Serendipity Seeded by Service
It’s no secret that diverse income streams are more robust, and while sustainability + packaging will always be my first love professionally, I’m also happy to be settling into my other role as a financial advisor. Numerous financial industry rules prevent me from speaking about this role in much detail here, but the similarly client-focused nature of my P2S project work has made my work as an advisor very rewarding as well.
Early on, my journey of on-boarding as a financial advisor was chock full of hard knocks (c’est la vie), but I was recently introduced to a book by Christian Busch, PhD called The Serendipity Mindset: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck, which not only provided insight into why 2020 was a breakout year for my advising practice, but also how to build on this trend throughout 2021 and beyond. I won’t try to summarize Dr. Busch’s prose here, but a couple of examples may help to illustrate his key points.
While absolutely no one wants yet another high-level recap of 2020, suffice to say that it was a year when many folks were looking to re-examine their investments and their retirement plans. My clients were no different, and having those naturally urgent conversations led in some cases to new solutions and new business. I use the term ‘naturally urgent’ because the situations in which people found themselves were not manufactured by gripping sales pitches, but rather they were caused by tangible and unexpected events. Seeing opportunity in the unexpected is at the core of a mentality that is ‘tuned’ to serendipity.
The effects of 2020 have obviously carried over into 2021, and sadly one of the organizations that I worked with — The Portland Children’s Museum — ultimately did not survive. The Children’s Museum was a beloved resource for the Portland, Oregon community, and I had the privilege of working and building relationships with a number of its staff over a period of 18 months or so. The museum’s closure once again threw me into an unexpected, unchosen circumstance with dozens of my clients, and fortunately I was able to assist many of them in a way that was beneficial for all. Were it not for this jarring event, many of the conversations I had with these fine folks over the summer of 2021 may not have happened for months or years. In this case, serendipity was a powerful business relationship accelerator.
As the saying (and song lyric) goes, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” — and it’s very hard to make the contrary case. It can be even harder to transform the things that happen to us in life into tools that work for us; but adopting a serendipity mindset and a culture of service can certainly help to smooth the bumps that often appear as we make our way.
