For Me, Moving On Starts Here

Nobody described the dangers of working from home better than author Jessamyn West who said, “Whenever I’m writing a book I never get out of bed, because if I get out of bed I always see something that needs dusting.”

I know the temptation all too well.

My way of dealing with homebased distractions is to cluster domestic duties on Saturday. Just as I have a different  business project assignment for each day of the week, personal projects have their day as well.

After being away from home for the past five weekends, my house was dangerously neglected. I decided nothing was a better use of my time this weekend, than putting things in order. 

I’m even throwing in some extra chores, things that only get done occassionally, like polishing all my furniture with almond oil (which smells delicious). 

And I’m tackling the bane of my existence–my stone tile floors. We drag in a lot of dust and dirt here in the desert and keeping up with it is time-consuming.

To get inspired for this undertaking, I’ve spent the past several evenings browsing a wonderful book called Where Women Create by Jo Packham. I first heard about this book a few weeks ago when Steven Pressfield raved about it.

Packham has  gathered interviews with 26 creative women who talk about their personal workspace. There are tips, favorite quotes and, most of all, gorgeous photographs.

I especially enjoyed the diverse opinions are being organized versus enduring creative chaos.

For further inspiration, there was Mark Fauenfelder’s piece in the Huffington Post today: The Courage to Screw Up–Why DIY is Good For You. 

Years ago, I was living in a dreary little duplex on a busy street in Santa Barbara. I was also frustrated and stuck. 

One day I had a thought—totally new to me at the time—which went something like this: “Barbara, if you don’t take care of what you have, how do you expect to get more?” 

I swung into action, putting my house in order. 

Then I grabbed a pruning shears and tackled the messy pepper tree by the driveway to our cul du sac which made it difficult for drivers leaving our street to make a left turn. As the pile of branches grew on the ground, I found myself smiling as I thought about how this simple task was going to make life easier for my neighbors. 

When I look back, I can see that the decision to care for what I already had, was a turning point in my life. New opportunities began to appear and before long I wasn’t living in this dreary house anymore.

So although you may be spending this holiday weekend in quite a different way than I am, I want to share this thought from Thomas Moore: “The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.”

After all, cleaning a house can be a dreaded chore—or an opportunity to practice genuine gratitude. I know which one I’ll pick.

A Library of Your Own

When I think about my Dream House, it’s not a big glistening kitchen, high-tech family room or backyard swimming pool that catches my fancy. 

No, my perfect home has a library, a real library, with  floor-to-ceiling books, and aladder on wheels for exploring the top shelves. There’s a fireplace with a cozy reading chair and a good light.

I’m am not alone in thinking that would be exquisite. “When I have a house of my own,” said a character in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, “I shall be quite miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

Eda LaShan once said that middle age begins when you realize you won’t live long enough to read all the books you want to explore. According to that definition, I was born middle-aged.

Fortunately, I landed in a family that assumed reading was an important part of a well-lived life and we were always surrounded by books. As much as I love the library, I can’t imagine living without books of my own at my fingertips.

Libraries are as unique as the people who assemble them, of course. When I scan my own shelves, I see a record of my life as telling as a photo album. 

Creating a wonderful personal collection can be both haphazard and intentional. If you are serious about success, your library will reflect this. 

What kinds of books show up in libraries of the Joyfully Jobless?

Inspirational. We quickly learn the truth of the adage that you can’t outperform your own self-image. 

While we all have our own favorites, I know that on the days I feel stuck or frustrated or conflicted, I can get back on track more quickly if I spend time with an old friend like The War of Art. 

The books that inspire us the most are often those that stand up to repeated visits. They help us reconnect with our own best selves and nudge us to move past pettiness. 

Informational. Of course, we require different kinds of information all along the way as we build and grow. How-to books are hugely popular, although not everyone is keen about putting what they’ve read into action.

With the avalanche of  information which abounds today, there’s really no excuse for saying, “I don’t know how.”  You can fill in the gaps easily.

 Whether you need help with marketing or how to start a profitable petsitting business or how to write a killer book proposal, a book written by a reliable source can get you pointed in the right direction.

Heroes and heroines. A well-rounded library for an entrepreneur would also include some great biographies and autobiographies from successful self-bossers. 

