The insight for me is that the internet is the most incredible serendipity generator. -doh!
Why didn’t I see that way before! A bit like the time I agonised over the best way of cutting pancakes with lasers without creating a burnt hair smell – then talking to a scientist for 2 mins, who basically said why don’t you do it in an atmosphere without oxygen! -doh!
So to show how the internet can be a serendipity generator, let me show the connections that resulted in this epiphany, in reverse chronological order:
- The quote was from this week from my friend Sam Duong, who recently wrote a recent guest post: “What is the word for business in Chinese?“.
- This came after I had sent Sam a copy of NIck’s newsletter “That explains things“
- I sent Sam the note about Nick Parker because Nick had sent a simple reply of “Very Nice” to that post, and joked with Sam that Nick had never sent such a compliment on any of the posts on the site that I had written 😉
- I’ve written about Nick more than once, including (most recently) in “Tell people what you are focussed on now“, within which post is another example of “generating serendipity” that you can explore 😉
- I was introduced to the newsletter of Nick Parker in July this year after chatting with Rob Poynton after we recorded Rob as a guest on WhatComesNext.Live, when Rob had noted to me that the one email newsletter he reads every week is the one from Nick.
- I met Rob Poynton thanks to following the lead of “mi hermana mayor“, Kay Scorah, who has also been a guest on WhatComesNextLive
- I met Kay Scorah some time before as she is part of the faculty at the Modern Elder Academy and is, like me, based in London.
- I went to the Modern Elder Academy twice (April 2018 and February 2019) at the instigation of Chip Conley.
- I first spoke to Chip Conley at the very start of 2018 after writing about his book Emotional Equations in a post the week before, having been a follower and fan of Chip’s writing and thoughts for over a decade, but never having spoken with him until I a) wrote the blog in late 2017, then b) cheekily tweeted him and asked for an interview for a future blog.
It feels to me that a common thread around these serendipitous progressions is my practice of daily writing. I never knew when I started over three years ago that it would generate so much serendipity for me and for others.
Oh, and as I was in the midst of writing this mid morning yesterday, my friend Alan Dean (also a WCNL guest) called me to apologise for a last minute rescheduling of a call we had planned for that time. He said “I am giving you back the gift of time”. My response was that his timing was indeed perfect, as I had found my day “back to back” with calls, but I did have a task to do (dismantling outdoor furniture for my pending house move) that I really had wanted to do today as the weather is clear and dry, but would have no space due to all those calls. His gift of time was perfect, and of course the process of dismantling the furniture proceeded quickly and with ease.
How do you generate serendipity for yourself and others?