect you to possibilities.
The two of us Scots first met in Glasgow nine years ago, in early 2010 as an introduction through GlobalScot for me to give him a mentoring session around his new business venture.
At that time I had only a few months before started out on the path to working independently to support businesses and leaders. I was already finding that working on my own was not the direction of travel for me and that I would love to meet and link with an organisation of like-minded people to allow me to grow and then scale my impact.
After our mentoring session, in that hotel in George Square, Glasgow, towards the end of the conversation, he said to me “you ask all the right questions, you should talk to Shirlaws”. “Talk to who?”, I said ? I had no idea who Shirlaws was, but was introduced and soon found out that they were a leading international business coaching organisation filled with amazing amd purpose-driven people of great skill and experience. The organisation had a clear purpose: “Changing People’s Lives”.
Little was I to know when my new friend connected me to Shirlaws that the life that would be most changed was my own!
So, that first connection started in March 2010, then my friend moved that year to London and I saw him again in October 2010 when I came to London to meet Shirlaws people for the first time, then again in March 2011 when I came over to join and do my first two weeks of training. At that second meeting in London, he then told me that Shirlaws had helped him exit and sell his shares in his first business so helping him create new opportunities for himself.
Time passed, he moved to the USA, then in mid 2013 he was in Las Vegas and made another pivotal introduction for me, one that led me to another powerful connection that started out as a wonderful client with whom I and our team did powerful work, with that client then becoming a friend who has made further amazing connections for me. That work started with a first visit to Las Vegas in October 2013 where my friend and I met for the first time in over two years.
More time passed, he moved to San Francisco, then in August 2015 we met in person again when I took my two oldest boys there on holiday.
So, fast forward to February 2019 and we met once again in person at that gathering in the Bay Area.
I took time to reflect on all of this, to join the dots looking backwards, to deeply thank him for his abundance in making such connections.
Take time to thank those who connect you, acknowledge, honour, appreciate them.
One last thought. I recommend reading “Give and Take” by Professor Adam Grant (my piece on his book here). I look to practice “radical abundance”, meeting interesting people doing interesting things (and we all are interesting!) and always looking to then connect them to people, ideas, projects, work.
Abundance begets abundance, people who connect others find people connect them to others.