I’ve just finished reading an advance copy of Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness, the upcoming story of the entrepreneurial evolution of Zappos founder. It will be taking its place alongside numerous stories of inspiring entrepreneurs in my library. 

If you’d like to see some other biographies that I’ve loved, check out my list, First the Business, Then the Book over at Flashlight Worthy Books.

And speaking of Flashlight Worthy, pay them a visit for hundreds of great book recommendations compiled by all sorts of experts and aficionados. 

“We are all pilgrims on the same journey,” said Nelson DeMille, “but some pilgrims have better road maps.” 

Fill your library with the best maps you can find and consult them regularly. Going places may just start in the quietest room of the house.

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Did you know that May is Get Caught Reading Month? Participate.

 

 

 

 

It’s Simple: Bibliophiles Know More

Every so often I’ll be chatting with someone and mention a book that I loved or that seems appropriate for them. I’m always startled when the response is, “I don’t read much.”  

Why would anyone deprive themselves of the pleasure, ideas, information and inspiration that can be found in books? 

During a time when I was wondering if I’d ever figure out what to do with my life, it was a book that lit the way. One evening years ago, I read a short newspaper article about two women who had started their own business using their natural talents and imagination to create a successful enterprise. 

The next day, I went to the bookstore and found their only copy of Supergirls: The Autobiography of an Outrageous Business by Claudia Jessup and Genie Chipps. Their story became my handbook. 

Although I ultimately started a very different business from the one they’d created, I gleaned so many lessons from their story. 

They started on a shoestring. So did I. They got lots of free publicity. Me too. They evolved into a very different business over time. That’s what happened to me.

I still wonder if I would have found my entrepreneurial spirit without that book to point me in the right direction. What I know for sure is that books have made a continuous contribution to my growth and development as a person and as an entrepreneur.

In Tim Sanders’  book Love is the Killer App, he speaks passionately about the importance of books. Here’s what he has to say:

Here’s another 80/20 rule: Spend 80 percent of your time on books and 20 percent on articles and newspapers. And by books, I don’t mean just any book. I mean hardcovers. A paperback is made to be read. A hardcover is made to be studied. There’s a huge difference.

True, hardcovers are more expensive. But I’m talking about your career. If you can afford to party, or to buy new techno-gadgets, or to eat in fancy restaurants, you can afford a few hardcover books. The books you read today will fuel your earning power tomorrow.

 Simply put, hardcover books are the bomb. They are fun to hold. They become personal the first time you mark them up, the first time you bend back the binding. There’s something exciting about writing down the ideas that interest you. Soon your book becomes more than just pages between covers. It becomes your ticket to success.

The ability to transfer knowledge is a huge advantage for anyone struggling to succeed in the new economy. It’s an easy skill to learn, it’s simple to facilitate, and there are more good books than you will ever be able to use, which means that the resources are unlimited. In fact, it’s so easy that there’s no reason why you shouldn’t start now.

Buy a book. Carry it with you. Its power is so great that you will feel as though you were carrying plutonium in a briefcase.

 Jim Rohn was a popular speaker who frequently encouraged his audiences to take up reading if they want to succeed. “Skip a meal if you must, but don’t miss a book.”

Why? “The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days,” said Rohn, “is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking it doesn’t matter.”

Four Easy Ways to Create Opportunity

Not long after Making a Living Without a Job was launched as a seminar, I had a hunch that a book would follow. I also was certain that it would take some time until I had gathered enough stories from seminar participants to use in the imagined book.

When I felt confident that I was ready to take on such a project, I explored the traditional ways of getting a book published: write a proposal, shop for an agent, revise proposal, have agent search for publisher. I knew, also, that as an unpublished writer, this would be an long process.

Perhaps I could create an opportunity for a publisher to find me, I mused. As it turned out, three publishers did just that. Although each of them  found me in a different way, they all showed up within weeks of one another.

When most people think about opportunity, they envision an unexpected bit of good fortune coming out of nowhere or something they’ve uncovered after a long search. 

And, of course, both of those circumstances do occur on a daily basis. However, I’d like you to entertain the idea that you can create favorable circumstances that will connect you more frequently and quickly with opportunity after opportunity. 

Here are four of my favorite ways to do just that.

* Offer your services to the media. Several years ago, I met an architect who had joined with several other architects to prepare a media kit introducing each of them and describing their specialties. They distributed it to all their local media outlets and made it easy for reporters working on a story involving architecture to connect with the perfect source.

