Serendipity
The six hour flight from Tel Aviv was late so I rushed through Heathrow to catch my connecting flight home to Birchrunville. Facing another nine hours in an airplane, I was happy to have snagged a business class seat. Then I boarded the American Airlines flight and my mood suddenly changed…
Beat up old-style seats. No place to put anything. No fancy privacy pods, no outlets, no cool video. Actually no video at all until the flight attendant came by with her hands full of electronic equipment for me to assemble and create my own video screen. Very weird.
The woman seated next to me looked over and said, “quite a disappointment. They should have given us a discount or at least mentioned we were flying a wreck so old they haven’t bothered to install new seats…or even fix these falling apart antiques.”
A kindred soul! Things were looking up again.
This happens often. You wind up in disappointing situations that you can ignore, get upset about, or turn into adventures that lead to unexpected pleasure. Ignore her comments and continue to mope about my decrepit surroundings? Offer a cursory response and turn my back and read? Or get into the moment and see where it leads?
Most people seem to choose the ignore or read option. Rather than take the opportunity to see where such a random event might lead, they tune out and the opportunity passes them by. Then they complain not only about their poor flight, bad restaurant, or mediocre meeting, but also about the fact that nothing happened to inspire them.
Serendipity visits us all. Some pay attention and respond to it but many others never notice it knocking, or what’s even worse, they notice but ignore it, considering it an inconvenience.
Serendipity: a fortunate happenstance. Yet few will notice and even fewer will explore to find the fortune hidden within. They fail to keep an open mind and pay attention and so they pass right by new ideas and opportunities they never imagined.
Serendipity: an opportunity to turn time on a lousy airplane into something exhilarating.
My seatmate and I wound up spending the majority of the nine hours engaged in an energizing conversation. She from the metropolis of Johannesburg and I from the hamlet of Birchrunville discovered we shared many ideas on how to make companies function better. Even cooler, we discovered we both were putting these ideas into practice around the world. We shared stories about past and current projects and how we helped create effective leadership teams and improved cultures of organizations.
From an inauspicious beginning, the flight turned into an invigorating experience for both of us. As we approached Philadelphia International Airport, we prepared to disembark, each of us carrying new ideas for helping our clients and many other things to think about. We finally introduced ourselves and traded business cards. I left with an invitation to visit Wendy in Johannesburg…which I expect to do before too long. If all goes well, there’s a joint project in our future.
And the seats and electronics…and airplane…soon destined for the trash heap? We completely forgot about them.
My seatmate: Wendy Lambourne, Director (and founder) Legitimate Leadership, South Africa…and the world. Read her book called, what else, Legitimate Leadership, and find some wonderful ways to improve your organization.