Last fall I found myself driving to Cincinnati from Pittsburgh listening to a fantastic talk from way back in the 1980s by Marion Woodman. I was on my way to meet Peter Block, whom I had worked with over Zoom several years prior on an article adapting his book Community: The Structure of Belonging to a library audience. At that time, I was trying to discern which path or direction to pursue and was curious to see if I was in the right place.
This particular Woodman began her talk by mentioning how she had forgotten her notes and instead of stressing about it, would throw caution to the wind and wing it. So I get to where I’m going and I finally meet Peter and we immediately start talking and Woodman comes up, oddly enough. He tells me how years ago at a talk she had inspired him to a new way of handling his own perfectionistic concerns as a consultant when he heard her talk about forgetting her notes. Naturally, I told him I had just finished listening to a talk where she said the same, his recollection of the year (1984 or so) jived with the date of the content, and we were both quite surprised at what felt like a moment of real serendipity. I took this moment to mean I was on the right path and moving in the right direction. At that time and ever since, I have felt deeply inside that there is something more going on in my search for meaning than just pure chance.
This occurrence propelled me to look into the literature on serendipity (see recent systematic review here) and I was pleased to see that much of it resides in organizational studies, scientific research, and entrepreneurship, areas of significant interest to me. What I’ve learned in my own readings is that serendipity is such a powerful force in these fields that many consider it to be an important factor in the evolution of science itself (Kantorovich & Neeman, 1989).
When it dawned on me that science itself makes room for a phenomenon it can’t largely explain, I was convinced there’s more here for my life than meets the eye. The compelling coincidence with Peter Block cued me into the need to connect with the right people. And connecting with the right people brought more resources to enrich my life and path. And the more resources and connections I invited into my life, the more resources and connections came into my life. And this happened in ways that kept curiously circling back to the importance of Block’s methods in my own forays into consulting and facilitation.
The example continued: while at the Cincinnati event, I learned about A Small Group that meets virtually and is organized out of Canada that runs using Block’s methods. I joined the group and found it to be a amazing community of fellow travelers digging deeper into whatever in their lives is inviting further exploration. I attended these sessions (and continue to do so) for several months and got more in touch with my own passion and need for connectedness. A month or so ago, I noticed a YouTube video of Peter Block and Chad Littlefield, who turns out to live a few neighborhoods over from me in Pittsburgh, discussing Block’s work and philosophy of community. Well, as I got off one of the last community calls, I had the sudden intuition that I should reach out and introduce myself to Chad and tell him how much I appreciate his channel and his interview with Peter. I do so, he responds, we meet in person and have a great conversation, and I share my interests in making content like he does. You see, I’m interested in becoming a thought leader and trying my hand at consulting, facilitating, and public speaking and then he generously shares much of what he has learned over the years doing this very work I intend for myself. As I type, I’m hard at work putting together my first video content for YouTube (which overall is a much bigger lift than I had imagined).
In a sense, I view the entire concatenation of serendipities and intuitions as a whole. From the moment I started reading Woodman, something deeper in me responded and unlocked a creative energy in me that I wished to share with the world. This energy took me to Cincinnati but on the way, it simultaneously aligned with a piece of its counterpart energy in Peter Block’s own life in a serendipitous way. And one of my takeaways from that same gathering with Peter was to engage with a group that would push me into thinking in new ways about contacting someone I ordinarily would not have reached out to. And this person gives me much needed personal advice and a slew of resources to do exactly what I’d been struggling to do and they’ve been in touch with Peter recently.
As I look backwards at this fortuitous set of circumstances, I see not just a helpful string of happenstances but the migration of my energy out into the world in ways that return the very things I need but don’t know where or how to look for. I’m tempted to describe this as an experience but the little bit of Buddhism I know tells me it’s always more appropriate to focus on process where things like this are concerned. By this the Buddhists are pointing inwardly to the path and that experiences come and go but the process itself is what matters. Taken as a process, serendipity is a form of flexibility to life that is available when you are information/opportunity seeking in pursuit of your own meaning making. It invites a mindset shift from one day I’ll all the answers, which will be my cue to act to I don’t have all the answers so it’s a good time to act.
There’s something humbling about this – as if willpower and planning are mere child’s play compared to the power of allowing those things that wish to coalesce through you to do so of their own accord. Not just the plot twists of life, but the entire narrative structure of a life can be viewed as serendipity awaiting our implicit trust in it to carry us away when the chance encounter or the unexpected boon arrives in our lives. Underneath all this, I can sense that one of my primary jobs in trying to reach the other shore I’m after is to tend to the energy within by connecting it outwardly to what is most meaningful in any given set of circumstances. For this a humility is required, and that humility that prioritizes a sacrifice of control and certainty.
I heard recently about a paper on serendipity I’ve been unable to find that claims mindset can positively influence the likelihood of experiencing serendipity. In the article’s absence, it appears I had to live into its findings for myself. I’m convinced there’s more to serendipity than meets the eye; whether we call it cosmic clumsiness, happy happenstance, or charmed chance, there’s a lot to like in serendipity. Here’s to hoping the universe keeps tripping over itself to help us find meaning. If nothing else, it’s got my undivided attention!
Kantorovich, A. & Neeman. Y. (1989). Serendipity as a source of evolutionary progress in science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 20(4): 505-529.
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