Two great resources for building your own media campaign are Joan Stewart’s Publicity Hound and Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out.

* Conduct a poll. Hardly a day passes when I don’t see a poll online, in the newspaper or on the CNN crawl. Apparently, we’re fascinated by the opinions and behaviors of our fellow humans. 

One summer, Garage Sale Fever author John Schroeder conducted a poll at every garage sale he visited. What are your plans for the money you’re earning from the sale he asked. He turned his findings into a press release, giving him another opportunity for media exposure.

* Get into the conversation. All over the world people are talking about a million different things. Some of those conversations have to do with things that are your specialty or interest.

You could respond to articles in magazines and newspapers with a letter to the editor sharing your thoughts. You could weigh in online in chat rooms or commenting on blog posts. 

With social media, there are more opportunities to share ideas, opinions and resources than ever before. Speak up.

* Show up. Almost every successful speaker I know has at least one experience that taught them the importance of showing up. 

In every instance, they agreed to speak for free, were questioning their decision, kept their agreement anyway, and had someone in the audience who loved what they offered and hired them for a substantial amount of money to speak at a future event.

There’s a fundamental principle that’s operating in all of these instances. That principle is this: we all like to do business with people we know and like. If people don’t know you, they can’t like you.  

That, however, is the basic tool for creating opportunity. Get creative about finding ways where such connections are naturally going to happen.

And if you’ve been waiting for opportunity to knock, how about meeting it at the curb and inviting it in?

Anatomy of an Idea

After the sudden deaths of his parents in 1999, University of Oklahoma employee Jim Miller was devastated. To help ease his grief, he began working at a local retirement community and writing a question-and-answer column for seniors in his hometown of Norman. 

At first he did it for fun and to help the retirement community get a little free publicity, but the deeper he delved, the more he realized that easy to understand information pertaining to senior issues was hard to come by. 

Miller was convinced that there was a market for his Savvy Senior column. When finding a syndicate to distribute his column failed, he decided to self-syndicate, contacting small newpapers throughout the country. Thousands of letters and follow-up telephone calls brought in hundreds of buyers at $3 to $5 each. 

Miller’s idea continued to grow. Not only does his column appear in more and more newspapers every week, his Web site The Savvy Senior  is loaded with more great information. 

His first book, also called The Savvy Senior, was published by Hyperion and he now makes regular appearances on The Today Show sharing new products designed for the senior market and offering tips.

So what did Jim Miller do right? And how can we follow his example? There are several obvious and a few not-so-obvious aspects to his success story.

°  His business was born from his heart.  Miller got a master’s degree in education, but never got past teacher training because he found out he didn’t enjoy working with kids.

Through volunteering, he discovered that there was a group of people he enjoyed being around and helping. 

° He identified a problem—saw something was missing—and set about to solve it. Many great ideas come about in just this way. Most people who find something missing simply sigh and say, “Why doesn’t somebody do something about this?” 

The entrepreneur recognizes that a void is something that needs to be filled—an opportunity to explore.

° He focused on his niche market. Miller’s audience was clearly defined. His idea to market the column also was highly focused with small local papers being his target.  

° Began with intellectual capital, not big financing. Miller created his business by generating cash flow with a minimal financial investment.

° He was willing to do the groundwork. Locating and contacting thousands of small papers was a grueling, time-consuming task, but Miller embraced the chore because he was convinced that his idea was a good one.

° He was not intimidated by his youth, his lack of credentials or existing organizations that served his market. In other words, he focused on his vision, not his obstacles.

° He kept building his expertise. Research is a big part of what it takes to become an expert.

Miller didn’t start out being an expert in the fine points of Social Security or Medicare, but he proved that he’s a willing learner and thorough researcher.

* Personal touch is crucial. Miller answers all e-mail questions himself and gets his column ideas from the mail that comes in. His audience is an on-going source of ideas.

* He took advantage of opportunities to grow. Collecting his columns into a book was a natural progression; getting a gig on a popular morning television show required a willingness to stretch.

So what did Jim Miller do right? Just about everything, it appears. We can all learn alot by applying this same process of analysis to successful enterprises and see what winners have to teach us..

Tools Tell a Story

For half a century, Andy Rooney has been an outspoken and opinionated journalist. For most of that time, his stories were written on his beloved manual typewriter.

It is only in the past few years that he’s relented and switched to a laptop computer. His ancient typewriter is enshrined in his office where it remains a symbol of a long and creative career.

Andy Rooney is not alone. Watch someone masterful at work and you’ll notice that there’s almost a reverence given to the tools of their trade.

On the days when Eric Clapton performs, he chooses not to see or touch his principle guitar. He says that as he prepares to go onstage, he walks to get his guitar and it’s like going to meet a lover.

There is no work that I can think of which doesn’t involve some sort of tool or prop or machine. Whether it’s a computer, a ladder, a camera or a chisel, humans continue to devise tools to elevate the quality of their work.

Tools also provide valuable clues about whether our work is our passion or merely a way of filling time.

Although we hear alot about the role of technology, almost nothing is said about the role that tools (technological and otherwise) play in our success. Tools are never mentioned as a vehicle for self-awareness.

And yet they’re a nearly foolproof method of getting in touch with how we feel about the work we do with them. Far too many people do not experience anything close to the feeling of going to meet a lover when they pick up their telephone or dental drill. 

On the other hand, people who love what they’re doing regard their tools in an entirely different way. Besides keeping them in superb running order, they often personify them, giving them names and talking about their tools as if they were a partner. 

Paul Hawken was touring British gardens when he learned about the personal relationship some folks have with their tools.

He writes, “As I watched the gardeners work I studied their tools. I hefted a spade, the tool of choice. It seemed unusually heavy and it was sharp as an ax.

“The gardener saw me looking and came over. That was not merely a spade, that was his spade. I asked him if it wasn’t heavy and tiring to use.

“With a smile he invited me to give it a try. I toiled away as he grew increasingly amused. In his Lancashire accent he said, ‘Let your tool do the work. That’s what it’s made for.’ He showed me how use the weight of the spade, how to make the tool an extension of my arms, how to move my body.”

Hawken was so impressed with the lesson he’d learned that when he returned to the United States he tried to interest some companies in importing English garden tools.

No one was interested. Eventually Hawken realized that this idea belonged to him and the successful mail order business Smith and Hawken was born bringing the tools Hawken loved to a new market. 

Our relationship with tools is important—and maybe even a bit mystical. “I’m always looking forward to opening the ovens in the morning,” says glass artist Dale Chihuly. “Glassblowing is a spontaneous medium that suits me. I’ve been at it for forty years and am as infatuated as when I blew my first bubble in 1965.

“We use the same tools they used 2000 years ago. I know if I go down to the glass shop, I’m going to make something that’s never been made before. That in itself is an inspiration.

“I used to think it was the glass that was so mysterious, but then I realized it was the air that went into it that was miraculous.”

Apprentice Yourself to Your Dreams

“I know there is no way to do this but to come to America and live with its people. So here I am. In Argentina, I am a lawyer. Here I scrape food off dishes in the kitchen,” the young man laughingly said to a customer at the lunch counter.

“But no matter,” he added. “I am getting to know the people and the language. That is what I am here for.”

Further conversation revealed that he had been in America only two weeks but he could speak English well enough to communicate. He had completed a law course at the University of Buenos Aires and had started his law career in his native land. He soon realized what a valuable asset it would be to be able to speak English fluently.

So here was a young man who was devoting a portion of his life to traveling thousands of miles from home, scraping dishes in a kitchen, living in a strange country with strange people just to develop a skill which would be useful to him in his business.

“Why didn’t you take English language courses at the University?” he was asked.

“I did do that,” he replied. “But you no really learn to speak a language without living with the people.”

You don’t really learn to do something with poise, confidence and sincerity unless you get involved, do it, live it. That was his message.

Have you noticed that successful people always seem to start at the bottom, tossing themselves into every job on the way to the top? I call this apprenticing yourself to your dream.

It’s a process that gets repeated with every new dream.

While it can be a humbling experience to go back to the beginning, it’s also the way bold dreams come true. Desire and imagination can make it a journey worth taking.

What does it take to be a successful Dream Apprentice? 

In the words of Time/Warner CEO Ann Moore, the critical factor is direction, not deadlines. She says, “Get a compass and forget the clock.”

That’s essential advice, but there are other things you can do to make this time abundantly fruitful.

One of the common obstacles to learning a new language is the unwillingness to make embarrassing mistakes, an attitude that impedes learning and mastery. The same is true with most new undertakings.

Remind yourself that you are a beginner and be gentle with yourself. After all, no one expects mastery from an apprentice.

In 1976, an unknown professor named Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote a book entitled Your Erroneous Zones. No spectacular success was expected from the book, but the author had other ideas.

He loaded the trunk of his car with copies and spent six months delivering them to bookstores around the country. He booked himself on any radio interview that would have him.

Dyer personally delivered more than 16,000 copies of his book to stores, driving 28,000 miles and giving over 800 interviews. Due to his own efforts, Your Erroneous Zones became the bestseller of the year and launched Dyer’s career as a popular self-help author and speaker.

I can only  guess how many lonely days and nights Dyer invested in his dream, but I’m also willing to guess that his experience gave him a priceless education and laid the foundation for long-term success.

People who fail to appreciate small steps never seem to get very far.

On the other hand, those who are delighted with any sign of progress keep moving to the next step and the next step with wild anticipation.

Quite simply, when you apprentice yourself to a dream, you give yourself a passport to adventure.  This isn’t about waiting or being patient.

It’s about honoring where you are now—and knowing that’s not where you’re going to stay.

Making Peace With Rejection

I am not alone in loving Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Classical music stations report that listener surveys always list them as a top favorite.

Did you know that this perennial favorite began life as a huge failure? 

The Concertos were written as an audition for a commission Bach hoped to get with the city of Brandenburg, Germany. Amazingly, he lost the competition.

No one seems to remember who the winner was.

Bach is not the only creative soul, of course, whose work met with rejection before success came along. Writer John Grisham sent his first novel to sixteen agents before one of them agreed to take him as a client. 

That agent submitted A Time to Kill to twenty-six publishers before one bought it, bringing out a meager 5,000 copies.

Since that humble—and humbling— beginning, Grisham has topped the bestseller charts with every book he’s written and has millions of copies of his books in print around the world.

While history is full of stories of early defeat that turned into astonishing success later on, there is no record of all the good ideas that got put away in a drawer after encountering a first rejection. 

Too many people make the classic error of deciding in advance that acceptance can only come in one way. If the prospective client or lover or friend turns us down, we may lose sight of the fact that our true goal was to make a sale or have a romance or build a new relationship. 

We forget that our goal (and our self) is just fine. We simply made the mistake of picking a dancing partner that didn’t want to dance.

Think about a time when early rejection cleared the way for something or someone better to enter your life. Use that memory to keep you going whenever you encounter rejection and you’ll pile up evidence that rejection may actually be a valuable stepping stone to your dreams. 

There’s a big difference between those who accept rejection as part of the success process and those who avoid it at all costs. Despite all the evidence that rejection is a universal theme in every success story, fear of rejection seems to be a powerful deterrent for many who will do almost anything to avoid the discomfort of being rejected. 

As it turns out, life’s grandest prizes are rejecting them.

The next time that fear of rejection stops you from tackling a dreaded task, remind yourself that the anticipation of rejection is almost always worse than the reality of it. 

All of us have known those agonizing times spent before we proposed marriage, made a sales presentation or gave a talk. 

Yet on those occasions when our worst fear were realized, the experience wasn’t nearly as horrible as imagining it had been.

So what project have you tucked away because it didn’t get off to a great start? There are all sorts of reasons why success doesn’t happen the first time out. 

Maybe you were ahead of your time. Or, perhaps, you needed to get some experience that would help you find a better way of doing things. Or you may have met with failure because you hadn’t yet connected with the proper person. 

While I still don’t love rejection, I have a clearer perspective on it since encountering some advice from writer Barbara Kingsolver. Although it’s aimed at writers, it’s equally appropriate to anyone going after a dream. 

Kingsolver says, “Don’t consider your returned manuscript rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it, ‘To the editor who can appreciate my work,’ and it simply came back stamped, ‘Not at this address.’ Just keep looking for the right address.”

 

Wise Words From Favorite Writers

I frequently judge a book by the number of quotes that I save for future reference. I’m currently reading Rework by Jason Fried and David Heiniemeier Hansson and am finding sentences on every page that are destined to wind up in my Quotes to Keep file so it’s getting high marks.

Although I don’t recall when I began writing down bits of wisdom that I came across in books, my childhood had prepared me for being a collector of quotes. 

At my grade school, Trinity Lutheran, we were expected to memorize Bible passages almost daily. The side benefit of this exercise was that it instilled in me the notion that there were important concepts that deserved more than a casual notice.

In fact, I consider a particularly wise quote to be a Seminar in a Sentence. Often, wise words can illuminate, encourage, inspire and delight. 

Here’s a random sampling of a few favorites. I urge you to build your own file of Wise Words and visit it regularly. 

See if there’s one in my collection that belongs in yours too.

People who have stopped reading base their future decisions on what they used to know. If you don’t read much, you really don’t know much. You’re dangerous. ~ Jim Trelease

Consider every path carefully testing it in whichever way you feel necessary, then ask yourself, but only yourself, one question: ‘Does this path have a heart?’ The path that has heart will uplift you, ease your burden and bring you joy. The path with no heart will make you stumble, it will break your spirit, and finally cause you to look upon your life with anger and bitterness. ~ Carlos Castenada

An idea in your head is merely an idle notion. But an idea written down, that’s the beginning of something. ~ Patricia T. O’Conner

You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Postpone joy, it will diminish. Postpone a problem, it will grow. ~ Paulo Coehlo

We serve the Muse. That’s our job. To locate the gift that is ours and ours alone and then to nurture it, protect it, defend it, take it through all its stages of evolution as best we can—and then give it away. ~ Steven Pressfield

To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted. ~ Bill Bryson

We must do what we conceive to be right and not bother our heads or burden our souls  with whether we’ll be successful. Because if we don’t do the right thing, we’ll do the wrong thing and we’ll be part of the disease and not part of the cure. ~ E. F. Schumacher

All sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people….The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert.

We’re not destined to be passive and compliant. We’re designed to be active and engaged. And we know that the richest experiences in our lives aren’t when we’re clamoring for validation from others, but when we’re listening to our own voice—doing something that matters, doing it well, and doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves. ~ Daniel Pink

Here’s the truth about telling stories about your life. It’s going to sound like a great idea, and you’re going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you are not going to want to do it. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work that it takes to make it happen. ~ Donald Miller

Welcoming Serendipity

In the six years that Zoe has been in our lives, she’s added plenty of fun, enthusiasm and amusement. Always up for a new adventure, last year she and her cousin Jade were treated to their first fishing outing with their grandfather.

When I asked her about it, she said, “We didn’t catch anything, but it still was exciting.”  What  Zoe had uncovered  is the secret of serendipity, even if she doesn’t know that big word.

While the common definition of serendipity is unexpected good fortune or a surprise, I learned several years ago that it goes much farther than that. We go back to an old Persian fairy tale about The Princes of Serendip to see what they discovered to find the true meaning of the word.

These three young noblemen traveled the world, but rarely found the treasures they were looking for. Instead they ran into other treasures equally great or even greater than the ones they were looking for. 

In looking for one thing, they found something else and it dawned on them that this was one of life’s sly and wonderful tricks. When they realized this they got an entirely new slant on life and every day resulted in new and thrilling experiences.

Even though their goals repeatedly eluded them, they were more than rewarded by their wayside discoveries.

Therein lies the key to serendipity. It does not occur when we are passively waiting for something to happen. We must be actively engaged in the pursuit of some goal and, yet, be willing for it to turn out differently than we imagined.

Clinging to what we have is a surefire way to prevent serendipity from entering our lives. I was reminded of this when I got a call one day from a woman who crowed, “I had the best time today being joyfully jobless.”

A year and a half earlier, this same woman was feeling hurt when she was dismissed from her job at a large corporation. Would this enthusiastic conversation have happened if she were still punching a time clock?

But there’s even more to this serendipity business. While it means finding joy and meaning in discoveries on the way to a stated goal, the secret is to look upon incidental goals as substantial and upon accidental happenings as purposeful.

At the same time, it’s necessary to seek the good when the unexpected knocks us off our feet. Uncovering the hidden treasure in adverse situations requires that we be wide awake and looking.

Art Linkletter summed it up nicely when he said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”  Quite possibly what we call failure is actually serendipity trying to happen.

So go after your goals with gusto, but celebrate all the unexpected rewards along the way. Even if you don’t catch any fish, it can be exciting.